Khallayne closed her fingers over the coin. “Then do so. But first, go to your quarters and wash, then meet me here. And quickly, or I’ll give you back to Eneg!”
Tense and irritable, heart thudding with anticipation, Khallayne hovered in the shadows of a cavernous doorway until the slave returned.
She was wearing a clean shift and her short, straw-colored hair was mostly combed. “The lady Keeper is staying in Lord Tenal’s guest apartments, Lady.” She curtseyed and thrust out her hand.
With a smile, Khallayne put the copper coin into her palm without touching the slave’s grubby pink flesh. “Fetch a tray of food, whatever the Keeper prefers, from the kitchen.”
The slave’s odd-colored blue eyes grew round and large with fear at the suggestion that she return to the kitchen.
“If anyone asks, say Lord Teragrym has commanded it. And if Lord Eneg chooses you again, simply tell him you belong to me,” Khallayne told her. “Remind him I don’t want to have to train another slave.”
Khallayne shook her head as Laie vanished. In the time it took an Ogre to mature from child to young woman, human slaves went from babies to old and useless. But no matter how old or young, they were worse than children. Slow and dumb and witless, even one supposedly as bright as Laie.
Lyrralt was waiting for them at one of the side exits to the audience hall, leaning against the stone wall.
“The Keeper’s in Tenal’s wing.”
Lyrralt nodded, eyeing the slave who stood half-concealed behind Khallayne.
Motioning for Laie to proceed, Khallayne and Lyrralt started along the passageway, nodding to other guests as they went. “What did you bring?” she asked.
Lyrralt patted a pouch hanging from his belt, bowed once more to an older lady as she eyed the two of them curiously. “Crystals from Jyrbian’s collection.”
Once they were upstairs, in the second-floor hall and away from the strolling party guests, they followed Laie until they rounded a corner and found her peeking around the corner at an intersection. “This is the hallway where the apartment is,” Laie whispered, pointing ahead. “There are guards.”
Khallayne smiled, both at the roundness of the slave’s eyes and at the way Lyrralt’s arm tensed under her fingers.
“Do we kill them?” he asked.
“It’s all right. I expected them.” Feeling less calm than she allowed herself to show, she drew away from him and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes, concentrated, and, as in the audience hall, the sounds and smells of her surroundings grew blurred and hazy.
Lyrralt gasped.
Khallayne knew that he was feeling the surge of magical power she was drawing about her like a cloak. She trembled with the power of concentration, murmuring words she had wrested from the memory of a human wizard. Her hands came up, for a moment covering her face as if masking it, and she uttered the words again, lips moving silently.
Lyrralt gasped again. The slave whimpered.
Khallayne opened her eyes. Where Lyrralt had stood, now there was almost nothing, a disquieting disturbance in the air, a warm, scented breeze as if a ghost had brushed past.
“What have you done?” Lyrralt’s voice, stunned, fascinated, whispered from the nothingness.
“A spell of… of distraction, I suppose you would call it. If we make no sound, the guards won’t see us.”
“It makes my eyes hurt.”
“Yes, there is a small bit of aversion to it. It makes the illusion easier to maintain.” Turning to the slave, she murmured, “Laie?”
The woman was crouched back against the wall, her eyes so round and large it seemed they might burst from her head.
“Laie? Go down the hall. Tell the guards that Lord Tenal has ordered a tray sent to the Keeper. When they let you through the door, make sure to leave it open long enough for us to slip inside.”
With obvious effort, the slave controlled her fear. “But, Lady, what if they won’t let me through?”
“They won’t stop you. Just make sure you keep the door open. Now, go!” Khallayne, who had stepped closer to the woman, gave her a shove.
The slave almost squealed with fright, but she moved quickly, looking back over her shoulder as if she were being pursued.
It went as Khallayne had said. The guards leered. One lifted the corner of the linen napkin to inspect the tray, but they allowed the slave through. Laie paused just inside the heavy wooden door, holding it open with her foot while she pretended to balance the tray. She felt a spectral puff of air, then another, flit past.
One of the guards took the tray from her and placed it on a nearby table. “The Old One sleeps,” he whispered. “Leave it here and go.”
The slave nodded gratefully and hurried out.
The Keeper’s room was as lavish as anything Khallayne had seen since arriving in Takar. Two smoldering torches cast the only light, imparting flickering shadows more than illumination. Even in the smoky dimness, she could see the opulence of the slave-carved wood furnishings, the gleaming mirrors on walls covered with lush tapestries. She was sure, had she been able to examine it in daylight, that she would have found the thick carpet on which she trod to be elf made.
With a whispered command, the distraction disappeared and Lyrralt was visible.
‘This…” she breathed, leaning into Lyrralt in the near dark, pressing her mouth close to his ear, “… this is how I will live someday.”
“Perhaps we both will.” For a moment, his hands hovered near her.
The Keeper was asleep on a low couch near the hearth.
Khallayne had never seen an Ogre so aged; most accepted an honorable death long before the years advanced to such fullness. She stared at the Old One’s face, lined and seamed with wrinkles, as Lyrralt stirred up the dying embers and started a small fire in the fireplace.
From his pouch Lyrralt produced a clear crystal sphere and two faceted crystals, one a double-pointed amethyst, the other a perfect sapphire as dark blue as his skin.
“I wasn’t sure which would be best,” he whispered, holding them out for Khallayne’s inspection.
She chose the crystal sphere, the plainest of the three.
Lyrralt would have backed away, but Khallayne caught his wrist and pulled him close to the Old One. “Kneel here.”
Lyrralt burned to ask what she was going to do and how and where she had learned such things. He watched carefully as Khallayne placed her hands on the Keeper and whispered words that to his ears were unintelligible.
Khallayne placed the sphere on the Keeper’s mouth. For a moment, it seemed as if it would roll off, then it caught and rose, floating less than two fingers above the Old One’s lips as if suspended on the soft exhalations of her breath.
Lyrralt whistled soft and low in admiration.
Khallayne moved to the end of the couch and stood over the Keeper. She fixed Lyrralt with an intense, unwavering gaze. “I’m going to try to use your energy in addition to my own,” she said. It won’t hurt you, but you may feel… tired. After I begin, make no noise, speak no sound, unless you wish to lose it forever.”
He nodded.
Khallayne cupped her hands around the Keeper’s head. She opened her eyes wide and concentrated. The currents of power flowed through the room, tugging at her gently.
She had performed the spell many times, but never before on one of her own kind. Now that she could feel the papery, withered old flesh between her fingers, she wished she’d risked the working of this one, just once, on an Ogre.
Gathering her concentration, striving for confidence that suddenly seemed to be ebbing away, she murmured the words of the spell and sent the pulsation outward. The Keeper moaned softly and rolled her head as if feeling the touch of Khallayne’s magic, then was still.