Knights of the Rose

Chapter 17

It was a spell known to only a few wizards in the history of high sorcery. It was one that still fewer renegades had actually performed.

Yet in spite of this, Wilthur found it admirably simple to put another shape on a man in Belkuthas and a few new thoughts in his mind. After having spent much of his years trying to balance white, red, and black spells within his mind and magic, almost anything else was simple.

Still, Wilthur the Brown would admit in the privacy of his camp quarters that the man himself might unwittingly be making the work easier.

A spell divided among the three aspects of magic had, it seemed likely, a natural affinity for a mind divided more ways than its possessor had fingers and toes.

Wilthur cast another handful of redwort pickled in honey vinegar into the charcoal of the brazier, and the smoke rose thicker. Outside, the scent escaped on the breeze, and men made gestures of aversion. They also held their noses or, if they had no work close by, tried to find a place upwind of the tent.

Within Belkuthas, Tarothin muttered uneasily in his sleep, without waking.

Sirbones was not asleep-healing a dwarf who had slipped descending the cellar stairs. Even dwarven bones could crack if they struck stone hard enough, and Sirbones knew the dwarf had to be not only healed by tomorrow but ready to fight within days. This required a healing spell of such potency that, for Sirbones, everything beyond himself and the dwarf might as well not have existed.

A third man was asleep when the spell began, but soon afterward awoke and dressed. He did not look in the mirror as he went out, although he was (at least by daylight) careful of his appearance. It would have unsettled his mind to see his ensorcelled self in the mirror, and his mind was already uneasy. Sir Lewin of Trenfar would probably not have cared to wander about the castle wearing the aspect of Belot the elven pegasus-rider.

At least not at first. By the time he reached Rynthala’s quarters, the spell had sunk far enough within him that he would not readily doubt anything that happened-or hold back because of it.

Rynthala had undressed for bed and was pulling on her night robe when the knock came. Her father coming back? She hoped Krythis had nothing more to say to her; he had begun to look like a corpse.

She wished the ill-omened thought out of her mind and prayed briefly to Mishakal to heal or at least order her thoughts and her father’s body and spirit. The knock came again. She drew the night robe down to her knees and went to open the door.

Belot stood there. His hands hung empty at his sides, and his face was blank with-what? Surprise that she had opened her door?

She could not let him think so ill of her as that. “Come in, Belot. It is late, but I will not keep you standing in the hall. How fares Amrisha?”

Belot said nothing, but stepped forward. He closed the door behind him.

Rynthala felt less easy. The blank look was still on Belot’s face. Even when he had been hostile, his thin face had been wonderfully mobile.

Had he been drinking, to gain courage to come to her as he had? That promised ill. But again, it also spoke ill of her.

She bent down, to pull a stool over to him. He also bent down, so that their foreheads bumped together.

She laughed. Then the laughter died on her lips, as he took a firm grip on her night robe with one hand and clamped the other even more firmly over her mouth.

The sound of ripping cloth and Rynthala’s cry came together. But it was only a mewling cry; Belot’s hand was as hard as iron, and not much weaker.

High Judge Lauthinaradalas was approaching Rynthala’s door when he heard her cry out. He was no judge of the sounds from the throats of near-humans, but it did not sound to him like a cry of passion.

Even if Rynthala was wanton-and this was hard to believe, in a chamber next to her parents, who were as chaste in their conduct as clerics of Paladine … even if she was, he still had the duty he had sworn to earlier this day. He would go to her and apologize for his conduct, as both common elf and high judge.

It would be easiest to speak to her. Although the quickest to anger of those who must forgive him, and the likeliest to break his head, she would also be the quickest to calm herself. Then she could intercede for him.

For now, it sounded as though somebody needed to intercede for her. Lauthin gripped his staff and pushed hard on the door, with both hand and staff.

Being unlocked, the door flew open. Lauthin halted, appalled at what he saw within. Rynthala was bent over backward in the grip of Belot, who had a hand over her mouth and was holding her arms behind her back with the other. Where had such strength come from?

Lust and madness, it seemed. Rynthala’s eyes were wide, with fury rather than fear or desire, and she wore only the rags of her night robe.

Then Belot moved. He struck Rynthala on the jaw and in the stomach. She collapsed on the bed, gasping for breath, her lip bleeding. As he whirled, a knife sprouted from his hand.

The next moment, it was sprouting from Lauthin’s chest.

The elven lord also fell backward with the force of the blow. He was on the floor, looking up, by the time Belot snatched the dagger free, then thrust again, lower down.

By then, the first wound was starting to hurt. It would hurt a great deal, if he lived long enough. With two such wounds, he did not fear that danger.

But where had Belot gained such strength? He was fighting like a trained warrior, which he certainly was not. Also, Lauthin had never to his memory seen such a long knife in Belot’s possession.

This is not Belot-Lauthin held that thought, because it meant that one of his own people was not so vile and treacherous.

That was his last thought, before his mind became unable to hold any thoughts at all.

As blackness took him, Rynthala regained the breath to scream.

