James Galloway - The Tower of Sorcery

"Save your threats. You have a mission to perform. Begone."

And with a wave of his hand, the Doomwalker simply vanished from the triform symbol.

"Is this entirely wise, my Lord?" one of the Wizards asked curiously. "I bow to your superior skill and intellect, but your logic escapes me. If you anger him enough, Jegojah will break free of our control."

"It is simple, adept," he replied. "The Were-cat cannot be stable, not after the way he went insane in Suld. We will attack him, and attack him, and attack him. We will kill everyone close to him, and then we will keep coming after him until he goes mad. We will drive him mad, and when he is mad, he will no longer be a threat. I have already sent men to Dala Yar Arak, and more groups wait at every possible crossroads and port. We will make the Were-cat destroy himself. Jegojah will be a part of that."

"But after what happened in Suld-" the Wizard said, cutting himself off. That had been a tremendous setback to them. All of their operations in Sulasia were now compromised, as were many in Tykarthia, Daltochan, and Shace. Three hundred years of careful planning and work had been destroyed, and they had lost a good many good people in the destruction of their complex. "Great Lord, the Were-cat is much too deadly for a man to easily kill."

"They don't have to kill him, Marek," Kravon explained. "They just have to keep pushing him. They've been ordred to hire every thug and cutpurse they can find to go after the Were-cat, so sheer force of numbers will eventually overwhelm him."

"But he'll kill them by the hundreds."

"That's exactly what I want him to do," Kravon said in a hollow voice. "The Were-cat was once human, and a young one at that. The reports I have on him don't make such activities good for his sanity. His mind can't rationalize such slaughter. Every man he kills will help us that much more. We'll throw men at him until he goes mad. No matter how many it takes."

"It seems a very dangerous plan."

"True, but sometimes dangerous plans are the best ones."

Jervis was in a strange mood.

He had never been boonswoggled before, and he wasn't quite sure how to take it.

Keritanima. Just the name made him want to laugh. What a ride she had given him! Oh, she was a clever one, she was. Clever and good . Jervis had never considered her to be anything more than an empty-headed brat, and now he knew that it had all been an act. An act that had misdirected an entire kingdom .

How had she done it? It would be impossible for her to keep something like that a secret! Certainly Miranda was in on it. If so, that explained a great deal of why Miranda was so enigmatically loyal to Keritanima. Binter and Sisska, Keritanima's bodyguards, also absolutely had to know. But they were Vendari. If she forced them to swear never to reveal her secret, they would take it with the to the grave. But outside of that small circle, who else had known the truth? If Keritanima did things right, not many. With Miranda to act as her front, to pretend to be the boss, she could easily and effectively run her operations from behind Miranda's skirts with absolutely nobody suspecting a thing.

Miranda was good, but now it was apparent that Keritanima lay at the center of the web of intrigue that had always been credited to her serious, cute little maid. She had played them all like lutes, and after looking back through the torrid past within the Palace, everything began to fit into place more and more. Yes, Keritanima had indeed been at the heart of things. And she had managed to keep herself hidden, keep her secret safe, even while absolutely surrounded by hostile agents and enemy spies. That was truly remarkable.

But why? That was the part that he couldn't quite figure out. Or at least he hadn't been able to before the letter arrived. She had no real reason to pretend to be an egocentric witch, yet she maintained the illusion of incompetence, even when it put her life at risk. But the letter explained everything. It made all of her activities come together into a grand plan with a single goal. And when he looked at that plan, at her actions, he was astounded. She had orchestrated a huge, massive, complex multi-layered plan to confuse her enemies, mislead them, eliminate those too dangerous, raise up incompetents that would help create an atmosphere of chaos, trick others into doing what she wanted them to do, and then separate herself from her father. And it was all done so she could run away , with an excellent chance of succeeding, and leaving nobody behind in Wikuna that would care. She had maneuvered the entire nobility of Wikuna just so she could turn and flee from her responsibilities.

And he had to admit that she had done a very thorough job of it. She was gone. She was nowhere in Suld. After banding together her Marines and the Knights and attacking the Cathedral of Karas, she had simply vanished. He had been totally at a loss, and then the letter arrived.

It was from her Highness, and it was terse, short, and to the point. It proved that Keritanima was indeed good, but it also proved she was a rash youth. It was a mistake. Yet something in her had forced her to carry out with it, even though she knew it was a mistake.

It was why he was standing in the small, windowless room that held nothing but a magical glowglobe illuminating the room and a large mirror resting on a brass stand. It had been enchanted by the priests of Kikalli, the Wavemistress, patron goddess of the Wikuni, so that he could see and hear whoever looked into the mirror's counterpart. That mirror was in the Royal study in Wikuna, and Jervis was waiting for his Majesty, Damon Eram, to arrive so he could personally deliver his report.

Damon Eram was going to explode. Jervis could see that already. But what Jervis wasn't sure about was what he would do about it. Damon Eram's feelings for Keritanima were well known in Wikuna. He despised her, felt she was weak and unfit to be queen, and Jervis suspected that the ruthless monarch had tried to put an end to her more than once. Jervis didn't like Damon Eram, but he was king, and Jervis was duty-bound to serve.

He appeared in the other mirror, dressed in a white silk shirt and riding pants. Damon Eram was a lion-Wikuni, a large and imposing and intimidating figure that radiated power and authority like a fire radiated heat. His mane was carefully combed and tended, his left lion-ear was pierced and holding a gold loop, and his more-human face stared at Jervis with a cold annoyance plain on it. Hot gold eyes stared at Jervis for a moment, and Jervis bowed smoothly in front of the mirror. "What is it, Jervis?" he asked. "Make it fast, I'm busy."

"I bring news to you, your Majesty," Jervis said calmly. "It's rather bad."

"What happened?"

"Well, to tell the truth, we're still not entirely sure," he said. "But the short of it is that the Princess has turned up missing."

"Is that all? Well, it's not the first time she's run away, Jervis. No doubt some Sorcerer didn't bow deep enough, and she went into a snit. Just send some men out and find her."

"I'm afraid it goes a bit farther than that this time, your Majesty," Jervis said. "This morning, Keritanima rounded up her Marines, and somehow convinced the Knights and some katzh-dashi to aid her. She led them into the city, and used them to assault the Cathedral of Karas."

"She did what ?" he said in a strangled tone.

"Oh, that's not the half of it, Majesty," Jervis told him. "It turns out that a friend of hers was being held in a secret underground complex under the church, a complex that nobody knew about. The attack was to recover him."

"I can't believe this! Erick is going to be screaming for reparations!"

"Actually, Erick really had no idea what was going on," Jervis said. "Things are very tense here right now, and they go very deep. Your daughter has managed to destabilize the political structure of the entire city, possibly the entire kingdom."