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He was still looking at her as if she might be half-crazy, but he flexed his hand and rested it on his sword hilt, pushing himself upright, ready to go wherever she told him to. He cocked his head at the doorway leading to Nash’s other rooms, where Fire’s guard, a group of messengers, and a small army of soldiers were waiting to assist however they were needed.
Fire stood. The others stopped their chatter and looked to her.
“Levels seven and eight,” she said to Brigan, “the far northern wing. The rooms overlooking the smallest courtyard. At this moment it’s the emptiest part of the palace, and it has been all day, so that’s where I’ll take Gentian and Gunner. You and Clara go there now. Find whatever empty room you can, on whichever level is easier to get to without being seen, and I’ll try to lead them as close to you as I can. If you need my help getting through the halls, or if Murgda’s tails give you trouble, call for me.”
Brigan nodded and went to the side rooms to collect his soldiers. Fire sat back down and dropped her head again into the palms of her hands. Every stage of this process required focus. Right now she must monitor Brigan and Clara and their soldiers and their tails and everyone who noticed any one of them. While keeping stock of Gentian, Gunner, and Murgda, of course, and perhaps sending Gentian and Gunner occasional blips of helpless desire; and holding on to a sense of the palace as a whole, in case anything anywhere, at any time, should feel wrong for any reason.
She breathed through a mild headache forming above her temples. She stretched out with her mind.
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Clara, Brigan, and a number of soldiers had found their way to an unoccupied suite of rooms on level eight in the far northern wing. Three of Murgda’s spies and three of Gentian’s were with them also, several unconscious, and the conscious ones boiling with fury, presumably at the indignity of being bound and gagged and shoved into closets.
Brigan sent assurance that all was well. “All right,” Fire said to Nash and Garan. All right, she thought to all those involved throughout the palace. I’m beginning.
She hunched in her chair and closed her eyes. She touched Gentian’s mind and then entered it. She touched on Gunner and decided that he was not oblivious enough for sneakery.
Gunner, she thought to him, warm and flirtatious, gushing herself at him—and then thrusting herself into the cracks that opened with his involuntary rush of pleasure. Gunner. I want you to come to me. I need to see you. Can I trust you to be kind to me?
Suspicion washed along the edges of his gladness, but Fire murmured at it, lulled it, and took harder hold. You must go where I direct you and tell no one, she told both him and Gentian. Now, leave the courtyard through the main arch and climb the central stairway to level three, as if you were returning to your rooms. I’ll lead you to a place that’s safe for all of us, far away from the king and his tiresome guards.
Gentian began to move, and then, more reluctantly, Gunner. Their five henchmen moved with them and Fire expanded her reach, stepping into each of their minds. The seven proceeded toward the exit and Fire skimmed the rest of the courtyard. It didn’t matter who noticed, but it did matter very much who followed.
Three consciousnesses separated themselves casually from the dancing and fell in behind Gentian’s guard. Fire recognized two as Murgda’s spies and the other as a minor lord she’d identified earlier as a probable Murgda sympathizer. She touched their minds, tested, and decided that they were too guarded for her to enter without them noticing. She would have to lead the others and trust these three to follow.
Ten men. She thought she could handle that while holding the floor plan and thousands of moving figures in her mind.
How her power had grown, with practice. She could not have done this a year ago. Only last spring, the First Branch had utterly overwhelmed her.
Her party of ten ascended the steps to the third level. Now move down the hallway and turn into the corridor containing your rooms, Fire thought to Gentian and Gunner. Her mind raced ahead to that very corridor and found it alarmingly full of people. She sped some up, slowed some down, and sent some into their rooms, forcefully in the case of the strong-minded, for there was no time to take the proper care. When Gentian, Gunner, and their five attendants turned the corner to their rooms, the hallway stretched emptily before them.
The hallway was still empty moments later when Gentian and Gunner came abreast of their rooms. Stop there, she told them. She switched to the minds of the soldiers hiding in the suites around Gentian’s. When Murgda’s men rounded the corner, she sent the soldiers a message: Go now. Soldiers piled into the hallway and set about capturing Gentian’s five guards and Murgda’s three spies.
