He would not even have to say anything himself; just look angry. NO one would dare ask him. The rumors would fly, but there was no reason for anyone to guess the truth.
He rang for a servant, and feigning greater strength than he had, contorted his face into a mask of suppressed rage and ordered the bodies taken away and displayed in the cages. Then he called for stimulants, food and drink, as he always did after a battle. Sometimes habits were useful things. When he demanded rare meat, red wine, and kephira, with a body-slave to be waiting in his bed, the servants all assumed that a fight had aroused his blood and his lust.
The servant left and came back with several more; Falconsbane ignored them as they carried the bodies away, lying back on his couch and staring at the shadow-shrouded ceiling. He often did that after a battle of magic, too. When the servant returned at last with the food and drink he had been sent for, he told the man in a flat, expressionless voice to set it down and take himself out. He did his best to look angry, and not tired. The illusion was what mattered right now.
If I were not so pressed, I would manipulate their minds to reinforce the tale that is spreading, he thought, slowly mustering the strength to reach for a cup of drugged wine. Perhaps I should do so anyway.
But at that moment, there came a hesitant tap at the door. He started, and cursed his own jangled nerves, then growled, 'Yes? What is it?' If it's nonsense, I'll kill him. If it's a defection, I'll set the wyrsa on the fool who ran and see if he can outrun and outlast a pack of forty!
'Sire,' came the timid voice of the servant, muffled by the door, 'I beg your pardon for disturbing you, but I'm following your orders. You said to let you know immediately if one of those riders-' He sat up abruptly, exhaustion and pain completely forgotten. 'The riders? Open the damned door, you fool! What about the riders?' The servant edged the door open, nervously. He peered inside, then slid into the room with one eye on his escape route. There was a small box in his hand.
A small box carved of shining black wood.
Falconsbane's eyes went to it as if drawn there; he stood up and strode over to the man, and stood towering over him, his hands twitching at his sides.
'Sire, one of the riders came right up to the gate just as they weretaking out-' The man gulped, his face pasty white, and Falconsbane repressed the urge to strangle him. He simply tried to ease some of the anger out of his face so that the servant would be able to continue.
'Go on,' he said, more gently than he wanted to. He cursed his own weakness; if he had been stronger, he could have seized the man's mind and pulled what he wanted right out of it.
'The rider came up and tossed this to the Guard Captain, Sire,' the servant continued, after visibly trying to calm himself. 'Then-he was just gone. The Guard Captain brought this straight to me, like you ordered.'
' By 'just gone,' do you mean that he rode away?' Falconsbane asked carefully. Why didn't they call me? Or was there no time? Can those riders move that fast? Why isn't someone chasing them?
'No, Sire, I mean he was gone. Like smoke. There, and then not there.' The servant seemed convinced, and there was no real reason for him to lie. 'The Guard Captain said so. Said he was gone like he'd been conjured and dispersed.' Falconsbane pondered the box in his hand; this was the first real evidence that the riders were the manifestations of magic. Was his unknown enemy-or friend-showing his hand a little more? They could not have gone through a Gate; he would have sensed that. Therefore they could only have been temporary conjurations, given life and form only so long as the mage needed them, or creatures from another plane.
Minor demons, perhaps? Those he might not be able to sense unless he was actually looking for them.
Of the 'gifts' that had been sent to him, only one was magical-and it was useless. He cast an eye at the lenticular scrying crystal as the servant waited nervously for his response, and snorted a little.
Scrying crystal, indeed. It was an excellent crystal. The clarity was exceptional, the lenticular form ideal for scrying, the size quite perfect for a detailed image to form. The problem was, no matter how he bent his will upon it, it would show only one thing. The view of some remote mountain peak, and halfway up the side of the mountain, a strange and twisted castle that he did not recognize. A snowstorm swirled about the castle when the crystal was moved.
He dismissed the servant, and reached for the wine, drinking it down in one gulp, before he returned to his couch and contemplated the box.
Like the other, it was beautifully carved, and about the same size. There was no sign of magic anywhere about it.
Like the other, this one held something.
Nestled in a nest of black velvet padding was a ring. Not just any ring, either-it held no stone, and was not metal, although it was an intricately carved or molded band. Like a wedding ring, exactly like a wedding ring, it was carved with the symbols of harvest, wheat-ears and grapes-except that this ring was made of a shining, cool black substance.
He tried, experimentally, to break it, but it was probably of the same stuff as the horse.
In this part of the world, widows sometimes laid aside their wedding bands to wear a black band like this, made of jet, signifying mourning.
Was he being warned? But he had no spouse to mourn, and the very last thing he would weep over was the death of his traitorous daughter.
His predilection for black was apparently well known to these riders-or whoever sent them. There had been the rose, the velvet, the horse. and now the ring. And this would certainly gain his attention far quicker than a simple peasants' gold or silver wedding band.
So, was this an invitation to a 'wedding'-an alliance?
Or a funeral?
'I don't like this,' Darkwind told Firesong unhappily. 'I only told you MY plan because I hoped you'd have another way of handling this, something that wouldn't put anyone into danger like this. Even if it is MY plan, I don't like it.' He had intercepted Firesong as soon as the Adept had anchored the proto-Gate for the night. They had walked back to Firesong's ekele together, while Darkwind laid bare his thoughts on Falconsbane and what might be done about him.
