Chapter 28
***
The infant stiffened in Jovibn’s grasp, then cried. Acolytes and worshipers turned at the sound, but paused at the sight of the beads around Jovibon’s neck. Apparently they assumed that he was about the Goddess’s business – until one woman noticed that was about to leave the oasis. She shouted, the others dropped their things and ran toward the wizard, but he grinned back. None could reach him in time.
And then a surge of power ripped through him, power drawn on his elemental well, power controlled by someone else. Not the fat wizard, whose piggish eyes bulged out as the power ripped through him as well, but who had been commanded not to summon it. Someone was else was using the power – and the amber beads knew it. They woke and twisted themselves tight around his neck, cutting off his breath, filling his brain with black. The ground slammed into his knees.
He couldn’t run and he could barely hear the angry shouts of the worshipers over the pounding of his heart, but Jovibon still had sense enough to pitch the child beyond the edge of the oasis.
***
28.2
***
The sea monster exploded in a spray of burnt flesh and steaming blood. Princess peered through the rain of tentacles and eyes, searching for Lissandra. She saw the woman, still curled around a tentacle, drop into the water, then resurface several anxious seconds later. With strong strokes, the Farlander lady swam for the shore.
Warm red drops spattered on Princess’s neck, then a tentacle tip, as long as Princess was tall fell across her shoulders. She stumbled, but the blow was no worse than one Lord Fantail might have given her. She raised her hand to knock the offending piece off.
Instead, it wrapped tight around her arm, her waist, and her thighs. The more she struggled, the tighter it held. She had only time to scream before it dragged her into ice-coated darkness.
***
28.3
***
Talaski looked just in time to see Princess fade into a smeared rainbow haze. He felt her leaving, just as he felt himself leave a place behind when he traveled. She was gone, carried away by a trap within the sea monster.
Stupid wizard! The monster hadn’t been a wayward creation escaped from its master; it had been a trap come to take back a treasure. His treasure. Talaski felt for the space where she had been, and touched silver traces that marked her passing. They were like hoarfrost in the sun, however, melting even as he watched.
“I’m going after her!” Talaski yelled aloud to Jesland, and to the advisors who were even now running up the slope. Gneara and Rayden were among them, with Daimar close behind her lover.
“The Dajournae cannot leave!” Jesland shouted back. His own face showed sympathy.
The traces were half-gone. “Then I am no longer the Dajournae!”
Jesland’s face hardened while the other advisors shook their heads. Gneara pounded the ground with his staff. “Your majesty, you cannot do this! There is no other Dajourn!”
“Him.” Talaski pointed to Rayden. “And he’s older, so he should be Dajournae, anyway.”
“But – he’s not the son of the old Dajournae!”
“Whose son is he?” Talaski shouted, loud enough for people on the bluff to hear. “Tell me! Tell everyone! Whose son is he?”
Rayden turned red with fury, and Gneara turned ashen. But while no one seemed surprised at the question or the reaction of the two men, no one chose to answer.
“If no one can say whose son he is, then who can say whose son he isn’t?” With that, Talaski yanked off the circlet and flung it at Rayden. “Daimar makes the choice, remember?”
The man gaped, but as he held the circlet, the world shifted, righting itself, snapping into place.
And now, no time to lose. No longer Dajournae and bound to the land, Talaski turned and followed the almost invisible trace to the other side of the world, barely aware that he carried someone with him.
***
28.4
***
As fast as they had twisted, the necklace released its hold. His power quelled, he was once more invisible to the Goddess Lophelia – but not to her followers. Jovibon ripped off the murderous beads and flung them in the face of the man who reached for him, then scrambled on hands and knees toward the fat wizard. He clutched the man’s ankle. “Now! Take us to the townhouse!”
The wizard shrugged. In a moment Jovibin was kneeling on the hard stones of his front hall. The baby wailed, thin and high, but alive.
It only needed to live a half-hour longer.
Jovibon scrambled to his feet and pointed to the now dripping bundle in the Fat Wizard’s hand. “Put that someplace safe – but within this house – and fetch the ingredients for...”
A woman’s scream interrupted him, followed by Lord Fantail’s drunken laugh. The scream was from below the house, from the workshop. Which meant... Which meant that they did not need the baby, after all. Jovibon grinned.
Azygous looked dark, angry, bested.
