Prophecy (46 page)

“Well, my love, it seems that it’s finally become
our
turn,” he said with the best smile he was able to produce. “Are you certain I can’t talk you into waiting for me here? It would ease my mind a very great deal…”

He let his words end in a half question, willing to use any means to keep Naran safe, but her sigh as she shook her head contained nothing of doubt or hesitation.

“Easing your mind is my foremost desire, my love, but my remaining behind won’t accomplish it,” she said with true regret—but no apology. “My talent tells me that I’ll be perfectly safe, so you needn’t worry on that account. You, however, are another matter entirely, and if I’m forced to wait for you here I’ll be out of my mind by the time you return. Do you want me to be out of my mind?”

“You’remuch better versed at using this kind of tactic, my love,” Rion surrendered with his own sigh as he took her hand. “With that in view, we might as well go seeking the one who waits for me. Does your talent have any idea
where
that one waits?”

“As a matter of fact, it does,” she replied as they began to walk toward the only unused corridor. “I know just where you’resupposed to go, but there’s something odd about the location. It isn’t a place where only one person is waiting, there are more like three. What sort of trap can
that
be?”

“I have no idea, but we’ll certainly find out,” Rion replied, discovering that he really was a good deal more calm now that he was able to finally get down to it. And he was also finally getting to see the part of the palace which had always been denied him before. How odd that was, to walk these corridors as a man, but not as a visitor. As a child, he’d been more wistful than resentful over having been left behind…

Rion glanced into one or two of the empty rooms they passed, expecting to see superb decoration and taste. These were the precincts of one of the Five, after all, and everyone knew that the Five lived a good deal better than even the highest lord. What Rion saw was certainly beautiful and well kept, but nothing he couldn’t have seen even in the houses in which
he’d
grown up. So that was another lie the woman had told him, that he couldn’t be permitted to accompany her because of the irreplaceable possessions of the Five. A clumsy child might ruin them, she’d said, and although her Clarion wasn’t deliberately destructive, he did have his little accidents every now and then…

“That woman made a point of mentioning how clumsy and awkward
I
was just so that no one would notice her own shortcomings,” Rion said aloud, finally seeing
that
part of it more clearly. “No wonder she took me almost everywhere she went. People were so busy resenting my intrusion, they hadn’t the time to see how badly
she
did.”

“People like that aren’t really as confident as they pretend to be, my love,” Naran answered as her hand tightened around his. “On the inside they’reoften afraid they aren’t as good as they’resupposed to be, so they belittle others to disguise their own lacks—usually mostly from themselves. Don’t let the thought of her disturb you.”

Considering the situation, Rion decided to take that very sound advice. So he put all thought of that woman aside for later contemplation, and gave his full attention to the areas where they walked. The wing was large and much of it was hidden behind closed doors, but eventually they approached one closed door which made Naran slow and stop.

“I believe that that’s the place, my love,” she said, staring at the closed door. “Can you detect anything yourself?”

“There are three displacements of air inside the room which ought to represent three human beings,” Rion replied as he looked around. “You seem to have been correct about that, but I haven’t been able to find any other indication of human presence in quite some distance. That makes me curious to learn what sort of trap this might be.”

And with that Rion moved ahead alone, telling Naran without words that she was to enter, if at all, only behind him. The sweet girl compromised to that extent, at least, and followed him without protest. What a marvelous thing it was, to have a woman who truly was one with you…

Opening the door revealed a large, well appointed sitting room, and all three of the people within it came to their feet at his appearance. Rion recognized the two older people as Tamrissa’s parents, but it was the one he didn’t really know who spoke.

“What in blazes are
you
doing here, Mardimil?” the man demanded, his angry annoyance obvious. “I’ve been waiting for someone else entirely!”

“Then that must mean you’retheir Fire magic user,” Rion said with sudden insight, now understanding why Tamrissa’s parents were present. “Were you foolish enough to believe that
they
would give you some sort of hold over Tamrissa? Don’t you have any idea of how she feels about those two pieces of offal?”

