Shade and Sorceress (37 page)

“Stop blubbering, Smidgen,” said Nia irritably. “It’s just you and me now. Time for a bit of fun.”

~ Chapter 21 ~

“Eliza!” shouted Rom,
running back the way he had come. Charlie followed him, becoming an Arctic tern, circling rapidly. But the room was gone. There was only the fierce wind and the ice and the sky. The Sorceress had snatched Eliza back to the heart of her Illusion, shutting the rest of them outside. She was here but invisible, unreachable.

“Come back while you can, you fools!” the King of the Faeries shouted. “You are within her barriers!”

Rom’s face was a twisted mask, and he did not hear the Faery’s words. Still holding Rea in his arms, he shouted into the wind, “I beg you, give her up! Take me and I will do anything, anything!” His voice cracked with despair. There was no reply but a gust of ice wind. Rea fought free of his arms, struggling until he dropped her. She fell to the ground and tried to drag herself towards the King of the Faeries and the Mancers with what little strength she had. This seemed to rouse Rom from his delirium. He scooped her up and carried her at a run to the edge of the barriers.

“Where is Eliza?” thundered Kyreth. “Nia cannot break the Oath of the Ancients!”

“She did not,” said the King of the Faeries, his face tight and pale. “It is trickery.”

“Use your Magic,” said Rom to Kyreth in a tone of absolute command. “Find my daughter. Do it now.”

Kyreth was about to reply when he saw the woman in Rom’s arms and fell to amazed silence. He reached out and gently took Rea from Rom into his own arms. The thin strip of Rom’s shirt wrapped around her hand was already entirely soaked with blood.

“How can this be?” he whispered. “Is it you, my child?”

“Unless you want the humans to freeze to death in the next minute or two,” said Malferio, “I recommend you get them inside. It’s as cold as the Horogarth’s breath out here.”

Kyreth nodded to the Emissariae, then turned and strode with Rea towards the shelter. The cluster of celebrities followed gratefully.

“You’ve lost her,” Malferio said to Rom. He did not speak a language Rom knew, but he had the power of the Faeries to make himself understood when he wished to be. “And you’ll soon be dead if you don’t come inside. It is warm over in the shelter. Consult with your Mancers.”

Rom stood as if rooted to the spot, unable to walk away. Malferio shrugged and left him there, sauntering after the Mancers. The white tern went unnoticed by all of them, and for a moment the bird looked poised to fly away. It looked at Rom several times, hopping this way, then that. Then it became a gryphon, swooping around in an arc and snatching Rom up in its talons. He soared over the heads of the Mancers and deposited Rom at the entrance of the shelter, becoming a boy again.

“You’ll freeze,” he said a bit crossly. “Get inside.”

Stunned, Rom obeyed. Kyreth loomed over Charlie.

“Shade,” he said, with a long exhalation. Before he could change, Charlie felt a barrier lock around him tightly, fitting to his human form so he could not move. Just to show them, he turned into a bat and flitted angrily about in the Charlie-sized barrier.

“Bring him into the shelter,” Kyreth said over his shoulder to the Emissariae. The humans settled in a group, wrapping themselves in blankets, hardly able to believe they were truly free of their imprisonment. Kyreth laid Rea down and bent over her, his brilliant eyes fixed on hers. This woman shaking with cold and fright was like a ghost of the gifted, willful child he had raised.

“What has happened to you?” he asked urgently. “Why do you not speak to me, daughter?”

When he called her “daughter,” Rea turned her face away.

“She is weak,” said Obrad, kneeling at her side and touching his hand to her pale forehead. “She has no Magic, no power. How is it that she is alive?”

“I do not understand,” Kyreth shook his head.

“Nia has taken her power,” said the King of the Faeries in a cold, distant voice. “The Oracle sensed that her power was growing, had nearly doubled. Now we know how.”

Kyreth rose and looked full at the Faery, who seemed as if he wanted to look away but would not let himself.

“Taken her power!” Kyreth repeated. “There is no such Magic.”