Krythis was sitting on the bed, wondering if he had the strength to even wash his face and hands before retiring, when Rynthala screamed.

His daughter’s scream gave him the strength to leap from the bed, snatch his sword from the peg by the door and his dagger from under the pillow, and run out into the corridor.

Tulia had been sound asleep, but she was only moments behind him.

In the corridor, they discovered their daughter’s door locked from within. Meanwhile, the screams continued-more rage than pain, and no fear whatever, Krythis told himself firmly-proving that Rynthala was very much alive and fighting.

Unfortunately, she was also fighting on the far side of that locked door. Krythis slashed at it with his sword, which only nicked the edge of one of the door’s iron bands and did not even relieve his rage.

What might have happened if Rynthala’s screams had not roused everyone in the family quarters could never be known. Several guards ran up, elven and human, as well as one dwarf wearing a loincloth and carrying an axe.

The dwarf had just taken his first swing at the door when Grimsoar One-Eye appeared. He carried an even bigger axe than the dwarf. With a nod to the other axe-men, he took his swing.

Then the two axes were biting into the oak at a rate that made Krythis stand back to avoid being hit by flying splinters. He would be no use to Rynthala until the door was down, and from the sounds within, she was still fighting. The gods willing, the men chopping through the door would distract the attacker and give Rynthala a chance to strike him down even before her kin entered-

The door flew inward, the lock chopped completely free of the wood. Krythis shouldered his way through the last standing planks, ripping skin from his limbs and shoulders as he did.

Rynthala lay on the bed, trying in every way she could to injure the man atop her. He seemed unharmed, however-and Krythis would not have withheld his blow even if the man had been dead on the floor at his feet.

His dagger plunged thrice into the man’s lower back. Then he gripped the man’s tunic to pull him off the bed. As Krythis heaved, Rynthala snatched up her pillow dagger and drove it into the man’s chest.

He crashed to the floor, and Rynthala stood up unsteadily. For a moment she wore nothing save the man’s blood; then she wrapped a blanket around herself and sat down, shaking.

Krythis sat beside her, and took almost as much comfort as he gave when she put her head on his shoulder. If she had recoiled at his touch-

“He tried, Father. But he either would not or could not. He certainly did not.”

“Even if Belot only tried-” Krythis said. He could not find words. He wanted to spit on Belot’s corpse.

“Father. That is not Belot.”

Krythis looked. “Impossible. He must have thought you-”

“You are not thinking, Father. Look at that dagger. Belot never carried one like it. And he was strong. Strong as a trained warrior-strong as a knight-oh, Paladine!”

Krythis wanted to say more, thinking of Sir Darin made mad by lust or, more likely, magic. Either would drive between him and Sir Pirvan a wedge that only Paladine could remove.

“Rynthala! Lord Lauthin!”

Belot stood in the doorway.

But Belot was dead on the floor, after attacking Rynthala and-yes, Lord Lauthin lay dead in a corner of the room. Three stab wounds in his chest and stomach-

If Belot is standing in the doorway, wondered Krythis, then who is lying dead on the floor?

No, not quite dead. Improbably but truly, the man was still breathing. This would not last for long, but any illusion spell bound upon him would not depart until he died-or until it was removed by a wizard.

“Summon Tarothin,” Krythis said. Someone vanished. Krythis hoped the eager messenger was a fast runner and not afraid of the wrath of a weary wizard freshly awakened.

“Send for Sirbones,” Krythis went on. “Turn out all the fighters-everyone-guard all the gates and tunnel mouths. Double the wall watch, and-Rynthala!”

Rynthala had stepped forward, and taken Belot in her arms.

“Rynthala, what are you doing?” Krythis exclaimed. “Even if Belot-”

“Oh, hush, my lord,” Tulia said, prodding him in his bare buttocks with her dagger. She would have sounded light-hearted, but for the quaver in her voice. “If Belot is innocent, Rynthala can do as she pleases with him.… Your pardon, daughter, that was not what I meant to say-”

Rynthala rescued her parents from confusion. “Plainly speaking, whoever lies there is half again Belot’s size and strength.”

“A shapechanger?” Krythis said, appalled.

“Whatever he is,” came a familiar voice from behind Krythis, “he has killed Lord Lauthin and attacked Rynthala. Now, can we cease bickering and wait for this man to die or else for Tarothin to ready himself to take off the spell?” Sir Pirvan stepped forward. He wore trousers, sword and dagger, helmet, and nothing else. Haimya was not with him.

“Why not Sirbones?” Rynthala asked.

Another familiar voice floated into the chamber. “Because taking a potent spell of illusion off a dying man will overtax a weary healer.”

Krythis turned. “I suppose you are a hale and hearty wizard, friend Tarothin?” The Red Robe sat in a sedan chair borne by two Gryphons and two men-at-arms, all well beweaponed. Several more of each flanked him, led by Haimya and Sir Darin.

Krythis felt his knees turn to half-congealed grease and he would have fallen but for his daughter and wife steadying him on each side. A third set of helping hands turned out to belong to Belot. Sitting with his head down did not restore Krythis’s wits. In that position he had to look at the bodies, until he also put his hands over his face.

