The Born Queen

Leoff lunged and swung his cane at the man, but something hit him hard on the back of the head, and for a while he couldn't focus beyond that.

When he could, he realized that Mery was playing. He looked up, feeling nauseated, and saw that Haukun had forced Areana to her feet and had her pressed against the wall. Her dress had been pushed up.

"Sing," he said, starting to take down his breeches.

Areana slitted her eyes, and the purest malice Leoff had ever seen in her peered from there. And then she did sing, and Leoff realized what Mery was playing.

"Remember," he called hoarsely. "Remember, for saints' sake."

Then they were past the point of no return, and the song took them all to its end.

When it was over, Areana was huddled in a corner and Leoff couldn't get up; every time he tried to move, his stomach started heaving again. It had been worse this time, harder to sing the counterpoint that had preserved their lives at Lord Respell's castle.

Mery looked no worse for wear, though. She hopped down from her stool and sat with him, stroking his neck.

Haukun and the others, of course, hadn't been so fortunate. Only Haukun was still alive, probably because he had been near enough to Areana to hear her countercant. He wasn't well, though. He was sprawled on the floor, twitching, whining with each breath like a sick old dog.

Still trying to rise, he saw Areana come unsteadily to her feet and leave the room. She returned a moment later with a kitchen knife.

"Look away, Mery," she said.

"Go in my study," Leoff told the girl. "Get everything we've been working on. Do you understand? Then go get your thaurnharp. Don't leave the house."

When he could walk again, Leoff peered out the front door. He didn't see anyone. Then he went back to look at the bodies. Areana had cleaned up the blood from Haukun, and the others had died without a mark on them.

"What now?" Areana said.

He stepped to embrace her, but she flinched back, and he stopped, feeling a lump in his throat. He didn't feel like much of a man.

"I think we have to leave," he said. "If more soldiers come, the same thing will happen. If Ilzereik returns, he'll probably have us burned as shinecrafters."

"Not if we get rid of the bodies," Areana said. "Then he'll reckon they just deserted. There's no way he'll imagine we managed to do away with all these." She prodded one of the corpses with her toe.

"True," he said. "But as I said, it might not be Ilzereik. It could be a knight more like Haukun, or worse."

"Where will we go?" she asked. "All of Newland is probably occupied. For all we know, Eslen has already fallen."

He was trying to think of an answer to that when they heard a whi

"Well," he sighed. "It's moot now."

"Taste," the knight said, proffering a bite of barley mush to Mery. She blinked and took a bit.

"I told you we didn't poison them," Leoff said.

"I'm starting to believe you," the knight replied. "I'm starting to think this is an entire nation of witches. I befriended you, composer. I treated you well."

"Yes, but you left your men to rape my wife while you were gone," he said. "We were just defending ourselves."

"Jah, but how-by what means?"

Leoff firmed his jaw and didn't answer.

The knight sat back.

"You'll tell," he said. "I've sent for the sacritor of our hansa. He should be here within a bell, and he will know what happened here. He will know what to do."

"Shall I play you a tune in the meantime?" Mery asked.

"No," the Hansan said. "There will be no music. If I hear anything that resembles a cantation, I'll kill whoever starts it. Do you understand?"

"Be still, Mery," Leoff said.

Ilzereik went back to the bodies. "Haukun was stabbed," he mused. "The others just fell dead. Whatever you did, Haukun wasn't affected. A puzzle."

He went to the music Mery had packed and began pulling it out.

Someone in the yard called the knight's name.

"Ah," he said. "That will be the sacritor, won't it? Are you sure you wouldn't rather tell me? You'll still be lustrated, but at least you won't be questioned."

"I've been 'questioned' by the Church before," Leoff said, holding up his hands.

"I see. There's a history, then. Well, it's a shame. I was really enjoying your company. I can't believe I was so deceived."

He rose and went to the door. Leoff closed his eyes, trying to think of something, anything, to do.

Nothing came to mind.

CHAPTER TWO

FRATREX PELL turned quickly when he heard Stephen sigh.

"You!" he gasped. Beneath his graying brows, his eyes glimmered with disbelief.

Stephen wagged a finger at him. "You've been a bad little boy," he said. "You and your Revesturi playmates."

Pell drew himself taller. "Brother Stephen, there is much you don't know, but even so you should not presume to talk to me in that fashion." He cocked his head. "How did you get here? This tower is twenty kingsyards high."

"I know," Stephen replied. "It's wonderful. Like a wizard spire from the phay stories. And so well hidden! You Revesturi are so clever-clever. Really clever. You couldn't walk last time I saw you, Fratrex Pell."

"I healed."

"Oh, you healed. That's impressive. Not as impressive as surviving the explosion at d'Ef, though. My ears are still ringing from that."

"We were trying to stop the waurm."

"You didn't, though. It chased me right up into the mountains, like it was supposed to. Died like it was supposed to. And I-I found everything I was supposed to find. I came here, I suppose, to tell your superiors about your tragic and heroic end-and see what I discover."

"I have no superiors," Pell said. "I am the Fratrex Prismo of the Revesturi."

Stephen crossed his arms and leaned his shoulder against the wall. "Well, I see that now," he said. "I can feel your power. Desmond was really lucky to get you from behind."

"I'm stronger now than I was then."

"Right," Stephen said. "As the sedos power waxes. Feels good, doesn't it?"

"Brother Stephen, time is short. Did you find the answers? Did you discover how Virgenya Dare healed the world?"

Stephen laughed.

Pell watched him impassively. That seemed even fu

"Come now," Pell said after a moment.

But that just made it harder to stop.

When, some time later, he was able to talk again, he wiped his eyes. "She didn't heal it, you old idiot," he said, fighting the hiccups. "She poisoned it by drawing on the sedos power. When she realized what was happening, she abandoned the high throne of its power and hid it away to try to control the damage."

"Are you saying there's nothing to be done? Did Kauron discover nothing?"

"Of course there is something to be done," Stephen said. "And Choron discovered the best thing of all: himself."

"I'm afraid I don't follow."

"That's wonderful," Stephen said. "Because I love to explain things. It's my forte, as you must remember from our first meeting. Such a fu

Pell's expression grew even more guarded. "What do you have to report, Brother Stephen?"

"Well, first of all, you were completely right about that business about there being no saints, about power being the only reality. It's true. The sedos power is what holds the world together. It tames and orders the other energies of existence. It keeps everything from rotting into unchecked chaos. And anyone who walks a faneway takes some gift for using that force with him and becomes the conscious agent of that particular energy. But any given faneway allows only limited access to the total possibilities of the sedos-even the greatest ones, such as the one I've walked and the one the Fratrex Prismo walks in z'Irbina. And the one you walked in the Iutin Mountains, the faneway of Diuvo."