Daughter of Regals (13 page)

One flick of her wrist
and a gleam of metal stopped him. As his knees failed, the Wind seemed to take
hold of him and lower him gently to the basalt, blood spurting from his cut
throat.

In the air above them,
Scour’s Dragon appeared.

Leaping into existence,
the image pounded its wings and struggled for size as though it were already
hot upon the spoor of its prey. At first, it was too small to advance against
the buffeting Wind which Brodwick hurled from across the hall. But Brodwick’s
force was focused on me, not upon the Creature, and Scour did not need his lady’s
blandishments to impel him. Surely he understood as all in the hall did that he
could not afford to fall now, either to Thornden’s Mage or to me. Lying as if
he were as lifeless as Kodar, he put all his soul into his magery, and the
Dragon let out a blast of flame which defied the Wind halfway to the spot where
I cowered. The heat touched my sore cheek and was torn away. Laboring tremendously,
the Dragon began to beat forward in the teeth of the gale.

I could not move. My
limbs felt pinned and useless, as if my spine were broken. All Brodwick’s
exertion centered on me—and he was a master. I had known that this would
happen—that my enemies would attack me here in all their fury—but I had not
known that I would prove so weak. The simple effort to turn myself so that I
might crawl up the steps surpassed my strength. The blood running from my
knees appeared to carry my will away; the courage drained from me as from a
cracked cistern. The Dragon was lovely and terrible; even the Wind seemed as
beautiful as it was savage. I was no match for them. In all truth. I had no
reason to move.

Mage Ryzel could have
stilled both Wind and Dragon,. but he did not. In the end, he betrayed me.

I had commanded him not
to intervene.

And still I had not
entirely understood that the iron clashing which punctuated the shouts and
passion around me was the sound of swords.

Forcing my face into the
Wind, away from the Dragon, I saw Count Thornden and his men fighting for their
lives— and for Brodwick’s protection—against the guards of the manor and King
Thone’s courtiers.

An awkward melee was in
progress. Cudgeled by the gale. Thornden’s men and Thone’s and the rebels and
guards hacked at each other in confusion. The lord of Nabal’s party was large
and heavily armed, but was hampered by the necessity of defending the Mage; it
could not gain the advantage.

To my astonishment, I
beheld King Thone deliberately block Count Thornden’s path toward me. Thone’s
decorative blade could not withstand Thornden’s huge sword; but the lord of
Canna used his point so adeptly that Thornden was thwarted—prevented from
charging forward to assail me personally.

I have spoken with
King Thone.

Ryzel had not betrayed
me. He had persuaded Thone to this defense—for what hope would remain to Canna
now if Thornden were victorious? And the Mage had not stilled the rising magery
because I had commanded him to withhold.

Perhaps after all I
would be able to move. The life at issue was my own—but in the end it was not
mine alone. It was also the life of the realm. While I remained in my weakness,
blood was being shed; and that killing would give inevitable rise to the
warfare which I abhorred as a matter of birthright. Surely I could at least
move.

But when I had shifted
myself so that my hands and cut knees were under me against the force of the
Wind and the hammering approach of the Dragon, I understood that movement was
not enough. If I held true, I might perhaps gain the top of the marble base—but
beyond question I would be unable to stand erect in order to place my hands
upon the Stone.

This state is not
easily attained. It may be reached  one way, by the touch of Stone to one whose
very blood and flesh are latent Magic.
And I had already failed once. I
required help.

I demanded it as if it
also were my birthright. In my extremity, I cried out through the battle and
the blast and the roar:

“Ryzel! Your Scepter!”

Again, he obeyed.
Without hesitation, the one true man in the Three Kingdoms flung his Scepter
toward me.

The Wind bore it so that
it sailed in a long arc to the base of the Seat. Bounding upon the steps, it
struck like a whiplash against my side.

But I felt no pain; I
was done with pain. Wildly, I slapped my arms around the Scepter and hugged it
so that it would not slip away.

