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She forced a dry laugh, the muscles in her feet and legs tightening as she wavered on the edge of the pit. “You'd do better to think of me as a vast wall than a key, for that is what I intend to be."
She averted her eyes when she felt the cold, scaly skin of an asp moving against the side of her face. As she did she heard Sibias chant in a foreign tongue and then her body was spun harshly from his hand and down, down, into the pit.
Her vision shifted, became a swirl of darkness dotted with bright hungry eyes and open jaws. She braced herself, grappling with her hands for something solid to cling to, grappling inside for the sorcery that she had learned, to combat his spell. Anger flared up inside her and a web of white light enclosed her, but it was all happening too fast. Her body stopped spinning and dropped. She shut her eyes tight. Her body hit a soft mattress. Her eyes flashed open and she found herself back in her allotted chamber. Sibias had transported her back to the chamber below. His sorcery was powerful, could she even hope to equal it?
She rose up onto her hands and knees, gasping for breath. Sibias stood at the end of the bed. His arms were folded across his chest, his appearance somewhat more normal. Several servants and guards stood by, Folami one of them. There was no sign of Yoshi.
"You're wasting the Empress Mehmet's time.” He flicked his fingers and Folami ran forward at his bidding, a mound of fabric balanced in her open arms. “You will be dressed and taken to the temple where a simple ceremony will unite Aleem to Karseedia forever.” There was no doubting the promise and the pleasure in his tone.
A bolt of anger hit her, anger in the face of injustice. “I came to Lhastari in good faith to represent my people, but I will not proceed, not without the negotiation I was promised in coming here.” She rose up on her knees, sparring with him deliberately.
"Your voice is a mere wisp on the wind.” He waved his fingers in the air, clearly relishing his power. “And I advise you to hurry yourself, if you care at all for the safety of those you hold dear.” He chanted again in the strange foreign tongue and drew a circle in the air with one finger.
In the space he had marked out, Elishiba saw a vision of her people. Elra, Kerr, Yoshi, and Xerxes bound in chains, being herded through the palace. She felt hot and cold all at once, her belly churning. “You cannot do this,” she murmured, as she stared at the strange vision, slumping down onto the bed in shock.
Sibias clicked his fingers. The vision disappeared. He lifted the fabric Folami held in her arms and tossed it onto the mattress where Elishiba knelt. “Move,” he bellowed, “or each and every one of them will die a slow and painful death because of your tardiness."
With a satisfied grin, he took his leave.
Elishiba stared down at the fabric with blind eyes, frozen in the face of his threat. Folami reached out to her with a sympathetic hand. Ducking her head down to meet Elishiba's gaze, her soft brown eyes encouraged Elishiba to move.
Elishiba nodded and took the offered hand, her mind working furiously as she rose to her feet. Could she really hope to change this situation, when the Karseedians held her people, in exchange for her subservience? Could a spell protect them? Could she even risk that? Whatever way she addressed the problem, it felt like a maze without escape.
Don't doubt yourself. Amshazar's voice echoed in her mind as she rose to her feet. The simplest of spells can trip your enemy.
"Kind Mistress Elishiba, let me help you,” Folami said, attracting Elishiba's attention again.
Elishiba noticed the other servants were busy. One warmed a dish of incense, while the others seemed to be preparing jewels. Elishiba nodded, seeing honesty and concern in the woman's eyes. She wanted to help; Elishiba could see and sense that.
"Tell me about the temple, describe it to me,” Elishiba requested in a low voice. She didn't want to be taken unawares as she had been with Sibias in the attics.
Folami nodded, and then took the handful of jewels that one of the other servants passed to her. “Please lower your head, kind Mistress,” she said, and then in a hushed voice, “It is a huge temple, built into the palace itself."
Elishiba was disappointed. She'd hoped it would be outside, in the city perhaps, like their temples in Suzin. But the Karseedian rulers were not so eager to share with their people. That much had been obvious when they approached the palace the day before. The inhabitants and the city itself looked poor and neglected, compared to the inner domain of the palace.
Folami placed a heavy collar of gold coins around Elishiba's neck, arranging it over her shoulders as she straightened up. “Inside the temple there is an effigy of Hurda, the god of war. It flanks one wall,” she continued. “His open mouth is where they offer,” she paused, and their eyes met. “Sacrifice."
Elishiba swallowed, remembering the disturbing image Sibias had shown her. She took a deep breath and as she did she realized the smell of incense was heavy in the room, its perfume heady. Her suspicion grew—was it a vapor that would make her docile? The air was growing thick with it.
Another handful of jewels was brought to her.
"We must hurry, lest the incense makes me sleepy. Tell me more,” she encouraged.
Folami nodded, her gentle brown eyes acknowledging Elishiba's suspicion about the incense. She lifted a thread of coins and weaved them into Elishiba's hair. “I have only been there once, but I found it a stifling place. There is only one doorway in and out that I know of, and the entrance is near to the chambers of the Emperor. I am told this was because the emperor's father had a great allegiance to the god of war, although the Emperor Hanrah himself does not go there often."
Folami grew silent when the other servants moved around Elishiba, placing ornamental bangles on her arms and around her ankles, replacing her soft kid slippers with embroidered ones. Elishiba barely noticed. She took shallow breaths, imagining all the while the place Folami described, preparing herself.
Folami shook out the material she held, folded, in her arms: a massive veil of sheer fabric, dotted with glinting threads that spangled gold and silver light across it. For a split second, Elishiba saw a star-filled sky reflected in its threads, and felt Amshazar's body brush against her own. Then it was gone. The sensation lifted her and she knew with deadly certainty that she had to walk further into Mehmet's trap in order to destroy it, for that was what she intended to do. As Amshazar had pointed out, she had the advantage, for she had skills Mehmet was unaware of.
She believed. She had to.
The veil was shaken out between four of the servants, and then lifted over her so that it fell into place over her head. It hung down as far as her hips, to trail her back and brush the floor behind her.
Elishiba didn't care to look at her reflection when encouraged to do so. In her mind and heart, she was dressed for battle. She braced herself for it.
* * * *
Mehmet had never seen her son so
