The Royals

Chapter 19

Ginni did not leave that night or the next morning or the morning after that. Curiosity overruled the common sense her father had labored hard to teach her. Instead, she pushed the Sisters' luck beyond all prudent barriers and stayed to learn what secrets she could.

She dressed in the plain homespun they gave her. f*******n a mirror, she let her hands check for a missed button on the blouse or an off-kilter bow on the apron. This took no great effort on Ginni's part, as skilled as she was at disguises.

Minute by minute, she grew more confident and her explorations gradually took her farther and farther from the room she'd been assigned. Despite Revered Mother's warning in Ginni's dream-vision, no one commented as she took up a mop or dust-rag to excuse her wandering the Forty-nine's maze of huts. No one rifled her things while she was out or barred her exit. Food appeared on schedule.

Ginni accepted it as her due. She was simply more inventive than they were. The mages had grown stale in the towers.

Even so, she chose the early hours when the hallways were empty. The witches had yet to be called to the morning meal and most were in their rooms. Casual listening told her which doors might open onto private chambers and she avoided these.

On the third day after her arrival at the Tower, Ginni found a*****e-room stacked to the ceiling with wooden crates. Those at the bottom had crumbled from weight and rot. Other boxes still smelled of fresh pine. Her every instinct rang with knowing. She was meant to discover this closet.

Quickly, Ginni closed the door behind her. A flame sprouted in the darkness. Ginni smiled. Her talents were intact after all. Quietly, as quietly as Wanton Tom had trained her, she dug through the piles. Dusty scroll upon dusty scroll lay inside each crate. She smothered her sneezes and kept searching.

She stopped when she came across an old parchment annotated in her mother's own hand. Ginni's hand shook as she read through Roslin's evidence of the coming battles with the elfwitch. All the great mage's seeings had been ignored, yet they had shown themselves true and had come to pass nonetheless. Here were her predictions tossed away like so many old mouse droppings - or buried like so much unwanted news.

Ginni sucked in her breath, held it, then let it out, thinking what to do. The Seven Sisters might have inspired her quest, but Revered Mother would surely hold a different view.

Frenzied now, she burrowed into the piles. Each box was filled to the brim with dire warnings of this time, yet all of it was left to rot. She ran across a letter from the Revered Mother one generation back. Addressed to her successor, it said only what Ginni had already surmised.

Dear Caronn,

I hesitate long and hard over passing down our predecessor's policy. As I grow toward twilight, it strikes me as foolhardy in the extreme for the elder mages to lead the Forty-nine in blissful ignorance, doing no more than what we've always done and leaving knowledge of the locked room only to the next Revered Mother. To continue our traditions without imparting true understanding will likely be our doom.

Yet knowing all this I suddenly lack the strength to fight the others. Daughter of my heart, I pray the Seven will grant you the courage to take on in your earlier years what I delayed until too late.

The letter was unsigned but for the seal of a dragon, as incongruous a mark as Ginni could imagine a mage might use. Apparently, the woman's wish had gone unheeded. Caronn had been as short-sighted or power-mad as the others. Else Roslin would not have remained exiled from the Tower, nor would the elfwitch have continued to expand her reign never once to be denounced by the Forty-nine.

A voice broke into her thoughts. 'She's in there.' A door across the hall creaked open. 'I'll call Revered Mother Caronn.' She was caught. Her curiosity had damned her as surely as her mother's arrogance.

Notti slept in the elfwitch's tent that night. He knew it was a great honor but he couldn't dispel the uneasiness. He missed his smelly goats. It was too warm and too bright and too noisy.

She roused him before dawn and he was almost relieved that he needn't feign sleep any longer. You will stand witness to their treachery.'

'What treachery?' he asked, head still muddled from poor rest.

She smiled. You are generous and noble for with standing their assaults, but there is no need to protect Tabor and Theron.'

'Assaults?' he echoed stupidly.

She bowed low and loosely as if drunk. ""The elfqueen calls Sir Goatboy to her tent", said the One in a perfect imitation of Tabor.

