Robert Hughes - The Wizard in Waiting

Of course, he thought, one was plenty for him. “Bronwynn!” he shouted. “Someone get Bronwynn up here to me!”

After a minute of chaotic discussion, the news was finally passed back to him:

“The Princess is no longer with us.”

“So you failed to apprehend him again?” Ligne asked as she soaped her beautiful arm with perfumed bubbles.

“I cut his raiding party to half its size, my Lady. Admon Faye wasn’t with them.”

“Joss, I’m very unhappy with this. I’m to be married tomorrow noon had you heard?”

“The Prime Minister informed me.”

“And I want the mood to be lavish, cheery, and romantic. I won’t be pleased if my party is interrupted by attacks on this castle. Soap my back,” she ordered a maid, who swiftly obeyed.

Joss ignored the Queen’s bathing. It pleased the woman’s vanity to summon him here and berate him from her scented tub. But her vanity was no greater than that of the King who preceded her, nor of Talith’s father, who had ruled when Joss was but a page. The General expected quirky behavior from his monarchs. He tried not to let it interfere with security.

“I apologize, my Lady, that I’ve not as yet caught the slaver. I do know that he’s in the city, and my forces are combing the streets and sewers, searching for him.”

“You told me yesterday that my borders were secure,” she snapped.

“Yesterday, my Lady, they were,” Joss replied patiently.

“Yet today?”

“Today I am securing them.”

A slave girl entered the bath chamber, bowing as she came, obviously uneasy with her role as the bearer of bad news. “My Lady, Lord Joss there’s been another report of an attack west of the city ”

Joss was across the tiled floor and gone before Ligne could say another word. “I didn’t dismiss you!” she shouted after him, then she whirled around to face the timid slave, sloshing water across the tiles. “You!”

she ordered, pointing with a bar of soap. “Send in that strange character in the blue robe who arrived this morning, then go have yourself beaten for interrupting my bath!”

“Yes, my Lady,” the young slave mumbled, as she bowed herself backwards out of the presence of the queen.

The tiny troupe had taken up a new position and waited breathlessly for the slowly advancing column of slavers to reach them again. Pelmen listened intently as the Imperial House kept him posted on their approach.

Twenty yards from you now, but around several sharp turns.

“Can’t you do anything?” Pelmen asked.

“What?” Gerrig answered, puzzled. Pelmen laid a finger across the brawny man’s bearded lips to still him, as the House replied: Such as?

“I’m open to any suggestion.”

“Maybe we could ” the perplexed Gerrig began, but JOJ

Pelmen again covered his mouth. He jerked Pelmen’s hand away. “Why ask for suggestions if you ”

“Hush!” Pelmen ordered. “I’m talking to someone else.”

“Oh,” Gerrig replied. He shrugged elaborately and made a face at the darkness.

No suggestions come to mind.

“Well, friends,” Pelmen sighed, “perhaps we should quit doing what we’re not good at and try doing what we do well.” For the next few minutes he murmured quiet instructions.

“How did we get in front of this line?” Pinter asked Tibb tremulously.

He suddenly had serious doubts about being an outlaw.

“I just want to know how we get to the back of it again,” his comrade replied.

“Move ahead,” someone behind them called, and Pinter called back:

“Why don’t you? We’d be happy to let you…” But those behind them just pushed them forward, ever forward into the dark. They marched tentatively, stepping, stepping

“At them! At them now!” cried a voice from very nearby on their left, and another voice, that of a woman, shrilled from their right:

“I command you, Joss! Kill every last one of them!”

There was a blood-curdling screech from directly ahead, and the sound of metal-shod feet sprinting toward them.

“Back!” Pinter cried out in terror. “Tibb, go back!”

“Oww!” Tibb screamed, and Pinter heard his fellow clank to the ground.

“Are you hit? Are you hit?” Pinter yelled hysterically.

“Somebody just kicked me in the shins!”

“Somebody wha Oww!” Pinter hollered, as his own shins became targets.

“Bring up the reserves! Finish them off!” shouted the woman, and Tibb heard as someone far down the corridor relayed the message on.

“There are hundreds down here with us!” he gasped.

They could hear swords whizzing before their faces, and one whispered across Pinter’s hand. He swung that fist blindly at his attacker then stopped, puzzled, for somehow the sword it had held was gone. It took a moment for him to realize that he’d lost the hand as well. He screamed in shock. The passageway once again rang with the chaotic clamor of a rout.

Naquin hid his eyes from this woman who seemed intent on exposing her body to him. Nothing in his experience in the temple of the dragon had prepared him for this. Never had he seen a woman so brazen nor so beautiful.

“What’s the matter, my friend?” Ligne teased. “Haven’t you ever seen a woman before?”

“I… I come in the name of the Prophet ” Naquin began for the third time, and for the third time Ligne refused to allow him to get the words out.

“Don’t you want to look at me, holy man? Come on, show me your eyes.

Are they the same rich blue as your lovely robe?”

“Please, my Lady!” Naquin sighed. “I am unused to such treatment.

Since I left Lamath I’ve been tied and . threatened, lectured by a child and booted in the backside, trampled under horses’ hooves and chased by a hundred dogs. I ask only that you let me perform my task and return to my Prophet.”

“Ah yes. Your Prophet I’m curious about this Prophet of yours. What kind of man is he?”

“The Prophet? Why he’s the greatest of men! A careful leader, with a vision for our nation unequaled in the long history of Lamath! Through his programs of ”

“Enough of programs,” Ligne snapped. “You sound like my Prime Minister.” She slipped back into the water, covering herself with bubbles. Her eyes fixed intently on Na-quin’s face, she asked, “Do you know Pelmen?”

“Pelmen?” Naquin blurted, almost dropping his covering band. “Why would you ask such a thing?”

“Why, I thought he was the highly praised Prophet of Lamath.” Ligne smiled knowingly. “You mean he’s no longer your leader?”

“He never was!” Naquin barked. “The man’s nothing but an imposter, a power shaper who uses his guile to entrap and confuse others. We drove him from our land.”

Ligne had been smiling until she heard the word power-shaper. “You mean you believe this Pelmen can actually alter events by magic?”

“Of course not,” Naquin snapped. “He’s a trickster, that’s all.”

“Ah.” Ligne smiled. “Something of a fool, one might say?”

“Fool?” Naquin echoed uncertainly.

“You spoke of your task. What is it?”

“To find the Lady Serphimera, and retrieve her to La-math.”

“Retrieve her?” Ligne smiled. “Like a dog retrieves a bird?”

“That is my charge.”

Ligne raised a carefully sculpted eyebrow. “I’d wondered if Serphimera might be the cause of your coming. She wears a robe just like yours.”

“My Lady, unless she has recanted, she wears a habit of midnight mine is the color of noon. Do you know where she is?”

“I’d intended for her to join my wedding celebration tomorrow. Perhaps you’ll be willing to escort her?”

“You mean she’s here?” Naquin asked excitedly. He suddenly realized he’d dropped his hand. He clapped both hands over his eyes again and squeezed them tightly.