Michael Foster - She Who Has No Name

Samuel eyedher courtierssuspiciously, but they gave no hint as to the Paatin Queen’s intentions. ‘Why would you do all this?’ he asked her. ‘You have already won. Why give up your victory?’

‘As I have said, Samuel, I have lost the will for vengeance. What point is there to continue onin the face ofall this bloodshed? I know you are powerful, more powerful than even I could have believed, for who else could destroy an army of my wizards and bring rain and snow to the desert. I have no wish to anger you further. Only more blood would be spilt and what good would it accomplish? I know I am not as noble a woman as I purport to be, but neither am I the monster you imagine. Come, I have prepared a treaty for you totake backto your people, as proof of my decision. Sit, sign it and I will send you home. My war is over.’

Samuel turned to the Emperor questioningly. ‘He would not sign it,’ Alahativa stated. ‘For whatever reason, he does not want his presence known to his people. You can make your mark in his stead. I’m sure your people will accept it, being the Saviour that you are.’

‘Is it true?’ Samuel asked and,with a nod from the Queen,the sword was moved ever so slightly from the Emperor’s throat.

‘I don’t know if her motivations are true, Samuel, but I would not sign it, as she said. Do so if you wish. I don’t know what value it holds, except to please the bureaucrats of Cintar. They do enjoy such things and it would do well to allay their fears of further invasion.’

‘Come,’ the Paatin Queen implored him and Samuel took three tentative steps up to the table and stood beside her.

A letter and a writing set were neatly laid out opposite her. Still, Samuel eyed the woman suspiciously. He kept his shields in place and his power at the ready.

‘Read it,’ she said. ‘They are merely words, but you will find no more powerful symbol of my sincerity.’

He stepped around to the other side of the table, keeping one eye on the Paatin Queen as he went, with his spells burning with readiness. She only turned and put her legs under the table, resting her hands gently upon the tabletop.

He did not sit as requested, but leaned over the chair to read. The note seemed genuine. Another glance to the Emperor had the man shrugging his shoulders. The Koian woman stood emotionlessly, eyes still to the floor, and Canyon was looking on with unrestrained expectation.

‘I will also give you something of a parting gift, Samuel. I know you want it, and perhaps it can serve to remind you of the tenderness we once shared.’ And with that, almost beyond belief, she wriggled her ring from her finger and set it down gently upon the table. ‘Here, take it. It is yours. Take whatever power it can give you and enjoy whatever happiness it may bring,’ and she slid it across to the middle of the table.

Samuel’s pulse raced and he had to hold himself from snatching the thing up. He weighed up the situation, for it seemed remarkable that his total loss had somehow become a victory.

He leaned forward expectantly and placed his finger on the second Argum Stone. He felt its cold surface throbbing with power against his skin and,at the same time,he noted a smile teetering on the edge of Alahativa’s lips. He did not trust her, but it was too late for her to change her mind. It really was the second relic beneath his finger and victory was now his. She was powerless and he now had everything.

At that thought, something brilliant flashed through the air between him and the ring and, with a mechanical clang, a long arm of steel slammed into place beside the table. Samuel staggered back, disoriented and in shock as he was suddenly cut off from his magic. There was a gasp from the Emperor and a shrill cry from the Koian woman, but,as Samuel looked towards them dumbly, Canyon seemed quite satisfied.

Looking back to the table, Alahativa had already snatched back her own magical ring and had slipped it back upon her finger. She was now prying a matching relic from a severed hand that lay limply upon the table, spilling blood from its elbow across the polished surface. A long,sharpened blade, slick with blood, lay exposed beside the table, sticking out from the wood where it had come to rest. A dark recess ran across the middle of the tabletop and it seemed it was from this that the device had exploded. Seeing the blade and the blood and the arm, Samuel slowly managed to put the meaning of the scene together, as his mind fumbled to make sense of things. He had been distracted in that final instant as the Queen had given him her ring, and his magic had waned enough for the blade to do its work. The Queen had judged him well.

Samuel staggered again and grabbed hold of the nearby chair, still trying to convince himself that the arm on the table belonged to him. He struggled to pick the thing up, then he realised that all he was achieving was waving around the stump of his right arm and spraying more blood.

‘How could you?’ the Emperor cried out, struggling against the guards that held him tight.

‘Take him,’ the Paatin Queen called and a team of her mengrabbedSamuel with rough hands.

Samuel was still looking about dumbly, when a white-hot spray of wild magic spat out and turned the men around him to ashes with a screaming flash. The Koian woman was free, her own guards erased from existence.

‘You cannot do this!’ she screamed,and again she lashed out, throwing her crudely cast spells blindly across the room and a wizard and more guards vanished with a hellish shriek. ‘Run! Run, you idiot!’ she called to Samuel and he lurched intoactionand began staggering down the stairs.

The Emperor and Canyon flailed to be away from the woman beside them as her spells shot out in all directions, blasting stone and chair and curtain, evaporating Paatin left and right as they tried to evade her wrath.

‘Kill him! Kill him!’ Canyon blurted out, pointing to Samuel. ‘Don’t let him get away!’

No sooner had he bellowed the words than the Koian woman had spun and locked her wild eyes upon him. ‘It was you!’ she said. ‘You told her everything!’ Untamed magic still poured from her in blazing, flailing tentacles, keeping the guards fleeing and the Paatin Queen ducked out of sight behind the table and a veil of protective spells. It seemed only luck that Samuel and the Emperor had not been blasted bythe Koian woman’suntempered fury.

Canyon realised his mistake and horror drained his face white. ‘No. No, I did nothing.’ he stammered, backing away, but the raging woman put her palms to his face and he screamed like a girl. ‘Please! Don’t!’

‘Why couldn’t you let me live! Why did you do this to me!’ she cried, and Canyon vanished with a rising wail. His fleshwas incineratedand his clothes fell empty to the floor. In his place was a knot of life energy that only Samuel could see and she called it into herself, pulling it in with her will. Her hair whipped about her as she swallowed his essence and the intensity of her magic doubled, surging about her like a storm of sparks and shattered embers. She turned back to Samuel with rage still in her eyes, but when she saw him still standing there,as if struckdumb, she shoutedindisbelief.

‘Go!’ she implored him.

Remembering himself, Samuel wobbled to be away, but fell on the final step, slipping in his own blood, for his vital fluidhad been pouringdown his legs all the while. Instinctively, he tried to take the fall with both hands, but with one entirely gone, he crashed roughly onto the floor.

Alahativa’s magic then bloomed behind him and the Koian woman’s magic ceased. Rough hands took hold of him andhauledhim back to his feet. As they dragged him away, he could see that the Koian woman was lying still on the floor and the Paatin Queen was standing over her, surrounded by a blaze of her own intense power.