The Shadow Within (45 page)
His awareness caught on one of the servants standing in the inner circle, just in front of the first set of outer doors, now open to the terrace. He recognized the man as one who had earlier tried to serve him canapés he did not want, who had let his gaze flick up to meet Abramm’s in a startling display of audacity. Abramm had figured him for one of Channon’s armsmen in disguise. Suddenly he was not so sure. Holding no tray now, the servant’s gloved hands hung at his sides, half obscured by the sides of his tabard. Dark eyes watched Abramm a little too sharply. Another turn and another as round the floor they went, their days of practice paying off handsomely.
They were on the inner side of the circle when the music suddenly grated on his ears, and someone started playing a deep drum wretchedly off rhythm. His middle twinged and so, finally, did his wrist. He nearly panicked.
No! Not
now!
Protest did no good. The tingle became a rush of fire.
. . . and suddenly he was in the chamber again, the morwhol’s outline pulsing
over a pit alive with green tongues of fire. Before it stood a wild-haired giant of a
man robed in darkness, arms flung wide. A woman clad in translucent veils stood
on the level below him, teetering at the pit’s edge, her body silhouetted against the
green light. A mellow chanting accompanied the drumbeats, hypnotic and disturbing.
Then it all vanished, and he was back in the ballroom, missing a step in the sudden disorientation of the shift, but quickly regaining his rhythm. Madeleine stared up at him, white-faced, looking as disoriented as he felt, as if she had seen it, too. Her warning echoed through his mind.
“Eidon will not
suffer himself to be tempted by fools.”
I do not wish to be a fool, my Lord,
he thought.
My life is in your hands,
and I know that well. If I have overstepped, I pray you will be merciful. . . .
They turned again, past Gillard, the guards up in the loges—both standing by the railing now—and then the servant by the terrance door. Abramm caught only a quick, moving glimpse of the latter, a flash of white skin, dark eyes, and the turn of the dance put his back to the man. It was enough. Something piercingly familiar registered in Abramm’s brain, the set of the shoulders, the tension in the stance, the cock of the arm, some indefinable expression on the face—he never knew exactly how it worked, but suddenly the world slowed around him, and he felt the decision to attack.
He had only an instant to make his own decision, and then he was shoving Madeleine away as he wrapped his left arm in the cloak and flipped it up, continuing his turn to meet the coming blade with perfect timing, deflecting the pinwheeling sliver of steel moments before it would have buried itself in the side of his neck. At the same time his right hand closed on his sword hilt and the long blade sang through the air, parrying away the second dagger that had come spinning down from the balcony a heartbeat after the first attack was launched.
He continued the turn, aware of blank faces and wide eyes, most of the onlookers still not having registered what had happened, even as the second dagger now clanged to the floor. Madeleine stood off from him, fiercely scanning the crowd—
Then chaos broke loose, everyone crying out at once. He heard Channon bellowing orders, saw Simon throw himself forward out of the circle of onlookers, saw the servant-assailant already running through the open door he’d positioned at his back, a step ahead of the royal guards now leaping to stop him. A great thundering erupted from somewhere on the balcony and suddenly here was the drum again, loud and heart-shaking, pounding in his head as if it sought to part the bones of his skull. Simultaneously the spore in his wrist sent hot pain stabbing up his forearm. His middle cramped so violently he barely kept himself from doubling over. The tumult around him continued, vague and indifferent behind the darkness and the green fire and the pain.
But here was Madeleine, her face a tiny flower at the end of a long dark tube. She slid under his right arm, his fist still gripping the sword, her shoulder propping him up just as he was about to collapse. For a moment she stiffened, clinging to him as fiercely as he to her, and Light flowed into him, steadying him, pulling him out of the miasma of darkness and searing yellowgreen, easing the pain in his head, quieting the nausea. The vision passed. He drew a deep shuddering breath.
“What is that place?” she murmured. “Your chamber in Graymeer’s?”
He nodded.
It’s the spore,
he thought.
I didn’t expect it to hit this hard and fast. I’ve got
to do a purge now. . . .
Channon had come to stand beside him and was speaking to Lady Madeleine, though Abramm could not make out what they were saying.
