Vannor was lying huddled on Aurian’s bed as Eliseth stalked into the chamber, flanked by the two stone-faced mercenaries. At the sound of her entrance he hauled himself to his feet and straightened in a posture of insolent defiance, as though he had nothing to fear from her. But the Weather-Mage had seen, for a fleeting instant, the way his face had blanched at her approach, and had glimpsed the shadow of dread, now veiled, that lurked behind his eyes.
“Still on your feet, Vannor?” she mocked him. “Evidently the Archmage has been too lenient with you. But now comes my turn.” Her voice dropped to a snarl. “Tonight you will assist me.”
“I’ll assist you in nothing,” Vannor blazed, “as I told your master before you.”
“Indeed.” Eliseth’s voice was icy with anger. “That remains to be seen.” At her signal the two guards rushed forward and seized the merchant. Turning her back on Vannor and beckoning the mercenaries to follow with their captive, she walked back into the living chamber and laid her crystal on the polished wooden sill of the narrow window, placing two candles so their light reflected in the diamond panes and angled into the glittering facets of the gem. “Now, Mortal…” She looked back at Vannor, held tightly in the grip of his captors, in much the same way she might have regarded an insect. “Let us test the measure of your defiance.”
Her impassionate gaze turned to the guards. “Something small at first,” she mused, calm as though she were selecting silks in the marketplace. “Yet something that will serve as a permanent reminder never to defy the Magefolk. A hand, perhaps. The right hand—so he will never take up a sword in rebellion again.”
“No,” Vannor howled, thrashing and writhing in frantic desperation to escape as the mercenaries manhandled him into position with his hand held flat against the smooth surface of the table. Still he continued to struggle until the Weather-Mage, with a small exclamation of annoyance, lifted her hand in an abrupt, sharp gesture. All at once the merchant found himself unable to move, unable to speak, his limbs and tongue wrapped in a gelid shroud of icy cold that struck agonizingly to his very bones. His eyes were frozen open, looking down at the hand that lay limp and helpless, white against the darkly glowing wood of the table. There was no way he could avoid seeing what they did to him.
Eliseth, now that Vannor’s tongue was stilled and he was a prisoner of her magic, found that she was able to hear his raging thoughts. Though the merchant’s mind was still marginally under his control, it could do nothing but howl and curse impotently to articulate the terror and fury that he was unable to voice.
“Much better,” the Weather-Mage murmured, with a complacent little smile. “The power of your trapped emotions is increased if they have no means of expression.”
Vannor, helpless and in anguish, attempted to distract his roiling thoughts by imagining, in cold, precise detail, just what he would do to her if only he were free—Eliseth merely laughed. “Hatred will serve my purpose just as well,” she told him, “as will your despair. There is no escaping me now. You have no choice but to betray your friends.”
From the corner of his eye, Vannor glimpsed a flash of silver and heard the rasp of steel as one of the mercenaries drew his blade. The merchant’s blood turned to ice. Cut off his hand? No, they couldn’t! They—
The guard reversed his sword, holding it point up, high above the table. With the hilt in both hands, he brought it smashing down, the blade’s keen edges a silvery blur passing perilously close to the merchant’s face. Vannor’s world exploded in a flare of white-hot pain. His mind erupted in a soundless shriek as the heavy steel pommel of the hilt hammered once, twice, three times into the back of his hand, mangling and crushing the flesh and delicate bones into a bloody pulp.
“Enough.” As though it came from a great distance, Vannor heard Eliseth’s cool voice faintly through the buzzing in his ears. He wanted to let go, to lose this agony and shock and outrage in the dark haven of blessed unconsciousness, but the Mage’s spell held him like bands of iron, preventing such an easy escape. That bloody evil, foul-minded bitch, Vannor raged inwardly—but no; she had said she could use his anger just as well. I won’t permit this, he thought. I’m damned if I’ll let her use me!
With a wrenching effort he turned his mind away from the pain and mutilation to concentrate on good things: the wealth and luxury of former days, when he was head of the Merchants’ Guild; the warmth of comradeship with Forral and Aurian, Parric and Maya. He thought of loved ones: Zanna—(No—not Zanna! Vannor remembered the risk just in time.) Instead he thought of his lovely first wife, and Sara… But to his astonishment, it was the memory of Dulsina, his clever, sensible housekeeper with the compassionate heart and acerbic tongue, that gave Vannor the greatest strength to defy his tormentor.
Without sparing her prisoner a further glance, the Weather-Mage turned back to her crystal and let her mental energies flow into the fist-sized gem that sparkled in the candlelight by the window, against a backdrop of velvet night. Then, bracing her mind, she opened herself to Vannor’s pain and terror, stoking her powers with the pounding waves of negative dark energy that emanated from her suffering victim. It had taken many hours of exhausting and painstaking practice to allow her to reach this point, where her inner vision would expand to see into the Beyond, but now… Eliseth half closed her eyes as the crystal’s brittle rainbow glitter blurred and merged into a misty, opalescent haze—and within… “Ah.” The Weather-Mage breathed out a long sigh of satisfaction. “Now I have her!”
Eliseth’s first impression was the warm gold flicker of firelight; then, as they came more clearly into focus, she could see Aurian and Anvar sitting very close together. The Mages and two Mortals, a male and a female, were talking to someone else who seemed, frustratingly, constantly beyond the range of her Vision. She frowned and narrowed her eyes, pouring all her concentration into the crystal in a desperate attempt to discover the identity of the fifth person, but all she could perceive was a shape cloaked in shadow—human yet not human, flowing and shifting in her Vision, defying all her attempts at definition. With an effort, Eliseth focused into the Vision until she could hear what was being said—and to add to her vexation, it seemed there was a sixth person within the chamber! Someone else was clearly being addressed by Aurian and Anvar, and the odd, hidden being. Someone whose replies could not be heard, and whom the Weather-Mage, try as she might, could not see at all.
Aurian took a sip of syrupy mead from her cup of carven horn, and Chiamh saw her trying to suppress a grimace at the cloying sweetness of the drink. Though the Xandim brewed a more than passable ale, this stronger liquor was traditionally served on occasions of great formality—such as serious (if unofficial) councils. Today, they had gained a respite from the demands of the Horsefolk so that they could bury Elewin. Tomorrow, however, there would be hard decisions to make concerning the future leadership of the Xandim and the part that they would play in Aurian’s fight against the Archmage.
Tonight, Parric, Chiamh, the Mages, and Sangra had met privately, not only to share their grief over the passing of the steward, but also to confer together in the hope of coming up with some plan or strategy that they could present to the gathered Horselords in the morning.
Parric took a swig from his horn cup and cast his gaze around the solemn assembly. “I know that no one feels like making hard decisions tonight,” he said heavily, “but after what happened yesterday, we had better come up with something, fast. It’s the dark of the moon again, so I can be Challenged, and I don’t want or need to be Herdlord any longer. Besides,” he added wryly, “I’m not going through a fight like that again for anyone. Surely there must be someone from the Xandim who can take over—someone sympathetic to our cause. What happens, under Xandim law, if the Herdlord doesn’t want to defend the leadership? Can we nominate someone?”