“One of them is less than that,” Naran put in suddenly while the Fire magic user—a Lord Bron something, Rion finally recalled—scowled and the two others began to sputter indignantly. “That man is the one I told you about, the wealthy man who decided he wanted me for his use alone. I have no idea
how
much gold he spent sending men to chase after me, but happily every copper of it was wasted.”

“He did
what
?” the woman demanded, turning to look at her husband with the deadliest daggers Rion had ever seen. “He spent
my
gold on
what
?”

“Nonsense, my dear, the trollop is lying,” the man replied, charm and ease fairly oozing out of him. “They’resimply trying to make trouble between us, which will certainly be to their benefit.”

“Why would we care about making trouble for
you
people?” Naran countered with a sound of ridicule, more confident and self assured than Rion had ever seen her. “You don’t count for anything at all in this, not as unimportant as
you
are. And you needn’t take
my
word for what I’ve said. I’m not the first or only girl he’s gone after, so you can ask any of the others.”

“The others,” the woman growled, not having moved her glare even a single inch from her husband. “And you needn’t bother wasting all that charm on me, Storn Torgar. The more you use it the more you’relying, and if
I
don’t know that, no one in this world does.”

“No, no, my dear, you’requite mistaken,” Torgar tried, his smile having turned sickly. “There’s not an ounce of truth to what the woman says, so you must continue to put your trust in me. I am, after all, your husband, so—”

“You’remy husband
now
,” the woman interrupted in frosty tones, clearly not swayed in the least. “If we manage to survive this horrible mess, we’ll soon see how quickly that can be changed and I can be gone. And we’ll also see how much I can take with me of that fortune you’reso proud of.”

For Torgar, the true horror obviously lay in what his wife had said. He stared at her with eyes wide and mouth feebly trying to protest, and the man Bron Something made a sound of scornful impatience.

“Now that the truly weighty matters have been settled, let’s get back to the negligible reason we’rehere in the first place,” he said to Rion. “You and your friends got our note, I trust?”

“If you’reabout to break the news about the poisoned paper, you’rea bit late,” Rion responded with a faint smile, wondering how anyone called noble could ever have impressed him as superior. “Our Earth magic user has already done it for you, happily before any of us touched it. I’m not surprised that your own Earth magic user didn’t warn you that that might happen. We’ve been told that he also failed to keep the rest of you from being poisoned yourselves, and he may not even have let you know how little time you actually have left.”

“What do you mean, how little time we have left?” the man demanded, his frown tinged faintly with fear. “We’reperfectly all right—with the help of our Earth magic user—and we’regoing to stay that way.”

“Not with the counteragent rather than the antidote you aren’t,” Rion disagreed with a headshake. “The counteragent works only for a little while, and then you need the antidote or you die. It occurs to me that
we
might help you get that antidote—if you decide to be intelligent about this confrontation thing. If you refuse, I’ll have no choice but to do my best to destroy you.”

“
You
, destroy
me
?” the man said with a snort of ridicule, immediately stiffening at the prior suggestion. “I’ve been given the very pleasant task of killing whomever walked in here, and that’s exactly what I mean to do. You’ll die like the peasant you’ve become, Mardimil, and once it’s done I’ll laugh long and well.”

And with that a heavy curtain of fire flared, one which was meant to incinerate both Rion and Naran. Naran gasped and flinched a bit, but when neither heat nor flame was able to touch them, she understood that Rion remained completely in control. He glanced at her with a smile of reassurance, and then returned his attention to the “noble.”

“I haven’t ‘become’ a peasant, you fool, I was born one,” he said to the man, pride widening his smile into a grin. “Since you can’t possibly understand how marvelous that fact is, allow me to show you.”

As it was now Rion’s turn to exercise a talent openly, he added to what he’d already done. The wall of hardened air which protected them was more in the way of a sphere, and now Rion reached through that sphere to touch the so-called lord. The instant the man’s air was cut off he began to choke, and the flames ravening toward them suddenly disappeared.

