He turned to kiss her and found her lips eager to meet his own. Once she had declared her love, she made absolutely no secret of it. Dor realized that even if their mission failed, even if they perished here in Mundania, it was privately worth it for him in this sense. He had discovered love, and it was a universe whose reaches, pitfalls, and potential rewards were more vast than all of Mundania. He held the kiss for a long time.
“Is this how you behave when unchaperoned?” a woman’s voice demanded sharply.
Dor and Irene broke with a start. There beside them stood the Queen.
“Mother!” Irene cried, half in relief, half in chagrin.
“Shamefully embracing in public!” Queen Iris continued, frowning. She had always been the guardian of other people’s morals. “This must come to the attention of-?”
The Queen vanished. Amolde, timing as well as he could to face her image, had thereby shifted the magic aisle away from Iris’ cell, so that the Queen’s magic was interrupted. She could no longer project her illusion-image.
“Beg pardon,” the centaur said. He shifted back.
Queen Iris reappeared. Before she could speak again, Irene did so.
“That’s nothing, Mother. This afternoon Dor and I slept together.”
“You disreputable girl!” Iris exclaimed, aghast
Dor bit his tongue. He had never really liked Queen his and could hardly have thought of a better way to prick her bubble.
The centaur tried to reassure her. “Your Majesty, we all slept. It-“
“You, too?” Iris demanded, her gaze surveying them with an amazing chill. “And the ogre?”
“We’re a very close group,” Irene said. “I love them all.”
This was going too far. “You misunderstand,” Dor said. “We only-?” Irene tromped his toe, cutting him off. She wanted to continue baiting her mother. But Queen Iris, no fool, had caught on. “They only saw up your skirt, of course. How many times have I cautioned you about that? You have absolutely no sense of-“
“We bring the King?” Smash inquired.
“The King!” Iris exclaimed. “By all means! You must march in and free us all.”
“But the noise-“ Dor protested. “If we alert the soldiers-“
“You forget my power,” Queen Iris informed him. “I can give your party the illusion of absence. No one will hear you or see you, no matter what you do.”
Such a simple solution! The Queen’s illusion would be more than enough to free them all. “Break in the wall, Smash,” Dor caged. “We can rescue King Trent ourselves!”
With a grunt of glee, the ogre advanced on the wall. Then he disappeared. So did the centaur. Dor found himself embracing nothing. He could neither see nor feel Irene, and heard nothing either-but there was resistance where he knew her to be. Experimentally he shoved.
Something shoved him back. It was like the force of inertia when he swung around a corner at a run, a force with no seeming origin.
Irene was there, all right! This spell differed from the one the centaur had used; it made the people within it undetectable to each other as well as to outsiders. He hoped that didn’t lead. to trouble.
A gap appeared in the wall. Chunks of stone fell out, silently. The ogre was at work.
Dor kept his arm around the nothingness beside him, and it moved with him. Curious about the extent of the illusion, he moved his hand. Portions of the nothingness were more resilient than others.
Then he found himself stumbling; a less resilient portion had given him another shove. Then something helped steady him; the nothingness was evidently sorry. He wrapped his arms about it and drew it in close for a kiss, but It didn’t feel right. He concluded he was kissing the back of her head. He grabbed a hank of nothingness and gave it a friendly tug.
Then Irene appeared, laughing. “Oh, am I going to get even for that!” Then she realized she could perceive him in the moonlight.
She wrapped the jacket about her torso-it had fallen open during their invisible encounter-and drew him forward. “We’re getting left b-“ She vanished and silenced.
They had re-entered the aisle. Dor kept hold of her nothing-hand and followed the other nothings into the hole in the wall.
For a moment they all became visible. Amolde was ahead, negotiating a pile of rubble; Smash had broken through to the lower level, but the path he made was hardly smooth. The centaur, realizing that the aisle had shifted away from the Queen, hastily corrected his orientation. They all vanished again.
Castle personnel appeared, gaping at the rubble, unable to fathom its cause. One stepped into the passage-and vanished. That created another stir. As yet the Mundanes did not seem to associate this oddity with an invasion.
The ogre’s tunnel progressed apace. Soon enough it broke into the Queen’s cell, then into King Trent’s and finally King Omen’s. At that point the parties became visible again. There was ambient light, courtesy of the Queen’s illusion. Dor was uncertain at what point illusion became reality, since light was light however it was generated, but he had learned not to worry unduly about such distinctions.
Irene lurched forward and flung herself into King Trent’s arms.
“Oh, daddy!’ she cried with tears of joy.
Now Dor experienced what he knew to be his most unreasonable surge of jealousy yet. After all, why should she not love her father?
He glanced about-and saw Queen Iris watching her husband and daughter with what appeared to be identical emotion. She, too, was jealous-and unable to express it.
For the first time in his life, Dor felt complete sympathy with the Queen. This was one shame he shared with her.
The King set Irene down and looked about. Suddenly it was incumbent on Dor to make introductions and explanations. He hurried up. “Uh, we’ve come to rescue you, King Trent. This is Amolde the Centaur-he’s the one who made the magic aisle-that’s his talent-and this is Smash the Ogre, and Irene-“
King Trent looked regal even in rags. “I believe I know that last,” he said gravely.
“Uh, yes,” Dor agreed, flustered, knowing he was really fouling it up. “I- uh-“
“Do you know what he did, father?” Irene asked King Trent, indicating Dor.
“I did not!” Dor exclaimed. Teasing the Queen was one thing; teasing the King was another.
“Anyway, Dor and I are-“ Irene’s voice broke off as she spied the third prisoner.
He was a stunningly handsome young man who radiated charisma, though he, too, was dressed in rags. “King Omen,” King Trent said with his customary gravity. “My daughter Irene.”
For the first time Dor saw Irene girlishly flustered. King Omen strode forward, picked up her limp hand, and brought it to his lips.
“Ravishing,” he murmured.
Irene tittered. Dor felt a new surge of jealousy. Obviously the girl, so ardent toward Dor a moment ago, was now smitten by the handsome Mundane King. She was, after all, fifteen years old; constancy was not her nature. Yet it hurt to be so suddenly forgotten.
Dor turned his eyes away-and met the gaze of the Queen. Again there was a flash of understanding.
“Now we have business to accomplish,” King Trent said. “My friend King Omen must be restored to his throne. To make that secure, we must separate the loyal citizens of Onesti from the disloyal.”
Dor forced his mind to focus on this problem. “How can anyone in this castle be loyal? They kept their King prisoner in the dungeon.”
“By no means,” King Omen said resonantly. “Few were aware of my presence. We were brought in manacled and hooded, and the only one who sees us is a mute eunuch who is absolutely loyal to Oary the Usurper. No doubt the castle personnel were told we were Khazar prisoners of war.”
“So only the mute knew your identity?” Dor asked, remembering Grundy’s description of the man’s activities. But the golem sometimes exaggerated for effect. “At least he brought you food.”