“But how... ?” Brak asked, looking at the now quiescent pile of staffs that lay on the floor beside them.
“I think they're chips off one of the missing Seeing Stones.”
“I hate to admit it, R'shiel, but you may have been right, after all.”
“I can use the staffs to influence the priests, can't I?”
He glanced at the pile. “That's what you came to ask me? I suppose. Provided you can access a Seeing Stone to control them.”
“The Citadel's Seeing Stone is lost,” she reminded him, glancing at the pile of staffs. “But Kalan said it couldn't be destroyed. It has to be somewhere.”
He did not seem to share her optimism. “I suppose, although where you would hide something as large as a Seeing Stone is beyond me. And have you considered the possibility that these crystals might be all that's left of the Citadel's Stone?”
“I'm guessing if a Seeing Stone was broken down into smaller stones, it's the one from Talabar. The Sisterhood would only care about destroying it or hiding it. Only the Fardohnyans would think of selling it.”
Brak nodded thoughtfully. “Which would explain Hablet's determination to keep the Harshini out of Fardohnya. He wouldn't want us to realise what had happened to it.”
“And only a god would have the power to break the Stone up. It makes sense, I suppose, although it must have cost Karien a fortune. I always wondered how Fardohnya got so rich so quickly. But what about Loclon?”
“We'll look for him, but without help we're not going to find him.” Her expression hardened. “The new Lord Defender has other priorities.”
Brak studied her determined expression and shrugged. “All right then, that just leaves one rather pertinent question to be answered.”
“What's that?”
“Where does one hide several tons of magic crystal?”
CHAPTER 44
Loclon jerked back to consciousness with a start, and for a long time could not decide where he was. His mind was filled with so many images, so much pain, that he could not gather his thoughts into anything remotely resembling coherent thought. He stared at the strange room, at the heavy drapes over the bed and the softly glowing walls, trying to recall how he came to be there. His head was weighted down with pain and he could not move his limbs. He could not even remember who he was.
It came to him, after a time, although how long was impossible to judge. He gradually remembered being Joyhinia Tenragan. He remembered the power he had wielded in her name. He remembered R'shiel standing over him, demanding that he live.
And he remembered dying.
The feeling stayed with him like a shadow looming over his soul. The pain seemed almost irrelevant when compared with the overwhelming terror he experienced when he recalled throwing himself on some nameless Defender's sword in the First Sister's office to escape the fury in R'shiel's eyes.
In hindsight, it was the most courageous thing he'd ever done - perhaps the only courageous thing he'd ever done.
He did not lament the death of Joyhinia, and his grief was inspired more by annoyance than guilt. He had lost the only true taste of power he was ever likely to have. Now he was nothing more than a fugitive.
As that thought occurred to him, he experienced a moment of blind panic. A fugitive was exactly what he was and he knew that R'shiel would not rest until he had been found. He had to get out of here, out of this room, out of the Citadel.
Loclon tried lifting his head and was appalled to find the task almost beyond him. His body had lain dormant for months and the muscles had wasted almost to the point of atrophy. He had no strength, no control, not even the ability to push himself off the bed.
It had never occurred to Loclon that his body might be wasting away in his absence. He knew it was alive - and as long as his body lived, so did he. Mathen had assured him the priests were taking care of it, but he had never been permitted to view the body himself, the priests claiming such a confrontation would undo whatever magic they had worked to transfer his mind into Joyhinia's body. To awaken, in this thin, emaciated body, with barely enough strength to lift his head from the pillow, seemed the ultimate irony.
R'shiel could not have planned it better if she tried.
A sense of urgency overwhelmed him, for a moment swamping even his despair at finding his body so useless. R'shiel was looking for him. She would not rest until she had him in her power.
Anger warred with fear as he thought of R'shiel. She had no right to come back, he decided, even though, as Joyhinia, he had done everything in his power to ensure that she would. If the Kariens had done as they promised she would have been dead by now - burned at the stake in Yarnarrow for the Harshini sorcerer she was. But not even the Karien god could hold her, and Loclon was not so foolish as to think that if she possessed the strength of purpose to face down a god that he could escape her wrath.
That thought finally spurred him to action. With a panic-driven burst of strength, he threw himself off the bed, landing heavily on the floor. He lay panting, exhausted by even that small effort. He could see the door, a mere five paces from where he had fallen. The distance stretched before him like a vast canyon.
For a long time, he simply lay there, gathering what little strength he had to cross the gap. He did not think of anything but the urgency of his mission. He had died once already today. He did not intend to let it happen again.
Loclon pushed himself up onto his elbows and began the painstaking task of dragging his useless body towards the door. He had barely moved a pace across the floor when he heard footsteps in the hall outside. Terror lent him another burst of strength. He slithered painfully over the polished floorboards, filled with an unnamed dread. His arm slipped out from under him and he banged his chin, making black lights dance before his eyes. The door loomed in the distance, seemingly no closer, despite his desperate efforts. The footsteps drew closer, louder. Sweat beaded his brow and left clammy handprints on the floor as he clawed his way painstakingly forward.
He collapsed in exhaustion, his breathing ragged. Tears of fear and frustration blurred his vision. The door might as well be on the other side of Medalon. He would never make it. Any moment now it would open and R'shiel would be standing there, ready to even the score for every insult, real or imagined, that he had inflicted on her. He sobbed with terror and stared at the panelled door; watched it open with a feeling akin to having hot lead poured into his stomach. The door slammed against the wall. Loclon let out an unintelligible cry for mercy; tasted the acrid smell of urine as his bladder let go.
“Oh, for the gods' sake, stop blubbering!” Mistress Heaner declared impatiently. “Pick him up, Lork.”
The old woman looked down on him, staring at the spreading stain on the front of his loincloth in disgust. As usual, she was dressed in black, clutching an expensive cape around her shoulders. Her small eyes set amid the folds of her thin, leathery face were filled with distaste. Lork stepped forward and scooped Loclon up from the floor. Even he screwed up his nose.
“You should be grateful, Captain. They're turning the Citadel inside out looking for you.”
Loclon did not reply. He was too relieved by his rescue and too frightened by its source. Owing Mistress Heaner anything was dangerous in the extreme. She demanded a finger for an unpaid gambling debt. Loclon was afraid to think of what she would charge for his life.