"I suppose you rushed off to my rescue without any additional help, right?" Skan said with resignation. "Of course—everyone was being prepared for the Ceremony, but you're supposed to be mad andguarding yourself in the persona of Hawkwind, so you were excused as Amberdrake and Hawkwind both."
"So that's where the extra Kaled'a'in came from!" said a delighted voice. "I wondered. There were ten new bodies from White Gryphon, but elevennew bodies parading about!"
Amberdrake looked up at the grinning madman in the doorway, and his stomach turned over again, sending sour bile into the back of his throat. "Hadanelith," he said tonelessly, his head echoing painfully. "I won't say it's a pleasure to see you again. I suppose you've come to gloat? That's trite enough to be in your style."
Hadanelith strolled over to Amberdrake in a leisurely fashion, and stood just out of range of a kick, frowning down at him. "You know, Amberdrake, you should never have dyed your hair. It's just not a good look for you."
Amberdrake raised an eyebrow at Hadanelith, and his battered mind finally took in the lunatic's costume. He blinked, certain he was seeing things. Why would Hadanelith be wearing a copy of one of Amberdrake's formal outfits?
"At least you've gotten some sense of fashion," he replied, his mind searching frantically for some guess at what the madman was about to do. His stomach lurched again, and his skin crawled. He'd seenHadanelith's handiwork....
"Oh, this little thing?" Hadanelith smoothed down the beaded placket at the neck of his tunic. "It's part of the plan, you see."
"Which you are going to tell us in excruciating detail," Skan moaned, as if he at least was not the slightest bit afraid of Hadanelith's plans, as if being bored was the worst of all possible tortures. "Oh spareus, will you? Good gods, does every half-baked villain have to boast about what he's going to do before he does it? Can't you just kill us so we don't have to endure your boring speech?"
Hadanelith turned to glare at the gryphon, and crossed his arms angrily over his chest. "Yes I do'have to boast about it.' I want you to know how and why and the means. I want you to know everything, because there isn't anything you can do to stop it all, and I want you to lie there in agony because you're both helpless."
Skan groaned, but it was the groan of someone who was in dread of having to endure an after-dinner speech, not someone in fear of death. "You haven't come up with anything new, you know," he complained. "Whatever you think you've invented, some other idiot has tried before you. And Ma'ar was better and more imaginative at gloating than you. Trust me, I know."
Amberdrake clenched his muscles to keep from trembling; he knew exactly what the gryphon was up to, and he feigned an equal boredom as Hadanelith turned his back to the gryphon, his spine straight with indignation. Listen to what he says, pretend to be interested, and he'll shut up. Tell him to get lost and take his little speech elsewhere, and he'll babble like a brook.
"You and all your friends are finished, kestra'chern," Hadanelith spat, turning back to Amberdrake.
Amberdrake yawned stiffly. His lip split and bled a little more. "Yes?" he replied indifferently. "And?"
Hadanelith's face grew red with rage. "You think you're all so clever," he snarled, flecks of spittle forming at the corners of his mouth. "You think you have everything taken care of. But you hadn't planned on magic, had you? Wehave magic, magic that works, blood-magicfrom those foolish women, and a few slaves and scum we took off the streets. We have magic enough to overcome anything; even if a mage-storm came right this moment, we have power enough to push through whatever we want."
Oh, gods. That explains everything.Amberdrake went very, very cold, and struggled not to show it. That was indeed one of the things no one had counted on—that someone was using the power of blood-born magic to push through spells that no longer worked in ordinary circumstances. He began to shake.
"We have a little surprise planned for the Eclipse Ceremony," Hadanelith continued, smiling now. "My friends here have a job they want me to do. Now normally, I wouldn't handle a job like this, but we're such good friends I thought I'd do them the favor." He raised an eyebrow archly. "Don't you want to know what it is?"
"Find the mind you lost?" Skan suggested. "Or could it be the virility you misplaced?"
Hadanelith flushed again, and ground his teeth together with rage. Amberdrake was fascinated, despite his screaming nerves. He'd never actually seen anyone grind his teeth with rage before. It was something you could actually hear—and all this time he'd thought it was just a cliche. "We are going to kill the King," Hadanelith got out from between his clenched jaws. "Publicly. At the height of the Ceremony."
He got himself back under control again, with a speed that would have been impressive if he hadn't been insane. He smiled sweetly at Amberdrake, a smile that struck the kestra'chern like a blow and stopped even his shivering. "And as a little present to you, dear Amberdrake," he said in a caressing tone, "we are going to kill Winterhart as well."
Amberdrake felt his face and body freezing into stone, along with his mind. His vision misted, and there was a roaring in his ears.
Hadanelith saw his reaction, and his smile widened. "My friends have more than enough power to whisk me away as soon as I finish the job," he continued with satisfaction. "Everyone will blame you Kaled'a'in, of course. The Black Gryphon will be proclaimed a coward and traitor to his own people, since he disappeared before the King's disposal. One of my friends has positioned himself to take advantage of all this, since the King hasn't yet declared an heir. He'll see to it that the rest of your contingent is rounded up and executed, and that war is declared on White Gryphon. At the end of it all, he'll be the great hero, and they'll probably demand that he take the Lion Throne before he can even claim it himself."
Amberdrake closed his eyes, fighting off a faint. Winterhart— oh, gods—He had to think, had to keep Hadanelith talking so he could get the timeto think.
"Why should the Kaled'a'in take the blame?" he asked thickly, opening his eyes again. "The Haighlei aren't fools, you know—they don't think all Outlanders look alike! You aren't going to fool them by dressing up in one of my outfits."
"Oh, my very dear Amberdrake," Hadanelith said with a laugh that sent chills down his spine. "My dear, dear kestra'chern! They won't see mewhen they see the murderer!"
His features blurred, and for a moment Amberdrake wondered frantically if the blow to his head had done something to his eyes as well. But nothing else was blurring, and in a moment, Hadanelith's face sharpened into focus again.
Except that now it wasn't Hadanelith'sface. It was a face Amberdrake knew only too well, for he looked at it in mirrors several times every day. It was the face that Winterhart knew as her own beloved's.
"You see?" said Hadanelith. "These people so abhor magic that they'll never dream someone might be wearing an illusion! That is the gift I have given these people—my originality. They would never have thought of this. They won't see me when they see a Kaled'a'in murdering their King and his Consort-To-Be. They'll see you."
He laughed—or rather, giggled—a high-pitched whining sound that set Amberdrake even further on edge. I'd have banished him for that laugh alone,he thought irrelevantly.
"And the last thing, the very last thing that your dear, faithless lady will see," Hadanelith continued gleefully, "is her former lover gutting her with a smile on his face. No onewill doubt that you are completely capable of killing her and her betrothed; you made that perfectly clear with your dramatic scene in front of the entire Court."