“Mortal, you once did the Magefolk a great favor by disclosing to us the location of the rebels that infested our city. Such loyalty is to be greatly commended—and now I find that I must count upon it once again.” Swiftly she outlined her plan for his betrayal of the rebels, watching his eyes first widen in amazement—and then narrow in calculating greed. Eliseth smiled to herself. She had gauged his nature to a nicety. When she had finished speaking, she sat back in her chair and took a sip of the disgusting wine, wondering what this base and lowly Mortal would dare to ask of her in return.
Bern’s request took her completely by surprise. “What?” she gasped. “Grain? Are you certain?”
The baker nodded, his expression avid. “Lady, there is no flour in Nexis. I’m a ruined man—I can’t run my business. Think what it would mean to me to be the only working baker in the city. And I did hear rumors,” he added slyly,
“that the Magefolk have all sorts of supplies up there in the Academy…”
Eliseth made a mental note to investigate the source of such rumors, and turned her attention back to Bern. It was difficult to suppress her smile as she answered. “Of course you may have the supplies you require,” she told him graciously. “But on one condition—you must set out this very night.”
Bern looked thunderstruck. “Why, yes, my Lady, of course, but…” He swallowed hard. “How shall I make arrangements to collect my grain?”
Eliseth marveled at the man’s temerity, even though he had shrunk from actually suggesting that she might not keep her word. “That can be dealt with at once,” she told him crisply. “Have you a secure place to store it in your absence?”
Bern nodded, and led the way to his storeroom in the cellar. The Mage nodded her satisfaction. “Now, be silent,” she commanded. Reaching with her mind to the location of the Academy supplies, she poured her powers into an apport spell. There was a flash, a roar of displaced air—and the cellar was filled from floor to ceiling with bags of spilling golden grain.
“Oh—Lady!” The baker’s expression told Eliseth everything she needed to know. “After this I’ll do anything for you,” he blurted. “Anything at all…”
“You already know what I require of you.” The Mage had had enough, now, of the Mortal. She wanted him on his way, and out of Nexis before the morning. Leading him from the cellar, she shut the door firmly behind them and passed a hand across the wood, watching the wardspell shimmer into place like light on water. “Now,” she told the baker, “pay attention. To protect your precious supplies, I have spelled the door and the grating to kill anyone who touches them.”
The baker’s avaricious eyes grew round with dismay. “But, Lady…” he stammered.
“As soon as you return, having successfully completed your mission,” Eliseth went on crushingly, as though he had not spoken, “you will report to me at the Academy, and the spell will be removed. That is all. Make your preparations, Mortal, and leave immediately—lest I should be tempted to regret my generosity.”
There was no need to say more. Eliseth knew now that he was hers. As she left the bakery, she could no longer hide her smile, thinking of Bern’s dismay when he returned from his dangerous assignment to discover that free supplies had been given out by Miathan the very day he had left—and gloating over the thought of the Archmage’s baffled fury in the morning, when he discovered that most of his grain supplies had mysteriously vanished.
The slow hours of darkness crawled by as Zanna waited. Now that she had a plan, her spirits fluctuated wildly with an unsettling mix of excitement and trepidation, and she could scarcely wait to leave her hiding place in the storeroom and get moving. Unfortunately, the last thing she needed at this point was to run into Janok. Zanna knew she would have to curb her impatience as best she could, and wait until everyone—especially the brutal head cook—was sure to be asleep.
Getting out of the storeroom in the darkness was a nightmare, but even if Zanna had remembered to bring a candle, she dared not risk a light. She was forced to worm her way out of her cramped lair on her hands and knees, feeling blindly ahead for the stacked barrels, bags, and crocks that turned the room into a maze of hazards. It seemed to take forever. She was stiff and aching after Janok’s beating and, after so long a wait, every movement made her muscles scream in protest, but that was the least of her worries right now. Zanna felt lost and disoriented, her head spinning dizzily. Surely, it was such a small chamber that she must have reached the wall by now.
Zanna’s heart leapt into her mouth as she felt a pile begin to totter and fall. Reaching up quickly, she tried to steady it, but to no avail. The breath was knocked out of her as several lumpy, laden sacks landed on top of her. Potatoes, from the clean, sharp, earthy smell. For an instant of frozen terror she simply lay there, waiting for the crash that never came, then carefully began to lever herself out from beneath the heavy bags. Thank the gods, she thought, as she rubbed her bruises, that one of the crocks didn’t go over! After another long moment of groping, she scraped her knuckles on a cool, rough surface. She had reached the wall at last. She took the best guess she could at the direction in which the door lay, and was lucky. The spaciousness and empty air felt so good beyond her seeking hands. Oh, what a blessing it was to be able to stand up again and move unhindered! She went slowly down the dark passage, feeling her way with one hand on the wall.
The kitchen, though shrouded in shadow, seemed dangerously bright after the pitch-black corridor. Dark, humped silhouettes against the dim, smoky light of the banked fires showed the positions of sleeping menials, and Zanna found herself thinking it was a measure of Janok’s cruelty that he would not permit his few helpers to take over the almost-deserted dormitory of the household staff. He goes groveling and creeping around the Magefolk, she thought resentfully, but he treats us worse than animals, because it keeps us cowed so that we do his bidding. And because he enjoys the sense of power. Zanna shuddered, and tried to put him out of her mind. The thought of him made her sick and afraid to her very soul.
The door that led directly from the kitchen into the Great Hall was on the far side of the room. It took more courage than Zanna had known she possessed to cross that broad expanse of kitchen floor. Only the thought of her dad, imprisoned and suffering, could make her take that worst, first step, and keep going thereafter. Guiding herself by the faint glow of the fire, she slid from shadow to shadow toward the door, giving the slumbering menials a wide berth. Though her feet were silent, surely someone must hear the beating of her heart!
As she passed the sinks, a dull gleam of red caught Zanna’s eye, as though an ember from the fire had somehow rolled into the shadows underneath the deep stone basins and was slowly dying on the cold, damp floor. What in the world…? Zanna’s heart leapt. It couldn’t be, could it? Stooping quickly, she snicked her scrabbling fingers on the razor-keen edge of a long, broad-bladed knife. She snatched it up quickly, her bloody fingers slippery on the smooth bone handle, and felt instantly amazed at the difference a weapon made to her faltering courage. With considerably lifted spirits, the young girl finally gained the door and slipped gratefully out into the cool, musty darkness of the deserted Great Hall.
Zanna darted away from the door and crouched down beside the paneled wall beneath the overhanging minstrels’ gallery. There she stayed for several minutes, until her heart slowed and her breathing steadied and her trembling stilled. Though a little light filtered from outside through the row of tall windows, illuminating the stark black columns of the double row of pillars, the vast, echoing chamber seemed very dark after the half light of the kitchen. As she waited for her eyes to adjust to the difference, Zanna turned her weapon over and over in her hand. She supposed it must have been knocked from the table or the bench and accidentally kicked beneath the sink, where it had been lost in the shadows until that stray gleam of firelight had picked it out for her eyes. Janok must truly have been preoccupied today, if he had not noticed it was missing. Usually, he kept a careful tally of the knives.