“Don’t come after me,” he told them. “I require your obedience as your emperor. If and when this spell wears off, go get Tier and Seraph and tell them what has happened. I’ll get Rinnie if I can. If not, I doubt that Willon will kill her, not if he wants Seraph to do anything for him.”
He started to go after Rinnie, then stopped and turned back. He couldn’t leave without telling them what he’d learned.
“The spell is an illusion,” he told them rapidly. “As soon as you believe, really believe you can move, then you can break the spell.”
He walked backward as he spoke. When he finished he turned and ran.
Phoran was not Lehr, but he didn’t need to be. He could see the tower Willon had pointed out; it rose from the top of the cliffs above them. Ielian had walked in Rufort’s or Gura’s blood, and though the blood trail didn’t last for more than three or four steps, it gave Phoran all the direction he needed. He headed for the alleyway that looked to be where Ielian had been heading.
The alley was narrow—only wide enough for two men walking abreast, and it ended against the cliff edge, where a steep, zigzagging stairway had been carved into the cliff face. He shielded his eyes and saw a small figure climbing near the top.
Phoran drew his sword and started up the cliff. There were no railings on the side of the stairway, which was narrower than that alley had been. By the time he’d passed the third flight, he was high enough to make misstep fatal. He kept his eyes on the steps before him and tried not to look over the edge.
The past few months had melted much of the self-indulgent fat from his body, but even in his best shape, Phoran would never be a great runner. His build was more like Kissel’s, good for power but not stamina; but with Rinnie’s life at stake, he made the best speed he could. Lack of air made him dizzy and forced him to slow his pace. Legs aching, a stitch in his side, focused on climbing, he might not have noticed the Memory if it had not grabbed his arm and pulled him to a stop.
Its hand touched his mouth when he would have said something. The cold touch caused Phoran to jerk his head back with a reflexive shudder. But when he heard the scuffle of feet above him, he knew what the Memory had been trying to tell him. Someone was coming down the stairway.
Phoran waited, trying to catch his breath. As soon as he stopped, the Memory faded from sight.
Ielian’s clothing was bloody, his pant leg ripped over his thigh where Gura must have bitten him, but his smile was genuine. “My emperor,” he said, “you needn’t have bothered coming. The Master sent me to release the rest of you.” He held out an amulet with the hand that wasn’t holding his sword. “This will break the spell. I’ll give it to you, shall I? Then you can go release the others yourself.”
Phoran didn’t say anything. Their relative positions on the stairway gave Ielian the advantage. Phoran knew from the morning training sessions with the Emperor’s Own that Ielian was the better swordsman. Even as he acknowledged the advantages Ielian held, Phoran set those worries aside.
He had no intention of taking the amulet and meekly going back to the others. Even if Ielian was telling the truth, the others were adults and likely not to come to any immediate harm. He had given his word to protect Rinnie.
The Memory resolved itself a couple of steps behind Ielian.
“No,” said Phoran as he lunged. “This one is mine.”
He didn’t use his sword, as Ielian had been waiting for him to do. He just ducked under Ielian’s blade and thrust his shoulder into the side of Ielian’s knee, toppling the lighter man off the open side of the stairs. He screamed as he fell.
By the time Ielian died, Phoran was climbing again.
“The Shadowed is here,” said the Memory, climbing just behind him. “But I cannot kill him, he is too powerful.”
Phoran took a second to look back at it. “What good are you then?”
“The last time someone killed a Shadowed he did it with an army at his back, a Raven at his side, and a dead wizard’s power guarding him,” answered the Memory. “It will take more than a ghost and an emperor to kill the Shadowed. More than all of us combined.”
“Encouraging, aren’t you,” Phoran said dryly. “I agree with you, as it happens.” He’d hoped to catch up to Ielian before he’d delivered Rinnie, but it had taken Phoran too long to break Willon’s spell. “Maybe, just maybe, though, we can distract him long enough to allow Rinnie to escape.”
They came to the top of the cliffs at last. The watchtower was farther back from the edge than it had appeared from below. Stairs wound around the outside of the tower, but they were wider than the ones he’d just climbed. Even better, handrails edged either side of the stairs. The top of the tower was half-enclosed, with the open half looking out over the edge of the cliff, giving whoever was watching a clear view of the lower level of Colossae and most of the valley.
“He’s up there,” Phoran said.
“Yes,” agreed the Memory. “He is there.”
“I don’t suppose you could take a message to Tier,” asked Phoran, but he wasn’t surprised at its answer.
“No, that is not within the compass of my purpose. I am that I may destroy those who killed me.”
“You saved me from assassins,” said Phoran. He was beginning to get his breath back.
“You are my tie to life and without you I will cease to exist, my vengeance unsatisfied.”
“Bringing Tier and the Ravens here might save my life,” he suggested.
“Not directly,” answered the Memory. “If I could feel sorrow or regret, it would be for this. However, I will come with you and save you if it is possible for me to do so.”
“Better than nothing,” said Phoran. He put a hand on the rail that edged the stairway winding around the tower. “Let’s go.”
The tower was fifty or sixty feet tall, and when he was halfway up he slowed to a walk. He wanted to be rested when he reached the top. The Memory had not followed him up, but he trusted it would keep its word to help and give him another weapon against the Shadowed.
Near the top of the stairs, he slowed further, his sword in hand. Not that he expected his sword would do him much good against a wizard who could freeze him with a word, but the familiar grip felt reassuring.
He stopped before the guardroom came into view and crouched, listening. From where he stood, Phoran could see out over the city to the river they’d crossed to enter Colossae’s valley.
“Have some tea, child, you’ll feel better.”
“No, thank you,” said Rinnie in a polite but extremely firm voice.
Willon laughed. Phoran closed his eyes against that laughter because it reminded him of the affection he’d always had for the old man who came to Taela two or three times a year to visit Master Emtarig, for the man who always took time to share a story or two, who always had some exotic sweet for a lonely boy emperor. It had been Willon who had made his uncle’s funeral bearable for Phoran. He’d taken Phoran’s hand and said quietly, “Your uncle loved you, boy, for all that he wasn’t the sort of man to say so. He told me he thought you would be a great emperor.”
All the while it was Willon’s machinations that had caused Phoran’s uncle’s death—and Phoran’s father’s death, a man Phoran vaguely remembered as the smell of horse and fresh air, and as the feel of strong arms hoisting him onto a shoulder. There was a portrait of Phoran’s father hanging in the art gallery in the palace, but the painting was of a stranger with Phoran’s nose and fine, midbrown hair.
“My father will see you dead,” Rinnie said. It wasn’t the most wise thing she could have said, Phoran thought.
“You’ve said that before, and it becomes tedious. The fact of the matter is that Tier is a Bard. He is a fine Bard. Over the years I’ve heard many Bards sing, and none was as good as your father.” Willon’s voice lowered and became cruel. “But a Bard is no match for me. He can’t sing me to death, Rinnie. He can’t touch me. And as long as I have you, neither can your mother or the Raven.”