He swayed, light-headed, clinging to consciousness as again the spore rippled through him and the green-lit chamber overlaid the ballroom. Again the warning to purge now came.
Just a little longer . . .
A pair of soldiers pressed through the crowd, gripping a man between them. Two more soldiers followed with another man.
“The one who struck from the loge is dead, my lord,” Ames reported. “His throat was cut by this one.” He prodded one of the two men with the tip of his sword.
Abramm drew a long, unsteady breath, blinking at the man Ames had indicated as he tried to regather his thoughts. Then—
that’s Michael Ives!
His gaze shifted to Gillard, full awareness returning in a flood. His brother smirked openly, believing they had nothing to tie him to this crime.
Steadier now, Abramm stepped free of Madeleine and sheathed his sword, then turned to Ives. “I hope you were not expecting to be delivered by your sponsor, Ives. He’ll watch your head roll and count it good riddance.”
Ives held his regard defiantly at first, then faltered. He had not expected to find himself in this position at all, Abramm realized. Caught and accused, perhaps, but with Abramm dead and Gillard on the throne again, he would have been pardoned. The fact that that wasn’t going to happen was just dawning on him. His dark eyes flicked to Gillard.
“We already have Ethan Laramor’s testimony regarding this plot on record,” Abramm said. “You would be the second witness of the truth.” He let that information sink in a moment, then murmured, “Is your loyalty so great that you are willing to take the blame for tonight’s actions yourself and let the true culprit go free? Because you must know that is what you are about to do.”
Ives traded gazes with Gillard for a long moment, then wilted, his face turning slack and gray as he took a small step back. Gillard’s smirk faded.
Ives turned to Abramm, opened his mouth to speak—
“The plague with that!” Gillard snarled. And he flung himself at the king, steel rasping in the silence. Only it was not one, but two blades that suddenly saw light as Abramm’s, redrawn, came up to meet his brother’s. Abramm turned Gillard’s thrust aside with hardly a thought, then flicked the point back and, as with his bedchamber assailant, capitalized on the total shock he’d produced in his opponent to disarm him. Gillard’s blade flew from a suddenly bleeding hand, clattered to the floor and slid into the feet of the onlookers as he staggered forward off balance. He stopped at the point of Abramm’s own blade, pressed against the base of his jaw. Profound silence dropped over the room. Even the assassination attempt had not provoked so great a shock as this layered concoction of unexpected events.
Slowly Gillard drew back, his eyes fixed blankly upon Abramm as he plainly struggled to understand—to accept—what had just happened. At his side, Channon stared, wide-eyed and slack jawed. A little farther down the line of onlookers, Uncle Simon looked as if he’d been struck a blow to the head.
And seeing them all, Abramm had a moment of supreme satisfaction, a sense of vindication unlike any he’d ever known. It was a moment he would savor for the rest of his life. But only a moment, swiftly lost.
A sudden ear-piercing howl ripped through the room, a monstrous gale blasting through the ballroom’s open doors, banging them violently against the wall, tearing free the curtains, knocking over arrangements and candlesticks and chairs, even entire tables. Wigs were torn loose, skirts hurled every which way, lamps extinguished.
As darkness descended, Abramm saw Gillard bolt past him for the open doorway, but before he could move to stop him, reality shifted back to the man in black, the girl, the flames—
And now another man. One with only half a face, whose long gray hair covered
only half his head. The chanting filled Abramm’s ears, harsh and savage,
pouring fury into his blood, turning his vision to scarlet around a tall blond man
with heart-stoppingly familiar features: his own. He saw himself standing at the
center of the crimson whirlwind, the force shrieking around him, tearing at hair
and beard, ripping them from his face, battering his body, until it lay broken and
crushed. The world spun away. His blood burned. His chest heaved. His own
voice sounded deep and feral in his ears. The girl screamed, not of fear but of
shared rage. Steel flashed in the darkness and she fell backward into the fires
.
Abramm wrenched himself free, gasping, trembling, on the verge of vomiting. His head felt as if it were about to split. The pain in his arm exploded, and he felt, far out on that distant headland, the arrival of a new creation. A creation of blood and shadow and hatred. A creation made for him.
