CHAPTER TWELVE

Pelemere, the Central Kingdoms

I t was, for almost an entire half hour, a time of the most exquisite joyousness.

Ba’al’uz sank back into the shadows by the hearth, concealed by the gloom, and watched mayhem erupt at Sirus’ lunch table.

Evenor’s murder had been enjoyable—but what Ba’al’uz experienced now was the most intense ecstasy normally only felt during the climax of sexual relations.

Ishbel, perhaps overwrought by all the anger about her, vomited what little lunch she’d eaten onto the snowy linen-covered expanse of the high table.

Guards rushed to surround the high table—members of Maximilian’s Emerald Guard as well as Sirus’

palace guard.

Maximilian had shoved Allemorte to one side in order to reach Ishbel. The baron had no time to recover his balance before Ba’al’uz had stepped smoothly forward from his shadow, wiped the poison over Allemorte’s wrist as he tried to grab the back of a chair, and then retreated, unseen and unremarked by all as Allemorte slipped to his knees. He made as if to rise, but the next moment gagged, turned a horrible shade of gray-purple, clutched at his chest, then collapsed in convulsions.

Sirus lurched to his feet, his eyes initially on Ishbel and Maximilian, before turning in bewilderment to look at Allemorte writhing on the floor.

The hall erupted in shouting and cries and the sound of benches and chairs tumbling to the timber floor as people leapt to their feet.

Within a moment attention had turned from Maximilian and Ishbel to Allemorte. The poison had done its work in an instant, and where it quickly became obvious that Ishbel was well (apart from her sick stomach), it just as rapidly became obvious that Allemorte was in his final extremity.

Sirus was the first to reach him, leaning down and grabbing at the convulsing man’s shoulder.

“Allemorte!” he cried. “Allemorte!”

He was pushed unceremoniously aside by the arrival of a man Ba’al’uz could not name, but who was immediately recognizable as a physician. The physician grabbed at one of Allemorte’s flailing hands, held it, an expression of deep concentration on his face, then looked up, first to Sirus and then to Maximilian, now holding Ishbel to one side.

“He has been poisoned,” the physician said. “He is dying.”

Ba’al’uz raised his eyebrows. The physician had uncommon skill—a depth of intuition that bordered on the magical. He was wrong in only one respect—Allemorte was not dying…by now he was very dead indeed.

“Murder!” cried Sirus, and turned instantly to Maximilian. “You murdered him!”

Ba’al’uz had to bite his inner cheek to keep himself from crowing out loud and betraying his presence.

This was too good to be true! Now Ba’al’uz was torn between wanting desperately to stay and enjoy the continuing drama, or scurrying back to where the Eight waited and regaling them with the excitement.

The Eight could wait. The excitement here was too good to leave just yet.

As Sirus and Maximilian shouted, and as guards milled, Ba’al’uz studied Ishbel.

She was very pale, and Ba’al’uz thought he could see continuing traces of sickness about her eyes.

The baby.

Bring her to me, Kanubai whispered in his mind, and Ba’al’uz nodded.

Far away, on the banks of the River Lhyl, the brindle dog lay, head on paws, looking at the pyramid rising in the sunlight, but seeing nothing but Ishbel Brunelle reacting to the ring’s call of danger.

The dog had no mind of its own now. Instead the shadows that chased about its skull were the thoughts of Kanubai, still waiting far below the pyramid.

Kanubai knew that bringing Ishbel to DarkGlass Mountain had its own dangers, but, oh, the strength that the sacrifice of her child would give him! The baby carried powerful bloodlines, magical bloodlines, and its sacrifice to enable Kanubai’s rise would give him such power in life that he would be virtually unstoppable.

Never more would he be trapped.

Never again the bleakness of the abyss, but only that bleakness transferred to the light of day so that all joy and warmth might be murdered.