Shugat pursed his lips, considering. 'Perhaps. Or perhaps he is more of a danger to Lional. Or perhaps… at the end of the day when the sun has set and the camels chew cud in their stables… perhaps the biggest danger he poses is to himself.' 'As ever you speak in riddles, my friend.'
'The day I speak but plainly' Shugat replied, allowing himself a smile, 'is the day the gods have done with me!'
'A day long hence, I implore them!' said Zazoor, and kissed his fingers to the Three. 'Shugat, will you ride with me back to the court of King Lional?'
His bones were peevish just at the thought, but he nodded. 'I will. The gods decree 1 must return there and see their desires fulfilled. There is a mystery with Lional, his wizard and his blaspheming beasts that I must pierce to the heart lest it poison us all. For good or ill our future lies with them, and in this brewing storm… though why that is I cannot say'
'The ride to New Ottosland is long and slow,' said Zazoor. 'Can we reach it before the storm breaks?'
'Time has no meaning for the Three. I am given power to bend time, that it might serve our purpose and the purpose of the gods.'
'Truly, they are great,' Zazoor whispered. 'Shugat, pray with me.'
Together they knelt before the shrine and prostrated themselves in supplication. What Zazoor heard then, Shugat did not know. But in his heart he heard the whispers of the gods and felt himself complete, and at peace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
'On!' shouted Melissande, and kicked her suite's unyielding front doors. 'I hate you! Open up right now or I'll — I'll give you woo amp;wormV
It was an idle threat. Not only did Madame Ravatinka not believe in teaching practical applications of magic until Second Year, she also frowned on offensive thaumaturgy. Because witches were ladies, and ladies were nice, and nice meant doing nothing aggressive.
Thwarted, Melissande hobbled to the nearest chair, shoved its occupying books to the floor and flung herself into it, feeling remarkably foolish. The doors were locked. She knew they were locked. Expecting them to miraculously open with a threat made as much sense as looking for one lost shoe in the same cupboard you've already searched six times.
Staring at the doors she chewed her thumbnail, savagely.
Something was very wrong here. Well, more wrong than being cooped up in these wretched rooms unable to do a stroke of work because the etheretic transductors still hadn't returned to normal and Lional had forbidden contact from anyone beyond the palace which meant every meeting scheduled for the past five days had been cancelled and what that was going to do to the Treasury's cash flow and the kingdom's trade balances she couldn't begin to think about without a cold compress for her forehead and a very large glass of whiskey for the rest of her. Oh dear lord how she loathed her brother.
Returning to the doors she pressed her cheek to the timber and listened. Nothing. She took a deep breath. 'Ronnie? Ronnie, are you there yet? Is anyone there? Answer me!'
Silence. Ronnie was gone and no other guard had taken his place. Neither had Bedford responded to her summons via the bell-rope, and he'd been faithfully delivering her meals since this ridiculous incarceration had begun. It didn't make sense.
'Well,' she said to the world at large. 'Bugger this for a barrel-load of monkeys.'
Muttering, she retrieved from her sock drawer the special set of keys she kept hidden there and returned to her stubbornly locked suite doors. Lional wouldn't like it one little bit, her just letting herself out with incanted keys she wasn't supposed to own, but that was too bad. He shouldn't have turned into such an unreasonable bully. He only had himself to blame. She'd get him to see sense once he'd calmed down. That was one of her greatest talents, getting Lional to see sense in the long run. Usually.
Shoving aside that unwelcome thought, she sorted through the key collection until she found the big one with all the curlicues and stuck it in the lock. There was a sharp crack, an acrid puff of smoke and a flash of unbearable heat. Crying out, she let go of the key ring… and watched the incredibly expensive incanted keys melt and dribble down the varnished timber into a sizzling puddle of bronze on the floor. Her jaw dropped.' What?'
Closing her mouth with a snap she fetched a screwdriver and tried to remove the hinges holding the doors to the wall. The screwdriver sagged like a limp piece of liquorice. No. No. There was a hex on her doors? Gerald, how could you?
Tears welled. Angrily she smeared them away and dropped again into her chair. At least this explained why she hadn't heard from him in over a week. Meditation? Meditation her fat Uncle Albert! Gerald had caved, that's what he'd done. He was aiding and abetting impossible Lional. What pressures her brother had brought to bear on him she couldn't imagine… and didn't much care about, actually. Gerald was a scummy turncoat, full stop, end of discussion.
Damn him. If she could stand up to Lional why couldn't he?
What a rnessl The only person left on her side of the argument was Rupert and there was no point considering help from that quarter, even if she could reach him. Rupert couldn't even help himself. Expecting him to defy Lional and come charging — no, make that fluttering — to the rescue was like expecting Reg to keep her beak shut.
And as if her personal crisis wasn't bad enough there was the imminent national disaster waiting to explode in all their faces once Lional's dealings with the Kallarapi were made public. But instead of being out there in the thick of the action, doing her job, taking charge, organising some kind of intelligent response, she was stuck in here behind a pair of hexed doors without the first idea of how to get around them.
Which meant she was stuck here indefinitely, because those doors were the only way out of her apartments. It was an absolute catastrophe. And if she wasn't careful she was really going to cry.
From the direction of the bedroom came a heavy, clunking-on-glass sound. She stood up, frowning. What the hell?
I've had about as much nonsense as I can take for one lifetime. If you're a burglar you're going to be sorry.
Fists clenched she marched to the bedroom, stopped just inside the doorway and glared into the corners. Then she heard it again, a banging against the windowpane behind those curtains therel
Heavy drapes in either hand, panting, she found herself staring nose to beak at Reg, who was hovering like an ugly overgrown hummingbird on the other side of the window.
'Well don't just stand there, you stupid bint!' Reg shouted through the thick pane of glass. 'Or do you want him to fall screaming to a messy death?'
That's when she noticed the fingers ranged along the window ledge. The window ledge of the window that was seven storeys up the side of the palace wall, that she couldn't escape through because not even all her sheets and blankets tied together would reach the ground and, thanks to Madame Ravatinka, her levitation skills hadn't progressed past lifting and lowering very short thin pencils.
The fingers were bloodless, and clutching the window ledge in a manner that did suggest imminent letting go and a subsequent screaming fall to a messy death.
She opened the window and Reg half-flew, half-fell into the room. 'What are you waiting for?' the wretched bird gasped, collapsed in a heap on the floor.'Pull him in!'
She lunged forward and over the windowsill, grabbed the wrists belonging to the slipping fingers, dug her heels into the carpet and heaved. Inch by inch the wrists became arms, became shoulders with a head centred neatly between them, became a whole body kicking and cursing and scraping over the sill and into her bedroom.
With a startled grunt she overbalanced and fell on the carpet, rump first. The body landed on its face between her outstretched legs. After a grumbling groaning moment, it looked up. She stared.'What the hell? You're not Gerald!'