Norton, Andre - Anthology (3 page)

 
          
 
Alfesian nodded to Perielle's escort when they
rode into the camp. He ignored Peri as he always had. They would all have
mounted and taken off, but Chith yowled. "Well, make it quick,” the
magician growled. So she was allowed to relieve herself and get a drink and a
handful of food before she was tossed back up on the pillion. She managed not
to shiver or to cry. Holding Chith helped.

 
          
 
The company traveled fast and quietly for
several days.

 
          
 
Being with Alfesian's group was an improvement
over being a prisoner in the palace. The magician gave no orders to the
contrary, so his "guest" was properly provided for. A woman was
assigned to attend her. Peri enjoyed being warm and well fed and treated
courteously—and not having to worry about being murdered in her sleep. She knew
that Alfesian, like her former captors, one day would decide that she was
unnecessary. But for now, and until they got to where they were going with such
stealth and speed, things were better.

 
          
 
During the long and silent rides. Peri decided
she had every right not to have recognized Chith as Alfesian's emissary. No cat
could be less like the one she remembered. She hoped she'd never need to see it
again. One evening at supper she asked about Alfesian's former familiar.
"He sauntered away from a sword thrust," someone said. "Guess he
thought he was invulnerable."

 
          
 
"But how . . ." she began.

 
          
 
"The new one? Wandered in one day acting
as if he's been here since B has followed A."

 
          
 
Peri didn't understand, for she could feel the
cat's active dislike of the magician. Couldn't Alfesian? If he did, didn't it
matter? She said nothing, but worried and watched. Alfesian's behavior showed
only his usual arrogance. Of course, so important a wizard as he would be
provided for. On this journey, it seemed he had no need for Chithit's services,
thus he took no notice of the cat. Chith stayed with Perielle day and night,
which delighted her. Being a sensible little girl, she avoided saying so or
showing it. She was adept at not calling attention to things she didn't want
noticed.

 
          
 
Late one evening, half-asleep and half
enjoying a beautiful sunset, Perielle roused when her rider halted his horse.
The company had paused in a rocky area of the high escarpment along which their
narrow path led. "Our destination," he said. He gestured out ahead.
At the foot of the cliff spread wide, wide sands bordering the wider sea. A
causeway stabbed across the glowing waters to a rocky island, seen in
silhouette, and more castle than rock. Alfesian's fief, Hope Denied. Peri
shuddered.

 
          
 
The last flickers of hope for her father's
life died. She knew he was not there. She had not let herself cry. She did not
intend to cry now. But the realization of her desperate and total aloneness in
the world crashed in on her and broke her barrier. Tears burst from her eyes
and poured down her cheeks. She sobbed uncontrollably, shaking as if with ague.

 
          
 
Alfesian noticed. In sudden, raging fury, he
ordered her to control herself. She cried harder, wailing in loss and fear and
dread. He changed from anger to menace. He would not be robbettof Krs triumph
by a blubbering idiot. She would serve his needs, and now, and never again
annoy anyone.

 
          
 
The nameless young man who had met and
attended Peri braved sure wrath by suggesting they wait until tomorrow, when
the child was not so tired, when her grieving had subsided. Alfesian waved a
hand negligently and the man fell back, unconscious or worse.

 
          
 
Peri could take no notice. Alfesian dragged
her off the pillion and dropped her to the ground. He glared down at her. She
saw him through tears, black-rainbow splintered and huge. He gestured, and
Peri's screams and sobs became soundless. She must listen, would she or not.
Victim of too-long-denied grief before, she became also a victim of terror.

 
          
 
"I am destined to rule," Alfesian
pronounced. "Your fool of a father presented me with the opportunity. Who
could have known that the Royal Power he disdained protected those ridiculous
Relics?" He actually growled. "Rule without them is impossible. When
a ruler dies, only his heir can succeed because the Relics will not pass to
anyone else." He laughed with a sound of breaking bones. "He refused
to name me heir and paid the price."

 
          
 
Peri's despair became unbearable. She would
have thrown herself at him, to use her teeth and nails, as she had nothing
else. He lifted one finger and she could not move.

 
          
 
"Listen, worthless girl-child! You wonder
why you still live. Because you have a duty to perform. I searched until I
found my answer. If the heir is too young, unfit, or unintentionally absent,
then an heiress will do." Again, he roared with a manic laughter from
which his followers drew away. "She may claim the Relics to rule herself
or to present them to the next ruler." He leaned over and shouted into
Perielle's face. "So you shall. To me!"

 
          
 
He stood and shook his robes free of dust.
"Then you will join the other members of your useless tribe. In
death."

 
          
 
His gloating passed. Icy rage and disgust
replaced it. "You have not long to wait." He glared at her as if she
were already dead, then drew himself up. Very softly, but with infinite menace,
he whispered, "But first, I Will Have The Relics!" In a flare of
hissing robes, he whirled and gestured at a huge rock. It disintegrated with an
explosion of thunderbolts, leaving an opening into the granite below. He strode
toward it, ordering, "Bring her. At once!" over his shoulder.

