Inwardly, Rhespen winced. Some of the rebels' offspring were adjusting well to their soft captivity, but Winterflower remained as scornful and unyielding as ever. He feared she'd refuse Orchtrien's command, and so earn punishment. He'd never considered the gold to be especially cruel by nature, but his master still possessed a regal pride, a dragon's pride, and was little inclined to tolerate disrespect.
Rhespen groped for an excuse to offer on Winterflower's behalf. She rose from the table before he could think of anything. 'As Your Majesty commands,' she said. She walked to the patch of floor before the throne, took a breath, and began to sing.
Her song, a mournful ballad, was lovely, and cast its spell over everyone in the hall. Rhespen sat as captivated as the rest, until he realized how the lyrics might be construed.
He could only hope that no one else would so interpret them. Many of the folk in attendance didn't even speak Elvish, and others were surely content to enjoy the song without analyzing it for provocative implication. Perhaps, he thought, it would be all right.
Then a disembodied fist made of blue phosphorescence shimmered into existence. It smashed Winterflower in the face, flinging her to the floor.
Rhespen sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over in the process. He called for his staff, and the length of white shining metal appeared in his hand.
Sneering, Maldur rose as well. He didn't summon his own staff-perhaps he'd never mastered that particular knack-but light nickered and oozed inside the gems he, wore on either hand.
'You surely noticed,' the human magician said, 'that the song told of a mad, vainglorious king, and the calamities his misrule inflicted on his subjects.'
'It's an ancient song,' Rhespen replied, 'dating back to a time before elves even walked this world.'
'Nevertheless,' Maldur said, 'she surely intended it as a veiled comment on His Majesty's reign.' He glared down at Winterflower. 'Didn't you, Milady?'
Rhespen stared at her, silently imploring her with his gaze: For once, curb that bitter tongue. You could forfeit your life by admitting to such a thing.
She peered back at him, then lowered her eyes and said, in a meeker voice than he'd heard her use hitherto, 'As Lord Rhespen said, it's simply an old song with a plaintive melody. I meant nothing by it, and apologize if it offended.'
Rhespen gave her his hand and helped her up. He glared at Maldur. 'It's you, Milord, who should beg forgiveness.'
'Nonsense,' the human said. 'It's plain she intended the insult even if she now lacks the courage to admit it, and in any case, I don't apologize to rebels.'
Rhespen pivoted toward Orchtrien. 'Your Majesty, you placed Lady Winterflower in my charge. Thus, I'm duty-bound to defend her honor.'
He actually expected the dragon to forbid any semblance of a duel, for both he and Maldur were valuable servants, and Orchtrien would find it inconvenient to lose either one of them. But the gold surprised him.
'You two have been squabbling for years,' Orchtrien said. 'I'm tired of it. So I give you leave to settle your quarrel. We'll have a martial entertainment to celebrate a martial triumph.'
Servants cleared away the tables and chairs nearest Orchtrien's dais, creating a space sufficiently large for a pair of mages to hurl destructive energies back and forth without inadvertently blasting an innocent spectator. Rhespen and Maldur stood at opposite ends of it, and the king cried, 'Begin!'
Rhespen declaimed a word of command, drawing a pulse of light from his staff and wrapping himself in a protective enchantment. At the same time, Maldur twisted a ruby ring a half-turn around its finger, and a halo of red luminescence outlined his body. The human too had activated a mystical defense. Rhespen wondered exactly which ward it was, and what sort of spell could punch through it.
Maldur rattled off an incantation. Rhespen didn't recognize the precise spell-every wizard had his own secrets and obfuscatory tricks-but he could tell the human invoked the powers of the storm. That might be all right. From past observation, Rhespen knew his opponent liked flinging thunderbolts about, and had accordingly conjured a ward that was particularly effective at blocking them.
He plucked a pair of teeth from one of his many pockets, flourished them, and recited a rhyme of his own. He and Maldur finished at the same moment.
Maldur thrust out his hands, and a dazzling streak of lightning burst from his fingertips. As Rhespen had hoped, the twisting flare terminated harmlessly several inches from his chest.
But the booming, deafening string of thunderclaps that accompanied it hammered him like a giant's war club. He reeled, fell, and still the unbearable noise pounded on, smashing his thoughts into incoherence.
At last the cacophony subsided. Dazed, he struggled to lift his head and take stock of the tactical situation. It was about as bad as could be. He'd conjured a dozen pairs of fanged, disembodied jaws to fly around Maldur and harry him, but whenever one of the manifestations tried to bite its target, the human's protective corona of scarlet light withered it from existence. Confident of the efficacy of his defenses, Maldur had simply ignored the darting, wheeling jaws to start reciting another attack spell.
Which was to say, he had gained the advantage. If Rhespen attempted an incantation of his own, the human would almost certainly finish first, and strike another potentially devastating blow. Rhespen would do better to release another of the spells stored in his staff, a process only requiring a moment.
He spoke the appropriate word, and only then realized he wasn't gripping the truesilver rod anymore. He must have dropped it when the thunder staggered him. He peered about, spotted it, reached for it, then Maldur completed his spell.
A ragged shaft of shadow leaped from the human's upraised hand. Rhespen flung himself across the floor, rolling, trying to dodge the burst of darkness. The edge of it grazed him even so. Cold pierced him to the core, and an unnatural terror howled through his mind.
He denied the fear, refused to let it overwhelm him, and Maldur started yet another spell. Shaking, half frozen, Rhespen fumbled his staff into his grasp, gritted out a word of command, and clanged the head of the weapon against the floor.
A good portion of the marble surface jolted and shattered into pieces. The upheaval couldn't knock Rhespen down. He was already on his knees. But it threw Maldur onto his back, jarring the breath out of him and making him botch his recitation.
Maldur instantly started to raise himself back up, and an ignorant observer might have concluded that Rhespen hadn't accomplished much. But in fact, he'd altered the tempo of the confrontation and deprived the human of the momentum that allowed him to attack repeatedly without fear of reprisal.
The two mages jabbered rhymes. Rings dripping sparks, Maldur punched the air, whereupon an unseen force slammed into the center of Rhespen's chest and knocked him back a step. But he refused to let it spoil his magic. On the final syllable, a tingle ran over his skin, and he was as invisible as the top half of Winterflower's carriage had been.
Praying that Maldur didn't already have some sort of enchantment in place to augment his natural senses, Rhespen dashed forward. He swung wide before charging straight at his foe. Had he stayed on the same line, the human might easily have struck him with another spell despite the handicap of casting blind. His elven boots, possessed of a virtue that stifled noise, made no sound on the jutting chunks of broken floor.
Rhespen's disappearance took Maldur by surprise. He hesitated for a precious moment, then brought his hands together and lashed them apart. The topaz rings on his thumbs flashed.
Instinct warned Rhespen that he mustn't trust invisibility to protect him from this particular magic. He threw himself down.
Blades of yellow light leaped out from Maldur's body toward the four corners of the hall, like the spokes of a radiant wheel suspended parallel to the floor. If Rhespen hadn't ducked, one of them would inevitably have pierced him.
As soon as they winked out of existence, Rhespen jumped up and scrambled onward. Three more strides carried him into striking distance, and he swung his staff at Maldur's face.
Since the human couldn't see the threat, he made no effort to parry or evade, and as Rhespen had hoped, the scarlet aura provided scant protection against a purely physical attack. Metal rang, and Maldur's knees buckled.