Run! Fire screamed at Gentian and Gunner, perhaps unnecessarily, as they seemed already to be running. They’re onto us! Run! Run! Down the hallway! Turn left at the lantern! Now, down that corridor! Look for the green door on the left! Through the green door and you’re safe! Yes, you’re safe. Now up, up. Climb the stairs. Quiet, slow. Slow down. Stop, she thought. Stop for a minute.
Gentian and Gunner stopped, baffled, frantic, and alone, on a spiral stairway somewhere between levels five and six. Fire kept a finger on them, petted and soothed them, and stretched back to the hallway where the short, nasty scuffle had taken place. Did you get everyone? she asked the soldier in charge. Did anyone see you?
The soldier communicated that all had gone well.
Thank you, Fire said. Well done. If you have any trouble, call for me. She took a long, steadying breath and returned to Gentian and Gunner on the stairway.
I’m sorry, she murmured soothingly. Are you all right? I’m sorry. I’ll take care of you.
Gunner was in no good humor, breaking loose a bit from her hold. He was angry about the loss of his guards, angry to be huddled in a narrow stairway, furious with himself for allowing a monster to commandeer his intentions and put him in danger. Fire flooded him, overwhelming him with heat and with feelings and suggestions designed to stop him thinking. Then she sent him a steely and certain message. You knowingly put yourself in danger when you came traipsing into the palace of the king. But you have nothing to fear. I’ve chosen you, and I am stronger than the king. Take hold of yourself. Think how much easier it’ll be to injure him with me on your side.
Simultaneously Fire checked the corridors to which this spiral stairway led. Gala guests walked and mingled in the corridor of level eight. Level seven was empty.
Brigan was on level eight. But Fire’s mind was growing sluggish with fatigue.
Brigan, she thought, too weary to concern herself with manners. I’m taking them to level seven, to the unoccupied rooms just below you. When the time comes, you may have to climb down by the balcony.
Brigan’s response came quickly: This was perfectly fine. Fire was not to worry about him or the balcony.
Go up, Fire told Gentian and Gunner. Climb. Yes, one more level. Now quietly through the door. Down the corridor, yes, and turn left. Slowly . . . slowly . . . Fire strained to remember the guest plan and to feel where Brigan was. There, she said finally, stop. Enter the room to your right. Gunner was still spluttering. She gave him an unaffectionate shove.
Inside the room, Gunner’s anger changed to puzzlement, and then, quite abruptly, to contentment. This was odd, but Fire had no energy to contemplate it. Sit down, gentlemen, she told them numbly. Stay away from the windows and the balcony. I’ll be there in a few minutes and we can talk.
Fire did one more sweep of the corridors, of the courtyards, of Murgda and Murgda’s people, reassuring herself that no one was suspicious and nothing was out of place. With a great sigh she turned her mind back to the room to find Mila kneeling on the floor before her, gripping her hand, and others in her guard, and Garan and Nash, watching her anxiously. It was a comfort to find herself still with them.
“All right,” she said. “Now for my own journey.”
FIRE FLOATED DOWN the hallway on Nash’s arm, flanked by members of both of their guards and attr
acting a great deal of attention. The couple climbed the central stairway to level three, as Gentian had done, but turned in the opposite direction and wound through the corridors, stopping finally before the entrance to Fire’s rooms.
“Good night to you, Lady,” Nash said. “I hope you’ll recover from your headache.”
He took her hand, raised her fingers to his mouth, and kissed them; then dropped them and slumped darkly away. Fire looked after him with true fondness, not on her face but into his mind, for he was playing his part very well tonight, and she knew it was hard on him, even if the lovestruck and jealous monarch was not much of a stretch.
Then Fire smiled sweetly at Murgda’s and Gentian’s tails—several of whom smiled back at her idiotically—and went into her rooms. Fingers pressed to temples, she forced her mind through an examination of the grounds and the skies outside her window.
“There’s no one out there,” she told her guard, “and no raptor monsters. Let’s begin.”
