“You just try it, you slack-arsed whore,” I snarled, not taking my eyes off the Elietimm. He just smiled. I felt the blood start to pound in my head, temples throbbing, my vision darkening and my feet stumbling numbly as the earth seemed to tilt beneath me. As my senses dissolved, I groped blindly for the hilt of my sword and as I laid nerveless fingers on the pommel I heard Guinalle’s precise tones inside my head.
“Of course, a simple ward can be very effective. Try this— ‘Tur-ryal, tur-ryal, tur-ryal.’ ”
I heard a voice that was not my own echoing the meaningless syllables, using my lips in this strange trick of memory. The girl spoke again. “You see, I can’t make your feet cold now, can I?”
I blinked as my sight cleared and drew a breath of release deep into my lungs as I saw the priest’s jaw drop with horrified astonishment.
“You swore they had no true magic,” he spat, his eyes shifting to a point over my off shoulder. That told me where Kaeska was, so I tore my sword free of its scabbard, sweeping it around in a glittering arc. If I had to answer to Shek Kul for gutting her, so be it; I had to get myself free of this snare first. Kaeska squealed and I heard her scuttle backward, the dagger clattering to the floor. I brought the sword to the front and moved swiftly toward the priest, who was between me and my escape to the gardens. Now he was the one backing away but he began another complicated pattern of words and I felt a chill of confusion hover around me, greedy fingers of enchantment ripping away whatever frail shield that strange incantation had given my mind. I couldn’t win this fight, not on these terms.
Yelling a full-throated curse at the bastard, I raised my sword high above my head, both hands on the hilts as I charged at him. Not surprisingly, he recoiled, stumbling over a low stool. I shoved him aside with my shoulder as I brought my sword down on the flimsy latch of the shutters, sending them swinging wildly as I fled to the uncertain safety of the gardens. Running past several startled gardeners, I headed for the practice ground the body slaves shared with the guards, tucked behind the slave quarters. To my intense relief, Sezarre was there, sitting and brooding over a grid drawn in the dirt as he played some solo variant of the Aldabreshi stone game.
“Your leg—” he frowned, abandoning his puzzle as he saw my torn trousers and darkening bruises.
“Kaeska and her visitor, the white-headed man,” I said succinctly, dropping to a bench with a shuddering sigh of relief. Sezarre moved with the instincts of long training to strip away the tattered cloth and wipe down the rapidly swelling and badly scored thigh with an astringent that made me hiss through my teeth. For all that, I realized well enough I was lucky not to have taken the full force of the blow; the bastard could have broken the bone in reality if he’d caught me right, not just crippled me with an illusion woven inside my mind.
“What is this about?” Sezarre asked urgently as he rubbed a salve into the deep scratches, something I’d done for him and Grival often enough since arriving here.
“Kaeska is plotting to kill Mahli and the baby—she is convinced she can then have a child of her own and become First Wife again.”
Sezarre shook his head with a wordless exclamation of contempt.
“The man is not here to trade, he has come to help Kaeska by using magic against Mahli and Shek Kul.”
Sezarre’s hands halted at that and he looked up at me, eyes wide, mouth half open in astonishment.
“I swear this is the truth.” I held his gaze with mine. “I have seen such men as these at work before. Their enchantments killed a friend of mine, closer than my brother. This magic stole his mind and turned his blade against me.”
The pain in my voice as I talked of Aiten more than made up for my remaining deficiencies in the Aldabreshin tongue; Sezarre was convinced, no question of it.
“You have told Laio?”
I nodded. “She wished Gar to know before Kaeska is accused to Shek Kul.”
Relief was plain on Sezarre’s face. “Gar would not be involved in any such scheme, you must know this for certain.” he insisted. “Not magic, of all things, and never to harm the child.”
“Of course,” I assured him. “Laio never imagined that she would.”
“Magic,” he repeated with an expression of revulsion. “That Kaeska would stoop so low…” Words failed him and he shook his head again.
“They know that I can expose them,” I gestured at my bruises. “They will kill me if they can.”
“Not while I am with you,” replied Sezarre grimly. The thought of his sword arm at my side was certainly a reassuring one. “Can you walk?”
I nodded, stood and followed Sezarre as he walked rapidly to the main gate and summoned the commander of the guard, a thick-set, dark-skinned Aldabreshi I was used to seeing deep in discussion with Shek Kul. I couldn’t follow much of their conversation but the gist was plain enough when the guard on the gate was doubled and liveried retainers with drawn swords went out, four by four, to quarter the grounds of the compound.
“Will they detain Kaeska if they find her?” I asked Sezarre as he strode toward the main residence, face stern, hand on his sword hilt.
“She will be required to explain herself to Shek Kul,” he answered in tones of unmistakable threat.
We went to Kaeska’s reception rooms, where the torn silk curtain flapped forlornly in the breeze and the wreckage of the room gave its own mute testimony.
“Why would she do this?” Sezarre shook his head. “Who is this man that he has such a hold over her.”
“He’s an enchanter who can get inside minds and twist them to his will.” In all justice, I felt I had to keep reminding these people how Kaeska was being manipulated by that bastard Ice Islander.
We left the room through the doors to the garden and watched as the guard commander met a couple of troopers, their shaking heads making it clear there was no sign of the quarry.
“And Kaeska has been killing the fish as well,” I remembered abruptly. “Why would she do that?”
Sezarre reacted with a surprising display of horror at this news. “She wishes to make bad omens for the child,” he spat with disgust. “Show me!”
I led the way swiftly to the poisoned fountain and Sezarre stared at the handfuls of dead fish that now littered the water.
“We will deal with this,” he said with a determined nod.
Seconding a startled gardener with a few brisk words, Sezarre set about getting the fountain emptied and scalded clean while he and I checked the other fish, birds and animals. I couldn’t have told if the lizards were ailing as they sat glassy-eyed and impassive on their rocks and tree branches, but Sezarre was confident they were unharmed, explaining that they had some significance for the Warlord that I have to confess escaped me. Dead song-birds were easier to spot and Sezarre went straight to the steward who soon had a lad picking the sad little corpses from the floor of the aviaries belonging to Laio and Mahli. From the seriousness of the expressions all around me, I gathered this went beyond mere malice toward the other women’s pets on Kaeska’s part, but no one seemed to want to discuss it further.
The steward went to speak to the gate guards and I followed Sezarre to a wrinkled old man who wailed aloud at the tale, his voluble lamentations only shocked to silence when Sezarre told him about Kaeska bringing an enchanter to the island. As more people became involved in frustrating Kaeska’s mean and paltry plot with the animals, the word of her conspiring with a sorcerer spread and with some apprehension I wondered how Laio would react to this. She wasn’t going to be best pleased to learn that the best rune in her hand had already been played without her consent.