“It would appear,” said Malferio, “that there is.”

“The Mancer Library has no record...” Ka began solemnly from behind them, but Kyreth silenced him with an impatient wave of the hand.

“Can a thing exist,” scoffed the King of the Faeries, “if the Mancer Library has no
record
of it? Astounding!”

Kyreth looked around at the group of Mancers, Faeries, silver-hounds and humans in the shelter. His own words,
There is no such Magic,
echoed within him. He heard Foss’s voice saying the same thing, and he remembered the spell Rea had worked to hide Eliza, locking away her nascent power. The connection between the three Sorceresses was profound, and there was Magic in it that the Mancers knew nothing of. How then could they hope to counter it?

“There is nothing we can do now but prepare for the worst,” he said heavily. “Eliza is lost. The line of the Shang Sorceress is ended. We Mancers must return to the Citadel and bend all our power towards strengthening the barriers that hold the Sorceress.”

“I have fulfilled my part,” said Malferio crisply. “The Faeries take our leave.”

Something in the King of the Faeries’ voice made Kyreth look at him closely and ask in a dangerous rumble, “Did you know what trickery she intended with the Oath?”

“You should not be so bold as to make demands of me,” spat the King of the Faeries, flaring into a sudden rage. “You, a band of glorified Scribes, seeking to command the King of the Immortal Faeries!” Then he shrugged and smiled mockingly, as if he didn’t think it worth elaborating. “Do not call on me again,” he said curtly, and he was gone.

“We cannot trust them, Your Eminence,” said Ka.

“Perhaps not,” agreed Kyreth. “But his fear of the Sorceress will remain useful to us. We are wasting time. She has the Book of Barriers and her strength is greater than we knew. We must return to the Citadel and do what we can from there.”

“My daughter,” pleaded Rom, stepping forward. “I beg you, don’t abandon her.”

“It is too late,” said Kyreth. “She has traded her life for yours.”

Rom shook his head, struggling to remain calm. “I cannot accept this. Surely you have the power to save her,” he insisted. “To leave her with the Sorceress is dangerous for
you.
You are allowing the Sorceress to increase her power even further!”

“If we had the power to save your daughter we would do so!” said Kyreth in a blaze of anger. “We have tried and we have failed. There are other matters to attend to now.”

“Other matters?” Rom took a step towards the Supreme Mancer and felt himself come up against a barrier. He laughed, a harsh, anguished sound. “You stole her from me, saying that only you could protect her. And now she is lost to
your
enemy! Will you do nothing to help her?”

“I know what it is to lose a daughter,” said Kyreth in a low voice. “But we have done all we can. Now we must leave.”

“I’m not leaving without Eliza,” said Rom.

Kyreth gave a short nod. “That is your choice. I would like to take you from this place to assist in Rea’s recovery. She loved you once, and your presence may be useful.” Obrad made an outraged sound at this, and was silenced with a gesture from the Supreme Mancer. “But if you wish to stay, you will stay alone, and die very soon, I should think.”

“I’ll stay,” called Charlie from his barrier.

Kyreth turned to look at him slowly.

“I can survive here,” said Charlie, talking to Rom. “You cannay do Eliza any good. You’ll just freeze to death, aye. But I can stay and try to find a way back in.”

Kyreth laughed mirthlessly. “You are a spy and will be punished as one,” he said. “It is you who delivered the girl to the Sorceress.”

“No,” said Rom. “I believe him. Eliza called him a friend, said he had helped her. He means her well, I’m sure of it.”

“He will flee and never be seen again,” said Kyreth.

“Maybe,” said Rom. “But I don’t believe so.” He looked carefully at Charlie. “I believe he cares for her.”

“I’ll nay leave this place without Eliza,” Charlie promised him, meeting his eyes. “It’s my fault she’s here. I’ll nay abandon her.”

Kyreth waved a hand. “Very well,” he said impatiently. “We will lift your barrier when we leave. It is no great matter. But should we ever hear of you again...” and here he gave Charlie a threatening look.