 
          
 
Too many terrible emotions devastated
Perielle. Her desperation broke the magician's casual bonds. She went from
grief and panic into flailing hysterics, thought gone, screams tearing her
throat. Exhaustion prevented her manic strength from freeing her. Strong,
obedient hands seized her, lifted, held, and carried her after the triumphant
wizard.

 
          
 
Below all the evidences of her complete
defeat, Perielle had only the inborn stubbornness of her heritage— and herself.
Over and over, she repeated, I won't. I won't. He can't make me.

 
          
 
He could. Her screaming made no sound. Her
flailing ceased. Her arms and hands moved at his direction, then her legs. Set
on her feet, she found herself running awkwardly, half-dragged by silent
guards.

 
          
 
They entered a sea-cave, water carved, dry now
at low tide. A ledge rose above the high tide mark. On it lay something Peri
struggled not to see.

 
          
 
She could not even shut her eyes! Closer and
closer she was forced toward the hideous corpse of her father. The crown
circled what remained of his head. He gripped the sword in rotting fingers. It
lay across his torso, half sunken into the disintegrating flesh. Her breath
caught in her throat. Her stomach heaved, the scene before her swam. Alfesian
ordered her to breathe and, perforce, she did.

 
          
 
The stench completed her undoing. She lost
consciousness and collapsed, no longer subject to his will.

 
          
 
Members of the Royal Family were blessed (or
spelled) with extreme good health. Thus Perielle's high fever, screaming
nightmares, hallucinations, continuous nausea, and only rare moments of
awareness caught everyone by surprise. Alfesian announced that her illness was
not contagious. COrttnraous trials at returning her to sense proved unavailing.

 
          
 
Alfesian ceased communicating. Entering his
presence filled everyone with unreasoned terror.

 
          
 
He transferred the party to his castle and had
Perielle installed in a small tower room. He knew she would not die. In a few
days, she would eat and drink a little. Emotional disruption this great was
known to initiate Royal Power, a magic outside of and unavailable to him. No
reference indicated that the onset would cause so great an illness, but then,
no source hinted that it could be housed in a female. When she was in the last
stages of recovery, he would triumph. He could not believe that an
eight-year-old girl would know what she had obtained. Assume she did? Training
in its use was essential. His magic would prevail. He waited with steeled
patience.

 
          
 
No fool, he realized that again to require her
to enter the sea-cave and confront the corpse would result in relapse. He
hastened the natural change death caused in the body of the late King Morion.
It became a desiccated, odorless mummy holding no identity other than that of
the Relics. Relics which no one but Perielle could remove from his keeping. The
Magician also continued his efforts to negate the Royal Power making the Relics
unavailable to him. With continued futility. His state of mind was not improved
by discovering that the familiar who had appeared so fortuitously had
disappeared equally unexpectedly. Idly, he had considered sacrificing the cat
in an effort to obtain the Relics.

 
          
 
Alfesian discovered that his personal presence
in Peri's room caused her slow improvement to stop. The Power served only
itself and rejected him. In cold fury, he assigned a series of guards to watch
her every second. The moment she could walk unaided, he was to be told. He used
the time to experiment with methods of circumventing her protection.
Unsuccessfully.

 
          
 
Within a week, the overwhelming shock that had
precipitated her collapse no longer devastated Peri. From somewhere, she
received the idea that the horrible vision of her father was only the first of
her torturous nightmares. Thus, real or not, she could dismiss it when she returned
to sense and reason. The Power possessed her and changed her, a little. What it
did not do was what she most wished: remove her responsibility, remove her
terror and dread, make her, suddenly, twenty years older. Alfesian was wrong in
believing that she would not know what had happened to her; right in knowing
that she must have training before she could use it.

 
          
 
Perielle's return to health took many weeks,
much of which time she did not remember. She told no one, even after she was
well, but she knew who had helped her. Although no one else ever saw Chithit
after his disappearance, she continued to act as if he were still with her.
Others believed this one more evidence of her illness. It was not. Sunup to
sundown, he remained at her side.

 
          
 
If she had told anyone, it would have been the
young man who had brought her to Alfesian's company. He had not been
permanently damaged by the magician's spleen, but was recovering from his
attempt to help her. He spent each night by her bedside, holding her hand,
talking to her. To others, he explained that he believed she responded a little
to his voice, and someone must keep her "here," remind her of her
place in this plane of existence. She knew he spoke the truth.

 
          
 
Yes, she might have told him as she began to
improve, for it was good to have someone care. But her invisible companion
warned against speaking, and she refrained. Still, he persisted.

 
          
 
His unawareness of her improvement corrected
Peri's assumption that he was in training to become a magician. Even before,
she had been able to tell when magic was being done. Such minimal ability
certainly would be expected in anyone preparing to work magic. She was
embarrassed to realize that she had never tested her assumption. What else had
she mistaken?

 
          
 
Who was he? Why was he so interested in her?
Why was he convinced that she could respond to him? Why would Alfesian allow
him to continue this? She listened, hoping she would hear something that could
give her a clue.

 
          
 
Eventually, he fan out of things to say. To
continue to keep alive the thread of relationship his intuition told him
existed he simply whispered. He no longer censored what he said. One of his
unconsidered mutterings gave her the hint. She seized upon it with shock. He
called her, "little sister."