Now!
said a voice behind the Light.
You must do it now!
Yes, my Lord
. And, as his legs buckled beneath him, he dove inward, riding the Light into a surging blue sea of spore.
Simon was still reeling from the shock of seeing Abramm effortlessly disarm his brother when the wind blasted into the ballroom and chaos erupted for a second time that night. He saw Abramm stagger and double over, as if something in the wind itself had felled him, saw him drop to his knees as Gillard bolted around him. Fighting the gale, the younger Kalladorne dashed for the nearest open doorway and disappeared into the night as Abramm collapsed upon the marble floor among his guards. At that point, Captain Channon broke free of his own paralysis, his barked orders sending armsmen racing off in pursuit of the crown prince, while he himself turned to the king. He had just reached Abramm’s side when the wind died.
A moment of relative silence ensued, broken only by the residual thunk, rattle, and clack of things still falling and coming to rest. Then the servants bustled into action, righting tables, relighting lamps and candles, picking up plates and flowers and various articles of clothing. The guests drew a deep collective breath and vainly attempted to regather their shattered poise and grooming. More royal guards raced out the doors, but Simon was already pressing his way through the crowd toward Abramm, who so far as he could tell had not yet risen. Concern twisted at his heart. He’d thought the boy had withstood the attacks upon him virtually unscathed. Apparently he was mistaken.
He found Captain Channon and Lady Madeleine kneeling beside the king’s unconscious form, blood spattering the pale marble at his side. As Simon squatted with the others, his eyes swept Abramm’s torso, searching for sign of the injury that had felled him. But the only wound he found was on the king’s left arm, likely the result of blocking that first dagger—
Memory flashed, of the dancing couple moving gracefully into the turn and coming suddenly apart, Lady Madeleine flying backward as Abramm whirled in a swirl of cloak to block the first blade and then that sudden as-if-by-magic appearance of his long sword sweeping through the air to block the second. Just recalling it raised anew in Simon the sense of having seen the miraculous.
But certainly there was nothing in it that should have left the boy unconscious.
“What’s happened?” he asked quietly.
Channon jerked around. His eyes widened and he seemed uncharacteristically flustered. “Uh . . . I’m, uh . . . not sure.” He stood and waved back the gathered onlookers. “Please, my lords, ladies . . . give him some room. And you two”—he motioned to the pair of guards nearest—“bring me some mantles for a stretcher.”
As the armsmen rushed to do his bidding, Simon arose also, his concern escalating. He could only think of one thing that could have laid the king out cold from what appeared to be a minor nick. “Has he been poisoned?”
Channon’s eyes widened even more. “Oh no, sir. Uh . . .”
“I think he’s simply fainted,” Madeleine offered, still kneeling at the king’s side. “He was feeling poorly earlier. Thought he might be coming down with the grippe.”
“Aye,” Channon agreed hastily. “That’s likely it.” He looked over the crowd. “Hurry with those mantles, gentlemen.”
Simon seized his arm, drawing him back. “Are you
sure
those blades weren’t poisoned?”
Channon looked wildly uncomfortable. “Not sure, my lord, but—”
“There are very few poisons,” said Lady Madeleine, close beside them now and speaking quietly, “that would have such an immediate effect.”
Simon frowned down at her, annoyed at her intrusion.
“As I said,” she went on, “he was feeling poorly anyway. I don’t think he’s eaten much today, and between that and this heat and all the clothing he’s wearing, well . . . I expect he’ll be all right shortly.”
“Yes, my lord. I’m sure he will be,” Channon said, shaking free of Simon’s grasp as the men arrived with the mantles. Simon watched them lift the unconscious king to the makeshift stretcher, not remotely reassured.
Channon sent a man for the royal physician, instructing him to meet them in the king’s apartments. Then he nodded to the guard at the other end of the cloak and together they lifted the king and started for the side door. The crowd swallowed them up. As they reached the door, a collective gasp arose from those nearest. Simon glimpsed Channon’s head as he moved through the doorway. The gathering erupted in chattering wonder, and rumors fled by him, tales of a halo of light enfolding the king as he was carried out.