At last he could stand. Meanwhile, Tarothin had touched his staff to the dagger, the dead false Belot, and Lord Lauthin.

“The dagger was his, and killed Lauthin,” Tarothin said. “Learning any more waits on breaking the spell, and for that I would ask to be alone. If someone will bring the green embroidered saddlebag from the sedan chair-”

Several pairs of eager hands departed on eager feet. Sir Darin and the true Belot were not among them. They stood on either side of Rynthala, as close as propriety allowed them to stand to a young woman wearing only a blanket. Neither was looking daggers at the other-or indeed, looking at the other at all. Both, however, were looking at Rynthala, as if she was a rare and precious thing that might crumble to powder at a harsh word.

It was probably the first time in years that anyone save her parents had looked at Rynthala in that way. Krythis hoped his daughter could get used to the experience.

A loud groan echoed around the chamber just as the messengers returned with Tarothin’s apparatus. He knelt beside the false Belot, resting his staff on the body.

“This may keep the illusion spell from crumbling the body to powder when it passes off. If it does not, we face more potent magic than I had feared.”

“Black?” someone asked.

“That is the problem,” Tarothin said in his lecture-hall tone. If he was capable of that, waked from sleep at this hour of the night, perhaps he was not so feeble after all. “If this is the spell I think it is, we face a unique combination of magic, drawn from black, white, and red. It-”

At this point the false Belot died, and the illusion spell departed with his spirit.

Krythis would have gladly been somewhere else when all recognized the bloody corpse. The best he could do was not join the gasps of horror, and not look at Sir Pirvan.

After a moment, he could even raise his voice. “Rynthala, you may leave or not, as you wish. The rest of you, I ask that you come with me. It would be well to leave Sir Pirvan and Master Tarothin with Sir Lewin’s body.”

Rynthala was neither awake nor asleep as she sat on the wall and watched the sun touch the battlements of the keep.

She also watched a few intruding besiegers scuttling for safety, across the still-shadowed ground outside the walls. Since the dwarves cleared away most of the old rubble and wall stubs, there was scant cover within bow shot of the citadel. Anyone caught close in by daylight was likely to be a banquet for the carrion birds by nightfall.

She wanted to take away the memory of this whole night. Not only from herself, for she had suffered more harm to her dignity than to her body, but from everyone else. What her father had felt breaking into the room and seeing her, what Sir Pirvan had felt when he recognized the body-those she would have gladly blotted from the record of events, even if it meant burning Astinus the Chronicler’s entire library to ashes!

That power was not likely to come to her, any more than the power to revive Sir Lewin. To do the knight justice, he probably would not wish to live once he learned what his body had done in the guise of another, with his mind turned from the path of honor by a third creature, a mage of immense evil.

It did not matter what Tarothin said. Evil had been wrought this night. Rynthala wanted some way of purging her parents’ home of it, until death itself drew back from the cleansing fury abroad in the citadel of Belkuthas.

“Your pardon, Lady Rynthala.”

She turned, and realized only then that it was daylight and the sun was glinting on Belot’s fair hair. No, it had not turned white overnight-that was a trick of the light.

“If I wanted to punish you,” she said wearily, “the best way would be to keep you up on the wall. Let us go down.”

They descended the stairs and crossed the courtyard. “Lady Rynthala-”

“You have not called me ‘lady’ for a while. Please do not start again.”

She realized then that Belot was at his wit’s end for what to say to her. Perhaps she could begin the purge of Belkuthas by purging him.

So she took him in her arms and kissed him.

He was at first as rigid as wood, and she heard his breath whuff out. Then he relaxed a trifle, and returned the kiss, in a brotherly manner. Finally he stepped out of her arms, and smiled.

“You did not find me-horrible?”

“You were not attacking me last night. I have a bad memory, or so my nurse said, but I can tell you from-the sorcerer’s puppet.” Then an appalling thought struck her. “You did not find my kiss dreadful, I hope?”

“No.”

“Good. I would hate to think I had unmanned you.”

“I doubt that any-woman-has that power.” Some of his old fire was back.

“I am told that all men feel that way when they are young, whether elven or human.”

Belot smiled. “I came to say farewell. I am about to give Nuor of the Black Chisel his first lesson in not falling off a pegasus.”

“I thought you would be leaving tonight.”

“I think it would be best to fly now. Then we can be outside the reach of our enemies by nightfall, or even in time to find a safe landing place.

“I also wanted to say this. Whatever you are, you are a whole-a whole being. Not half this or a quarter that or seven parts of one thing and six of another. You are Rynthala, and that begins and ends what you are.”

Then he kissed her again, longer but just as brotherly.

Rynthala gripped Belot’s shoulders. “If you say that often enough, Belot, you will be kissing many women. Most of them will make you better wives than I would.”

“Is that your answer?”

“It would be if you asked.”

“I was not asking.” He actually grinned, though he could have had no sleep the night before and was facing a long day now. “Do not worry about any noises you may hear from the stable. It will just be me stuffing Nuor into a saddlebag and tying it shut.”