""Indeed she does", copying Theron now. Her voice grew loud and imperious. ""Bring me the Goatboy!"" Again she bowed low and straightened.

"You dare ridicule the One here within range of her hearing?"

Notti listened aghast as his own words and voice rang through the tent.

""You dare ridicule the One," mimicked Alvaria as Tabor. ""Keep your admonishments for your goats. They won't save you from your fate.""

Alvaria shrugged and all notion of the boys was gone.

'You may dismiss their mistreatment of you if you wish,' she said, wholly herself once more. 'However, you must not deny it. They. Have. Scorned. Me."

It was true. Were it not, Alvaria's speaking the thought aloud would have made it so. Goatboy looked at the rich red carpetings on the floor, the walls, the ceiling. Everywhere was the color of blood.

She laughed in a boy's falsetto-just-turned-to-adult pitch. Notti would have sworn on his life that Theron stood in the tent with him.

Alvaria's face held Tabor's expression. ""And she had to get the guard to make him bow",' she said, falling back into character. ""Who looked more foolish then?""

She tsked sadly." "No manners in those goat-humans, no manners at all.""

""What do you suppose she wants with him?"

""Who knows? Probably enjoys watching a mighty prince begging to save his pitiful village."

""Or his own skin."

She lifted her chin and abruptly returned to herself. 'I seldom go to such trouble to make my point. See that my effort wasn't wasted.'

Goatboy nodded, afraid to speak.

'I warn you, Notti, just as I warned those two. My business is mine alone. What you see here is not to be discussed outside. With anyone.'

'Yes, mistress.'

'And Notti,' she continued. 'I will not be mocked, not by children nor grown men.

' A sentinel appeared before the goatboy could respond. 'The prince at your request, mistress.' She sprinkled incense in the brazier and lit another far more pungent burner at the entrance. "What are you waiting for?' she asked the guard. 'Don't leave him out there for the entire camp to see. Bring him in, bring him in.' 'The One will see you now,' he told the prince.

The prince reeked of human scent, which overpowered the delicate elven spices and clogged the air nearly to unbreathability.

The One showed no sign of discomfort as she motioned the man forward. 'Quickly. We haven't much time before the rest awaken.'

Notti rubbed his watering eyes to get a better look. He saw only the back of a bulky, dark-haired human dressed in armor.

'What about him?

' Notti caught a glimpse of the man's face as he glanced toward the boy then returned his attention to the One. Oddly, he reminded Notti of someone he knew. The goatboy had the vaguest impression he knew this man though he'd never met a human in his life.

"The boy is mine,' the elfwitch said, and therefore no concern of yours.'

'See that he doesn't become one.' This human was not easily cowed.

'Let's go on to important matters, prince,' she said in not quite deferential tones. "The potion must be prepared exactly. If not, it is likely to be deadly to the recipient.' She paused. 'As well as the one who composed it.'

'Yes, yes, I understand.' The man was too impatient, too dismissive. He did not understand at all, Goatboy thought.

'I want her alive."

'I've agreed to your terms already. Shall I bring the Shoreman as well?'

The elfwitch considered, looked down at the service berries in the bowl behind her. With her thumb she flattened several and licked the juice, toxic to most people in such concentration. 'Yes, do,' she said. 'I'm sure I can find a use for him.'

Goatboy's gut tightened at the human's chuckle. It reminded him of Tabor and Theron. And their fate.

'Do take care. I won't grant you or your men passage without them.'

'I know my business. I would not have survived this long otherwise. Good morn'.' The tent flap dropped behind him.

'Notti, tend to your beasts. I will call you when I need you.'

The elf boy followed the human into the frigid dawn.

A brisk wind and cold looks met him outside, but there was no sign the prince had ever been there.

Though the camp was beginning to stir with elves at their morning chores, it was unnaturally quiet as Goatboy trudged uphill to the meadow and his animals. He felt the people watching his passage, none willing to risk speaking words to displease the One. He braved their glares only once when he turned to look where her tent stood apart from the others. As stifling as it had been, it seemed a snug haven now.