“Never mind, then. I won’t need the brat, after all. Shall we see what we have caught?”
***
28.5
***
Princess huddled at the back of the cage, just beyond Lord Fantail’s clutching fingers. She took in the details of the rest of the room: a tilted table with manacles and dark stains; walls decorated with pliers, bone crushers, and branding irons; and glass jars holding various body parts floating in an amber liquid. In one jar, a cluster of eyes stared at her, reminiscent of the eyes hanging about the sea monster’s neck.
“You’ve been promised to me,” Lord Fantail chortled.
“By who?”
“My wizard will bind you so I may take you as often as I want, as hard as I want, as _painfully_ as I want. I can be merciful, though – once I’ve shown you all I can do.” He tilted his head toward an iron instrument on the wall, one too thick and long to be mistaken for a real one.
Princess licked dry lips. She was scared, but she was angry. Jerking her own head toward the instrument, she said, “Your wizard? So you’ve lifted your robes for him, and bent over the bar?”
“What?” A look of horror crossed his face.
So he hadn’t yet leaned that? She smiled. “Everyone knws what wizards do to the men they own.”
He frowned, scoffed. “He doesn’t own me. I own him.”
“Wizards own everyone they touch.” To herself she added, In one way or another.
“We have an arrangement! A bargain!”
“You’ll be his catamite before much longer. His plaything, his dancing girl. His whore – and begging for more.”
Lord Fantail screeched and lunged forward, pressing himself between the unyeilding bars. His fingers brushed her, no more.
Footsteps clattered on the stairs. Jovibon the Wizard came down, wrapped in a voluminous cloak. The one she had last seen wearing Lady Fantail’s chastity belt, and screaming in frustration. Ah, that was why Lord Fantail’s wizard had yet to claim him, and why he held the man with thin promises of revenge and pleasure. But then she realized, with a sick shiver, that the Wizard must be planning much worse for her.
And there was no Talaski to save her this time. Never would be.
Behind Jovibon lumbered Azygous, fat and naked save for a tiny leather apron tucked beneath his giant slab of dropping belly. He carried a tiny bundle in his hand, one that wailed like a kitten or – she felt even sicker – a newborn.
“Well, well,” chortled Jovibon. He held up an iron key. “A little whore, waiting to be taught new things.”
“What do you want?”
“First, my friend and associate desires a chance to avenge himself.” He put the key to the edge of the lock, then turned to Lord Fantail. “Are you ready?”
The man leered, and started to lift his robes.
Green light bolted from the side of the room and knocked the key from the dark wizard’s hand. Talaski was there, in the shadow of the table, stepping out with feral anger on his face.
Jovibon grinned. “Bind him, Azygous.”
The Fat Wizard clutched blue power from the air and flung it at Talaski. It became a web which held the small man.
“Do you want to redeem her?” Jovibon asked. “You may have her for the price of a key, a certain key that you have hidden. Bring me the key, and she’ll be yours.”
“But,” Lord Fantain wailed. “You – you promised me!
“Of course.” Jovibon spoke with a soothing tone. “You shall have her while this wretch watches, and again when this wretch is freed to seek the ransom, and for as long as is needed for him to bring the ransom to me. And only when it is proved to be the right ransom will I release her to him.”
Except that then he’ll have no reason to free any of us. She spoke to Talaski. “No. I’m not worth it.”
But her wizardling didn’t even look at her. He kept his eye on Lord Fantail. “Touch her, and you’ll die.”
“And how will you manage that?”
Another person moved from the shadow: Jesland, fitting his arrow to his bow. Lord Fantail’s eyes widened at the sight, and then he grinned. “My loyal servant, returned at last. Kill the wretch.”
Princess felt as if a hand squeezed her throat.
“Don’t kill me!” Talaski screamed. “Kill him!”
Lord Fantail laughed. “I hold you in thrall by silver, soldier. Kill the gutter rat.”
Jesland drew his bow. The arrow wavered toward Talaski.
No, Princess mouthed, hoping it meant something to the Farlander.
“I am your Dajournae!” Talaski shouted back. But his face fell as he touched his unadorned head.
The coronet was gone, Princess realized. That was how he had come after her – somehow Talaski had given up the throne.
Jesland’s arrow shook, as if he were fighting with himself. At that, Jovibon laughed, hard and shrill. “I craft well, if I can make a Spiderblood question his devotion, don’t – awk!”