Musa creaked Fire’s window open and took a blade to the screen. Cold air poured into the room, bits of slush spitting onto the carpet. Fire spared a thought for Brigan and his guard, who would be riding later in that sleet. Musa and Mila lowered a rope ladder out the window.
The ladder’s in place, she thought to the soldiers in the room below. She heard their window squeak open, and checked the skies and the grounds again. No one was there, not even the green house guard.
“All right,” she said. “I’m going.”
She felt then, suddenly, how loath Musa was to let Fire go, how it pained Musa to send Fire anywhere alone and unguarded. Fire held Musa’s hand harder than was necessary. “I’ll call for you if I need you,” she promised. Tight-lipped, Musa helped her out the window into the cold.
Her dress and slippers were not made for winter, nor for anything approximating weather, but rather clumsily she managed the descent to the window below. Soldiers pulled her inside and tried not to stare as she straightened her dress. Then they tucked her under the cloth of a wheeled cart bearing food bound for level seven.
It was a fine, sturdy cart, and Nash’s floors were strong and smooth, and a minute or two of determined shivering under the tablecloth warmed her. A servant pushed her through the halls and then wheeled her onto the lift, which rose on its ropes without a single creak or jolt. On level seven another servant rolled her out. He followed her mental directions down hallways and around corners, finally pushing her into the far northern corridor and stopping outside the room containing Gentian and Gunner.
She reached upward to find Brigan. He was not there.
Sweeping around in a panic, she realized what she’d done. Rocks, she seethed to Brigan. Monster rocks. I miscalculated. I did not send them to the rooms directly below yours. They’re one suite over to the west.
Brigan sent assurance that he wasn’t worried about this. He could scale the balconies to the neighboring rooms.
They’re occupied rooms.
He was certain they weren’t.
Not the ones on your level, Brigan. The ones on mine. I’ve led Gentian and Gunner to occupied rooms. Quisling? Quisland? Someone beginning with Q. Her head stabbed with pain. Should I try to move them again? I think Gunner would refuse. Oh, this is dreadful. I’ll spread the word that the fellow beginning with Q must be kept from his rooms somehow, and his wife and servants and guards too. I can’t think what we’ll do with Gentian’s and Gunner’s bodies now, she thought bitterly, overwhelmed almost to tears with the consequences of her mistake.
Quislam? Brigan offered. Lord Quislam from the south?
Yes, Quislam.
But isn’t Quislam Gentian’s ally?
Fire strained to remember. Yes, Quislam is Gentian’s ally. But it makes no difference, other than to explain why Gunner stopped fighting once he entered the room.
But, Brigan thought, if Gunner thinks himself safe in the room of an ally, then perhaps he’ll be easier to handle. Perhaps her mistake had been fortunate.
Fire was turning hysterical. It isn’t. It’s not fortunate. It creates countless problems.
Fire—
Her concentration was fracturing to pieces and she grasped wildly at a thing that seemed, suddenly and senselessly, to matter. Brigan, your mental control is as strong as anyone’s I’ve ever encountered. Look how well you’re able to communicate—you’re practically sending me sentences. And you don’t need to explain why you’re so strong. You made yourself that way of necessity. My father—Fire was impossibly drained. A fist in her head was punching at her brain. My father hated you more than anyone.
Fire—
Brigan, I’m so tired.
Fire.
Brigan was saying her name, and he was sending her a feeling. It was courage and strength, and something else too, as if he were standing with her, as if he’d taken her within himself, letting her rest her entire body for a moment on his backbone, her mind in his mind, her heart in the fire of his.
The fire of Brigan’s heart was astounding. Fire understood, and almost could not believe, that the feeling he was sending her was love.
Pull yourself together, he thought to her. Get yourself into that room.
She climbed out from under the cart. She opened the door to the room.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
BOTH GENTIAN AND Gunner sat in chairs facing the entry. As she shut the door, Gunner rose to his feet and edged sideways against the wall in a direction that brought him slightly nearer to her.