“You’ll nay hear from me unless I’m bringing Eliza back,” said Charlie firmly.

“Come,” said Kyreth, placing a large hand on Rom’s shoulder. “Are you satisfied? It is time for us to leave.”

~

The Sorceress and Eliza were seated at a long candle-lit table. A roasted lamb seasoned with fresh mint was in the middle of the table, and there were silver bowls of steaming sweet potatoes and long buttery stalks of asparagus and wild rice with herbs and winter salad. At the end of the table there were platters of desserts, rich chocolaty cakes and pecan pie and delectable fruit and berry tarts and poached pears in cranberry sauce with cream. Their long-stemmed glasses were filled with fine red wine. Eliza’s tears had run out at last, and now she felt simply drained and numb.

“You might as well enjoy the nice bits,” said the Sorceress, who was already tucking in. “I know this isn’t where you want to be, but
think
about it, Smidgen. If you were with your parents you’d be freezing right now, and I’ll bet you anything the Mancers haven’t got anything good to eat. Do you know what Mancers eat?”

Eliza shook her head. A roaring fire was crackling away in a great stone hearth and the tiger was sprawled in front of it chewing on a large bloody bone of something. Outside the windows it was snowing in thick, swirling white flurries. The room couldn’t have been cozier.

“Neither do I,” said the Sorceress. “I don’t even know if they
do
eat. Faeries, for example, have no need of food, but they do eat sometimes just for pleasure. It’s not a necessity for them. It’s sort of an event, like going to the cinema. But I wonder if it can really be as pleasurable when you don’t
need
it. There are all sorts of things that we do because we enjoy them, but how good can eating be if you don’t get hungry?”

Nia paused and looked at Eliza as if waiting for a response. Eliza said dully, “What are you going to do to me?”

Nia put her glass down impatiently. “Are you just going to mope and sulk and spoil the whole evening?” she demanded. “I’ve conjured up this fabulous meal for
you.
Because I want to do something nice for you. It’s not Illusion food, it’s the real thing. And here you are, not even touching it. This
wine,
by the way, is not the kind of thing you could just buy at a shop, it’s
very
old,
top
quality...but all
you
can do is dwell on the negative. You don’t need to hate me, you know. I didn’t kill your mother like you thought, did I? And now I’ve let her go, and your father, and all your friends, to show you that I’m not just trying to be malicious. So why can’t we be friends?”

“Because you’re going to kill
me,”
said Eliza, who thought this a very good reason not to be friends.

“Not right now, I’m not,” wheedled Nia. “
Right now,
I’m trying to cheer you up. If I wanted to hurt you, I’d be hurting you. But I want us to have a nice evening, and why in the worlds shouldn’t we? We’re imprisoned in the Arctic, after all! We might as well make the most of it.”

Eliza couldn’t resist the smell of the food anymore. Her hunger was so great that her fear paled in comparison. She knew it must be a spell, for she had never felt so ravenous in her life, but she didn’t care. It all tasted so good that she filled her plate twice, until she could eat no more, and drank her wine too, only to find the glass kept refilling itself, while Nia talked happily about the great feasts and exciting parties she remembered from her hundreds of years in Tian Xia.

“And while you’re here, Smidgen, we can go horseback riding and windsurfing and...whatever you like! We’re going to have a marvelous time. We can have food like this every night, if you like, and go to the ballet, and we can go to the fair and ride all the roller-coasters. I promise, we’re going to have such fun, you and I!”

The wine made Eliza light-headed and giddy. She thought exultantly to herself, my father is saved, and my mother, because I came here.
I saved them.
She felt quite heroic. She had two different kinds of cake for dessert, and then a frothy cappuccino.

“I’ve never had coffee before,” she said. “Or wine.”

Nia was delighted.

“Well, you’re quite old enough. I mean, especially because you aren’t going to get any older, it’s important that you have these experiences now, isn’t it? But you mustn’t ever waste your time with the cheaper varieties because they just dull your senses. You can’t be too choosy when it comes to fine beverages, Smidgen.”