A Posse of Princesses (26 page)

Rhis shivered. “No.”

“As you’ll see, you only have a certain
amount of time. As you breathe the air inside the bubble, it gets
smaller and smaller. And each time you use it, you get less of a
bubble. I’m afraid I daren’t stay here long enough to layer on more
spells of use,” Sidal said, and paused for more water. “If you are
careful, once you’ve escaped if you find yourself still in trouble
you could always use it to rise away to safety, and then just use
your ring again. I will come and take you away.” She tipped her
head to one side. “I really wonder, though, if I ought to leave
you. Mother might be angry. Just why is it necessary to rejoin
these girls? Are they all so incompetent without your help?”

“No.” Rhis’s ears burned, but she just shook
her head. “Taniva is the bravest of us, at least in adventuring.
And Yuzhyu is—”

Noises outside the door caused them to turn
startled glances at each another.

Sidal whispered, made a sign, and just before
the door swung up, she vanished with another soft pop of displaced
air.

Rhis shoved the ribbon-thing into her sash
and began another ballad as one of the guards elbowed the heavy
door open and entered carrying a big tray. At once familiar spicy
smells filled the room, spices she’d learned to use in making High
Plains dishes.

Rhis’s mouth promptly began to water—she
hadn’t had any breakfast.

But she forgot her hunger when she was
surprised by a familiar pale-haired figure entering behind the
guard: Jarvas.

The guard set the tray on the side table and
left. The door shut. It didn’t lock.

Rhis turned in question to Jarvas, who
grinned. “I don’t think you’ll fight your way past me.”

“No.”

“So they don’t have to lock us in,” Jarvas
said, with a slight shrug, no more than a tightening of his
splendid shoulders. Then he chuckled. “Taniva would probably make a
run for it.”

Rhis had to laugh, despite everything. Jarvas
so obviously wished Taniva were here—or that she might come and try
battering down the door.

She stood up; Jarvas sat down on the hassock,
his brown and dark gray Damatran clothes a contrast to his pale
hair and skin and eyes. He still wore that blue-gemmed knife
through his belt, but he hadn’t come clanking in with a lot of
other weapons, for which Rhis was grateful.

“My father sent me in to try to talk you into
a betrothal,” Jarvas said. “I did try to warn you.”

“I know.” She laid aside the tiranthe and sat
on the edge of the bed. “Thanks. I didn’t believe you—I thought it
was a trick.”

Jarvas ran a hand over his head. His hand was
big, long-fingered, his palm as callused as Taniva’s. “Yes. I saw
that.” He dropped his hand to his knees. “Why did you girls come
here?”

“To rescue Iardith.” And on his laugh, she
said shortly, “It would have worked, too, if Iardith had just come
with us.”

He flashed a quick grin. “Taniva would have
seen to that. She’s already been in and out of here once before.
Did she tell you? And I raided her father’s camp over in High
Plains.” He grinned again.

“She did tell us,” Rhis said, finding the
conversation surprising. While she did not want to marry Jarvas in
the least, handsome as he was, she did appreciate the lack of
threats, or worse, gloating.

“I don’t want to marry you,” Jarvas went on,
his thoughts obviously galloping a parallel path to hers. “Though I
will say this. Rather you than Iardith.” He grimaced slightly.

Rhis gasped. “You kept following her around
at the party, and glowering at all her partners, and—”

“I know. Lios—or rather, the other one, the
one pretending to be Lios—tried to hint. Good fellows,” he added.
“Both of ’em. But I was blind.” He gave her a wry smile. “No.
Problem was, I
wasn’t
blind. Deaf, say.”

“I guess being really beautiful will do
that,” Rhis said. She didn’t gloat—not when she could so clearly
remember her own blindness over Andos the false prince.

Jarvas gave a soft laugh. Then tipped his
head. “You are unexpected. No tears? No threats? Iardith is crying
now—what a storm! I pity those girls. She sure had a nasty tongue
when we didn’t have hot meals for her, on silver, while on the
ride. At first she laid on the sweet words when she tried to bribe
’em to get her a carriage, and silver to eat off, and this and
that. They kept coming to me, but I said no. We needed speed. Not
comfort. Then came the tears. Some of the boys got mad at me, but
when I didn’t change the orders, she got mad at them. Her father
would have them all hanged for serving her cold food, my father
would have them flogged for letting her get wet in the rain.” He
chuckled, a husky sound Rhis found unexpectedly attractive.

