Wayleeth dashed into her lover’s room to find him lying on their bed, hugging the pyramid to him and weeping aloud. “Why, darling, what’s the matter? Did something we say upset ” She stopped. Tahli-Damen opened his eyes to Stare up at her, and she staggered away in horror.
There were no pupils, no irises, no whiles just a solid background of pale, powder blue.
“Wayleeth,” he sobbed, as he gazed up toward her face. “Wayleeth? Are you there?”
“Yes,” she finally managed to choke out. “I’m standing right in front of you.”
“You… are?” He stared sightlessly into space a minute, then cleared his throat. “Wayleeth,” he gasped. “Flayh’s had his vengeance at last.”
“My darling,” she sobbed, wrapping her arms around him to get away from the ghastly blue tint of his eyeballs.
“I stole a vision-maker from a wizard .. , and the wizard stole my eyes.”
Flayh reeled away from the table, and lurched toward a drawer in one of his several desks. He jerked it open to pull out a mirror, and examined himself in it. The sight dragged a strangled moan from his lips.
Across his cheeks were the six red gashes hideous, to be sure, but clearly not as disfiguring as the other new feature. He looked at the back of his hands, and groaned in understanding. He’d managed to get them to his face in time to prevent blindness, but the backs of them had been stained a light blue by the flash. He looked back at the mirror. Two hand prints had been tattooed onto his face. That skin protected by the shield of his hands was the same milky-white as the rest of his body. But that part exposed to the blast now wore the same light blue tint as his hands, all the way up to the top of his bald skull.
No one can say you’re not unique, said the High Fortress of Ngandib, and windy laughter whirled through the room. “Flayh gave it cause to regret that, long into the night.
Bronwynn had ducked when Pelmen threw up his hands and had missed the flash. When she looked again, he was lying prone on the floor, unmoving. She gave the knob a savage twist and bolted out to look at him. Then she grabbed up the pyramid, stuffed it into its bag, and scram bled back to her corridor. A moment later she burst in on Rosha, who’d been waiting impatiently by the moveable panel.
“Well?” he whispered.
“Petmen’s hurt,” she snapped. “Come on.” She tossed the pyramid onto the bed and dragged him back with her into Jagd’s room. After several minutes of grunting and tugging, together they hoisted Pelmen onto Rosha’s bed beside the object.
“What happened?” Rosha begged, finally free to ask the question safely.
“I don’t know. I’m afraid it has something to do with Flayh. Can you get him back to his room?”
“I’ll summon Yona Parmi and the others they can.”
“Fine.” she nodded. “Isn’t this stuff on his face supposed to be a disguise?” she scrapped off a bit of his greasepaint.
“Of course ”
“Better tell these friends of his to have him change it when he wakes up. Look,” she said, holding up her finger to show him. “It’s turned blue.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Curtain Call
“SHH,” Danyilyn whispered. “Go back to sleep.”
Pelmen groaned. His whole body arched. “I’m exhausted.”
“We know. That’s why you need your sleep.”
He heard a muffled sound coming from the corner and sat up on his cot.
“Who’s that?”
“Never mi ”
But Danyilyn couldn’t stop him. A weak ball of soft orange flame blazed above the corner in question, revealing the struggling form of a bound and gagged Princess. He ignored Danyilyn’s gasp of surprise as he murmured, “Bronwynn?”
“You are a sorcerer!” the actress whispered.
“Why is she tied up?”
“Rosha told us to,” Danyilyn said apologetically. “He said it was the only way to keep her from knifing Ligne before you woke up.”
“Rosha knows her well,” Pelmen murmured, and he groaned. “What time is it?”
“Early morning.”
Pelmen sat up and stared at her. “Morning!”
“Just lie back and—”
“No time. We’ve got to get Serphimera out of the dungeon and then get all of us into the escape tunnel before the castle wakes. If the House the House!” Pelmen exclaimed suddenly, and he swiveled toward the walls and listened.
“What are you ”
“Shh!” Pelmen strained to hear.
Silence.
“Imperial House?” he whispered. Silence was the only reply he received,
“Anything wrong?” Danyilyn asked.
“Maybe everything,” Pelmen sighed, and he rolled off his cot. “Here help me put Bronwynn on the bed.”
“But—”
“She’s going to have a long day tomorrow and she doesn’t look very comfortable in that corner.”
“What about you? You need some sleep.”
“No time,” he answered her from across the room. “I’ve got to figure us a new way out of here.”
Several hours later, as dawn coated the eastern face of the castle with the illusion of golden mail, Pelmen was still sitting in the corner.
Danyilyn had long since returned to her own room, and the heavy breathing from the trussed girl on his cot assured him that Bronwynn finally slept.
Did the castle sleep too? “Are you asleep?” he pleaded quietly for the fortieth time. “Or just keeping silent because you’re angry? I’ve offered you every kind of apology I know I had no idea such a confrontation would take place. I realize it was agonizing for you it was agonizing for me as well, but I could only end it by winning it. My friend… you’ve known power shapers throughout your whole existence, many more than I. Surely you witnessed shaper battles, in the time before the dragon? Did you ever once see a shaper turn his back on the sorcerer who attacked him? If you did, I’ll wager you witnessed his burial as well, and I have far too many people depending on me to let myself be taken without a fight!” He paused then, and listened.
The Imperial House was as silent as the sunrise.
“Or did I kill you,” Pelmen sighed, rubbing a hand across his face and smearing further his blue-tinted grease paint “It could be. The powers unleashed between us would take an incredible toll on armies of men did our battle kill you as well? I guess it’s possible since a power-shaper gave you life…” He waited, hoping to hear something a creaking in the wooden door, a sigh of tone a change of temperature in the room even bells would be welcome.
But the Imperial House was as still as the dawn that kind of stillness so deep, so pervasive that it drags one into sleep. Pelmen finally yielded to it and dozed. He could do nothing else.
He was awakened by a fierce pounding on the door. He jumped to answer it and was met by Danyilyn and Yona Parmi. “Change your makeup now!” Danyilyn spat as she raced to the cot and slipped a knife-blade under Bronwynn’s bonds.
“Hurry!” Yona Parmi added. “Ligne’s dispatched soldiers to summon you. We’ve got to get her out of here.”
Danyilyn dragged the groggy Bronwynn to her feet as Pelmen scrubbed the old makeup from his face and clapped on a new layer of white. “What time is it?” - “Past breakfast,” Yona mumbled as he helped Danyilyn walk the Princess to the door. “Where are you taking her?”
“Genig says to put her in the play who’s going to notice another ingenue? Hurry!” They were out the door and gone.
Pelmen was still trying to clear his spinning head when the soldiers arrived. They slammed open the door without knocking.
“Good morning,” Fallomar said cheerily. “Did you bring me breakfast in bed?”