Ilissa.”
Aruendiel did not smile. “I have stayed my attack,” he said, brows knotted, “as you asked. But not willingly. The Faitoren have repeatedly taken prisoners and broken treaty terms. They will continue to do so until they are punished for it.”
“You are probably right.” Hirizjahkinis leaned forward. With her arms stretched before her on the table, she looked like a small, proud lioness. “But you cannot wage war against Ilissa alone. Even you, Aruendiel! Your king in Semr is a little wiser than he was—he will not trust her so easily again—but he has no stomach to take up arms against the Faitoren. Not without good reason.” She smiled broadly. “And as you say, there is no reason now. The prisoners have freed themselves.”
Hirgus Ext the Shorn gave a rumble of assent. “While I objected very strongly to being deprived of liberty, I can’t say that the Faitoren mistreated us. No, they were quite civilized.” Aruendiel grunted malevolently, but Hirgus Ext continued to smile with imperturbable bonhomie. He was stout and, as his name indicated, completely bald, but he was evidently a man who elected to grow as much hair as possible on his chin if he could not grow it on his head. Gold and silver threads and a few jewels were woven into the graying strands of his long, pointed beard. He wore one earring shaped like the sun, another like the moon, and his blue velvet robe was embroidered in silver with a text in a language that was foreign to Nora, although it used the Ors alphabet. He was the first person that Nora had met in this world whom she would have identified unhesitatingly as a wizard even before she knew such beings really existed.
Nora put the ale and bread on the table and sat down next to Hirizjahkinis as inconspicuously as possible.
“I fail to understand,” Aruendiel said, “exactly why two experienced magic-workers would put themselves in the power of the Faitoren. Why they would abandon all good sense and visit the Faitoren realm in the first place.” His eyes rested on Hirizjahkinis.
“There were promises made, guarantees of safe conduct—” Hirgus began.
“And you believed them.”
“Oh, no. Give me credit for that much good sense, as you put it, Aruendiel,” Hirizjahkinis said with some passion. “I have heard you say it often enough—that the Faitoren cannot be trusted! And that is exactly what I told Hirgus when I met him at the inn in Foluks Port.”
Aruendiel raised his eyebrows. He looked genuinely shocked. “What were you doing in Foluks Port?”
“A dreadful place,” agreed Hirizjahkinis. “But I was not there by chance. I went there as a favor, let us call it, to your king.”
She glanced around the table as though challenging any of the others to turn their attention away, and seemed pleased by what she saw. “You remember that portrait spell you taught me, Aruendiel? I must thank you for it again—it made my time in Semr very profitable. Everyone wanted their pictures to speak! I was hired many, many times. One of the king’s ministers—ah, it doesn’t matter who!—summoned me to work the spell for him. And then he asked me afterward if I would undertake a different sort of job on behalf of the king.”
“Was it Falfn?” Aruendiel asked.
“It was a lord who had some heated words with the portrait of his mother,” Hirizjahkinis said. “But that is not important. He told me they had it on good authority that the emperor in Mirne Klep had been exchanging messages with the Faitoren for some months now.”
“Only one emissary every three years, they are allowed under the treaty,” Aruendiel said.
“Yes, well, we ought to have known that Ilissa would not stop at trying to charm only your Semran king. She wants to get out of her little prison very badly. But I am going ahead of my story.
“In Semr they knew the emperor and Ilissa were in communication, but they did not know exactly what sort of messages were going back and forth. Your king needs better spies in Mirne Klep, Aruendiel. They did know that the wizard Hirgus Ext had left Mirne Klep for a tour of the northern countries in the middle of autumn, an odd time to be heading north.
“The minister asked me to find out what I could about Hirgus’s mission.”
Hirgus held up a plump hand with an air of deprecating protest. “My dear friends, I hope there is no misunderstanding. I travel for pleasure and research only—and of course my conflagration coach is perfectly adapted for cold weather.”