“Most nobles are much too good to do more than one thing at a time,” Rion said, watching the husky man sink slowly to his knees. “Since I’ve discovered myself to be a peasant, however, it’s no longer shameful for me to practice both defense and attack. What a pity you refused my earlier offer, as now I’m afraid it’s been withdrawn.”

Rion had added that last because the man seemed to be begging for his life without words, and to grant him the boon now would be pure foolishness. A “noble” will promise anything to save himself, he knew, and once that end was accomplished the promise would be promptly forgotten. No, better to let matters continue on to a proper finish, making certain that the Fire magic user never became a problem again.

“I think we can leave now,” Naran murmured after another pair of moments, staring at the body of the man who now lay stretched out on the expensive carpeting. “The line of his life comes to a very abrupt end in just a few minutes, so you needn’t worry about having to face him again in the future. He no longer
has
a future.”

“Very well,” Rion agreed with a nod as he released his hold, trusting Naran’s advice implicitly, and then he turned to the two people who had cringed back when the confrontation first began. “You two are free to leave now, but allow me to offer a bit of advice. Don’t ever let Tamrissa hear from or see you again, or I’ll personally find you wherever you may be hiding and I’ll do to you what I did to
that
one. Assuming, of course, that my Blending brothers don’t make the same effort before me…”

Rion showed the nastiest smile he was capable of as he let his words trail off, and the two paled and jumped a bit. Then the woman glared at her husband and sailed off toward the door, clearly intending to do as she’d promised. Obvious panic sent the man scuttling after her, his words a begging and mewling as they faded into the distance.

“You have my very great thanks for not having killed him, love,” Naran said with a chuckle as she took Rion’s arm. “Now he’ll live to suffer in the same way he’s made so many others do, and there’s only the smallest, slightest chance that he’ll recover from what his wife puts him through. Financially speaking, of course.”

“Of course,” Rion agreed, putting his hand over hers where it lay on his arm. “Being destitute will do that man no end of bad, and seeing it will do his former victims no end of good. Now let’s go and see what bad and good has befallen our Blendingmates.”

Naran smiled and nodded, so they headed for the door. Rion would have worried a good deal more if Naran had been upset, but since she wasn’t he would do his best to emulate her. But he really did need to
know
…

* * *

Bron Kallan regained consciousness slowly, his heart pounding with fear and the efforts of his lungs to resupply him with air. It was something of a shock to realize that he still lived, and the confusion in his mind added to the shock. It was as though something had broken and come loose in there, leaving his mind disoriented and floundering around. And his memories…

“Yes, dear, of course you can do as you please,” his mother had always told him lovingly, his father nodding his agreement. “You
are
our son, after all, so no one has the right to deny you. And
of course
it will always be that way, so you just ignore anyone trying to tell you differently.”

Maybe they hadn’t quite used those exact words, but Bron had known that that was what they’d meant. If his parents denied him nothing, who else would be able to? The point had seemed extremely clear to the child he’d been, but the adult he became hadn’t found it to be entirely true. His parents continued to deny him nothing—for the most part—but others didn’t behave the same, nor did they change their stance once Bron explained matters. More often those people laughed, and some pointed out that they were raised to expect the very same. How, then, could Bron never be denied if
they
were to be treated like that?

And those who laughed were either more powerful politically or their parents were, so there was nothing Bron could do to change matters. The excellent governmental position he’d taken for granted that he’d be given never came to be, and that had added to Bron’s bitterness and resentment—and confusion. He had no idea why his parents had lied to him, but it was beyond argument that they had.

Just as Delin—and Kambil before him—had lied. They’d assured Bron that he would have no trouble besting a silly woman, and not a single word about the possibility that it would be a man he would have to face instead. A man who had had no trouble fending off his fires, a man who wasn’t in the least troubled by being called a peasant. Somehow Mardimil had learned the truth about himself, and rather than being devastated he was delighted. The man must be mad…