Robert Hughes - The Wizard in Waiting

“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.”

“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?”

“The Queen has summoned you, fool. Now.” Pelmen made the journey through the halls and into the throne room without speaking again.

There seemed little point in trying. These were not the relaxed guards who kept a casual watch from the castle’s towers. They were hard-faced warriors probably the pick of Joss* own crack brigade. They showed little inclination toward joviality.

When he was ushered into the throne room, he found it that much more difficult to smile. There, facing him, sat the Queen herself, along with Joss, Kherda, Jagd, and a host of other court lings whose names and offices all merged together in his mind. To Ligne’s right, on a small version of her own throne, sat Rosha, his jaws locked and his lips forming a tight frown. But the most distressing sight of all was to Ligne’s left. There stood Serphimera, bound in heavy chains, and standing beside her was a man Pelmen dimly remembered as Naquin, the High Priest of the old dragon faith a man who had long ago ordered his death. Pelmen assumed it was for that same purpose he’d been summoned this morning.

Yet Fallomar the fool found a smile and jerked three balls from his pocket. “What will it be, my Lady? Juggling?” He tossed the balls into the air and juggled them until, at a nod from Joss, a warrior knocked them bouncing across the room. Fallomar grinned. “No juggling?”

The Queen smiled back primly. “No juggling.”

There was a weighty silence. “Well?” FaHomar asked at last.

“Are you ready to perform your wonderful play, Fallomar?” the Queen asked.

“Certainly. Tonight you’ll witness a performance that—”

“Not tonight,” she interrupted. “Now.”

Pelmen glanced at Rosha. The young warrior gazed up at him, his eyes filled with despair.

“Now?”

“The rest of your troupe is all assembled, but they informed me that you were sick last night. They wondered whether you had recovered enough to perform this morning.” Ligne smiled a bright, wicked grin and husked, “Evidently, you are!”

“My Lady, the entertainment would be better if played tonight ”

“I have other entertainment scheduled for tonight, clown.” At this, Ligne looked down at Rosha, and stroked the back of the young man’s neck. To his credit, Rosha didn’t stiffen under the caress.

“Why, if the others are in place, certainly I am ready,” beamed Fallomar. He glanced casually at Serphimera’s face. The distress evident there disturbed him, but at least Ligne hadn’t ordered his immediate execution. Perhaps she still hadn’t recognized him. The play was two hours long there might yet be time for Bronwynn and Rosha, at least, to escape.