“Hirgus, there is no misunderstanding at all,” Hirizjahkinis said, smiling at him fondly. “You were off to visit Ilissa about a silly toy that she had. And whether you were acting on a hint of the emperor’s or his command, it is the same thing.
“I found Hirgus at the Green Head in Foluks Port—that carriage is very easy to track, you know,” she went on before Aruendiel could say anything. “We had a long talk, Hirgus and I, and I told him very frankly that he was mad to go alone to the Faitoren kingdom. It was not so difficult to persuade him that I should go with him. He had heard about Bouragonr already.”
“I am always pleased to have your company, Madame Hirizjahkinis,” Hirgus said.
“But why would you go at all?” Nora asked urgently. Hirizjahkinis turned to her at once, her dark eyes dancing.
“I wanted to see what was afoot! Hirgus was very cagey. I did not find out until we arrived at Ilissa’s that he was seeking Voen’s Chalice. Yes—” She looked significantly at Aruendiel. “Voen’s Chalice.”
Aruendiel uttered a snort that sounded suspiciously like laughter.
Hirgus flushed slightly. He said: “The Chalice has a range of significant magical properties, all worthy of study. Poisoning one’s enemies, conveying invulnerability—”
“I’m quite aware of the legends surrounding the Chalice,” Aruendiel interrupted. “And it is part of the empire’s official coronation paraphernalia, is it not? Only the rightful emperor can drink from it, the day he’s crowned, and live. But it disappeared some years ago.”
Nora was beginning to catch on. “And the emperor would like to have it back? To prove that he’s the legitimate emperor?”
“Or to keep someone else from proving that he’s the emperor,” Hirizjahkinis said, shrugging a little under the Kavareen’s hide. “The Chalice was not always very selective.”
“In fact, the Chalice was a sham,” Aruendiel said, resting his chin on his hand. “There was almost nothing magical about it at all.” He sounded so certain that Nora almost asked how he knew, but Hirgus spoke first.
“I must beg to differ with you, sir,” he said. “There is a long record, going back centuries, of the powers of the Chalice. When I heard that it had come into the hands of the Faitoren queen, and that she was willing to discuss parting with it, quite frankly I was beside myself with anticipation. The opportunity to study a unique magical artifact like the Chalice—” He shook his head as though overcome with emotion, and the sun-shaped earring flashed in the candlelight.
“So Ilissa tried to use the Chalice to bargain with the emperor,” Aruendiel said thoughtfully. “What did she want?”
“Her freedom,” Hirizjahkinis said at once. “She wanted Hirgus to lift the barriers around her kingdom. That was why the emperor sent a magic-worker.”
Aruendiel gave Hirgus a long look and the corners of his mouth twitched once, but he said only: “I see.”
“Of course,” Hirizjahkinis said slyly, “Ilissa’s Chalice was a fake. I mean, it was an imitation of the real fake, the original Chalice. She was not pleased when I told Hirgus so, in her presence. And neither was Hirgus, I believe.”
“Disappointed, dear lady! Disappointed beyond all measure. But I am grateful. The Faitoren magic can be quite convincing—up to a point, I mean.”
“You should be grateful to Hirizjahkinis,” Aruendiel said. “The emperor would have been even more disappointed with a false Chalice. I suppose it was really an old shoe or something of the sort, once you got the spell off, Hiriz?” He raised an eyebrow expectantly.
For the first time, Hirizjahkinis seemed chagrined, a ripple of hesitation flexing her wide mouth. Then she laughed. “Most of it came off, Aruendiel. Enough that we could all see that the Chalice wasn’t a chalice.”
Aruendiel began to look stormy again, and Nora remembered his scorn back in Semr, when Hirizjahkinis had turned Ilissa’s silencing spell into a large, gelatinous insect because she could find no other way to remove it from Nora’s throat. Well, Hirizjahkinis did get the damn thing out, Nora thought loyally; not everyone had spent