Jesland’s arrow now pinned Jovibon to the wall. The wizard, eyes wide in shock, lifted a shaking hand to touch it, then slumped in death. As he shook, the silver ring on Jesland’s wrist fell off with a clatter.
Lord Fantail turned white as sand. He stumbled backwards, then turned and ran up the stairs – but halfway up Jesland’s arrow, red with wizard and sea monster blood, tore through his back. The man pitched forward, then slid down the stairs on his own blood. He gasped, choked, then quieted.
Princess stared at the two corpses as the horror of the sight washed through her. When finally she looked at Jesland, he was calmly cleaning his arrow. “You – killed them.”
“I serve my Dajournae,” he said grimly. “They threatened him.”
“But I am no longer your Dajournae,” stated Talaski, who was now free of his bindings. “I’ll send you home to your true Dajournae: Rayden, husband to Daimar.”
Jesland held up his hand. “Rayden is the Dajournae of the Farlands, but I am no longer of the Farlands. You will always be my Dajournae, and I will always serve you.”
“I, I,” Talaski stopped and simply shook his head. He walked over to the key and picked it, then unlocked the cage. “Let’s go.”
“Where?”
Talaski looked back at the corpses. “Fantail-on-the-River will be safe now.”
“My rooms,” she said wistfully. “A proper bath, a proper bed, room to move and touch and...”
Talaski smiled at that, but asked, “Can we eat first?”
“What about the bodies?” Jesland grunted.
“Ask Azygous,” Talaksi said.
And only then did they notice that the wizard and his wailing bundle had vanished. Princess shuddered, hard. Everyone knew what wizards did with newborns.
***
28.6
***
The shattered remains of the mountain surrounded Mara. When the dust settled, she could see only a field of boulders and broken trees ahead. Behind her was another swath of rock shards, but beyond that stood the untouched huts of her new people. A wall of rubble separated the village from its herds, but joyful shouts from the shepherds had assured everyone that their livelihood was still safe. She hugged her new father and her even newer husband, more frightened by the wizards than even the falling rock.
“The gods be praised!” shouted the headman of the village. “They have spared us!”
“Praise! Praise!” shouted the people back.
“We shall have a feast in their honor!” The headman continued. “We shall offer them the fatted calf and the fine ground bread! We will serve them wine and beer, and cakes dipped in honey! There will be dancing and feasting for days!”
“Praise! Praise!”
Mara hugged her family harder. She knew that the gods would appreciate the celebration, and might even attend, but that they had nothing to do with saving the village. That had been the doing of the fat wizard, the one who had been their jailor for the evil wizard. He had brought down the mountain at the command of the evil wizard, but at the same time had spared the people.
Why? Wizards did nothing out of the good of their hearts. They had neither good nor hearts.
The fat wizard had said that she would soon be a mother, confirming the heaviness she had felt in her belly. Did he intend to take the child? That would be worse, give away what she had carried, than to suffer death from a flood of rocks.
A child cried behind her. She turned from her husband expecting to see a lost and frightened toddler. Instead, it was the fat wizard, holding a small bundle. A very small bundle.
“What? What do you want?”
The wizard set the baby in her arms. “Care for him. His mother and father are dead.”
He looked newborn, but smaller than that. “For how long?”
“Until he brings you grief.” The wizard half-smiled at that. He touched his thumb to the infant’s head. “I name him Samos. For his mother’s sake, if you remember her, raise him to be kind – and perhaps I might never need return at all.”
If you remember her, Mara thought as the wizard faded away. But who? The woman, silent and sobbing, who shared their imprisonment? But surely she was closer to her time than this. Unless – hadn’t she claimed that there was more than one? That would explain his small size.
But if he were indeed the blood of the evil wizard, was there hope that he would grow up good? The wizard seemed to think so, if she raised him with kindness. If not, and with the power of his father in him, he could be a terror indeed. The wizard’s price for saving her village, then, was to see that this child would not become his father.
“What did he give you?” Mara’s new father asked.
“A child. He needs a wetnurse.”
“A son?” Mara’s husband exclaimed. He took the bundle from her hands, turned toward the village, and held the child high. “I have a son! Praise the gods!”
“Praise! Praise!” the villagers responded.
The gods have nothing to do with it, Mara thought sourly. It was wizard’s work. But who influences the wizards?
***
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