Neither of us had doubts. D'Sanya's implements of power had to be destroyed, no matter which of them was fueling the Zhid uprising. My father would suffer for this particular destruction, but I'd come to believe that he would be set free by it as well. But my father wasn't going to die from what we did here. Others would. I believed Gerick should take the time to warn his father—for both of their sakes—but I was too afraid to insist.
I felt him join with me this time. Perhaps because I saw his body fall so abruptly and so profoundly still, lacking the familiar animation that marks even human sleep. At the same time my churning emotions were soothed by a warm solidity and a self-assurance rooted in the core of my being. How had I ever believed such feelings were my own? I also felt a renewed urgency. The Lady would follow us here at any moment. I needed to move fast.
Consider need, assert ownership, disrupt containment, trigger the destruction . . . Oh, yes, and first acquire the object itself.
I cast a faint handlight. A quick trip to the worktables netted a pair of sturdy tongs with a wooden grip and a short metal-cutting saw. I swept a brass bar across the table to make room to work. Laying out my possessions in the cleared space, I made ready to encircle the oculus and assert my ownership.
Despite Gerick's lack of concern about locks and spells, I used the tongs to take hold of the porcelain knob on the lacquered cabinet and pull open the door. At first I couldn't see anything inside, only sense a quiet rush of air and the dread settling in my belly. I pulled open the second door, and the brass ring caught the pale illumination from my hand and swept it into a small orb of light.
But just as I opened the jaws of the tongs to grab the oculus, the air of the lectorium shivered. Instantly, I slammed shut the doors of the cabinet, tossed the tools aside, snatched up my belongings, and dived under the worktable in the deep shadowed corner next to the window. Stunned by the oncoming enchantment, I didn't think about these things, didn't plan them, or even understand why I'd done them. But then the fiber went out of my bones, and I was abandoned, shivering and terrified in my hiding place, watching Gerick gasp and sit stark upright on the window seat only a few steps away from me.
"Sorry, sorry," he whispered between shaking breaths. "Stay hidden. No matter what." After a moment, shaking his head vigorously, he jumped up from the window seat and positioned himself between the oculus cabinet and the sheet of gray-blue light taking shape in the corner of the room opposite me.
Another burst of enchantment split the air and a portal yawned. D'Sanya, wearing the trousers, shirt, and mailed vest of a Dar'Nethi woman warrior, strode through the shimmering oval, halting a few steps from Gerick. Though she wore knife and short sword at her side, her hands were empty. At first I thought she'd brought a cadre of other women with her, but soon sorted out that I was seeing the multiple reflections of the opposing mirrored walls. The Lady was alone.
"In one place or the other," she said, cold as hoarfrost on a steel post. "I knew I'd find you ready to destroy what I've built for Gondai. And here you are, ready to bear witness to your name. Dieste the Destroyer—that's what the Three named their newest partner, was it not? That was the destiny they designed for you."
"Yes." Gerick's hands were empty, too. Though I doubted steel would win this battle, I wished my knife were in his hand. "But if you've learned that much of history, then perhaps you've learned, too, how I walked away from them. How for four years I failed to understand that they still held me captive and how I wrought havoc without realizing that I did their work. A hard lesson, that: Just because you choose to walk away doesn't mean you're free. But you can be. Let me help you."
"Ah, your tongue is still sweet, Destroyer." As her portal vanished, the Lady swept a finger around the room, and fifty candlewicks burst into flame, confusing my eyes with myriad reflections of light and shadow. Her anger was cool and righteous. "Yet you speak with one voice, while your deeds speak with another. I know what you plan to do here this night. To think I was ready to abandon my father's legacy, betray the duty to which he bound his heirs, because I believed that you, my shy, gentle friend, would shrivel and die in so public a place as my father's palace. Yet even now your demon warriors converge on Avonar, ready to destroy everything of beauty in this world. Did you call them to Zhev'Na to release you from my justice?"
D'Sanya drifted to her right toward the door to the passageway. Gerick pivoted, matching her movements to keep himself between her and the oculus cabinet.
"The Zhid wear your pendants, D'Sanya. They found you in the desert after the scavengers set you free, didn't they? They forced you to make them an avantir and the lion pendants that link them together … the tools of war . . . the tools of the evil you thought you had left behind in Zhev'Na. Until you escaped again eight months ago . . ."
"You lie!" How quickly her cool reason burst into flame. "I am D'Arnath's daughter, born to be his Heir. It is my father's power, my rightful inheritance, that I use to make the lion tokens and to heal the poor lost Zhid and to set my people free of pain and war. His power could never be bent to evil."
Did Gerick feel what she was doing? His gaze seemed fixed on D'Sanya's face as she shifted farther to the right until her back was to the door. But from the angle of my hiding place I could see the reflection of her hands clasped behind her back, her silver rings gleaming brightly in the murk, pulsing with power.
Incapable of focused mind-speaking, I couldn't warn him without revealing myself. And I feared he was right that I needed to stay hidden. Someone had to carry the tale of what we had learned to Avonar.
"Your Restored are reverting to Zhid, D'Sanya." Gerick took a few steps toward her. His voice had taken on a mesmerizing timbre, and he fixed his eyes on hers. "As with everything else you've done, your healings fail. You are poisoning Gondai. Listen to me. . . ."
But his ploy was too obvious. She broke the lock of his gaze. "How dare you speak to me of evil!" she said. "You've come here to kill your own father. Who but a Lord of Zhev'Na could do such a thing?"
She cupped her hands in front of her. A ball of silver flame took shape within them, and with a twist of her wrists, she flung the ball straight at Gerick. Beams of silver shot everywhere. The panes of the windows behind him shattered, the crumbling shards reflecting the light crazily through the lectorium. A howling wind swept through the room; bottles toppled and shattered on the tile floor. I had to cover my eyes as the flying splinters, dust, and particles of glass bit my face and arms. When the whirlwind calmed, and I dared look up again, Gerick had raised his hands and a curtain of blue-and-gold light enveloped the two of them, flaring so brightly I could see nothing but his back. Their strange duel played out, not in slashes and spins and footwork, but in hand movements and sweeps of the arm and small steps—forward, back, now staggering, now braced for an onslaught that was roaring red light rather than flashing metal.
Enchantment piled upon enchantment, causing waves of cold fire to blister my skin and still my blood. I thought my skull must surely crack, and all I could do was cower in the darkness and pray that Gerick had learned enough of power to save himself at least.
A few steps away from me, in front of the broken windows, the air rippled. Another portal took shape and spit out three men, one of them drawing a bow aimed directly at Gerick's back. D'Sanya had shifted away from the mirrors. As long as his attention was focused on her, he couldn't spot her allies.
I snatched up a palm-sized shard of glass and sent it spinning toward the thick-necked bowman with a word to set its course true and another to make its impact hard. It struck him in the calf just as he lofted his arrow. His arrow flew high, striking the curtain of light and bursting into purple flame.