“I take it the magic of beauty wore off?”
Rhis asked.

“By the end of the ride no one spoke to
anyone else. She was in a constant sulk, and my boys didn’t know
whom to blame. Then we got home at last, and she lit right into my
father.” He pointed a finger. “I’d rather have you, all told, but
if you don’t want me, well, your father’s good for the ransom,
right?” He hesitated. “You do not seem at all disturbed.”

Though his voice was admiring in a cool way,
she could see in the slight narrowing of his eyes that suspicion
was not far away.

Would she have been more worried if Sidal had
not given her the ring and the ribbon-thing? No—she would have been
ashamed, because her sister would have had to find a way to rescue
her anyway, she knew that. Though Sidal could not have used her
magic for political reasons—that was a vow all mages made. The ring
bypassed that, because it had been a personal gift, given out of
love.

But Rhis didn’t need Jarvas reminding his
father that half of her family were accomplished mages.

She said, “My father is rich, that’s no
secret. I suppose if he has to, he’ll pay. But I think he’d rather
I solve my own problems.”

Jarvas looked puzzled. But got to his feet.
“I’m supposed to give you the night to decide, and tomorrow my
father will send someone to your Nym demanding either betrothal or
ransom.”

“Wait,” Rhis said, curious.

He had been moving away, but paused, looking
back over his shoulder.

She said, “You don’t want to marry me any
more than I want to marry you.”

He didn’t deny it—he was no courtier to
flatter her with false compliments.

She went on, “I’m a prisoner, I have only the
two choices. But why are
you
doing it?”

“I only have two choices, as well. I made the
mistake of bringing Iardith,” he said. “You made the mistake of
coming here to rescue her. My father thinks using the situation to
Damatran advantage is just common sense.”

He rapped once on the door with the back of
his hand. It swung open. He said, “See you in the morning.”

She just smiled.

He left. The door swung shut and locked.

She moved to the table. There were flat corn
cakes, and boiled grain with spices and browned onions, grilled
fish, and a variety of greens topped with a tart sauce that tasted
of peppered lemon. In a bowl was a sliced peach with cream and
honey. She devoured it all, then sat back down to play the tiranthe
and wait for dark.

But just as the sun had begun its slant
toward the west, sending shafts of golden light from the extreme
end of the window to paint golden color up the edge of the wooden
door, there was a flicker of color in the shaft of sunset
light.

Dust motes, she thought, but when the flicker
happened again, this time looking like a face, she stared into the
shaft.

And to her astonishment a face—not solid, but
made of light—formed in the sun shaft.

It was Prince Lios.

The familiar smile, snub nose, and warm brown
eyes made her throat constrict painfully.

She heard a whisper in her head, as if a
ghostly voice had spoken just behind her ear.

It was his voice.

Rhis. The girls are out. Now we’re trying to
find a way—

“How am I seeing you? By magic?” she asked,
looking away and back again.

The voice faded, as did the flicker. Rhis
stopped, glowering at that shaft of light as if she could force the
image back with her mind.

To her surprise, the image did return. Lios
frowned into the dust motes as if concentrating.
Think about
me
, he asked.
Please! It will make it easier for
Yuzhyu.

“Yuzhyu?”

She’s a mage—can tell you later. I just want
to reassure you, we’re forming plans to get you out.

Rhis said, “I can get myself out. Where are
you?”

His eyes rounded in surprise, then narrowed
in worry.
Don’t do anything dangerous—

“Where are you?” she asked, whispering
fiercely so as not to be heard behind the door, but his voice and
face were fading.

Pottery—
He turned his head sharply,
and the image winked out.

