She broadcast her emotions to any who would listen with their eyes and Pelmen listened now to her anger. “You killed him.”
“He would have eaten you.”
“I longed for him to!”
“You longed to be one with the Power. That wasn’t the way.”
“The Power!” she spat. “What has this Power done for Lamath? Stripped her of her god and cast her spinning into a sea of faithlessness!
Every shrine is destroyed, every monastery scattered! Is this what your Power does?”
“If it must to reach through to the people ”
“I was reaching the people!” the woman cried, and she turned away from him again to walk to the blank wall on the far side of the room.
Pelmen looked nervously behind him at the stairway. It occurred to him then that in all his days in dungeons he’d never once seen a guard respond to a prisoner’s shouting with anything other than apathy. He looked back into the cell. “And that’s why you’re here?”
“I came to urge the Queen to march on Lamath, to rid the land of heretics and reinstitute the worship of Lord Dragon.”
Pelmen waited through a long pause.
“She laughed at me,” Serphimera finished.
Pelmen waited another moment before he spoke. “I never did that,” he said.
Serphimera sat on the bed. “When I told her the Lord Dragon would burn her palace for her disobedience, she laughed again but she also ordered me to be brought here. It was only later that she began to come and talk to me.”
“Made you her confidant.”
“Exactly.” Serphimera gestured at the room. “She treats me well.”
Pelmen smothered his rage at the Queen, and whispered resolutely, “I’ll get you out.”
“Oh, no need of that,” Serphimera said. She stood up and walked toward him. “I shall leave this castle as I came in… walking freely.”
“But how do you ”
“How do I know? The same way I knew you were coming, Prophet. I had a vision.”
Pelmen had brushed with Serphimera’s visions before. Whatever their source, they tended to come true. Her words made him feel very vulnerable. “Serphimera… do you… tell the Queen your visions?”
The Priestess looked away. “Most of them. That’s one reason she comes to call. Among other things, she seems to see me as some sort of fortune teller.” Serphimera bit down on the words. “The humiliation of it! Priestess of the dragon, viewed in the same light as a Mari wit cher woman!”
“Have you told her about my disguise?”
Serphimera met his eyes, “No.”
Pelmen experienced a flood of relief. “Why not?”
Her gaze remained fixed. “I think we both know the answer to that.”
Her lips looked lovely. He wanted to kiss them.
As if reading his mind, Serphimera backed away and crossed her arms.
She fixed her features in an imitation of scorn but her eyes told a different tale altogether.
“I don’t suppose your vision told you how you’ll manage to walk out as freely as you came?”
“No.”
“Then is it possible that I might play some part in that event?”
“Perhaps.”
“Fine. Then ”
“But I doubt it.”
Pelmen looked at her, puzzled. “Why?”
“Because you came crawling in through a tunnel. Knowing something of your previous antics, I daresay you would expect me to crawl out of this dungeon on my belly.”
“And you wouldn’t do that,” he countered.
“That wasn’t in the vision.”
Pelmen bit his lip in consternation, and thought for a moment. “You knew I was coming. Is there anything else you know that might help me?”
Serphimera smiled. “That all depends on what it is you’re trying to do.”
“I came down here expecting to find the Lady Bron-wynn. She’s the rightful heir to the throne of this arrogant land, and I’d like to see her on it.”
Serphimera’s nostrils flared slightly at the mention of the Princess’
name. “Bronwynn. Isn’t she the rude little girl who followed you so devoutly?”
“She was one of my initiates, yes you met her with me in the dungeon of Lamath.”
“And if she’s crowned, what will that make you?” Scr-pbimera asked, her lips curling into the tiniest of sneers. “The new king?”
Pelmen laughed aloud. He hadn’t meant to, it just came out. He clapped his hand across his face and stepped swiftly to the base of the stairwell to listen. Then he came back, still chuckling at the idea.
He laughed harder when he saw the glare on Serphimera’s face.
“Well?” she snapped angrily.
“No,” he chuckled. “There’s a lad upstairs who’d take my head off in a stroke if I tried.” Pelmen’s smile softened from mirth to one of concern. “I just want to restore to this land a little peace and security.”
“As you did to Lamath?” she snapped.
If you know anything of Bronwynn, my Lady, I urgently request you share it” His face had turned grim as grim as was possible in white face, anyway. Serphimera had to smile at that. His serious expression remained, however, and she grew solemn as well.
“She spent many days in the pit at the far end of the corridor. The Queen treated her as badly as she’s treated me well. I heard her groans each night. Then one night I heard them no more. I feared she was dead, but the Queen shared with me later the information that someone had snatched her out of the dungeon. She told me whom she suspected, and I’m dismayed to have to relay it, for I travelled with the man and know him for a cruel, lying unbeliever. His ”
“How wonderful!” Pelmen snarled, for be knew immediately whom she meant. “We’re stuck in Ligne’s dungeon, and Bronwynn’s in the hands of Admon Fayel”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
An Ancient Spell
“My ARM is TIRED!” Bronwynn yelled.
“Do you think an enemy will hold off and let you rest it?” Admon Faye challenged, then he swung his mock blade around savagely to crack across Bronwynn’s left shoulder. “Come girl. Parry or feel pain.”
Bronwynn hurled her wooden weapon away, and it clacked off the stone floor several times before coming to rest against the wall. “Now both my shoulders ache,” she snarled, and she grabbed them with opposing hands and began massaging. Admon Faye raised his weapon as if to strike again. “Go aheadl” she screamed belligerently. “Beat me black and blue!”
He lowered his practice sword and grinned at her. “I’m just trying to teach you to defend yourself ”
“Maybe I don’t want to learn to defend myself today!”
“Pick up the sword and return to work!” he ordered her. “We haven’t much time!”
“You haven’t much time,” Bronwynn snarled, turning her back on him. “I have plenty. Owl” she yelped suddenly as the slaver whacked her across the rump.
“You’re lazy,” Admon Faye grunted. “I’m offering you a kingdom, girl.
Don’t you consider it worth a bruise or two to be the Queen?”
“Queen!” she snapped. “What kind of rule could I have, with you and Flayh constantly looking over my shoulder? That’s no reign just a new kind of captivity!”
You’re a child. You still believe it possible to be free.”
Bronwynn rubbed her shoulders and sulked. “No, I don’t.”
Admon Faye glanced up at her jutting lip, and snickered. “Pining for your boyfriend? He’s not pining for you.”
“You shut up about Rosha!”
“Why should I?” the slaver sneered. “I speak only what I heard from the magic glass… perhaps my lady missed that?” he mocked.
“I didn’t miss it!” Bronwynn flared. “I just don’t believe it!”