Night of the Eye (31 page)

Lyim dispelled the disguise with a wave of his hand. Kirah stood before him once more in her dirty yellow frock and hair.

“You have no idea how difficult it is to speak around those teeth!” she laughed. “Fooling the Berwicks was easy by comparison.”

“Speak for yourself,” muttered Lyim, rubbing his temples. He was unused to casting so many spells at once, not to mention the pressure of negotiating peace. Still and all, this good deed had been easy enough to accomplish.

He’d not admit it to Kirah, but he’d expected more of a fight from the Berwicks. All it took to convince them was a poem he’d plucked from the befuddled knight’s memory. “We were fortunate you were close enough in size to Ingrid Berwick and remembered her features in enough detail for me to superimpose them on you.”

“Who could forget those teeth?” Kirah chortled once more. “I’ll tell you who’s really lucky—Guerrand, for not marrying into that family!” Kirah almost felt like herself again. The tension she’d held in her shoulders since Lyim had suggested the ruse eased away.

Lyim saw it. “Don’t get too relaxed, Kirah. There’s much work to be done yet.”

“Like what?”

“Like releasing your sister-in-law, Rietta, from the binding spell that kept her out of sight while we addressed the knights.”

“Must we?” Kirah pouted, then rolled her eyes. “Oh, I suppose you’re right. Someone will surely notice that she hasn’t issued a shrewish order for a least an hour.”

Lyim laughed, then grew serious. “We also must send a missive immediately to Cormac at Stonecliff, apprising him of the attack, before Berwick finds out he’s been duped and returns.”

Remembering Lyim’s promise, Kirah clapped a hand over her mouth. “What’s he going to say when he finds out someone promised to return Stonecliff?”

“He’s going to be furious, particularly when he can’t find the man who promised it.” He shrugged. “Under the circumstances, I had no choice. Besides, it occurred to me later that forfeiture of the land will happen as a matter of course. I didn’t really lie about ‘retiring from occupying the land.’ ” Kirah looked puzzled.

Lyim glanced over the battlement to check the retreat’s progress. “As I figure it, once your brother hears that his castle is being sieged, he’ll return immediately with every man he’s got, leaving Stonecliff undefended. If Berwick is smart, he’ll take measures to ensure that Stonecliff is not so easily taken from him again. Things will return to normal, unless your brother is foolish enough to start the whole cycle up again.”

“I can’t wait to see Cormac’s face when he returns and discovers some mystery man chased away the Berwicks!” With the impulsiveness of a happy child, Kirah threw her arms around Lyim’s neck and kissed his cheek.

Red-faced, the apprentice gripped her by the shoulders and set her back down. He looked intently at the young girl. “You know, Kirah, that you can never tell anyone what we did today. Can I trust you to keep our secret after I’m gone?”

Kirah felt suddenly deflated, and it had nothing to do with their secret. Of course Lyim would leave, she chided herself. How could he stay? He had a life somewhere else … with Guerrand. It was just that, for a day, she’d had someone to confide in again. She would miss it more than ever now. More than Lyim knew, things would, indeed, return to normal again. And normal was nearly death to Kirah.

The young girl sighed. “Of course I can keep our secret,” she murmured. Struck with a thought, Kirah gave him a penetrating look. “Why did you do all this?”

Lyim held his palms up. “Never explain, never defend, that’s my motto,” he said.

Kirah’s expression was pure envy. “Rand is very lucky to have a friend who would risk life and limb for his family.”

Lyim’s dark head shook from side to side, his hair brushing Kirah’s cheek. “Rand would do the same for me,” said the mage kindly, steering her back down the stairs.

The task done, Lyim felt the pressure to return to Palanthas. It had taken twice as long to reach Guerrand’s homeland as they’d planned for, and Lyim was afraid even inattentive Belize would begin to wonder where he was. The faster he released Rietta and sent the missive to Cormac, the sooner he could return to Palanthas and tell Guerrand the good news. Saving his friend’s family, Lyim felt certain, more than made up for his behavior at the Jest.

