The pace of events quickened. Aurin and Ferrin were enfolded into the confidence of Amadine’s thieves, and Aurin began to make his first direct overtures to Amadine. Penthra, ever suspicious on Amadine’s behalf, followed the two men and learned their true identity when they reported their progress to Calamaxes the sorcerer.
Locke watched from behind his grille as Sabetha and Chantal quarreled about the fate of Aurin. He admired the force of Chantal’s argument that he should be taken hostage or quietly slain; she and Sabetha played sharply and strongly off one another, driving the murmur and horseplay of the crowd down whenever they ruled a scene together.
Next came the confrontation between Aurin and Amadine in which the emperor’s son broke and confessed his feelings. Behind them, Alondo and Chantal leaned like statues against the stage pillars, backs to one another, each staring into the crowd with dour expressions.
“You rule my heart entire! Look down at your hands, see you hold it already!” said Locke, on one knee. “Keep it for a treasure or use it to sheathe a blade! What you require from me, so take, with all my soul I give it freely, even that soul itself!”
“You are an emperor’s son!”
“I am not free to choose so much as the pin upon my cloak,” said Locke. “I am dressed and tutored and guarded, and the way to the throne is straight with never a turning. Well, now I turn, Amadine. I am more free in your realm than in my father’s, thus, I defy my father. I defy his sentence upon you. Oh, say that you will have me. Since first I beheld you, you have been my empress waking and dreaming.”
Next came the kissing, which Locke threw himself into with a heart pounding so loudly he was sure the audience would mistake it for a drum and expect more music to follow. Sabetha matched him, and in front of eight hundred strangers they shared the delicious secret that they were not stage-kissing at all. They took much longer than Jasmer’s blocking had called for. The audience hooted and roared approval.
Another brief rest in the attiring chamber. Onstage, Bert as the old nobleman, wounded arm in a sling, sought audience with the emperor and complained bitterly of the lawlessness of Therim Pel’s streets. Sylvanus, regal and red-cheeked, promised to loose more guards into the city.
Donker, still hooded and masked and silent, accepted a particular wrapped parcel from Jenora and quietly took it into a private office. Jean, lounging at the back door, nodded at Locke to signify that nobody had tampered with the wagon or its cargo.
Back out into the light and heat for the irresponsible revels of the thieves, Aurin and Amadine’s brief moment of defiant joy while Penthra and Ferrin brooded separately behind their backs. Now Amadine grew careless and cocksure, and Ferrin begged Aurin uselessly to remember his station and his charge.
A terrible end came swiftly to this idyll, in the form of bit players dragging Chantal out of the attiring room, red cloth clutched to her breast. Penthra had gone out into Therim Pel to clear her head with minor thievery, run into the emperor’s troops without warning, and come back mortally wounded.
When Chantal spoke her final line, Sabetha wailed. Then, while all the other major players stayed frozen, Chantal rose and donned her eerie, beautiful death-mask and her white robe. Penthra’s shade joined that of Valedon as an onlooker.
Recrimination followed. Amadine stood aside in sorrow and shock while Ferrin, in despairing rage, first cajoled and then ordered Aurin to slay her.
“Now, Aurin, now! She stands bereft of all power! See how her curs crouch in awe. None shall impede you. A moment’s work will teach your enemies fear forever.”
“I shall not teach anyone that I destroy beauty when I find it, nor betray love when I profess it,” said Locke. “Swallow your counsel and keep it down, Ferrin. I am your prince.”
“You are no prince, save you act as one! Our sovereign majesty, your father, has charged you to execute his justice!”
“My father watered fields with the blood of armies. I will not water stones with the blood of an unarmed woman. That is execution, yes, but not justice.”
“Then stand aside and let it be done in your name.” Alondo drew his long steel, taking care to slide it hard against the scabbard for the most sinister and impressive noise possible. “Look away, Prince. I shall swear to your father it was done by your hand.”
“Twice now, Ferrin, have you presumed upon my patience.” Locke set a hand on the hilt of his own sword. “Never shall I stand aside, nor shall you presume again! A third time closes my heart against you and dissolves all friendship.”
“Dissolves our intimacy, Prince. Such is your right and power. Dissolve my friendship, you cannot. I act in this matter as a friend must. So I presume again, though it cuts my very soul, and charge you to remove yourself.”
“I loved you, Ferrin, but for love’s sake I’ll slay you if I must.” Locke drew his sword in a flash. “Advance on Amadine and you are my foe.”
“You are an emperor’s heir and I an emperor’s servant!” cried Alondo, raising his blade to the level of Locke’s. “You can no more run from your throne than you can from the turning of the sun! It is upon you, prince! Your life … is … DUTY!”
“I HAVE no duty if not to her!” Locke snarled and lashed out, catching Alondo’s right sleeve, as though Ferrin had not truly expected Aurin to strike. “And you no duty if not to me!”
“I see now you are soft as the metal of your naming,” said Alondo coldly, massaging his ‘wounded’ arm. “But I am the true Therin iron. I shall mourn thee. I mourn thee already, unkind friend, unnatural son! Here’s tears for our love and steel for your treachery!”
Alondo’s voice became an anguished cry as he leapt forward. The racketing beat of blade against blade echoed across the crowd; all the jokes and muttering died in an instant. Locke and Alondo had practiced this dance exhaustively, giving it the motions of two men furious and beyond reason. There was no banter, no clever blade-play, just harsh speed, desperate circling, and the brutal clash of metal. The groundlings drank it in with their eyes.
Ferrin was the better, stronger fighter, and he pounded Aurin mercilessly, drawing “blood,” driving Locke to his knees. At the most dramatically suitable moment, Ferrin drew back his arm for a killing thrust and received Aurin’s instead. Alondo took the blade under his left arm, dropped his own sword, and spilled out a red cloth. His collapse to the stage was so sudden and total that even Locke flinched away in surprise. The groundlings applauded.
Locke and Sabetha held one another, perfectly still, while Alondo slowly rose and went to the rear of the stage to receive his white mask and robe.
The final scenes were upon them. The sun had moved to crown the high western wall of the theater. Another fray and tumult; bit players in imperial red advanced their spears upon bit players in the gray and leather of thieves. Calamaxes followed, black robe flowing, red and orange pots of alchemical smoke bursting behind him to mark the use of his sorcery. At last the screams died; Amadine’s subjects were wiped out. The slaughtered thieves and guardsmen rose as one, donned robes and masks, and joined the looming chorus of ghosts.
Jasmer pulled Locke and Sabetha to their feet, pushed them apart, and stood dividing them.
“The kingdom of shadows is swept away,” said Jasmer. “His majesty, tendering your safety, bid me watch from afar and then retrieve you. I see your duty is nearly done, though it cost you a friend.”
“It has cost me far more than that,” said Locke. “I shall not go with you, Calamaxes. Not now or ever.”
“Your life is not your own, my prince, but something held in trust for the million souls you must rule. You as heir secure their peace. You slain or lost to dalliance condemns them to mutiny and civil war. You who claim the throne are claimed by it as tightly.”
“Amadine!” said Locke.
“She must die, Aurin, and you must rule. You will find the strength to raise your sword, or I will slay her with a spell. Either way, my tale shall flatter you to your father’s court, and none live to contradict me.”