Wizard of the Grove (17 page)

“You needed to have some sense knocked into you.” Lord Death waved a white hand at the army forming in the valley below. “It seems to have worked.”

“Why did you let him come back?”

“Why not? You couldn't possibly understand my motives, Mortal, so you needn't try.”

“For whatever reason then, thank you.”

Lord Death smiled. And wasn't there.

Not until much later did Riven realize that Lord Death bore a startling resemblance to his mother.

T
he crescent moon was barely visible over the tops of the trees, campfires had died to embers and, with the exception of the sentries patrolling the perimeters of the camp and the surgical pavilion, regrettably never quiet, the army of Ardhan slept. No one saw the manshaped shadow slipping from shelter to shelter. Even the Duke of Belkar's guard failed to see it as it passed almost close enough to touch. What was one more shadow amongst the shadows of the night. Unnoticed, the intruder moved around to the back of Belkar's tent.

After checking that he remained unobserved, the shadow slipped a knife from his sleeve, the blade carefully blackened to prevent a stray bit of light from giving him away. Slowly, quietly, he slit the canvas wall and then slid through the hole. Only a thin black line showed he had been there at all.

It was dark, but the shadow deftly threaded his way around the furniture and the scattered pieces of armor. He made his way without incident to the center of the tent where, by the dividing wall, there was a bed.

The occupant of the bed stirred, rolled over on his back, and began to snore. Loudly.

The shadow moved silently forward. He bent over, but it was too dark to see the features of the sleeper. Not that it mattered, the snoring with its particular cadence and its volume said, “Here lies the Duke of Belkar” as clearly as if it were full daylight.

Stepping back a pace, the shadow raised his knife and struck. A moist thud cut the snores off abruptly.

The shadow turned, arms spread wide as if to embrace someone or something. Then, struck by a brilliant beam of silver light, Lapus fell to his knees.

“No, not Kraydak,” Crystal told him sadly. “Nor will it be. He lied when he said there would be a way out.”

Lapus could barely see the young wizard through eyes squinted shut against the glare, but he sensed she wasn't alone. Behind her, where the light was not so bright stood . . . the Duke of Belkar? He twisted around until he could see the bed. Empty; except for his knife which had cut right through the thin mattress.

“Illusion,” he said bitterly. “Lies.”

“Not the first. All Kraydak offered you was more of the same; illusions and lies.”

“No!” Lapus got to his feet. Two guards stepped forward, but Crystal waved them back. “He showed me. It was real!”

“What he offered may have been real, but he would never have given it to you. I suspect that even had you succeeded tonight he would've ignored you just as he's doing now.”

“No,” Lapus repeated, burying his head in his hands and collapsing back on the bed. “It couldn't have been a lie.” Then his head lifted and his eyes opened wide, pupils dilated against the light. “He showed me Truth!” Suddenly, he clutched at his knife and dove across the tent.

He was on them so fast that Crystal had no time to react. Already upset by the confirmation of Lapus as Kraydak's tool, the attack shocked her into immobility. Had she been the Scholar's target, Kraydak would have won in that instant, but Lapus pushed her aside and headed straight for the duke. Where he was met by a guard. And a sword.

He peered down at the steel that stuck out of his chest and gave a soft sigh as it slid free. The knife dropped from nerveless fingers and with the other hand he touched the blood flowing from the wound—gently, as if afraid to disturb the flow.

“I wish,” he said tenderly, staring up at Crystal with a hopeless desperation, “we could have . . .” And then he died.

Crystal knelt beside him, closed his eyes, and kissed him tightly on the forehead. Then she stood aside so the guards could remove the body.

“Why did he do it?” asked Belkar shaking his head as they carried Lapus from the tent. He had liked the Scholar, enjoyed arguing with him, respected his mind. He had hoped that Crystal's suspicions were unfounded. “What could Kraydak have shown him?”

“Just what Lapus said he did, I expect. Truth. Lapus told me once that Truth was the only master.” Her hands stroked up and down her arms as if afraid to be still. “Kraydak took Lapus to the top of the tallest mountain and offered him all the knowledge of the world.”

“Eh?” The duke was puzzled. “What mountain? Where?”

