Gail Martin - The summoner

Arontala regarded him unemotionally, his chalky complexion almost glowing in the firelight. "It is still too early in the game to know," he responded, shrugging away from the hearth. "You hold the throne. Your coffers have never been more full. And whatever the people may think of your methods, they now fear the vayash moru even more than they fear their king." He smiled. "We have given them a common enemy, and eliminated my rivals, all for the good of Margolan. Quite ingenious, don't you think?"

Jared wheeled on the slender mage and made a drunken roundhouse punch. He would have missed a mortal man by a fair distance, but the vayash moru traveled across the room before the punch was completed, and watched the king stagger. "Temper, Jared," Arontala clucked. "I shouldn't like to have to remind you about the terms of our partnership," he said smoothly, circling the enraged king just out of reach. "But if I must, I will… how shall I say it?… 'nip' the behavior in the bud?" he smiled, his teeth the grimace of a predator.

With a howl of rage, Jared lunged at the mage, only to fall flat on the chamber floor while Arontala affected a bored pose against the opposite wall. "Really, Jared. This is pointless. What do you propose if you got your hands on me, hmm? Are you going to kill me?" he taunted. "You're too late. Someone did that for you a long time ago. And you're forgetting something quite important."

"What is that?" Jared snarled, having unsteadily regained his feet to glower impotently at the smug mage.

"Before too many more months, the Hawthorn Moon will come," Arontala replied. "When it does, nothing else will matter. I've bound the spirits of the mages we've killed, along with Kait and Serae and more than a few of the palace ghosts, in the Orb as an offering," he explained in a self-congratulatory voice. "As a meal when the Obsidian King awakes from his slumber. I will hold the power of rebirth over the greatest mage that ever lived," he went on, "and you," he added with a hint of acid in his voice, "you hold power over me. We both get what we want, isn't that true, milord?"

"Get out!" Jared shouted, trembling with a drunken combination of rage and fear. "Don't come back until you've something to show for it. Bring me the body of Bava K'aa, or the head of my brother, or that Isencroft trollop in chains. I will not be mocked!" he bellowed, hurling a pitcher at the mage, who moved aside faster than the mortal eye could follow, and watched with a trace of disapproval as the pitcher's contents dripped down the stone wall.

"As you wish, Your Majesty," Arontala replied, completely unflustered. In the blink of an eye, he stood by the chamber door. "And I'll have someone sent to clean that up," he said as the door shut behind him against another shouted oath, and a piece of crockery slammed against the heavy wood.

Jared, out of breath and hoarse with shouting, leaned on his thighs and stared after the mage. Somewhere, somehow, he thought, this entire thing had gone drastically out of hand. And come the Hawthorn Moon, it was likely to get worse.

MARTRIS DRAYKE AWOKE-and regretted it. His head pounded and every muscle in his body protested. Resolutely, he opened his eyes to find himself staring at a strange ceiling. With even more effort, he managed to sit up, then grimaced and shut his eyes again as the scene swam and his head throbbed.

"Welcome back," Alyzza rasped from nearby, pressing a cup of steaming tea into his hands and helping to hold it to his lips. For a moment, he focused on nothing except the smell of the hot liquid, feeling it burn its way down his throat. Then he opened his eyes once more to find himself the center of attention of the small group gathered in an unremarkable tavern room. Vahanian sat in a chair near the fire, his sword nearby, looking not much better than Tris felt. Berry was sitting on the table, her legs crossed under her, playing an animated game of tarle with Carina while Carroway looked on in amusement.

"Where are we?" Tris asked, his voice sounding strange as it croaked from his dry throat. He drew another draught from the cup Alyzza offered, then refused to lay back down, although Alyzza had to prop him up with pillows to keep him from swaying.

"You're just across the river from Principality," Vahanian replied. "A little north of the forest and a little east of where we left the slavers. A few days from the Dhasson Pass." He paused. "Gabriel brought us here. And he warned us again that there's a spell on the Dhasson border, so if you try to cross it will call every one of those magicked beasts. Now you're supposed to go to the Library at Westmarch and then on to Principality City-and the rest of us are along for the ride."

Bits and pieces of the flight from the slavers returned to Tris's memory, the thrill of his power as it filled him, and the terror as the angry spirits worked their long-awaited revenge on the slavers. Beyond that, Tris remembered nothing. "You'll have to fill me in," he said, chagrined. "I don't remember anything after the ghosts in the forest left us."

"Not much to tell," Vahanian replied. "Gabriel found us in the forest and brought us here-he seems to have an arrangement with the innkeeper to cover anything we need. You've been sleeping for the last two days.

Can't say I objected to the chance to rest, myself. Carina's earned a little travel money healing some poor unfortunate, Carroway's been playing for coins in the common room, and we've all been getting the crap beat out of us at tarle by Berry," he summarized, and the girl grinned her satisfaction.

"What about the other captives?" Tris managed, sipping at his tea.

"We've seen nothing ourselves," Carroway said soberly. "Gabriel told us that they all escaped. They weren't among the dead in the glade, although how they fared if they fled into the woods, I don't know."

Tris nodded. "I made a bargain… with the spirits," he said, quietly. "Their vengeance in exchange for our lives-all of the captives. I hope they… kept their part," he rasped, finishing the brew and returning the cup to Alyzza, who skittered off to fetch another cup from the kettle that boiled next to the fire.

"Take it," she pressed. "You worked yourself past reason back there. More than one mage has drained himself to death by pushing too far," she chastised. "Now you feel why even strong mages must rest after such a working," she cackled. Tris glimpsed a new respect in her eyes, and the realization frightened him. Sweet Chenne, he thought what did I do back there? And if I couldn't control it, how will I ever face Arontala? The implications of that last question were entirely too large just now, and so he focused resolutely on the steaming cup in his hands.

"How is everyone?" Tris asked, glancing around at the group.

Vahanian shrugged. "I've been worse," the fighter replied. "Didn't take any new damage, so I'm ready whenever you want to move on."

Tris looked from one face to the other, receiving a nod or a shrug that indicated readiness. He remembered nothing clearly after he had summoned the spirits back at the glade. He recalled the flash of a slaver's knife, Vahanian's shout and then the howl of the spirits, turned loose to work their vengeance. The rush of the revenants' emotions-overwhelming sadness, longing and rage. There was terror, too, Tris remembered, his own terror as the winds of vengeance swept around him, utterly out of control. He could still hear the screams of the slavers and smell the tang of blood, and the shame of having called down that horror warred in his soul with the relief that they were free.

They know I called the spirits, Tris realized as he looked at his companions' faces. And that I lost control. Something was different in their eyes, just like old Alyzza. Perhaps not fear, but not quite comfort either, even in Carroway's face. As if, Tris thought, your familiar riding horse awoke one day to be a battle steed, or, perhaps, a demon mount, able to fly on moonlight and kill with its eyes. They aren't sure what I've become, Tris thought, uncomfortably. They don't know if it's what they bargained for. Perhaps for all of them, he thought, the stakes of the game were frighteningly real.