Lyim watched his friend’s kid sister scamper happily down the steps and smiled affectionately. He liked Kirah, and it was obvious she had grown more than a little fond of him. He liked that, too. He was used to females falling for his charms. One never knew when life paths would cross again, and it never hurt to have friends in many ports. Just like it never hurt to have friends in your debt.

Peering through wooden louvers in the vestibule, Guerrand
watched Esme speak to Harlin and Mitild, the guardian statues, then depart the formal garden for the road that led into the city. Guerrand crept through the atrium like a hapless thief with a guilty secret. Thank the gods Justarius was proxy for Belize at tonight’s meeting of the Council of Three. With Esme having just left for the Library of Palanthas, he would have all the time he needed to search her small room.

Lyim had been gone for nearly three weeks. Guerrand thought it likely the apprentice had made it to Northern Ergoth by now, if he hadn’t been thrown overboard for casting spells. Had he spoken with Kirah yet? Had he been able to stop the siege on the castle? Guerrand wondered about these things often, envying the other apprentice’s freedom. He would give anything, except
his apprenticeship, to see his little sister for even a moment.

At the far right corner of the peristyle was the formal dining room that separated Guerrand’s room from Esme’s. Justarius’s two apprentices kept different hours—Esme rose early, Guerrand stayed up late—so their paths didn’t cross often. He had never been in her room, but he always paused outside his own to glance through the ornate archway into her antechamber. He liked to picture her at work inside, bent over a spellbook, chewing at the end of her braid in concentration.

After looking over both shoulders for Denbigh, Guerrand slipped through the arch. The antechamber was dark, but as his eyes adjusted, he saw that its curved walls were elaborately painted with bright reds, yellows, and blues, outlined in gold. A smaller archway, curtained off with heavy velvet, lay before him.

Guerrand moved quickly toward the curtain and pulled it back, hoping that Esme was more trusting than she ought to be. So far, so good, Guerrand thought when no spell-sprung thing leaped out or pinned him down. A light blinked on. Guerrand froze.

He spotted the source and slowly released his breath. A small glass globe, much like those in Justarius’s lab, rested on a three-legged vallenwood table polished to a high gloss. Esme must have enchanted it to light the room whenever she passed through the curtain. It was a clever trick, which Guerrand resolved to remember.

Esme’s sleeping room was very like his own, though the decorations bore a woman’s touch. All about were bowls of sweet-smelling rose and lavender petals. Ever the mage, she, too, had shelves of pickled creatures, but she had far more dried herbs arranged in eye-pleasing wreaths and swags woven with strands of pearls and semiprecious gems. Skeins of ribbon and woolen yarn hung from a peg on the wall, waiting to tie up more drying bundles of herbs.

Guerrand was impressed. Where his room looked dim, stuffed, and cluttered, Esme’s was well lit, neat, and inviting. There was something interesting to look at on every surface and in every corner.

Tucked into the harp-shaped back of her desk was a small cameo, black-inked on golden parchment. The subject’s profile looked so familiar that Guerrand was drawn in for a closer glimpse. Strong patrician nose and chin—it could have been Esme, save for the long, curling mustache above the full lips. Her father, Guerrand concluded.

The realization touched off new feelings of guilt. He was violating her privacy, and to what end? He honestly didn’t believe she had anything to do with the threats on his life. Guerrand was forced to admit that curiosity about the young woman had driven him here, kept him here now.

Guerrand turned and scrambled through the soft, heavy curtain into the antechamber. The glow from the globe flowed under the curtain and splashed his feet with light. He waited a few moments to see if it would turn off of its own accord. It didn’t.

“Damnation!” he grumbled under his breath. If Esme came back and the light was glowing, she’d know someone had been in her room. Swearing again, Guerrand swept back the curtain and approached the globe. He peered at it closer, not really expecting to find a switch or directions.

Not knowing what else to do, Guerrand reached out and wrapped his fingers over its surface, as if he could blot out the annoying glow. Beams leaked in thin strips between his fingers. Perhaps covering it briefly with a thick piece of cloth would trip some lever and turn off the light. Guerrand dropped the top of his robe to his waist and began to pull the cotton tunic beneath it over his head.

