Gilla thought he was overdoing it, but it was obvious that whoever had brought her here did have plenty of power. Beneath the dust she caught the unmistakable dank perfume of the White Foal River, so she knew she must still be in Sanctuary, and there were only two sorceresses here with that kind of power. Her skin chilled as she thought about it. It was the kind of riddle children asked in play: Would you rather be eaten by a she-panther or a tigress? By Ischade or by Roxane?
Suddenly the dust and clutter around her seemed stifling. Gilla got to her feet and picked her way, between a dusty carved table and a tall vase of dull brass inlaid with tarnished silver, toward the door. The vase toppled as Snapper Jo leaped with awkward efficiency to block her.
"Fat lady not to go-" the gray fiend said reproachfully. "Orders-Mistress says to keep you here." He favored her with a walleyed leer. "And talk to Snapper Jo!"
Gilla talked to him. She could not tell if it was for hours, really, or only seemed that way. The fiend's conversation was remarkably repetitive, and only long practice in answering the questions of small children while doing something else got her through it still sane. But the light behind the curtains was definitely fading when something moved in the doorway and Snapper Jo's patter abruptly failed.
The room seemed to brighten, or perhaps it was only that this woman left a glamor in the air around her. Local legend had said that Roxane was terrible, but had no words to say how beautiful she was. And surely it was Roxane, for everyone knew that the witch Ischade was pale as a night-born flower, but Roxane's skin bloomed like a rose.
"So, you are enjoying your conversation?" Roxane's little cat smile did not reach her eyes.
You bitch, how dare you ... thought Gilla. Then she met that gaze, and felt her skin grow cold. She bit back the retort that ached in her throat.
"My Carrier was not prepared for such as you." Roxane looked Gilla up and down. "Count yourself fortunate that your weight did not burst it and leave you floating mindless between the planes!" The Nisibisi sorceress laughed, and Gilla's chill drove deeper. This woman reeked of evil like some deadly perfume.
Gilla found herself retreating within the fortress of her flesh; she had never understood until now how her bulk had protected her. Physically her sheer mass had made her formidable. And it had shielded her psychically from all but the most powerful personalities. But Roxane was pure power, and Gilla was afraid.
"Great Lady, I am indeed grateful," she said between set teeth. "But surely you have no use for me here-"
"No? We shall see. There is no need to act hastily!" Roxane gave a throaty laugh, as if she were savoring some private amusement. "I will keep you for a while as a companion for my servant here. But in that case I suppose you must be fed," she looked at Gilla with another laugh. "Though surely it would do you no harm to starve for a while. Snapper-leave one of the serpents on guard and get food for her."
"And food for Snapper, too, Mistress? Nice food-red, still twitching?" The fiend clutched at the air and smacked his narrow lips, his eyes glazing.
Gilla watched him and shuddered, reminding herself not to trust his apparent affability.
"Snapper, be still!" Roxane flickered her fingers casually and the fiend froze, watching her with rolling eyes.
"Great One, please let me go home," Gilla whispered, bowing her head to keep Roxane from seeing her eyes.
"Oh, you don't want to go home," Roxane smiled prettily. "Your home is going to become very damp and uncomfortable very soon. Believe me, Ilsig sow, you will be much safer here with me. Do you hear the rain?" She paused a moment and Gilla heard its soft, steady patter outside.
"You'll hear more rain soon. But don't worry, my wards will keep the water away from here-the rest of Sanctuary is not going to be so fortunate. Water is coming. A great deal of water is coming!" Roxane lifted her arms with a ripple of silken sleeves. "Oh, they will be sorry, when the flood sweeps their fine temples and palaces away! I will bring the great waters down from the north in such a deluge as this place has never seen!"
Gilla grew very still. If there was a flood her children would be in danger. She had to think of a way out of here! But she had always done her best thinking when she was working; her gaze fell on the broom that had come with her through the void.
"If I am to stay, Mistress, then let me keep busy working for you." She tried to simulate humility. It did not sound convincing to her, but she suspected that the Nisibisi sorceress had spent too much time studying men and other beings to know much about how her own sex behaved.
"I'm a very good worker," Gilla went on. "Would you like me to clean?"
Roxane giggled. "Housecleaning? Oh yes-I with my waters and you with your broom will clean up Sanctuary!" Still laughing, she nodded to Snapper Jo. "You let her clean then, do you understand?" Bright skirts swirled as she turned, and she was gone as swiftly as she had come.
For a long moment Gilla stood utterly still. Then she seized the broom that was all she had left of home and began to sweep furiously.
And Roxane, in her witching room, set her Nisibisi Globe of Power spinning in the air before her so that the jewels inset into its High Peaks' clay gathered up the light from the candles that circled her and sent it shimmering into the bowl of water on the stand below.
Through air and water she drew the secret sigils; inhaled deeply the incense that smouldered in the corners of the room and breathed the charged air into the water until it steamed. Then she began to whisper in a language that no one in Sanctuary except Niko or Randal would have recognized.
The light grew aquaeous and dim; the voice of the sorceress deepened. The Globe that spun before her focused her awareness, heightened and transformed it and channeled it into that plane of the Otherworld where the Water Demons had their home. By their secret names she compelled them, and the water in her silver basin misted away.
But over the plains north of Sanctuary great cumulus clouds began to move, at first reluctantly, and then more swiftly, as if they sensed the waiting sea. And when they met the warmer air of the seacoast they released their heavy loads of rain, and the voice of the White Foal River began to change.
"Look-there are laws that govern magic," repeated Randal. "If you understand them you have control. Visualize! You know how to do that, surely-when you plan a picture don't you see it in your mind before you even take the brush in your hand? Use symbols, whatever you need to focus your consciousness on the part of the Otherworld you're working with, and then do your magic!"
Lalo nodded. He could almost see the sense of it, but it was so hard to concentrate when wind rattled the window-frames and rain beat against the slubbed glass. It had been raining hard since the afternoon before.
"If you visualize a shield around you that only lets . specific things out, or in, then you can control what you paint, right?" the Tysian mage went on. He sat back and looked at Lalo expectantly.
The limner nodded. "I think I understand. I don't know if I can do it, but I appreciate your effort to teach me. Worry makes me a poor student. When are we going against Roxane?"
"We're not ready yet-you're not ready. Limner, she would swat you like a fly! Even I-" He broke off, and Lalo was just beginning to wonder if even the mage feared this sorceress, when a heavy tread shook the tower stairs. The door crashed open and they saw Straton, the Stepsons' commander, standing there.
"Vashanka's rod, man, here you are, Randal! You've led me hell's own chase, that's for sure!" Somehow he managed to look even more formidable than usual with his hair plastered to his skull and water from wet steel and soggy leather pooling on the floor.