The tent flap had barely closed behind the guards and their burden when it opened to admit Mikhail. He jerked a thumb over his shoulder—he must have passed the body on its way out—raised an eyebrow and asked, “Lapus?”

Crystal nodded.

“What about the others?” Belkar demanded.

“Thanks to Crystal, we got them all. The dukes are safe.”

“And the Scholars?” Crystal asked, although she knew the answer.

“Child,” said Mikhail gently, enclosing her shoulder in a massive hand, “they were out to do murder for a man who wants to put the entire country to the sword.” He moved his finger under her chin and lifted her head so she was forced to look at him. Her face was very pale and her eyes were dim. “You said yourself that once Kraydak held a mind the only sure release was death. They had to die. We had no choice.”

Crystal scuffed her foot by the damp, red stain on Belkar's carpet. This was another choice that Kraydak had taken from them. She felt as though iron bands had been riveted about her chest. “He was my friend.”

“And mine,” said Belkar.

“We've all lost friends,” Mikhail reminded her and then realized that, until this moment, Crystal had not. Lapus and young Bryon were
the only two friends she had. Her power, her rank, and her beauty had kept other friendships from developing. He opened his arms and offered a father's comfort if the wizard cared to take it.

The wizard cared to, very much. With a strangled sob, Crystal hid in his embrace, and cried for Lapus, for all the others, and, just a little, for herself.

“What of our lads?” asked Belkar.

“Only one of them was hit, but he's pretty bad. The knife went up under his ribs. I doubt he'll make it.”

Crystal pushed herself away from Mikhail's chest, wiping her cheeks dry with the flat of her hand. This was how she could erase the memory of Lapus lying dead at her feet. “I can save him,” she said, giving one final sniff, and starting for the door.

“No.” Mikhail swung around and blocked her way. “Kraydak must know his plan failed and may try something else tonight. You have to be ready. Remember what happened last time.”

She rubbed her nose across her sleeve, looking absurdly young as she did so, and remembered.

*   *   *

After the first meeting between the Melac and the Ardhan armies—in which Kraydak had sent out an innocuous probe and Crystal had smashed it back at him with a strength that surprised them both—Crystal had gone to the surgical pavilion to help. The area was already protected from infections by a long and complicated weaving of power, but she wanted to do more. The surgeons directed her to a young man with a deep sword slash across the belly. His cut and torn guts were bulging from the wound, masking the rest of the internal damages. The surgeons wondered why he was still alive and they doubted he could hold on much longer.

Feeling slightly sick at the sight and the smell, Crystal placed her hands lightly on the soldier's body and began to hum. A green flame grew in her eyes, spilled over and ran down her arms into the boy on the stretcher. Before the astonished eyes of the surgeons and those
patients near enough to see, the edges of the wound began to glow and close. The bulging mass of intestine, now miraculously clean and whole, tucked itself back where it belonged. Muscle fibers reached across the gap left by the sword and quickly wove the muscle back into one piece. The edges of the skin flowed smoothly together, leaving no scar or any other sign there had ever been a wound.

But the young man, now seemingly whole and hale, still lay near death.

Crystal's song changed slightly, becoming less somber, less instructive. Those listening felt a surge of energy, minor aches and pains disappeared and several small wounds closed. Color flooded back into the young man's face as the life force he had lost was replaced. His eyes flickered, then opened. He looked around, wondered peevishly why everyone was staring at him, and demanded a beer.

Crystal smiled, then the light pouring from her went out, and she collapsed to the floor. Although healing the wound had drained her, it had not caused her to faint. She had replaced the lost life force with her own.

The soldier was no worse for his experience—except for a vague but disturbing memory of hunting horns and baying dogs—but Crystal lay unconscious for three days. During that time Kraydak did what he pleased, but it was observed that, although he created plenty of impressive loud noises and bright lights, his attacks caused confusion and fear rather than destruction. He was obviously biding his time until Crystal recovered.

Crystal woke to a demoralized army and a mother frantic with worry. The army was much easier to reassure. When Crystal explained what had happened, Tayer ordered her to leave healing to the surgeons. Realizing that in this both queen and mother were in full accord, Crystal reluctantly agreed and then blamed herself for every death which followed. If she didn't send her people to Lord Death, neither did she try to stay his hand.

