“I wouldn’t dream of it.” Mungan raised his palms to calm the king. “You have worked the Mystery with Queen Filfaeril, and it is only fitting you go after her, but the afterdaze will be a problem. If the ghazneth doesn’t slay you or someone else outright, he may flee.”
Azoun considered this, then nodded. “Right you are, Mungan. My thanks.” He pulled the weathercloak off Merula’s shoulders, then turned to his men. “I need a volunteer to stand atop the White Tower. It may be that you’ll face the ghazneth alone.”
Every hand in the chamber shot up. Azoun nodded his thanks, then passed the cloak to a grizzled lionar he knew to be as shrewd as he was quick with a sword. “You know how to use this?”
The man nodded. “Aye, I’ve served with a war wizard or two in my time.” He flung the cloak across his shoulders, then bowed deeply. “The ghazneth won’t pass with the queen. If it tries, I will be honored to die stopping it.”
Azoun nodded grimly and clasped the lionar’s shoulder, then turned to Merula.
Mungan Kane stepped to intercept him. “There is one other matter, Sire. I should be one of those to accompany you.”
“To see that the Royal Temple is represented in the battle?” mocked Merula.
“To see that the creature’s wickedness doesn’t deprive you of your wits-as it did Vangerdahast,” countered Mungan.
Merula’s eyes flashed. “I would not waste my magic-“
“It is my magic,” interrupted Azoun. “Unless the war wizards no longer serve at the pleasure of the king.”
“That could never be, Majesty.” Merula bowed to Azoun, but continued to glare at the priest. “I thank the king for pointing out the error of my assertion.”
“You are quite welcome,” said Azoun. “We must remember the service Harvestmaster Owden and his assistants provided in restoring the royal magician and myself to our wits-a service which they may need to provide again for the queen.”
Merula’s face only grew stormier. “Of course. If the king wishes to exchange one of his dragoneers for a mere priest-“
“The king does not.” Azoun turned to Mungan. “The battle will be won or lost in the first moments, and I will have greater need of swords than sanity. I fear we must try to hold our own wits long enough for you to take the long way around with the rest of the company.”
Mungan’s face fell, but he nodded his understanding. “If I cannot be with you, then perhaps you will allow the All Mother to go in my place.” He reached into his robe and withdrew five wooden amulets carved in the shape of a unicorn, handing one to Azoun and each of the men going with him. “These will offer some protection until I can join you.”
Merula regarded the amulet with a sneer, then thrust it back at the priest. “I have no use for this.”
Mungan refused to accept it. “It is for the king’s protection.”
“It is to insinuate Chauntea into the royal graces.” Merula dropped the amulet on the floor, then turned to Azoun. “I trust my loyalty does not yet dictate my faith?”
The wizard’s emphasis on the word yet was not lost on the king. He looked at the men accompanying him. They were eyeing him expectantly, holding their amulets in their palms and waiting to follow his lead. Azoun sighed wearily. In his gratitude to Owden, perhaps he was beginning to favor the Church of Chauntea more than was appropriate.
“You men do as your own consciences dictate.” He returned the amulet to Mungan. “I think I can hold onto my sanity until you arrive in person.”
“That may be so-but do you really want to risk the queen’s life on that chance?” Mungan tucked the amulet cord through Azoun’s sword belt, then stepped back. “It will be there if you need it.”
The Purple Dragons nodded at the priest’s wisdom and tucked their own amulets into their sword belts, but Dauneth Marliir did not. The High Warden tied his around his neck.
Filfaeril lay pressed to the naked ghazneth’s side, draped across his wing and garbed in some filthy piece of gossamer pulled from a festhall trash bin. The room was beginning to seem less an armory than a bedchamber, and she could not imagine what was taking Azoun so long. Already, the pile of weathercloaks on which they lay felt like a silk-covered featherbed, and lascivious carvings were beginning to appear in the oaken cabinets along the walls.