Rhis sank onto the hassock. Yuzhyu—a mage?
But—

She shook her head hard. No use in asking
herself questions she couldn’t answer. Instead, she wondered how to
find out where the pottery was. For a short time she considered
various questions that she could ask the guards outside the door,
questions meant to sound innocent, but she knew that once she went
missing, no matter how plausible she’d made a question about pots,
potteries, clay, or dishes, the guards would remember her question.
They might even get in trouble for it, though they could not have
known her purpose.

So she had to find it on her own.

The back window gave the best view of the
main part of the castle and city, and half of the vistas to left
and right.

She pulled the hassock over and leaned
carefully on her arms, then peered out. To the right, winding old
streets between a jumble of roofs. Lots of shops and homes, but no
clay, no kilns. A castle pottery was not a small thing; she peered
to the left, where the sun was just sinking toward the mountain. It
was difficult to see past—and when it vanished, so would the
light—so she shaded her eyes and did her best. Was that a clay
pile? And a round kiln beyond?

The lock rattled—the guards were back for her
tray.

She flung herself down onto the hassock and
strummed softly until they were gone, then she packed her saddlebag
carefully and laid it on the hassock.

The golden light turned ochre, then began to
fade as the sun vanished behind the mountain to the west.

Rhis’s heart began to thump in her ears as
she stretched out her arm and whispered the words. Just as it had
for Sidal, the bed shifted to the door, stood upright, and settled
there.

She pulled the ribbon-thing from her sash and
inspected it. It was not black, but a deep, deep blue.

She followed her sister’s directions. It
snapped up around her in a blur of bluish light: suddenly she found
herself standing in a gently bobbing bubble. She pressed the sides.
They gave stickily. She hastily pulled her hand back, afraid to
poke a hole in it. She cautiously extended her hands and touched
the sides, which shivered slightly, like a tapped jelly. She leaned
to the right.

The bubble bobbed slowly to the right.

Rhis lurched to the left. The bubble
shuddered, bouncing sickeningly. Ripples ran through the blue skin
of it. All right, so she knew how to go from side to side. Slow and
easy was the trick. Not bouncy.

A quick experiment with leaning forward and
then back proved that she could now move in four directions—but
what about up and down?

She stretched her hands upward, just touching
the top—and the bubble rose until it bobbed gently against the
stone ceiling.

Rhis gulped. She tried not to look down as
she crouched, touching the skin on either side of her feet. The
bubble dropped down. When she patted, it dropped faster. She pulled
her hands away, and it stayed where it was, in the middle of the
air.

A little more experimenting gave her a better
idea how to maneuver—but when she looked up, she was startled to
discover that the top curve of the bubble was closer to her head.
It was shrinking!

She collapsed it at once, and sank to the
floor, breathing hard.

Another glance at the west window. The light
was almost gone. Good. The bubble was blue, so if anyone looked up,
they shouldn’t see it against the twilight sky. She must go now
before all the light was gone.

If it was too dark, she might get lost.

And run out of air.

And plummet to the—

No. Don’t think about that. Just do it.

She stood up, pulled her saddle-bag over her
shoulder, pushed the hassock to the back window, and climbed up.
Then, sitting with one leg in and one out as cold night air ruffled
over her face, she carefully extended the ribbon thing to one foot,
and said the spell to form the bubble as she eased out of the
window, her heartbeat racing frantically.

But she landed safely inside, though the
bubble bobbed up and down in a terrifying way.

She shrank down and the bubble began to drop
precipitously; thoroughly frightened, she lunged up, flung her
hands to the top—and the bubble shot up above the top of the
tower.

Rhis whimpered, bringing her hands down,
pressing them to her front as she stared down at the stone ceiling
of the tower, so high above the city—

And what she saw almost made her forget her
danger.

There, in the very center of the tower roof,
resting in a large stone cup, lay the biggest gem she had ever
seen.

As she hovered above it, even through the
diffuse blue of the bubble-skin she could see lights glinting
inside the stone. Instinctively she collapsed the bubble onto the
top of the tower. She knelt down, staring into the stone. The
lights flickered brilliantly, drawing her deeper in, deeper, her
entire mind straining to find the pattern there as her awareness
spread through a vastness that could not possibly be held in a
stone—