Walther missed Kate more than he'd expected. Between her bluster and Ceeley's charm, he hadn't had much chance to brood on his own problems.

Despite Abadan's training, his visions still came when they willed. If anything, they seemed more unpredictable. Certainly they arrived more often. Abadan was delighted, but Walther couldn't share his enthusiasm. They gripped him by his vitals and shook him until he was exhausted. Sometimes he had more than one a day, when he'd barely had time to recover from the previous episode.

Thinking of Ceeley brought a sad smile. Once they'd thought to check among the refugees and word came back that she'd adopted the humans Lyda and Willam, he felt sure she was fine. Any woman capable of bringing so many of the dispossessed to The Cliffs could surely look after one little girl. He should have done better by her, though. He'd sworn it before her parents and all their village.

Worry took him back to her old play-room already con verted to a soldier's indoor training-ground. He walked across the polished floor, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness. Her toys were shoved into a jumbled pile in a corner to make space for sparring. She had placed them so carefully that it tore at his heart to see them so carelessly treated.

Walther began righting the furniture to stack it neatly until the girl's return. He picked up her toy sword and suddenly his body went rigid with fear. He forced his arm to raise the sword into view. Turning it over and over, he struggled to read something in the wood grain and met only his own unstable shortcomings.

He put down the sword, but his misgivings couldn't be set aside so easily. He took up the toy once more and resolved to keep it with him until he understood the feeling well enough to speak of it to Abadan.

He couldn't shake his anxiety the rest of the day or the next or the next. But on the fourth day, as he sat taking his noon meal with Abadan and Maarcus, his disquiet suddenly magnified to unreasoning terror. He yanked the wooden blade out of its makeshift scabbard and stared at it for long moments.

He saw his village destroyed as intimately as the others his visions had shown him. But he knew each of these victims. He knew their names, their birthdays, their occupations, their children.

It happened in a matter of moments just as Ceeley had said. He saw the elfwitch through the trees, just as Ceeley had described. The trolls ran rampant, setting everything afire until no wood could withstand the heat. They stood guard at the cages, which were placed at the only way out where his friends were forced to endure dreadful if short-lived t*****e. In his horrified fascination, he saw it all and registered it as he had not that bleak afternoon he'd returned home to a graveyard.

And he confronted, as he had not been ready to face in those dark hours, that there were not nearly enough dead. He didn't need to count the fallen; he joined the dwarves as they were force-marched past dying relatives. Grief-stricken and guilt-ridden for the few extra hours of life, none of them dared to hope they might meet a kinder end.

Joined by rope noosed at their necks, they trudged away from the flames engulfing their homes. Only the last dwarf in line could twist freely enough to look back and mourn what they'd lost.

Walther watched his family and friends fade into the greenery and felt his heart go with them.

But where was Ceeley? Had she hidden from the beginning? What was she doing away from her clan? Had someone known this was coming and protected her? How could anyone have foreseen it when not even the sight of the Shortdwarf clan had saved a single soul.

Walther tried to direct the vision to look for Ceeley on the docks where he'd later found her or through the trees to follow the hostages. Control was not his to yield or aim. The image rested squarely on the burning village until the homes collapsed in on themselves and every stick was but a charred cinder. When nothing moved but tendrils of smoke on the fetid wind, the vision let him go.

Tears ran down the dwarf's face when he finally rejoined his fellows.

Maarcus studied him strangely. Poor man, Walther thought. Bad enough he can't see the vision. Now he doesn't even understand what he's missing.

'Master Abadan, they took hostages. Why?'

The magician nodded his head. Yes, why. Walther, you need to redouble your efforts. We must find out where they've gone and exactly what she's done with them.'

Walther stared down at the untouched plate of food. 'It's useless. No matter what I seek to do, the sight has a will of its own. Sometimes I don't even think the visions are mine."

"Maybe they aren't yours."

'How can he own another man's vision?' Maarcus asked. 'Does not each see what the Sisters mean him to behold?'