Kelene cast a censorious glance around the darkened room and curled her lip. The whole thing was too big, too elegant, too overdone. Large pieces of ornately carved furniture, murals, thick rugs, and pieces of decorative art had been arranged in the room by someone, Kelene was sure, with a very tense and cluttered mind. The effort had been made to impress, not to make comfortable, and she found the whole effect annoying.
Suppressing a sign, she drew back the drapes and unlatched the glass-paned window. Glass was a rarity among people who spent most of their lives moving tents around, but Kelene liked the feel of the smooth, cool surface and the way light could pass through. If she ever returned to Moy Tura, Kelene decided to find a glassmaker who could teach her how to create the panes and the beautiful colored glass bottles, vials, and jars she had seen the Turics use.
She leaned out over the sill and drew a deep breath of the night air. Far below her the city of Cangora dropped gradually down street after street to the great copper gates that now stood closed for the night. The city was dark, brooding in silence after its easy defeat by the Gryphon the night before.
After the surrender of the city, Zukhara had taken up residence in the Shar-Ja’s palace at the foot of the magnificent buttress of stone that thrust out from the foot of the mountain and formed the foundation of Cangora’s defenses. Kelene could not see the rock formation from her window, but she had noticed it from the gryphon’s back and recognized its unopposable might. The Turics had recognized that strength long ago and built a large temple on the top of the lofty stone. That temple, Zukhara had told her, was the main reason he had come to Cangora. Unfortunately, he had not yet told her why.
Thankfully she had seen him only once since he locked her and Gabria in the room near his quarters, and then it had been for just a brief time while he displayed her to the remaining members of the Shar-Ja’s council. In the meanwhile, he had been constantly busy, swiftly solidifying his position in the city and spreading his war throughout the realm. The city governor’s body had been hung in a gibbet by the front gates and was quickly joined by three more city officials who protested Zukhara’s right to impose martial law on the population.
He set a nightly curfew for all city inhabitants, and the Fel Azureth patrolled the streets in squads to ruthlessly enforce his brand of civil law. The rest of the army, those who were not billeted at the palace, moved into several inns and a number of large homes around Cangora, throwing out the inhabitants and plundering the stores. Zukhara did little to keep them in check, and anyone foolish enough to complain found himself talking to rats in the city’s prison. Those who did not profess their belief in the Gryphon’s holy calling also found their way to the dungeons.
It was hardly an auspicious way to begin one’s magnificent reign, Kelene thought sourly. She lifted her gaze beyond the night-cloaked city to the heights beyond where the caravan road came down from a broad, open hill. Although she could not see the distant landscape, she remembered it well.
“They’re coming,” her mother had said.
Who was coming? Was someone out there riding to their rescue? Or was it something she could not yet understand, something Gabria had seen only in a dream? Kelene studied the place where the hill should be as if she could penetrate the blackness and see what was there. Last night she had heard something—or thought she had. There had been a brief sound that called for just a moment over the roar of the army and the crash of its weapons. It had risen so faintly she still wasn’t certain it had been there, but it sounded so familiar, so dear. Maybe it was just wishful thinking that she had heard Demira’s voice on the hilltop beyond the city.
Leaving the window open, she returned to the bed where Gabria slept peacefully and pulled a spare cover onto the floor. She folded the blanket into a pallet and stretched out close to the bed so she could be near if Gabria needed her. Her eyes closed and her body relaxed, but it was a long time before she slept.
12
Because of her restless night, Kelene slept late the next morning and roused only when servants brought trays of food into the bedroom and set breakfast on a table near the open window. She bounced to her feet, having slept better on the floor, and maneuvered the servants out the door when they insisted on serving the clanswomen their breakfast. Kelene closed the door in their faces. “Overfed, interfering females,” she said irritably.
At least they had had one good idea—they had brought a pot of freshly brewed tea. Kelene prepared a cup, laced it with milk, sweetened it with honey, and took it to her mother.
Gabria was already awake, and she smiled as Kelene sat beside her. Carefully she drank the hot tea, letting it settle her queasy stomach between sips.
“Do you remember the dream you had last night?” Kelene asked after a while.
The older sorceress looked blank; then she tilted her head in thought. “It is so vague. I feel as though I walked in a fog all night. But I do remember a white horse.”
“A white horse?” Kelene repeated, alarmed. The color was unusual among clan horses because of its connection to sorcery and to the Harbingers’ spectral steeds. “Was it a . . .”
“No,” Gabria hurriedly reassured her. “I thought so loo at first, but it was ridden by a woman.”
“Who? And why would you say ‘They’re coming’?”
“Did I? I don’t know. I don’t remember anymore.”
Kelene clicked her tongue. “Mother, some day, a long time from now, when you enter the presence of the gods, will you please ask Amara why your dreams are always so maddeningly unclear?”
The remark brought a smile to Gabria’s face, and for a moment lit her dull eyes with humor. “I’ll be sure to let you know the answer.”
They were still laughing when their door banged open and Zukhara’s majordomo walked into the room. A golden gryphon on his uniform identified him as one of the Fel Azureth, and the deep lines on his forehead and the chill black of his eyes marked him as a man of little humor.
Kelene glared at him and said coldly, “Were you born in a brothel that you do not ask to be admitted?”
He ignored her remark. His eyes slid over the room disdainfully and did not once look directly at her. “His Supreme Highness, Lord Zukhara, Ruler of the Faithful, expects your presence, clanswoman,” he demanded in crude Clannish.
“I guess that means me,” snapped Kelene.
“And he wants you in one of the gowns prepared for you.”
Kelene spat her opinion of the dresses and stalked out of the room before the officer realized she was going. She still wore the clan pants and tunic she’d made in the cavern—that was good enough!
The officer hurried to catch up, his face a frozen mask. Without another word he led her to an airy room on a lower floor of the large and spacious palace, where Zukhara and several other older men and two priests in yellow robes stood together talking.
The Gryphon’s distinctive eyebrows lowered when he saw Kelene. “I asked you—”
Kelene cut him off. “I am comfortable as I am.”
The men looked shocked at her effrontery, but Zukhara snapped his fingers and spoke a brief spell. To Kelene’s chagrin, she found herself clothed in a long blue gown with a bodice that clung to her form and a skirt that flowed like water to her feet. Silver embroidery decorated the neckline and the hem, and a silver belt tucked in her slender waist. Even her long hair was braided with silver ribbon and crowned with a simple coronet. She’d never felt so elegant, self-conscious, or humiliated in her life.
Zukhara suddenly broke into his charming smile. “You are lovely, my lady. And do not think to change it back, or you will stand before the city in nothing but your silky, pale skin.”