certainly, but still… suddenly, rebellion did not seem like an ideal thing to support. Actual conflict was being waged. The thought-the reality-was unsettling.
“Did the garrison fight? Were there many killed?” he asked anxiously. “On either side?” he added quickly.
“There was no bloodshed, none whatsoever,” said the kindly visitor. “It seems that disgust with the emperor is growing like a well-watered crop, all across the land.”
That was a surprise; Blayne would not have expected the duty-conscious General Markus, one of the emperor’s most loyal adherents, to surrender so easily. But it made the good news better.
“That crop has been watered with my father’s blood,” Blayne remembered bitterly, wondering if he was trying to remind his visitor or himself. “It is time the emperor reaps his violent harvest.”
Selinda tried to scream, but her throat was so dry that no sound emerged. She struggled to move, to break free from some kind of cloaking net that inhibited her movement, but felt as though her whole body were encased in heavy mud. The tiniest effort, such as wiggling a finger, was a great challenge. Actually running away, she discovered, was quite out of the question.
Where was she? How did she get there? Her eyes were open, but she saw only a vague, almost black grayness. Had she been blinded?
She had the vague sense that a lot of time had passed since she had last been aware of her surroundings. Some memories returned, slowly… the smoke-filled inn, the exotic music… people were laughing- Selinda was laughing-overcome by hysteria. She recalled her dance of wild enjoyment, the boisterous cheers of the other patrons. That drink! A lotus… something…
And Lame Hale.
“Hale!” she called angrily-or rather, tried to call. But still her mouth seemed to be filled with cotton; her tongue, her lips were unresponsive to mental commands. She tried to move again and failed-and for the first time realized that she was physically restrained. Her vision was clearing slightly. She made out a growing illumination, a spot that might have been a window, and the shapes of worn planking on the ceiling over her head.
She was lying on her back, on some sort of mattress. Her hands were over her head, each bound by the wrist to some sort of thick restraint. With a shudder of relief, she realized that at least she was still dressed; indeed, she was wearing her own clothes-she could feel the familiar, rare silk nestled against her skin. But what was happening to her? How had she come to such a pretty pass?
“Ah, my dear. How nice to see that you are awake.”
The voice came from very close beside her head, and she started in panic.
“Hale?” she asked, recognizing the voice. “What did you do to me?”
“Nothing… yet.” The smirk was evident in his voice. “You are worth far more to me intact than damaged.”
“My worth? What in the world are you talking about? Are you planning to sell me?”
“Very astute!” said the man. She could make out more details finally, and when she twisted her head slightly, she saw him out of the corner of her eye, sitting smugly against the wall of the room. Selinda tried to think, to clear the fog from her mind and hatch some sort of plan. But all she felt was a headache. “A splendid-looking creature such as yourself will fetch a fine price in the east.”
“But-how dare you!” she spat. “Why, they’ll be looking for me!”
“I haven’t failed to note that you invariably visit us alone, my dear. I am guessing, with a fair degree of certainty, that you haven’t told anybody where you are. So let them look for you-within a few days, you could be hundreds of miles away from here. I have only to give the order, to make the deal.”
Selinda fought against the tears that threatened to blind her. She would not give him the satisfaction! Instead, she cast about for some idea, anything, that might give her cause for hope.
“Of course, it may be that there are buyers closer to home who would be interested in possessing one such as yourself… a woman as beautiful as a princess, if truth be told.”
Cold terror shot through her. Did he know who she was? Could he use that information to hurt her or the emperor?
Or the city of her birth?
And then, with a glimmer of optimism, she remembered her ring. She couldn’t see her finger, but surely the ring was still there-it must be there. If she could just touch one hand with the other, twist the ring on her finger three times, she would be able to teleport out of there, back to her palace room, that former prison that suddenly seemed so inviting and secure, a safe refuge against the many dangers of the world. She wasted no time in regretting her actions but tried to imagine a way to get the man to ease his guard.
She let go a deep, unhappy breath and slumped back on the bed, motionless. Her despair was not an act, but her loss of strength was. Stretching her legs, she realized her feet were bound too. The room was shabby and plain, and she guessed it was probably somewhere in the back of the inn she had visited so many times.
But nobody at the inn knew who she was, and nobody at the palace knew where she was!
“That’s better. It will go easier for you if you don’t struggle so much. Those ropes can chafe terribly, I have learned.”
“I understand,” she said meekly. “But I am terribly thirsty, and my shoulder is sore. Could you loosen those ropes, just a little? My feet are bound; you know I’m not going anywhere.”
“I suppose a little slack wouldn’t hurt, so long as you promise to behave,” Lame Hale said with a sneer that made her skin crawl.
“I promise,” she replied as sweetly as she could through gritted teeth.
He leaned forward and pulled on the rope. Her right hand came free, and in the same instant she pulled it around to her left, groped with her fingers, felt for the metal band, her magical tool of escape. But she couldn’t feel the ring, couldn’t feel anything but her cold, clammy skin!
“Oh?” said Hale calmly, reaching out to grasp her hand again, bringing it back to the post where he secured it tightly again. He showed her the glimmering circlet of silver, shining in his hand, and looked at her with mock innocence. “Were you looking for this little bauble?” he asked.
Ankhar’s route took him and his column of ogres and hobgoblins right past a broken-down cabin near the upper reach of the mountain valley.
“Do you remember this place?” he asked his stepmother, pausing to look at the wreckage, feeling an unfamiliar lump of emotion in his throat.
“Yes,” she said in a muted voice. “Here I save you from Bonechisel. You were just baby.”
He chuckled, touched. “Yes. Then I grew up. Nobody saved Bonechisel from me.”
Proudly he showed the place to Pond-Lily. “I was born here! My first home!”
The ogress was delighted and wanted to stop and ooh and ahh over the place, but Ankhar couldn’t spare the time for such trivialities. “We march now,” he said. “Come back later, after war.”
They moved on up the valley toward the crest of the snow-covered mountain range. The ogres, draconians, gobs, and hobs of his army all followed behind, unquestioning of their lord’s intentions, strategies, and plans.
“Even then, I saw greatness in you,” Laka said proudly. She put a withered claw of a hand in Ankhar’s, her bony grip barely wrapping around his smallest finger. “Now, you carry greatness for the Prince of Lies.”
Ankhar proudly carried that greatness right up to the crest of the Garnet Range. The valley terminated in a couloir that was surrounded by looming mountain faces that were very steep but not quite precipitous. The half- giant himself led the way on a remembered goat path, kicking through a steep, melting snowfield for the last thousand feet of the climb. He came through a narrow pass between two great peaks and immediately started downward.
The column of ogres and hobs trailed out behind him, moving single file over the lofty ground, snaking into a line more than two miles long. Ankhar was already out of the snow, picking his way around a clear, blue pond, while the tail end of his army was still waiting to begin its ascent.
But the half-giant was in no great hurry. He paused at the pond’s outlet and, with a few deft stabs of his emerald-tipped spear, pulled a half dozen plump trout out of the water. Pond-Lily set about making a fire, while more ogres, as they arrived, spread out along both sides of the stream and tried to duplicate their chieftain’s success.
By the time some two hundred drooling, snapping monsters loomed over the water, every one of the fish had been spooked, and the ogres of the advance entourage had to settle for watching Ankhar, his ogress, and his
