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"Come. I have something to show you."
Having failed with the window, Lailomun headed for the door. Mythrell'aa let him take a few strides, then dropped him to his knees with an effortless spell: They'd played this game countless times before.
"How many times must I tell you, my pet? You're mine. You'll never leave me again."
Lailomun froze-his will, again, not hers. He studied his surroundings with the wit that made him so attractive to experienced and mighty women. This morning, because she'd been disturbed and another experienced, mighty woman was the source, Mythrell'aa gave her one-time lover an extra heartbeat's contemplation before she tightened his chain again.
"Shall I drag you?"
He rose and came to her, proud and dignified in defeat. The zulkir could have procured his cooperation, as she did with her body servants, but she'd left Lailomun's nature intact and tampered with his memory instead. Whatever Lailomun had remembered when she extracted him from the trysting room he remembered still. After that moment, however, his memory held nothing. Each time Mythrell'aa called Lailomun, she awoke him from an open-eyed sleep that, from his crippled perspective, had begun in the trysting room. He'd remain alert for a little while, thinking his captivity had just begun, dreading what lay ahead. Then, gradually he'd fall into a trance until she roused him again.
Mythrell'aa opened her arms above the ember images. "See who I've found."
Her voice was sweet and deadly. Lailomun knew better than to trust her, but he looked at the images and recognized his ladylove.
"See, my pet, she has a child. Not yours, is it? Surely it's too big, too old to be yours. You were together, what-two years? Less? That child must have a different father."
Lailomun was surprised. More than surprised, he was shocked. Where another man might have lost his voice, Mythrell'aa hoped, when his lips parted, that Lailomun might find his. He caught himself before he spoke a word.
"Always the same decision," Mythrell'aa said softly, a trace of affection in her voice. She reached up to caress Lailomun's cheek. He held his breath as her sharpened nails moved across his flesh.
"She never loved you, Lailomun, not as I loved you. I could show you more. I could show you Alassra Shentrantra in the arms of a score of men, I could reveal her naked in the lairs of beasts and demons. She's made a fool of you, Lailomun, used you up and thrown you aside."
The zulkir, who was head and shoulders shorter than Lailomun, retreated, the better to observe his reaction. But there was no reaction. Shock had shattered the man's fragile awareness. He'd become, again, a living statue. She could awaken him. He'd have no memory of these last moments. The game could be played and replayed until Lailomun's nerves frayed and he collapsed into a stupor from which even a zulkir could not arouse him.
"Lailomun. Lailomun, my pet. Pay attention to me."
Mythrell'aa had designed the perfect punishment for a wayward lover. The incantation she'd used to cripple his memory might have made her rich, if she'd needed more wealth or written down the spells she devised. Once she'd cast the spell successfully, she'd lost interest in it. Her notes had disappeared years ago, and Lailomun's torment so amused her that while he lived-an unexpected side effect of the addling spell had given him an odd kind of immortality-she'd needed no other pets.
The brazier cooled, the ember images crumbled, but that hardly mattered as Mythrell'aa put her pet through his paces, sharpening her tongue on his wounds. Dawn had become morning before she grew bored. She left him twitching on the floor, returning her attention to the brazier.
Using a bone-and-brass poker, the zulkir stirred hot coals from the bottom to the top, feeding them incense powders. Wisps of pungent smoke arched toward her when Mythrell'aa uttered the names of her minions, but none congealed into a recognizable shape. Her fears confirmed, Mythrell'aa added a drop of green oil to the incense mix.
"Vazurmu," Mythrell'aa called the name of an illusionist of no small talent and a woman bound to her in death as well as life. "I summon you."
"I hear you, Mighty Zulkir. My eyes and ears, my heart and mind are yours."
Vazurmu's voice came faintly out of the smoke. Mythrell'aa made a sour face as she poured amber oil and more incense into the brazier. The village where her minions were supposed to ambush Alassra Shentrantra was near the Yuirwood and the Yuirwood interfered with Red Wizard magic. Mythrell'aa despised Aglarond's great forest almost as much as she despised Aglarond's queen. When the Red Wizards finally conquered that wretched realm, she'd personally cast the conflagration spells to burn all those thrice-damned trees to the ground.
"Tell me what happened," the zulkir commanded.
Smoke thickened into a woman's shape and spoke more clearly. "An old woman appeared yesterday morning. No one knew her-"
"Beshaba!" Mythrell'aa muttered the name of her patron goddess, "Did you think the bitch-queen would arrive with bugles and milk-white horses?"
Vazurmu's image quaked soot. "No, Mighty Zulkir. We were alert for all strangers, even birds and toadstools. Arnoz approached her cautiously. She saw through him before he had time to cast a spell. Then madness ruled. We followed your orders. The village is dead and burning. No witnesses survive to say what happened."
"Except for you and the Great Bitch! What happened?"
"I stayed out of the fighting, as you instructed. I kept her in front of me. I watched her. She is… she is like no other, Mighty Zulkir. She is a fiend unleashed."
"I don't need you to tell me what she is, I need to know what happened next!"
"Yes, Mighty Zulkir I was hidden-quiet-no one could have noticed me, yet I was struck down from behind-"
"By a dirt-eating peasant! Beshaba gives me fools to work with."
"Yes, Mighty Zulkir." Vazurmu knew better than to argue with her zulkir. One word from Mythrell'aa and, the Yuirwood notwithstanding, her flesh would shrivel; another word and her blood would boil. "I am a fool struck down by a peasant and I have ill-served you. But I recovered my senses before the queen left."
"And?" Mythrell'aa paced around the brazier.
"I followed her to the stable where the horse was kept. She'd led the horse outside and had drawn a circle in the grass to take it away from the village. A boy-"
"A boy? What boy? You said, no witnesses."
"Yes, Mighty Zulkir. The boy and a little girl broke into the circle as the silver-eyed queen cast her spell."
If she hadn't already known the resolution, Mythrell'aa would have chuckled in eager anticipation. The laws of spellcraft were the same on both sides of the Yuirwood. No Red Wizard-including herself-could have held the circle if two people had broken it. It made what she'd seen earlier that much more remarkable, more ominous.
"The backlash was terrible, Mighty Zulkir. A dead space opened where they'd been. Anything that wasn't already dead, died, I'm certain."
"You're certain," Mythrell'aa purred at her minion, already contemplating the woman's demise: Alassra had saved the little girl, at the very least. Vazurmu had failed on many levels; she'd pay the full price of failure. "Of course, you're certain. Where are you, Vazurmu?"
"I… in the village, Mighty Zulkir, what's left of it."
"You didn't try to follow her?"
"No, Mighty Zulkir. They're lost between here and there."
"Lost, Vazurmu? The Great Bitch lost? She's been seen everywhere. Where could she wind up and be lost? She wound up at home in Velprintalar-that's how lost she was!" Silence rose from the smoking brazier. "Vazurmu!"
More silence, then: "Mighty Zulkir, I entered the dead space. I cast my own spells. They were hurled into the Yuirwood, hurled through time, as well. I didn't dare follow. No Wizard is safe there."