Robert Hughes - The Wizard in Waiting

“You peeked.” Ligne giggled. “Tell me. How does the beauty of your Serphimera compare to that of the most powerful woman in the world?”

The fleeing slavers found their way back to their point of entry by following a trail of slippery blood and groaning bodies. Each faced the same dilemma when he finally thrust his head through the crack into the sunshine there were no boats. Admon Faye had abandoned them. One by one, they all came to the same, inevitable decision. One by one, they dove into the river.

Many drowned. A few were hauled aboard passing boats. The strongest swimmers survived the river’s tortuous currents and made their way to shore. But no one died by the arrows of the guards above them. The soldiers of the Imperial House who hadn’t seen them arrive never saw them leave, either. As panic-stricken slavers dropped into 30*

the water far below them, the soldiers talked of gambling and traded jokes.

One slaver who had made it to the crack turned back to find his friend.

“Pinter?” Tibb said softly. The corridor was now as silent as a tomb.

It had become that for many. “Pinter?” he said again. He thought he heard a sobbing some yards away, and crawled over bodies toward the sound. “Pinter?” he asked again.

“I lost my hand.” Pinter sniffed; then he sobbed again.

Tibb felt helpless to answer. He struggled around to sit by his friend, leaning against the cool stone wall.

“It isn’t fair.” Pinter wept, and Tibb reached out to squeeze his friend’s thigh reassuringly.

“We’re alive,” he suggested meekly. He thought that was worth something, at least. He slipped an arm around Pinter^ shoulder and held onto the man for a few moments, then he cleared the lump from his throat and spoke. “I’ve been back to where we came in, so I know the way out. Well just sit here until you feel better. All day, if we need to.”

Pinter sniffed. “We’ll get left behind,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Just rest,” Tibb soothed. “Just rest.” He patted his friend’s shoulder until Pinter was calm again. “When you’re better, we’ll go.

I’ll help you.” Then he cleared his throat again, and added, “We’ll have to swim, though. It seems there was only the one boat and Admon Faye took it”

Pinter nodded, and his head lolled over on Tibb’s thick chest. “It isn’t fair. I only wanted to be someone, Tibb. To | be an outlaw.

With Admon Faye…”

“Shh, Pinter. You are. You are, lad.”

“I am?” Pinter asked weakly.

“Of course you are. Why, they’ll sing about us in the pubs back home about Pinter and Tibb, of the House of Faye. I can hear it now, as pretty Gerlywa draws the ale, Maknor the tenor is singing of you. He sings of Pinter the long, and his side-man Tibb, who dwelt in the lair of the twi-beast. He’s singing… you know what he’s singing, Pinter? He’s singing about how you… Pinter?” His friend did not respond. Tibb leaned his head down against Pinter’s chest, listening for the sounds of life. They were gone. He laid Pinter’s body carefully against the cave wall, wiped the wetness from his face with his sleeve, and murmured solemnly, “They’ll sing of you, lad. They will. And when they sing, they’ll sing of how you lost your hand for nothing and of the man who let you die.” Tibb crawled to his feet, and gritted his teeth against the tears. Then he gasped, and formed a fist before him in the darkness. “And as long as I keep this hand, and can hold a blade Admon Faye, beware of Tibb the twisted!”

He gave his friend a child’s kiss, then left him in this dark tunnel, and crawled away toward the crack and daylight.

A much-sobered acting troupe collapsed in the corridor beneath the infirmary and waited for Pelmen to give the all clear. They’d been through a battle and looked it, but the stains on their garments would quickly wash out. It would take years to clean the stains the carnage had left on their minds. It had turned into a morning of desperate madness, and they’d left at least one of their number behind. Jamnard was dead.

Pelmen still spoke to the strange ally that had won the battle for them. They ignored him, each fighting a battle inside with the inexplicable loss of a friend. All would be relieved to return from the inky nightmare to what was for them the real world the stage.

“Are they gone?” Pelmen whispered.

A few stragglers remain.

“Then we did it.” The Powershaper sighed in exhaustion.

Not quite, the Imperial House responded accusingly. “What do you mean?”

It appears you let one of these rodents slip past you!

CAR LAD NAPPED against the door. The long night had been very strange, and while he’d not been dragged off to battle, he had been temporarily assigned to the front gate. He was sleepy.

“Wake up!” Ligne screeched in his ear. At the same time she stamped on his toes, and between stamping and shrieking he did just that. “Open this door,” the perfumed beauty ordered, and he hastened to obey, sniffing her sultry aroma as she passed and good-naturedly cursing Ros has luck. “Hello, darling!”

Ligne sang, and she leaped onto Ros-has bed and crawled atop his chest.

The warrior grunted in shock as he awoke to her lips pressing onto his and her arms locking around his neck. He grabbed her and wrestled, rocking left and then right trying to dislodge her. Finally he broke her grip with a powerful heave and rolled off one side of the bed as she tumbled off the other side. Her head popped back up quickly, and she glared at him. “Why do you keep rejecting me?” she demanded.

“Why, we, t-t-t-tomorrow is our ”

“Yes. Our wedding. And you will be my lover, Rosha. I will no longer tolerate this simple-minded resistance.”

“B-but I’ve n-not ”

“You have. But you’ll not anymore.” She scrambled to her feet and circled the bed toward him, her eyes locked into his. “We are going to settle this right ”

Rosha got sick. He did it with an artistry that would have amazed even his teacher. And the ploy certainly succeeded. Ligne stopped where she was, then backed to the far side of the room. “You’re sick!” she shrilled, and Rosha nodded. “Why didn’t you tell me you were sick.”

“I tried.” Rosha shrugged.

“And I just took a bath,” the Queen moaned. Then she glared at him again. “I’m going back to bathe again. You go to the infirmary.”

“On my way,” the young warrior assented, and he hustled out the door.

He was halfway down the hall before Carlad woke up enough to pursue him.

A few minutes later he was begging the Lord of Herbs for some word of his friends. “I tell you, I don’t know where they are,” the harried chemist screeched. “I know they were all sick, that’s all, and that I had no medicine to give them. And then, when I made a call this morning on the little woman with the ample figure, she was gone.

They’re all gone. And if you want my opinion, we’re well rid of the nuisances,” he added nastily. He was most unhappy about being stood up.

Rosha nodded, postive that he knew where the troupe was now or at any rate, where they’d gone. He forced himself not to glance over at the low cot that hid the door into the tunnels below. Obviously, Yona Parmi had passed the word to gather, and the plan had succeeded in drawing the herbalist out of his infirmary long enough for them all to make entry. Rosha had certainly expected to be included in that summons. Had Pelmen and the others abandoned him to Ligne?

Rosha took deep breaths as Parmi had taught him to do, seeking to control his anxiety. Pelmen wouldn’t abandon him. Logically, there was no way they could have passed the word to him, since Ligne now posted a pair of guards outside his apartments on a permanent basis, in addition to assigning Carlad to dog his heels wherever he went in the castle. Carlad presently stood napping just outside the door of the infirmary.