A shield with Quislam’s colors was propped against a footstool. Fire saw that the carpet was a patchwork of squares in rust, brown, and red; the curtains red; the sofa and chairs brown. At least they wouldn’t have to worry about blood-stains. She soaked in the feeling of these two men, and knew immediately where the trouble would lie in this room. Of course it would not be with Gentian, so charming and so blitheringly happy to see her, so easy for even her torpid mind to invade that she would have wondered how such a man could ever have risen to a place of power, had the answer not stood scowling before her in the form of Gunner.
He was a bit like Nash used to be: unpredictable, confusing, too much for her to control, but not entirely under his own control either. He began to prowl back and forth along the wall, his eyes always on her. And though he was not a big man or imposing, something tight and smooth in his movements caused Fire to see suddenly why the others had been worried. He was a calculating creature with a capacity for strong, fast viciousness.
“Won’t you sit down, Gunner?” Fire murmured, moving herself sideways, away from both of them, and seating herself calmly on the sofa—which was a mistake, because more than one person could fit on a sofa, and the sofa was where Gunner now seemed inclined to sit. She fought him with her mind, which felt puffy and stiff, pushed him back toward the seats nearer his father, but he would not sit if he couldn’t sit with her. He retreated to his wall and resumed prowling.
“And what can we do for you, darling child?” Gentian said, slightly drunk and bouncing in his seat with happiness.
How she wished she could go slowly. But her time in this room was borrowed from Lord Quislam.
“I want to join your side,” she said. “I want your protection.”
“You’re not to be trusted, looking like that,” Gunner growled. “Never trust a monster.”
Gentian chided his son. “Gunner! Did she not prove her trustworthiness when we were set upon in the hallway? Mydogg wouldn’t wish us to be rude.”
“Mydogg does not care what we do, as long as it’s to his advantage,” Gunner said. “We shouldn’t trust Mydogg either.”
“Enough,” Gentian said, his voice suddenly sharp and commanding. Gunner glowered, but made no retort.
“And how long have you been allied with Mydogg?” Fire asked, turning innocent eyes to Gentian.
She latched tightly to Gentian’s mind and directed him to speak.
SOME TWENTY MINUTES later she had learned, and conveyed to the siblings, that Myd
ogg and Gentian had allied themselves largely in response to the lady monster joining the ranks of the king, and that Hart had only told part of the story when he’d said Gentian planned to attack Fort Flood with his force of ten thousand. Really Gentian would attack Fort Flood with fifteen thousand. After they had allied, Mydogg had moved five thousand of his own Pikkian recruits piecemeal to Gentian, through the tunnels.
It had not been easy to playact delight at that particular piece of news. It meant Brigan would be outnumbered by five thousand at Fort Flood. But perhaps it also meant that the rest of Mydogg’s army, wherever it was hiding, only numbered fifteen thousand or so? Perhaps the other two branches of the King’s Army plus all the auxiliaries could then meet Mydogg on equal ground . . .
“Our spies tell us you’ve been looking all over the kingdom for Mydogg’s army,” Gentian said now, interrupting her calculations. He giggled, playing around with a knife he’d pulled from his boot because his son, pacing and snarling, was making him nervous. “I can tell you why you haven’t found it. It’s on the sea.”
“On the sea,” Fire said, genuinely surprised.
“Yes,” Gentian said, “Mydogg has twenty thousand strong—ah, I see that number impresses you? He’s always recruiting, that Mydogg. Yes, he’s got twenty thousand strong on the sea, just out of sight of Marble Rise, in a hundred Pikkian boats. And fifty more Pikkian boats carry nothing but horses. They’re big boat people, you know, the Pikkians. Lady Murgda’s own husband’s a boat type. An explorer, until Mydogg got him interested in the business of war. Sit down, Gunner,” Gentian said sharply, reaching out to Gunner as he loomed past, slapping Gunner’s arm with the flat of his knife.
Gunner swung on his father abruptly, grappled for the knife, wrested it from Gentian’s grip, and flung it at the far wall. It screeched against stone and thumped onto the rug, bent crooked. Fire kept her face still so he would not know how much he’d frightened her.