*   *   *

Crystal knew Mikhail was right to stop her. Her responsibilities made it as impossible to save the guard as it had been to save any of the others who had fallen. In addition, she was tired from the day's fighting and the small but constant drain of keeping the protection over the surgical tent. The power she'd used to trap the Scholars had tapped out almost all of her reserves. None of this made the almost certain death of the guard any easier to bear. Finally she nodded and Mikhail stepped out of her way. The wizard was back and wizards don't mourn what they can't change.

“Can I walk you to your tent?” asked Mikhail, who was not as convinced as Crystal seemed to be that the wizard and his daughter were two separate people. She nodded again and he turned to Belkar.

“Go on then,” said the duke. “There's nothing you can do here. I'll just have someone change the carpet. And the mattress,” he added thoughtfully. “Can't say as I fancy sleeping on that knife hole.”

The camp was certainly busier than it had been one short hour before when Kraydak's Scholars had slipped through the shadows to do murder. Bodies had to be disposed of, troops reassured, and a life saved if possible. Mikhail and Crystal walked alone through the darkness. Mikhail insisted that Tayer always be accompanied by soldiers from the newly reconstituted Palace Guards but refused them for himself, putting his trust instead in his great black sword. Crystal, the princess, was assigned Guards as well but Crystal, the wizard, threatened to turn them into newts so they went elsewhere.

“I'd like to know how you knew,” Mikhail said as they threaded their way through all the activity. Crystal had refused to explain her suspicions in case she'd been wrong. Considering Lapus' involvement, Mikhail now understood whom she'd been protecting.

“I could see myself in his eyes.”

“In Lapus' eyes?”

“Yes.”

“Is that unusual? I suppose I'd have seen myself reflected in his eyes had I cared to look.”

“When I look in someone's eyes,” Crystal explained, remembering
how shocked she'd been to first catch sight of herself in the Scholar's gaze so many weeks before in Belkar's library, “I look into their hearts. There could be only two reasons for me to see myself; his love for me was so strong I was the only thing in his heart, or he had been blocked by a wizard. There is only
one
other wizard.” Her smile didn't quite hide the pain of Lapus' betrayal. “I tried to convince myself that Lapus had indeed lost his heart and almost succeeded until I met Hale's Scholar. Maybe one man could fall in love with me at first sight, two I couldn't believe, even though the centaurs had warned me how men would be. Then I met Cei's Scholar, and Aliston's, and Lorn's, and I stared out of the eyes of all of them. Once I knew Kraydak was involved, the plot became easy to discover.”

Too easy, it seemed to Mikhail and it worried him. Kraydak, no doubt, had his own reasons for doing sloppy work. Using planted Scholars to attack the dukes seemed too much of a diversionary tactic; helpful if it succeeded but no great loss if it failed so long as it masked the more important maneuver. He only wished he knew what it masked and feared it would be an attack, not at the army, but at his daughter, who had been hit once already tonight. And although he would never tell her, for the news would only add to her burden of pain, Mikhail had reason to believe that Lapus did indeed care greatly for the princess. Mikhail was very familiar with the many faces of devotion; he had worn them himself for years.

They arrived at Crystal's tent and the soldier guarding the door, the young man she'd lifted from the grip of Lord Death, snapped to attention. When told what she'd done, he'd pledged his life to the protection of his savior. His lord, the Duke of Cei, had a strong streak of romance running beneath his shrewd and pragmatic exterior and had happily released the man from his service. And so Crystal acquired a personal guard she had no wish for but couldn't get rid of. The relationship developing between her guard and her maid was the only thing that made the situation bearable. She hoped she might soon lose them both to one another.

Mikhail leaned forward and planted a kiss between the silver brows. “You did what you had to,” he said softly.

I wish we could have . . .
You did what you had to. She nodded, not trusting her voice, and slipped into the tent.

Although she crawled into bed exhausted, Crystal couldn't fall asleep. Every time she closed her eyes she saw Lapus charging across the room, knife raised, his face twisted with hatred. She hadn't always liked what he'd said, how he'd stressed the conflict between wizard and princess, but she'd come to care for him and had thought he cared for her. That his friendship was an act, engineered by Kraydak, made her feel slightly sick and very lonely. This, the centaurs had not warned her of.