The Dragon in the Sword (20 page)

She was foolish and because she was foolish she was exceptionally dangerous. I recognised that. I was afraid, as she had hoped I would be afraid, but not because of her threats. If she allied herself with Balarizaaf there was no anticipating the danger we faced in our search for the sword. And if she were thwarted, I thought, she was the kind who would willingly drag all down with her as she went. I preferred a more knowing foe.

“Well,” said von Bek from behind me. “We shall see what the Hearing brings. Perhaps the people will decide this issue.”

A look of secret calculation crossed Sharadim’s face.

“What have you done, madam?” cried the Land Prince Ottro. “Be careful, Prince Flamadin. I can see the meanest treachery in her eyes!”

At this Prince Pharl of the Heavy Palm uttered a peculiar snigger.

Then there came a hammering on the door of our chamber and I heard a voice cry from the other side: “My lady Empress! My lady. A message of the utmost urgency!”

Sharadim nodded and Perichost, Duke of Orrawh, stepped forward to draw back the bolt.

A frightened servant stood there, one hand to his face. “Oh, madam. Murder has been done!”

“Murder?” She displayed horrified surprise. “Murder, you say?”

“Aye, madam. The Master of the Rolls, his wife and two young pages. All cut down in the Silver Auditorium!”

Sharadim turned to me with a look of exultation in her huge blue eyes. “Well, sir, it seems that violence and terror accompany you wherever you go. And they visit us only when you—or the one you resemble—come amongst us!”

“You have killed him!” cried Ottro. He made a motion to his hip before he realised that he, like the rest of us, was without weapons. “You have killed that fine old man!”

“Well?” asked Sharadim of the servant. “Do you have any idea who was responsible for these crimes?”

“They say it was Federit Shaus and two others. That they obeyed the Land Prince Halmad of Ruradani.”

“What? The ones who came with the rest of this party?”

“That is what they say, madam.”

I was furious. “You planned this. Within an hour you have spilled further blood in pursuit of your appalling lie. Neither Shaus nor Halmad nor any of our companions was armed!”

“Tell us,” said Sharadim softly to the servant, “how did that good man and his wife come to die?”

“By the ceremonial blades kept in the Auditorium,” said the servant, darting bewildered glances at myself and my friends.

“We had no reason to kill Prince Albret,” bellowed Ottro in perplexed outrage. “You killed him to silence him. You killed him to provide yourself with a motive for destroying us. Let us continue with the Hearing. Let us speak our evidence!”

She spoke softly and triumphantly. “There’ll be no Hearing now. It is obvious to all that you came here on a mission of assassination, that you had no other motive.”

It was at this moment that von Bek sprang for Sharadim and seized her from behind, his arm across her windpipe.

“What good can that do?” cried Alisaard, confounded by all this villainy. “If we use violence, we resort to their methods. If we threaten her, we prove her case against us.”

Von Bek did not loosen his grip. “I assure you, Lady Alisaard, that I do not act thoughtlessly.” As Sharadim struggled, von Bek forced her to be still. “I have had enough experience of such plots to know that everything is already planned. We will not receive a fair hearing. We will be lucky if we are able to leave this room alive. As for leaving the palace alive, I think we have only the poorest of chances now.”

Her three lieutenants were moving uncertainly towards von Bek. I stepped between them and my friend. My head had grown muzzy. I had a series of images, of emotions, which I knew were not mine. They were doubtless coming from the captured princess. I saw the crystal wall again, the entrance to a cave. I heard a name which sounded like
Morandi Pag.
More fragments of words. Another that was complete—
Armiad
—then
Barganheem…

Ottro came up beside me, then Alisaard. The three made feeble motions in our direction but did not dare advance. Noticing Neterpino Sloch slip one hand beneath his surcoat, I moved suddenly forward and struck him hard on the jaw. He went down like a stunned pig. I bent over him as he moaned and drooled on the ground. I tore back his surcoat, revealing a knife some nine inches long set between the double row of buttons on his jerkin. I pulled the blade free.

Next I inspected the other two. They glared and objected, but did not resist. I found two more knives.

“What contemptible creatures you are!” I handed a knife to Ottro and another to von Bek. “Now, Sharadim, you’ll tell that poor servant who currently bangs on your door to fetch those of our friends that remain alive. Bring them here and leave them here.”

Almost choking, she did as I ordered. Von Bek carefully placed a knife point at her side and relaxed the tension on her throat.

A few minutes later the doors opened. In came Federit Shaus, looking dazed and frightened, followed by all the others who had accompanied us to Rhetalik.

“Now send a message to your guards to search in the Eastern Wing of the palace,” I said. Scarlet with fury, she issued the command.

To my companions I said, “You must return to the courtyard and have our horses saddled at once. Tell them you seek fleeing assassins. Then wait for us or, if you think your chances are better, head for wherever you think you’ll be safest. Try to convince your own people of Sharadim’s evil ambitions. On her instructions, Prince Albret and his wife were murdered, to silence him and create a crime for which she can blame us. Armies must be raised against her. Some of you must succeed. Prepare your people for what she plans. Resist her. Ride away from here at once, if you desire. We’ll follow in a short while.”

“Go,” said Prince Ottro in agreement. “He is right. There is no other way. I shall stay with them. Pray that at least some of us are successful.”

When they had disappeared, Prince Ottro looked quizzically at me. “But how long can we hold off all the forces of the Valadek? I say we should kill her now.”