I had always failed in
my efforts to grasp the rough-barked Wood. It was Real, not to be handled by
ordinary flesh, yet it was simpler and less perilous than the Stone. The Stone
could not be touched by anyone who was not Magic; but the Scepter required only
the capacity for magery. Therefore Ryzel held a Scepter though he could not
claim the Seat. And therefore I clung to the true Wood for my life.

Its nature transcended
my own. Even with my arms about it, it seemed to ooze from me as if it were
fluid rather than solid—a Scepter composed of a substance I could not
comprehend. Brodwick’s Wind cut across the hall, yowling like lost hope through
my heart. And the Dragon—! Surely it was near to its full size now, its natural
power and fury. All the air was fire and roaring. Those people who had not
joined the melee either cowered against the walls or wrestled with the
gale-kicked doors.

Yet I held the Scepter.
Cupping one hand about its end, I kept it from slipping away. Then I began to
crawl and squirm like a belabored mendicant up the steps.

The Wind was brutal to
me, battering my head upon the marble, clogging my limbs, tearing my vision to
shreds; In fear that I would lose my eyes, I kept my face turned from Thornden’s
Mage—turned toward the Creature beating like a holocaust against the blast to
devour me. Its great jaws fountained flame in tremendous exhalations; heat
slapped repeatedly at me, scorching my cheek, spreading black stains down the
side of my robe. Only Brodwick’s force as he strove to prove himself stronger
than Scour preserved me from incineration.

But I did not fear the
Dragon. It was a wonder in the world, and the sight of it gave me strength.

With that strength, my
legs thrust me up the steps while my left arm crooked the Scepter and my right
hand cupped its end.

Like water running impossibly,
upward, black char spread from step to step as the Dragon loomed over me,
howling fire. The gale threatened to burst the ceiling of the hall from its
timbers. Nails and pegs and weight could not hold; boards were stripped away
into the outer dark. A new sound like a scream from many throats joined the
turmoil. Only the Stone itself, immovable within its supports, kept the
ordinary wood of the Seat from being swept away in kindling and splinters.

I had no time to gauge
what I would do. The Creature inhaled, fearsome and savage; its next spewing of
flame would roast me to the bone. A cry for my father wrung me, but I made no
sound that I could hear as I took my last gamble.

Guiding the Scepter with
my left arm, I thrust the Wood upward, forward—toward the Seat.

At midnight under the full moon on the eve of my twenty-first birthday, I touched the end of the
Scepter to the Stone.

At once ponderous and
instant, slow and swift, the shock of that contact began in my left elbow and
right hand and spread through me, ripples of passion bringing flesh and muscle
and bone to power. Ignited by this unprecedented connection of Stone and Wood
and birthright, the blood which the Basilisk-Regal had shed came to life in
me. All my weakness was swept away in wild glory. A roar came from me like a
tantara—a challenge against every foe and traitor to the realm.

Bounding from the
marble, I turned to my image with flame and claws and tore it from the air,
heedless of Scour’s screams. Then I flung myself toward Brodwick until his
concentration melted to panic and he stretched himself groveling before me and
his Wind was stilled.

Then I left the hall and
went in bright joy and power out into the night.

Before dawn, when I had measured my wings
and my fierce ecstasy across the deep sky—and almost as an afterthought had
routed Thornden’s armies among the hills—I returned to the manor and the hall
and accepted the homage of the three rulers. Then I dismissed them, along with
the rest of my guests. Servants bore away the injured for care, the dead for
burial, but I did not leave the hall myself. Sitting upon the Seat in my human
form, with my weight resting against the comfortable strength of the Stone, I
spoke for some time alone with Mage Ryzel.

He was plainly
astonished by what had transpired— and more than ever shamed by the things he
had done in the name of his doubt. But he was a brave man and made no effort to
excuse his mistakes—or to abase himself. Instead, he stood before me grasping
his Scepter as he had formerly stood before the Phoenix-Regal, my father.

Gruffly, he said. “My
lady, how is this done, that a woman of no great beauty
gives
a lesson
of humbling to a man of no mean knowledge or strength, and the teaching
provides him pleasure? You have become a source of pride to the realm.”

