Metron spread his hands again and nodded gravely, his expression studiedly reasonable. “Lord Thalemos will become Earl of Laut,” he said. “But he’ll surely do so as the Intercessor’s puppet if we don’t intervene. Echeon is a great wizard, I assure you; but with Thalemos and the power of the ring—”
He gestured toward Vascay’s hand, at the moment empty. He wasn’t demanding the ring as he had been before.
“—we can overturn him and return Laut to freedom and prosperity.”
Metron cleared his throat, and added, “I wonder if you’d be good enough to tell me how you found the ring, Master Vascay? I’m sure it was a difficult task.”
Vascay glanced at Garric and raised an eyebrow. The tiny sapphire winked on his finger.
“I found the statue of Thalemos,” Garric said. He saw more value in learning where Metron would go with the information than he did in hiding it from him. “It’d been dragged a distance from its plinth and built into a later wall. The ring was on its finger, as you’d said.”
Metron’s eyes narrowed minusculely. “There was no guardian, then?” he asked.
Instead of answering, Garric let his lips smile. He said, “Why did somebody put up a statue of Lord Thalemos hundreds of years before he was born, wizard?”
Metron’s eyes were wary, but he reflected Garric’s smile with an unctuous one of his own. “The statue was carved two thousand years ago, sir, not mere centuries. This was done by the command of the Intercessor Echea, every bit as powerful a wizard as her distant descendent of today. They both and all of their line wish to bind the fate they know they cannot change.”
The wizard turned his hand up; his smile a little harder, a little more real. Answer for answer…
“There was no guardian,” Garric said. “There was a poisonous snake, but there’s a lot of snakes on the island. And growing near the site were puffballs, which I avoided.”
“Did you indeed?” Metron said. “A foolish question, of course: you wouldn’t be here otherwise. You’re a very clever young man, sir; very clever indeed.”
He returned his gaze to the chieftain. “Master Vascay,” he said, “Echeon will have placed protections of art over Lord Thalemos; these I can overcome. But there will be physical barriers as well, and against them my arts are useless. Will you help me, knowing that the risk is great but that on the other side of danger is freedom for yourself and your compatriots?”
Men murmured to their neighbors, but for a moment nobody responded directly to the wizard. Vascay kept his eyes on Metron, his own face impassive. At last he said, “So. We’d have to find Lord Thalemos first, I suppose?”
“Lord Thalemos is in the prison in the center of Durassa,” Metron said. “The Spike, it’s called. It’s a tower.”
“We bloody well know what the Spike is,” Ademos muttered, staring blackly at the pounded-earth floor.
Metron raised a bead of clear quartz, one of several score round beads of various stones which he wore around his neck. “Thalemos had a similar necklace. Echeon took it from him when he arrived at the prison, but this”—he wriggled his necklace slightly, causing light to cascade from the highly polished beads—“has stored all the images it received before that moment.”
“He could’ve been moved,” Ademos said.
“To where?” Prada snapped. “Where is there that’d be harder to get into than the Spike, let alone out of? It’s all over if Thalemos is in there!”
“I think not, sir,” said Metron courteously. The ragged tunic handicapped him, but he still managed to project a degree of dignified authority. “If two of you men are expert climbers, and if you all have the courage of patriots, it will assuredly be possible to rescue Lord Thalemos.”
Vascay looked around the circle. Each of the bandits fell silent as his gaze crossed them. “What do you say, brethren?” he asked in an almost teasing tone.
“What do you say, chief?” Hame said fiercely.
Vascay tapped his peg leg with an index finger as he paused. “Hakken, you can climb, can’t you?” he said to the little ex-sailor.
“Yeah, all right,” Hakken said. He didn’t look happy about it. “But—oh, Sister take all wizards, I’ll go.”
Vascay’s eyes met Garric’s. “Gar,” he said, “you used to be able to climb like a monkey. Can you still?”
Garric grinned with anticipation. “I can climb,” he said. Regardless of the abilities Gar’s muscles remembered, Garric knew that the skills he himself had honed robbing gallinule nests off the coast of Haft would take him anyplace a sailor could go.
Tint sat up abruptly and clamped a possessive hand on Garric’s knee. “Gar?” she growled. “Me go!”
Garric smiled wider, though his stomach was twitching. “But there’ll be three of us, Vascay,” he said.
11
As the councillors filed in from the other end of the big chamber, accompanied by their aides, Sharina saw many expressions go blank. She and Liane were seated to either side of Carus at the round table.
Liane always attended council meetings, but in the past she’d sat slightly back from the table in the capacity of Garric’s secretary; Carus had made her an open participant, over her own objection. Princess Sharina of Haft—Sharina smiled; she wouldn’t have minded the style of address she had to use in court if it weren’t for the hot, bulky garments that went with it—was sometimes present, but on those occasions she sat at the end of the table among lesser invitees rather than taking the place of honor at Garric’s right.
King Carus had placed her there, not Sharina herself. Sharina knew Carus needed the support of both women to carry off his impersonation of Garric, but there was more going on than that. Garric genuinely tried to get along with others; Carus was much more convinced of his own authority. If several of the noblemen found the presence of two young women at his council offensive—so much the worse for the noblemen!
Though Lord Waldron, head of the royal army, was seventy years old, he walked straight as a spearshaft and his mind was as hard as the spear’s steel head. He glared through Liane toward Carus as an aide drew out the chair to her left for Waldron to sit on.
Carus looked back at him. The king’s face was drawn with sleeplessness and frustration, and the anger in his eyes had nothing to do with matters of precedence. Waldron had proved often in his long life that he feared nothing in this world, but Sharina watched his expression grow more guarded now. He wasn’t afraid of Carus, but the king’s fury showed that this would be no ordinary council meeting.
Chancellor Royhas settled beside Sharina with a murmured, “Princess…” If he was disconcerted to find Prince Garric flanked by two women, he concealed the fact with his usual aplomb. Royhas was as wellborn as Waldron, but the soldier was a great landholder from the north of the island while Royhas came from the aristocracy of trade centered in Valles.
Liane leaned to whisper in Carus’ ear. The king gave a hard smile, and said in a normal voice—not loud, especially against the shuffle of feet and scrape of chairs, but loud enough all those around him could hear, “The aides need to be present, Liane. Even if we take precautions, what happens here won’t be a secret long. It’ll be the speed we act with that saves us.”
Waldron raised a hand above his shoulder and crooked a finger. An aide—a blond youth with the face of cherub but a swordsman’s thick wrists—bent his head close so that Waldron could whisper to him.
The boy nodded and nodded again, then set off for the doorway against the flow of those still entering. He started running as soon he reached the corridor.
Carus had been watching the byplay also. He turned, met Sharina’s eyes, and grinned broadly.