The gate was not shut, but the guards who patrolled the main entrance were alert and careful, far more interested in the skies than the ground. All knew that the human invasion force, when it came, would come from the air. Lookouts stood on the towers, keeping watch for raiders whose dragons might succeed in breaking through the elven fleet.
Wearing rich and colorful elven clothing—a high-waisted dress, decorated in jewels and ribbons, with puffed sleeves that came to her wrists, and long, flowing skirts of several layers of filmy silk, covered by a cloak of royal blue satin—Iridal slipped out of the shadows of the Imperanon’s walls and walked rapidly to the guardhouse that stood just inside the main gate. Guards making their rounds on the walls above gave her a swift, cursory glance and dismissed her from their thoughts. Those standing inside the main gate eyed her, but made no move to accost her, leaving that to the porter. He opened the door, in response to the knock.
“How may I assist you, my lady?”
Iridal could barely hear him above the blood surging in her ears. Her heart beat rapidly. She was almost faint from it, yet it didn’t seem to be working properly—didn’t seem to be pumping blood to her limbs. Her hands were ice cold and her feet almost too numb to walk.
The guard’s casual response and uninterested gaze gave her confidence, however. The illusion was working. He did not see a human woman clad in elven clothes that were too small, fit too tight. He saw an elf maiden with delicate features, almond eyes, porcelain skin.
“I wish to enter the palace,” said Iridal faintly, in elven, hoping her fear would be mistaken for maidenly confusion.
“Your business?” the porter asked crisply.
“I ... that is... my aunt is very sick. I’ve been summoned to her bedside.” Several of the guards, standing nearby, looked at each other with sly grins; one made a whispered comment having to do with surprises that lurked between the sheets belonging to “sick aunts.” Iridal, hearing the whispers if not the words, thought it in character to draw herself up, favor the offender with an imperious stare from the confines of her satin-lined hood. And, in doing so, she flashed a quick, searching glance around the gate area.
She saw nothing, and the heart that had beat too rapidly before now seemed to stop altogether. She wished desperately she knew where Hugh was, what he was doing. Perhaps he was—even now—stealing inside the gate, underneath the long noses of the elven guards. It took all Iridal’s willpower to keep from looking for him, hoping to catch even the slightest glimpse of movement in the torchlight, hear the tiniest sound. But Hugh was a master of stealthy movement, had adapted himself swiftly and completely to the chameleonlike costume of the Unseen. The Kenkari had been impressed.
The whispering behind Iridal hushed. She was forced to turn her attention back to the porter.
“Have you a pass, my lady?”
She had, written out by the Kenkari. She presented it. All was in order. He handed it back.
“Your aunt’s name?”
Iridal supplied it. The Kenkari had supplied her.
The porter disappeared into his guardhouse, wrote the name down in a book kept for the purpose. Iridal might have been worried by this, fearing he would check on her, but the Kenkari had assured her that this was a formality. The porter would have been hard pressed checking up on the whereabouts of the hundreds who came and went during a single nighttime.
“You may enter, my lady. I trust your aunt’s health improves,” said the porter politely.
“Thank you,” Iridal replied and swept past him, beneath the massive gate and the towering walls.
The footsteps of the guards echoed on ramparts above her. She was daunted by the immensity of the Imperanon, which was enormous beyond anything she could-have imagined. The main building towered above her, blotting the mountaintops from sight. Innumerable wings branched off from it, wrapped around the base of the mountain.
Iridal thought of the vast numbers of guards patrolling the palace, imagined them all to be standing outside her son’s room, and suddenly her task appeared hopeless. How could she have ever dreamed they would succeed?
We will, she told herself. We have to.
Firmly suppressing her doubts, she kept walking. Hugh had warned her not to hesitate. She had to appear as if she knew where she was going. Her steps did not falter, not even when a passing elven soldier, catching a glimpse of her face by torchlight, informed her that he was off duty in an hour, if she cared to wait.
Keeping the map well in mind, Iridal veered to her right, bypassing the main building. Her path took her into the part of the royal dwellings set farther back into the mountains. She walked underneath archways, past barracks and various other outbuildings. Turning a corner, she ascended a tree-lined avenue, continued past what had once been splashing fountains of water (a blatant display of the emperor’s wealth) but which were now shut off “for repairs.” She was growing worried. She couldn’t remember any of this from the map. She didn’t think she should have come this far, was tempted to turn around and retrace her steps, when she finally saw something she recognized from the map.
She was on the outskirts of the Imperial garden. The garden, whose terraces ran up the mountainside, was beautiful, though not as lush as in past days, before the water had been rationed. It looked exquisite to Iridal, however, and she paused a moment to relax in relief. Apartments for the imperial guests surrounded the garden, a series of eight buildings. Each building had a central door, that provided admittance. Iridal counted six buildings over; Bane was in the seventh. She could almost look to his window. Pressing the feather amulet tightly in her hand, Iridal hastened forward. A footman opened a door to her knock, asked to see her pass. Iridal, standing in the open doorway, fumbled for the pass in the folds of her skirt, dropped it.
The footman bent to pick it up.
Iridal felt, or thought she did, the hem of her gown stir, as though someone had crept by her, slipping through the narrow confines of the open door. She took back the pass—which the footman did not bother to examine—hoped he had not noticed how her hand shook. Thanking him, she entered the building. He offered the use of a candle boy, to escort her through the halls. Iridal declined, stating that she knew the way, but she did accept a lighted flambeau.
She continued down the long hall, certain that the footman was staring at her the entire distance, though in reality he had gone back to exchanging the latest court gossip with the candle boy. Leaving the main corridor, Iridal ascended a flight of carpeted stairs, entered another corridor that was empty, illuminated here and there by light shining from flambeaux mounted in wall sconces. Bane’s room was at the very end.
“Hugh?” she whispered, pausing, staring into the shadows.
“I’m here. Hush. Keep going.”
Iridal sighed in relief. But the sigh changed to an inaudible gasp when a figure detached itself from the wall and advanced on her.
It was an elf, a male elf, clad in the uniform of a soldier. She reminded herself that she had every right to be here, guessed that this man must be on an errand similar to the one she’d made up. With a coolness that she would have never believed herself capable of, she drew her hood over her face and was about to sweep past the elf, when he reached out a hand, detained her. Iridal drew back with a show of indignation. “Really, sir, I—”
“Lady Iridal?” he said to her softly.
Astonished, frightened, Iridal retained her composure. Hugh was nearby, though she trembled to think what he might do. And then she knew. His hands materialized in the air behind the elf. A dagger flashed.