Sybel’s eyes lifted to his face. The hall was dim around them but for the flame of a last torch; Eorth’s snoring sounded weak against the great rising of silent, ancient stone. She leaned toward Rok, her eyes dark, unwavering on his face as the black, moonlit pools of Fyrbolg.
“Something,” she said finally, “that I have never told any man.”
Rok was silent. Eorth was silent, too, a moment; he caught a sudden breath midsnore and woke himself up, blinking at them.
“Eorth, go to bed,” Rok said impatiently, and Eorth heaved himself to his feet.
“All right.”
Rok watched him go. Then he turned back to Sybel, his eyes narrowed.
“Tell me.”
Sybel folded her hands on the table. “Did Coren tell you about the wizard who called me?”
Rok nodded. “He said you had been captured—called—by a very powerful wizard who was attracted to you, and that the wizard died and you came back free. He did not tell me how the wizard died.”
“Let that be for a moment. What Coren does not know is that the wizard was paid by Drede to take me, and to make me—obedient to Drede, so that Drede could marry me without fearing me.”
“How—obedient?”
Her mouth twitched a little, steadied. “He was paid to destroy a part of my mind, the part that chooses and wills of its own. I would have retained most of my powers, but they would have been subject to Drede. I was to be made—content with Drede.”
Rok’s lips parted. “Could he have done that?”
“Yes. He held—he held my mind so completely, more completely than any man holds his own mind. I would have been controlled by Drede; I would have done whatever he wanted without question or hope of question, and I would have been happy, afterward, that I had pleased Drede. That, Drede wanted.” Her taut hands loosened; one lifted, cut the air. “For that, I will destroy him.”
Rok sat back in his chair, the breath easing from him soundlessly. “Is that why you married Coren?” he asked suddenly. “As part of your revenge?”
’Yes.”
“You do not love him?” he asked almost wistfully.
“I love him.” Her hands eased apart then. “I love him,” she repeated softly. “He is kind and good and wise, all those things I am not, and if I lost him, I would hunger for those things in him. For that reason, I do not want him to know what is—what is in my heart. He might hate me for this. I do not—I do not like myself so much these days. But I want Drede to suffer. I want him to know what dread and hopelessness I knew. He is learning a little of it now. Tam said he is beginning to be afraid, and with good reason. I want war between Sirle and Drede, and I want Drede powerless. I will help you under two conditions.”
“Name them,” Rok breathed.
“That Coren will not know I am involved. And that Tam is not used in any way against Drede. For that, I will call the Lords of Niccon and Hilt to side with you against Drede; I will use my own animals against Drede, and I will give you a king’s treasure for the gathering and arming of men.”
Rok gazed at her wordlessly. She saw the muscles of his throat move as he swallowed. “You yourself are a dream come true, Lady,” he whispered. “Where will you get the treasure?”
“From Gyld. He has amassed enough gold through the centuries to arm every man and child in Eldwold. If I ask him, he will give me part of it. You see, Ter was captured, too, that day, and he watched powerless himself, while Drede and Mithran spoke of their plan. When I came to Eld Mountain today, every animal there knew what had been done to us.”
“But how did you escape that wizard, if he was so powerful?”
“Rommalb killed him.”
“Rommalb—” She saw the memories flick in his eyes. “The nightwalker— How?”
“He—crushed him.”
Rok’s face was shocked, motionless in the firelight. “That is what Coren met on your hearth?”
She nodded. “It was not a pleasant meeting, but Coren did what—what few men have ever done.”
“What?”
“He survived.” She stirred, her hands stretching taut on the table. “I never meant for that to happen; it was Cyrin’s doing, and I was terrified. But Coren is wiser than I dreamed he could be.”
“So he must be—wiser than we all dreamed. Why do you not set this Rommalb at Drede?”
“Because I want a slow revenge. I want him to know what is being done to him and why, and who is responsible. The things he fears most in the world are the power and energy of Sirle, and me. He came to Mithran’s tower that day expecting to find a woman who would smile and take his hand and do his bidding. Instead he found that woman gone and a great wizard lying broken on the floor. Since that day he has been afraid. Now, with your help, I will overwhelm him with his fears.”
His head moved slowly from side to side. “You are merciless.”
“Yes. If you choose to refuse me, I will go to bed and we will never speak of this again. But with or without Sirle, it will be done.”
“You have such things involved with this—Coren’s love, Tamlorn’s. Do you want to risk them?”
“I have thought deep in the night, night after night, about this plan. I know the risks. I know that if Coren finds out how I have used him, or if Tam suspects that I am destroying his father, they will be hurt past bearing, and I will lose all that I value in this world. But I told you tonight what I have decided.”
“Are you sure?”
She held his eyes. “It will be done.”
He drew a soft breath and loosed it. “I think it will be done with Sirle.”
The building of the gardens for the animals began with the softening of the earth in spring and progressed into the long summer. One by one Sybel called the animals to Sirle: first the Black Swan to take its place in a small, glass-clear lake filled with smooth stones and fire-bright fish. She went to meet it as it descended slowly over the garden, and came to glide without a ripple, night-black and regal, over the still waters. Its voice ran smooth, melodious through her thoughts.
It is small, but pleasing.
Rok, said Sybel, is going to have a white fountain put in the middle.
The shape, Sybel?
Two swans in flight, soaring upward, with their beaks touching.
Yes. And that matter concerning you?
It will be settled. Soon.
I am in readiness, when you have need of me.
She called Gyld from his corner in the dark, damp wine cellar and he fell asleep again in a grotto shaded by trees, cooled by a vein of the Slinoon trained beneath the wall that danced past his cave into the Swan’s lake. Jewels, cups and gold pieces past value winked dully in the shadows around him, for he had given Sybel the path to his mountain cave, and Rok had sent Eorth, Bor and Herne secretly to bring his gold. They had returned, three days after he sent them, exhausted, overladen and awestricken.
“We could not bring it all,” Bor said to Rok and Sybel. He rubbed his weary eyes as though at a vision for which there were no words. “Rok, we waded ankle-deep in places through silver pieces. There were the bones of three dead men, and one wore a king’s crown. And that is the beast we put so blithely into our wine cellar.”
“You have nothing to fear from him,” Sybel said. “He is old, and he wants nothing now but his dreams, and his gold securely about him. He is pleased with his cave.”
“You could buy a kingdom with that gold,” Herne said, his blue eyes gleaming in his arched, restless face. A corner of Rok’s mouth lifted faintly.
“Yes.”
She called the Lyon and the great, green-eyed Cat next, and they came by night, gleaming, velvet beneath the moonlight across the Sirle fields. Sybel met them at the gate, opened it for them, and they passed through softly into the garden, the grass whispering beneath them, the blossoming trees white and still against the night sky.