The queen suppressed a shudder. She had learned through hard experience that Boldovar’s illusions always reflected his inner desires. Nevertheless, she took a deep breath, then cooed softly into his pointed ear and ran her fingers through the lice-infested bristles on his chest. It had taken days of subtle manipulation to lure her captor into the one place she knew the war wizards could take him by surprise, and she would do anything to keep the ghazneth distracted until Azoun arrived.
Boldovar opened his lips and gargled out a mouthful of rings, all gray and dull now that he had absorbed their magic. Filfaeril forced a light giggle-it was not difficult to sound slightly demented-then took a commander’s ring from the huge pile of magic beside her and held it over the ghazneth’s mouth.
“Another?”
Boldovar’s crimson eyes shifted toward the arrow loop overlooking Marliir House, and Filfaeril knew he was still too skittish for her plan to succeed.
“You don’t want it?” She slipped the ring down between her breasts, planting it just deep enough so that the tourmaline winked up from her cleavage like a pale blue eye. “Then I’ll keep it for myself.”
The ghazneth’s gaze darted back to her chest and fixed on the magic ring. He stared at it for a long time, his face an expressionless mask, and Filfaeril wondered if she had been too obvious. Over the past few days, she had grown steadily more congenial through a conscious effort of will, but never before had she tried to beguile him.
Perhaps she had been too bold. Whatever else he was, Boldovar was also cunning and intelligent. He had proven that many times over the past tenday, moving her from one hiding place to another daily and ambushing the war wizards almost twice that often. At first, Filfaeril had not been able to figure out why her captor remained in Arabel. If all he wanted was a real queen to sit on his delusionary throne, he could have established a far more peaceful palace in any number of dark wilderness lairs. Then she began to notice a peculiar pattern. If the ghazneth went even half a day without being attacked, the tangibility of his illusions began to fade. After giving the matter some thought, the queen had realized that her captor was feeding off the magic used to attack him. She started telling him where to find items of increasingly powerful magic-both to ensure her own survival and to prepare him for the day when she could lure him into the White Tower.
Now that day had come, and where was her rescue party? A stream of lunatic thoughts, an unavoidable consequence of consorting with Boldovar, coursed through Filfaeril’s mind. Perhaps her husband had finally given up on her, persuaded by her inability to escape that she preferred life with Boldovar. After all, the ghazneth was far more powerful than Azoun, and, having survived more than a thousand years himself, he could certainly offer her things beyond the grasp of even the wealthiest human king-but no, that could not be, Azoun loved her. Or did he? He was a king and she a queen. Theirs had been as much a political marriage as a romantic one, and Filfaeril was neither deaf nor blind. She had heard rumors of noble children who bore an uncanny resemblance to her husband, and she had seen for herself that some of them were well-founded.
Filfaeril shook her head, trying to drive Boldovar’s delusions from her mind. Whatever else he had done, Azoun would never abandon her-not in a hundred life times. “Is something wrong, my dear?” The ghazneth smiled, baring his yellow fangs. “Are you a little nervous about our consummation night?” Boldovar’s red tongue shot down between Filfaeril’s breasts and flicked the ring back into his gruesome mouth.
Azoun and his companions emerged from the timeless darkness to find themselves not in the White Tower’s magic armory, but in a murky boudoir lined by debauched carvings of unspeakable violations against woman and nature. The king’s first thought was that Merula the Marvelous had teleported them into the secret playroom of some deranged noble-one of the Illances or Bleths, most likely. Then he saw the ghazneth, lying on a silk-sheeted bed at the far end of the room, its face all but buried in the chest of a gossamer-clad figure cradled in the palm of its wing, and he grew even more confused. That could not be Filfaeril. The woman did not seem to be struggling, and the queen would never allow such a thing-not to any man but her husband!
Then someone yelled, “Move, Sire!”
Azoun felt a pair of hands shove his shoulder. He recalled their plan and hit the floor rolling, confident that