She uttered a great groan and tried to break free again, but felt von Bek’s knife at her ribs and thought better of it.

“No,” said Alisaard. “We cannot resort to her methods. There is no justification for cold-blooded murder.”

“True,” I agreed. “By acting as they would act, we become what they are. And if we are what they are, then there is little point in resisting them!”

Ottro frowned. “A fine point, but I do not think we have time for such niceties. We’ll be dead within the hour if we do not act soon.”

“There’s nothing for it,” I said. “We must use her as our hostage. We have no other choice.”

Sharadim moved her body against von Bek’s, trying to draw back from the knife. “You would do best to kill me now,” she said fiercely. “For if you do not, I will hound you through the Six Realms, and when I find you I shall…” Whereupon she uttered a series of intentions which chilled my blood, made Alisaard look as if she were about to vomit and turned Prince Ottro white as a Ghost Woman’s armour. Only von Bek seemed unmoved. He had, after all, witnessed much of what she threatened, as an inmate of Hitler’s camps.

I made a decision. I drew a deep breath. “Very well,” I said, “we shall probably kill you, Princess Sharadim. Perhaps it is the only way to ensure that Chaos shall not conquer the Six Realms. And I think we can kill you as imaginatively as you would dispense with us.”

She looked hard at me, wondering if I spoke the truth. I laughed in her face. “Oh, madam,” I said, “you have no idea what blood is already on my hands. You cannot possibly begin to guess what horror I have looked upon.” And I let her find my mind. I let her know something of my memories, my eternal battles, my agonies, of the time when, as Erekosë, I had led Eldren armies in the utter destruction of the human race.

And Sharadim screamed. She began to collapse.

“She has fainted,” said von Bek in bewilderment.

“Now we can leave,” I said.

5

S
PEED AND DESPERATION
were our only allies. We left Sharadim’s henchmen bound and gagged in a large chest. We took the insensible princess with us. I held her in my arms as I might hold a loved one. Every time we came upon a guard we would call out that she was sick and that we were hurrying her to the hospital wing of the palace. And very soon we were back in the courtyard, running for our horses.

Sharadim was now bundled into a cloak and slung over Prince Ottro’s saddle. We had crossed the bridge and were galloping through the town within minutes. Still there was no pursuit. Doubtless they were still shocked by the murder of the Master of the Rolls and it had not yet registered that their princess had been kidnapped.

Through the town, and now she was waking. I heard her muffled protests. We ignored them.

And then at last we were on the open road again and heading for where we had hidden our boat. We looked back all the time, but none came after us. Von Bek grinned, “I had thought us as good as dead. There is something to be said for experience!”

“And quick thinking to make use of it,” I pointed out. I, too, was surprised that we had managed to get away before a hue and cry was raised. Apart from the murder of Prince Albret, the other factor in our favour was that the entire palace had been geared for a peaceful celebration. Most ordinary guards were on ceremonial duty. Many strangers were coming and going all the time. By now they would have found Neterpino Sloch, Duke Perichost and Prince Pharl and would be attempting to discover what had happened to Princess Sharadim. These people seemed to have no sophisticated methods of long-distance signaling. If we could reach the boat in time, we had every chance now of getting completely clear of Valadeka.

“But what of our captive?” said Prince Ottro. “How will we dispose of her? Take her with us?”

“It would prove an unwelcome encumbrance,” I said.

“Then I suppose we shall have to kill her,” said Ottro, “if she is of no use to us. And if we are to save this realm from Chaos.”

Alisaard murmured an objection. I said nothing. I knew that Sharadim was now awake again and could hear our conversation. I knew, too, that I had frightened her sufficiently—if momentarily—to make a little further use of her.

Two hours later we had released our horses into a field and were climbing down the cliffs to where we had left our boat. Sharadim was over von Bek’s shoulder. Ottro led the way. Eventually we stood on the shingle. The sky was grey now and the whole beach seemed dead. Even the ocean had a lifeless quality to it.

“We could take the body with us,” Ottro argued, “and dump it in the sea. That would be the end of her for ever. The nobles would pick up the pieces soon enough.”

“Or would they seek revenge on my murderers, I wonder?” She was on her feet, shaking out her lovely golden hair. Her eyes were blue flints. “You could bring our realm to civil war, Prince Ottro. Would that be what you want? I promise unity.”

He turned away from her, untying cords from the mast and settling it in the centre of the boat.

“Why did you not go yourself to Barganheem and try to take the sword?” I asked her. I was bluffing. I was using the few words I had found in her mind.

“You know as well as I why that would be folly,” she said. “I can enter Barganheem at the head of an army and take what I want.”

“Would not Morandi Pag object?”

“What if he did?”

“And Armiad?”

She drew her beautiful brows together in another glare. “That barbarian? That parvenu? He will do what he is told. If he had come to us a few hours before the Massing we could have settled this once and for all. But we had not known where you would be.”

“You sought me at the Massing?”

“Prince Pharl was there. He offered to buy you both, dead or alive, from Armiad. So he would have done, had not the Ghost Women found you first. Armiad is a poor ally, but so far he is the only one I have in the Maaschanheem.”

I realised now that her schemes already extended beyond her own realm. She was gathering accomplices everywhere she could. And Armiad, of course, in his hatred for me, was perfectly willing to be of service to her. Now I knew, too, that the Dragon Sword was probably in the Barganheem, that someone called Morandi Pag knew its exact location, or was its protector, and that Sharadim felt he was powerful enough for her to require an army to aid her against him.