The four knights raced into the keep to find terrified servants milling about.
“Where did he go?” asked Marckus.
“Captain Reynaud ran upstairs to find the duke,” reported a doorman, pointing to a side room. “The Assassin ran in there.”
“Why?” asked Powell, confused.
“He was chasing the priest back to the temple!” stammered a young maid.
“There’s no temple inside the castle walls!” declared Marckus
“Patriarch Issel uses that way-it connects to Shinare’s temple outside the walls! There’s a door in there that looks like a part of the wall, but you can see it now. The Assassin smashed it open.”
The four knights raced over to the dark passage, hesitating at the top of the dark stairs. “Captains!” said Dayr. “We need to split up. Sir Rene and I will go after him in this tunnel, but the two of you should get up to the living quarters to see to the duke.”
Marckus was ready to argue, but he could see the wisdom of the Crown Knight’s words. “All right-get after him, and we’ll get upstairs.” He turned to Powell, saw the Palanthian was already moving toward the large staircase leading up from the great hall.
“Good luck!” called Marckus as Dayr and Rene ducked into the secret passage. He turned and ran after Powell.
Privately he wondered: Was he going to protect Duke Crawford?
Or to demand an explanation?
Coryn drifted along the corridor of Caergoth Castle, unseen and silent. She had taken the form of a cloud of gas, the potion tingling magically in her senses, allowing her to fly, slip under doors, and evade detection. She glided swiftly as she sought her destination: the inner sanctuary of the duke himself.
She was going to have a talk with Crawford of Caergoth.
The wizard would have transported herself directly, but she did not know the precise location of his apartment, never having visited there, and that fact made any attempted teleporting very dangerous. Instead, she had appeared in the public hall of the castle, materializing to startle several servants who were sweeping the floor. They had fled, and Coryn had proceeded to float up several flights of stairs, passing galleries and parlors in her search.
Now, in this wide hallway, she probed underneath a few doors, finding mostly unused guest rooms until she noticed the chamber at the end of the hall, where a Knight of the Rose stood guard. Guessing that his presence marked her destination, she drifted past the knight, unseen, and flowed beneath the door.
Duke Crawford was alone in his bedchambers, pacing back and forth. He was wearing a dressing down of silvery silk. Coryn dispelled the magic to appear in front of the man, her white robe bright, her dark hair cascading over her shoulders, down her back.
“Hello, my lord duke,” she said coldly.
“Get out of here!” Crawford squawked, paling.
“No. I came here for some answers,” she replied, advancing into the luxuriously appointed chamber, which boasted multiple wardrobes, several dressing tables, and a set of tall glass doors leading onto a balcony. A massive four-poster bed with a gauzy canopy tied up above a quilted surface was at the far end.
“How dare you?” demanded the duke. “I am lord here-and I command you to leave at once!”
Coryn had been prepared to be calm and reasonable, but she felt her temper rise. Stepping towards him, she fixed her dark eyes upon his face.
“Does being lord mean that you can commit murder at will?” she snapped.
“You mean-the duchess?” he cried. “Don’t be ridiculous! That was the Assassin!”
“It may have been an assassin,” she said with a shrug, “but I don’t believe it was Jaymes Markham.”
The duke edged away from her, interposing the great bed between himself and the white wizard.
“What reason could you possibly have for killing her?” she demanded, taking another step closer, pointing an accusing finger.
“You’d never understand!” Crawford snapped. He glanced up at the large curtain over the bed, but the wizard was not distracted.
“Is this where you killed her?” she asked, indicating the huge mattress. “In the very bed she shared with you?” Trembling with rage, Coryn felt a flicker of magic spark at her finger, a lethal lightning bolt that she felt tempted to release. Angrily she shook the deadly impulse away-she wouldn’t strike him down, not like that, but she wouldn’t let him go, either.
He stared at her, fidgeting on the other side of the bed, as the wizard took another step nearer, stopping on her side of the large, four-posted mattress. She leaned forward, trembling with fury.
Her mind conjured the perfect spell to capture and immobilize the man. With her left hand she found a bit of spider web in one pocket. She pulled it out, chanting the simple incantation:
“Aracnis-”
She was momentarily taken aback as Crawford lunged toward a bell-rope and pulled. She tried to continue casting her web spell, but the gauzy net above the bed fell down, covering her head. Immediately the sound of her voice ceased, swallowed by magic.
The wizard recognized a spell of silence, and-though she didn’t know how the duke had cast it-understood her own spell was wasted. She was even more startled when the duke dived across the bed, seized her by her wrist, and pulled her down onto the soft mattress.
She wrestled, but he was startlingly strong. Intense fury took over. A dangerous spell came into her mind, one that would burn him badly but leave him alive, but when she tried to bark the single necessary word of command, still she could make no sound.
Now, for the first time, she felt afraid. The filmy gauze shrouded them in silence-no doubt the same silence that had muffled any sounds of Lady Martha’s murder. Coryn struggled, kicking and flailing. She clawed at the duke’s face as he pushed her down. His fingers closed around her throat, choking her, strangling her. Her lungs strained desperately for air.
Coryn felt the world go dark.
Finally the duke released his grip. She coughed and gasped, but her violent gagging was eerily soundless under the magical silence.
Shaking her head, drawing ragged breaths, Coryn didn’t have the strength to resist anymore as he lashed her wrists together with a braided cord. He tore a pillowcase and roughly gagged her, tying it around her so tightly it cut her cheeks and forced her jaws open.
Only then did Crawford rise and once more pull the bell-rope. The silence dispelled, and he chuckled, almost a giggle.
“Yes, she died right here!” the duke cried triumphantly. “You were right-it was me. Now I will kill you too!”
CHAPTER THIRTY — FOUR
J aymes recovered consciousness. He could see again-the magical darkness had been dispelled, and he realized several torches crackled and flared in wall sconces. He was in an underground room, apparently some kind of shrine. His skull felt as though it was about to implode, and there was sticky wet blood on the back of his head.
The next thing he saw was Giantsmiter, across the room from him, upright with the tip of the great sword resting on the floor. The blade reflected the bright torchlight, and at first that was all the swordsman noticed. Only gradually did he realize a priest was here, standing with both of his hands on the hilt of the blade. Unlike the cleric Jaymes had chased down here, however, this priest was dressed in a tight-fitting cloak of red, which included a mask of the same color that concealed his identity.
The warrior’s head throbbed. Trying to focus through slitted eyes, he looked around the oval-shaped