I smiled upon him. My
heart was at rest, and my gladness covered all the errors and betrayals of the
night. If the three kings had known how little harm I intended toward them,
their fear of me would have grown greater still. But to answer the Mage—and to
exculpate him to himself—I attempted an explanation.

“The blood of the last
Dragon had sunk deep into the flesh of the Regals. An extraordinary conjunction
of powers was required to awaken it. Therefore when I was born, and my father
saw that I had no Magic, he procured for you a limb of the Ash, so that it
might aid the birth of something new in me—the restoration of the last Dragon
to the world, and restitution for the ill deed which was forced upon the
Basilisk-Regal.”

“That much is evident,”
replied Ryzel. I was pleased that his manner toward me had changed so little. “But
why did the Phoenix-Regal not tell me the purpose of my Scepter, so that I
might aid you?”

“For two reasons.” My
father’s dilemma now seemed plain to me. “First, he was uncertain that the
blood I had inherited had grown strong enough to be awakened. If it had not,
then the one true hope of the realm was that you would betray me.” The Mage
began to protest, but I gestured him silent. “The Phoenix-Regal trusted that
you would cobble together some manner of alliance after my failure—and that you
would find means to preserve my life. There was his hope. If I lived long
enough to wed and have a child, the blood of the slain Dragon would grow
stronger yet and might be awakened in my child where it had failed in me. This
hope he provided by holding secret the purpose of the Scepter.

“Second, he did not wish
the blood awakened, however strong it might be, if I did not merit it enough
to discover it for myself and prove worthy. He desired a test for me. If I
lacked the need and the will and the passion to find my own way, then I would
be a poor Regal. and the realm would be better served by my failure or flight.
He sought to instill me with hope,” I mused. It was curious that I did not
resent the ordeal my father had required of me. Rather, I relished what he had
done— and was grateful. “But for the sake of the realm he could not allow me to
rise untested to power.”

Ryzel absorbed this and
nodded. But after a moment’s thought he said, “You surpass me, my lady. I do
not yet understand. If you grasped the Phoenix-Regal’s intent so clearly—no, I
will not ask why you did not speak of it to me. But why did you command me to
stand aside? Had you permitted me to counter Scour and Brodwick, your approach
to the Seat would have been free.”

There I laughed—not at
his incomprehension, but at the idea that I had known what I was doing. I had
learned that no path of hope existed for me but one; therefore it was hardly
surprising that I had chosen that path. But I had not known what would happen.
I had known only that I did not mean to fail. The things I knew now had come to
me with the transformation of my blood, shedding light in many places where I
had been ignorant.

That point, however, I left
unexplained. Instead, I said, “No, Mage. Had you stilled Brodwick and Scour,
our plight would have been unaltered. We would simply have had to strive
against swords and pikes rather than against magery. Perhaps we would both have
been slain. And also,” I said, holding his gaze so that he would understand me,
“I desired to spare your life. If I failed, the realm would have no other hope
than you.”

In response, he passed
his hand over his eyes and bowed deeply. When he raised his head again, I
thought he would say that he had not earned my concern for his life. But he
pleased me by dismissing such questions. In his blunt way, he asked, “What will
you do now, my lady? Some action must be taken to consolidate your hold upon
the realm. And the treacheries of the three rulers merit retribution.”

I wanted to laugh again
for simple happiness; but I restrained myself. Calmly, I replied, “Mage, I
believe I will commence a sizable conscription. I will claim all of Thornden’s
soldiery. I will demand every blackguard who serves Thone’s machinations. And”—a
grin of glee shaped my mouth—”I will call upon every eligible man within a day’s
ride of Damia’s allure.

“These men I will set to
work. Much hard labor requires to be done to unify the realm, so that it will
be less an uneasy balance of kingdoms and more a secure nation.”

Ryzel mulled what I was
saying; but his eyes did not leave mine. Carefully, he asked, “What labor is
that, my lady?”

I gave him my sweetest
smile. “I am certain,
Mage
that you will think of something.”

After a moment, he
smiled in return.