instead beside the silent warehouses. There ought to be a back stair around here somewhere.
Sure enough, down an alley between a row of stone storage huts, Armantaro found steps leading up. From the wear on them, he guessed servants had been using them for many, many years. Cautiously, he climbed into the darkness.
He could smell cooking-most unusual, since the Dargonesti ate their food raw or dried.
The steps led up through a large slot cut in the thick granite floor. Armantaro had entered the palace larder. The only light came from an open doorway. A rattle of pottery and a few distant words came through the opening as well. He crept forward, peering through the doorway.
Two Dargonesti were dipping dirty plates in a kettle of water to clean them. Both were grimacing ferociously.
“What a stink!” said one of the sea elves. “What is the Protector doing out there?”
The other glared at the dishes, saying tartly, “Does His Excellence tell me his business? What an awful smell!”
Armantaro got to his hands and knees and crawled behind a long table laden with kitchen implements. The servants had their backs to him and never heard him pass. In the pantry beyond the kitchen, the colonel got shakily to his feet. Curtains wavered in the doorway. He peeked through, saw an empty corridor, and started down it.
When he drew near the far end, he saw to his right the audience hall used by Queen Uriona. Vixa had described in detail her meeting with the queen there, and he had no trouble recognizing the place. To his left was a smaller chamber, set up as a dining room. Coryphene stood by a waist-high brazier, atop which blazed a stone crucible filled with hissing gnomefire. Thin smoke rose from the fire. Coryphene laid a bit of white meat atop the crucible. A few paces from the brazier was a single small table, and seated at it was the queen herself.
Armantaro halted, momentarily taken aback. This was his first sight of Queen Uriona, and he had to admit the princess’s quick description of her had not done her justice. Her complexion was dark blue, her eyes large and lustrous violet, like twin amethysts. She had silver hair of a metallic sheen he’d never seen before. It was pulled back from her face in gentle waves, leaving her upswept ears free. Seated as she was, the thick braid of her hair- twined through with strands of shells and pearls-brushed the floor. Her cheekbones were high and prominent, her nose narrow and tilted slightly upward at the end. She appeared to be somewhere in her second century and certainly looked the part of a goddess. Her words, which came to Armantaro’s acute ears, were frighteningly at variance with her elegant beauty.
“-your cleansing of the chilkit vermin,” she was saying. “We could not afford to let a single beast live. They would certainly have returned to harass us someday.”
“It is possible that some still live on some far-off abyssal plain,” Coryphene reminded her.
She waved a slender hand. “They will not bother us again. As I look into the future, I see no chilkit to impede us.” Uriona lifted to her lips an exquisitely fashioned goblet of shell and silver inlay. “Put more on the fire, Coryphene,” she commanded.
The Protector dropped another bit of white meat on the gnomefire. “It smells terrible, Divine Queen,” he said, his face stony with disgust.
“If I am to rule on land, I must become accustomed to eating food burned by fire. Bring me more of the chilkit.”
With Armantaro’s own dagger, Coryphene speared a chunk of some slain chilkit-and transferred it to a scallop-shell plate. The meat was seared on the ends, but the middle was still pink. Though it smelled remarkably like crab, Armantaro felt his stomach twisting with nausea. A warrior did not eat his enemies-even if his enemy was a chilkit. It was nothing short of cannibalism.
Coryphene presented the dish to Uriona like a priest making an offering. She picked apart the meat with her long nails. Wordlessly, she ate a tiny tidbit.
“Divinity?”
“Yes?”
“Is it-is it necessary that the drylander girl be slain?”
The words speared Armantaro through the heart. He held his breath as Coryphene continued. “She has become one of the sea brothers. Now that Naxos is dead, Kios has given me his fealty. In time I believe Vixa Ambrodel will become your loyal servant, like the others.”
Uriona smiled. She really was remarkably beautiful. Yet the light that shone behind her startling eyes was not the light of wisdom, courage, or love. Armantaro saw only madness there.
“You admire her, don’t you?” she murmured. Coryphene’s blue coloring deepened. “Do you want her for your own?”
“Your Majesty knows I love only you! There is no other for me!” he said loudly. He returned to the sputtering fire. After a moment, he said more calmly, “Naxos was an insolent, traitorous wretch. I felt no pity at his death. The old dryland elf can die as well, but I feel it is unjust to slay the Qualinesti princess and the dwarf. It is because of them that we have our victory.”
Uriona’s customarily serene expression dissolved into a flash of anger. She stood abruptly and swept the table clean of implements. “Fool!” she cried. “Your victory is due to
Instantly, Coryphene went down on one knee, begging forgiveness, but Uriona turned away and stalked to the far end of the room, keeping her back to Coryphene. Armantaro ached to have his dagger in hand.
The Protector rose and went around the table. He stopped only a few feet from the angry queen.
“No one has served you better than I,” he said, his voice tight and low. “From the day I saw you in your father’s court in Watermere, I have loved you. Because of this love I have performed many difficult tasks for you- some shameful, some a stain on my warrior’s honor. You owe me a boon, Uriona.” He closed in, taking her by the shoulders. “Give me these two lives!”
“Release me!” she hissed, shocked at this liberty. Yet, he did not obey. She lifted one hand, palm facing the warlord. A surge of power shot out. Even from his hiding place, Armantaro felt it. It was like standing too near the open door of a dwarven blast furnace. Naked heat seared his body. He trembled. The Qualinesti colonel was amazed that Coryphene could withstand the queen’s magic at such close range.
“Strike me dead, if you choose,” the Protector said flatly, “but I will not be dissuaded.”
The need to cough finally became too much for Armantaro. Coughing exploded from his mouth. He reeled away, blundering against the wall. He’d gone only a few paces back toward the kitchen when strong hands seized him from behind.
“So! You dare spy on Her Divine Majesty?”
Coryphene dragged the weakened Armantaro into the room and hurled him to the floor. The Qualinesti couldn’t control his coughing, and blood from his spittle stained the white marble. Once the spasm had ended, Armantaro pushed himself up on his hands and knees.
“You see, Coryphene!” Uriona said triumphantly. “The drylanders invade my sacred precinct! And these are the people you would spare. We will never be safe from such as he.”
“Foolish drylander,” snarled Coryphene. The warlord hauled the old colonel to his feet, gripping him by the neck of the sharkskin cape. His words were as icy as the deep ocean. “Had you stayed in your place, I might have saved your princess. By your treachery you have condemned her to death as well.”
“Your designs cannot succeed,” Armantaro said hoarsely.
Coryphene drew the dagger from his waist. “No mortal hand can stop us. My queen rules all destiny. You brought the instrument of your own death with you. I give it back to you now.”
There was steel yet in the old colonel’s limbs. He’d hung limp in Coryphene’s grasp. Now he grabbed the dagger hilt in both hands, surprising the warlord and wrestling the weapon from him. The Protector’s reaction was that of a seasoned fighter: he threw himself back, out of Armantaro’s reach.
Without pause, the colonel thrust the knife at the unprotected queen. Uriona put out her hand-not to ward off his blow, but to deliver one of her own.
A blast of heat hit Armantaro in the chest. He was lifted off his feet and flung backward. The dagger hilt was still in his hand, but the blade was gone. Spatters of molten iron on the floor testified to the force of Uriona’s power.
“Finish him,” she said disdainfully. Coryphene took Armantaro by the throat and lifted him. His powerful webbed fingers closed around the Qualinesti’s neck. Blood thundered in Armantaro’s head, and a red haze closed in