Contorted thus, he could neither see nor hear the
loops of ribbon and yarn lifting from the wall, straining toward him. They wrapped whisper-light in layers around his upraised arms and robe-covered legs, then stretched tight. Startled, Guerrand struggled against the unseen bonds, but only succeeded in tightening them further. He wiggled his face through the opening of the tunic and spied the ribbons. Exasperated, he wrestled against them and lost his balance. Unable to grasp the edge of the table, Guerrand crashed to the ground, dropping and smashing the globe. The light abruptly winked out.

“
Now
it goes out,” Guerrand groaned, lying on his side in the midst of the shards of broken glass. He would have rubbed his face in his usual gesture of frustration, if only he could have reached it. He had no components, no hands with which to gesture an incantation that would get him out of this mess. He couldn’t even reach his limbs to bite them off like a coyote in a trap.

Yes, Guerrand thought, Esme is very clever.

* * * * *

“It worked! My spell worked!”

Guerrand started awake at the sound of Esme’s excited cry. He could hear her fumbling to light a candle.

A flame grew. “Guerrand! What are you doing in here?” Esme’s delight turned to confusion. “You picked an odd time for your first visit. I told you I was going to the library.” Her eyes narrowed abruptly as her confusion turned at last to angry understanding.

The apprentice on the floor looked sheepish. “Would you please let me loose so I can explain?”

“No,” she snapped, turning her back on him. “I’m quite certain I don’t want to do that.”

“I’m bleeding.”

“I hope you bleed to death. You broke my globe.”

“I know. I—I’m sorry.” Guerrand’s apology sounded
lame even to his own ears. “Please, Esme,” he pleaded, “I know this looks bad. It is bad, but I can explain.”

“Let me guess,” she said, running a strand of pearls through her fingers. “You needed to wear these with a very special outfit.”

Guerrand sighed heavily. “You’re not making this any easier for me.”

Her beautiful honey-colored eyes narrowed in the candlelight. “You made it hard for yourself when you broke into my room. You know Justarius’s rule about privacy.” She flung the pearls back onto the table. “I’ve a mind to tell him about this and demand he expel you from the order!”

“I wouldn’t blame you if you did,” Guerrand said softly.

Esme jammed her hands on her hips. “I won’t go easier on you, just because you sound contrite now.” Her softening tone belied her harsh words. “Were you here to steal my components? Scrolls? My spellbook?” She shook her head sadly. “You were coming along quickly enough in your studies, Guerrand, without resorting to this.”

“Gods, Esme!” he cried. “I may be an unprincipled snoop, but I’m no thief!”

“Interesting distinction.”

Guerrand laid his head down and closed his eyes in frustration. “This is coming out all wrong.”

She eyed his arms tangled in the sleeves of the tunic that was half over his head. “If I weren’t so angry, I might laugh. You look ridiculous.”

“I feel ridiculous. Will you please untie me so that I can at least pull my tunic down? I promise I’ll explain then.”

Esme looked at him briefly, then bent down and slipped a stiletto next to Guerrand’s skin, slicing through the yarn and ribbons that held his limbs. Sitting up, he rearranged his tunic and settled his robes
back onto his shoulders.

“I’m waiting.”

Rubbing his wrists, Guerrand looked her square in the eyes. “Justarius and I believe someone is trying to kill me.”

Shock registered on Esme’s beautiful face. “But why?”

Guerrand sighed. “I don’t know. I thought for a time it was my family, but we’ve ruled them out.” He told her of the first attacks against him. “It’s obvious whoever it is has magical abilities. This mage used magic on Lyim, which is why he tried to kill me at the Jest.”

“But how can you rule out Lyim?” asked Esme. “He’s the only person who’s been present when these things occurred.”

“Justarius is certain that the spell cast during the Jest was beyond Lyim’s skill. Besides, Lyim was the one who saved me during the ambush north of Palanthas.”