Arch Wizard

Lord Tesmer nodded slowly.

'We've trusted him these many seasons,' his wife added, 'and are still alive and reigning over gem-mines that many a Stormar lord or Galathan velduke drools to have. We must trust him now.'

'Do you trust any of our children?'

Lady Telclara Tesmer snorted. 'Of course not.' A look of disgust passed over her face, and she said, 'We forge what tools we must, at the Master's command. Now love me again; I'd much rather not think of them.'

Her lord grunted heartfelt agreement and lowered his head to her breasts again.

She chuckled and twisted under him, trying to buck him off. Mock-struggling, yes, but with surprising speed and strength. Lord Tesmer had to move in great haste to catch her wrists, then use all his strength to hold her down.

When their eyes met again, his were once more ablaze with delight.

'Hand me the flask. Making love to you is hot work, sister.'

'Warmer than you anticipated?' Talyss Tesmer purred, stretching to let the moonlight trace her every sleek curve.

She was sitting up on their cloaks, settled into the curve of a tree-bough as sleekly at ease as if she'd been lounging on a grand chair in one of the great rooms of Imtowers. Looking down her shapely length, from lambent eyes to long, long legs, Belard Tesmer licked his lips all over again.

They were here, in this shady and spell-guarded hollow far out in the Raurklor, to scheme. Nigh the tiny, tinkling headsprings of the Imrush, in a dell half-cloaked with overhanging tree boughs, surrounded by the invisible fires of the strongest ward-magics they both carried. Wards to keep prowling beasts at bay as they honed their plots over wine-and, it had turned out, a little love-making. Coupling with each other for sheer pleasure despite being brother and sister.

'Relieving my burning itch,' Talyss had termed it.

The wine and their excitement had spurred it, but it was more than sheer release. Both of them had been hungry for it, and more than hungry, feeling the lack of skin on skin. Neither dared trust any non-kin-or anyone else of the blood Tesmer, for that matter-enough to play the bareskinned bedmate, no matter where or when.

Now sated, it was time to relax, sip wine, and discuss what to do.

In a single smooth, graceful movement, Talyss Tesmer took up the flask and conveyed it to her younger brother's waiting hand. Her movement was swift, but seemed languid, not hurried. Her movements always seemed languid.

The youngest and most vicious of the three Tesmer daughters, she was less than a year older than dark- haired, handsome, sardonic Belard, scourge of young lasses everywhere he rode-and their mothers, too.

She smiled now at that thought, still aglow; he'd been every bit as good as his reputation, and much, much better than she'd expected. It seemed there was one Tesmer, at least, who knew how to use his tongue for more than mere foe-lashing.

He was using it now to answer her, voice softly breaking the companionable silence. 'Much warmer, and gladly so. We are sadly out of the habit of thanking each other properly, we Tesmers-probably because fitting occasions for gratitude among us are so few-but let me thank you now, Lyss. You were… magnificent.'

She gave him a real smile in return, making sure the moonlight was full on her face so he could see she'd laid aside her usual arch, ready-to-pounce manner, and told him, 'Thank you, Bel. So were you. Consider yourself welcome in these arms any time.

Belard Tesmer ducked his head, doing something he'd not done in four seasons of wenching, facing down angry husbands, and sparring with rivals: he flushed, the blood rising to his face dark and swift. Then he nodded to cover his sudden lack of words.

Utterly relaxed, Talyss kept her instinctive little smile of satisfaction off her face. Hooked. As every man was, yes, but she must treat Bel differently, or ruin his usefulness to her.

'Let us speak of plots once more,' she said gently, letting reluctance taint her voice. 'Do you agree-in the main-with these admittedly over-simple assessments of our parents? Father is a weak fool, utterly ruled by Mother, and she-for all the fearsome reputation Falconfar accords her-is a blinded-by-ambition schemer who will sacrifice everyone and everything to get more power for herself, no matter what the cost to the family, to Ironthorn, or for that matter to all Falconfar?'

Belard smiled mirthlessly, and nodded his head. 'I cannot help but agree. I would have agreed with you seven summers ago, or more. How matters stand between Lord and Lady Tesmer is not something all that hard for anyone to see.'

'And where will knowing this obvious state of things profit us, if we seek to govern all affairs Tesmer?'

'That control over Mother is essential, control she does not see as taking power from her or frustrating her will and rule. Rather, successful control must come through arranging events and what she learns of them to appear to offer her greater and greater power, so she does and decrees what we want her to as likely steps in her own reaching for more power.'

Talyss nodded. 'Well said.' She reached out wordlessly for the flask.

'Yet so much is obvious,' Belard murmured, returning it to her. 'Our brothers and sisters know it, the lowest of our servants knows it-even the dead Lords Hammerhand and Lyrose knew it. How can we use this, that all know, to move Mother and therefore all Tesmer the way we desire-yet not get caught at it?'

'There's where you struck the shield-wall, brother, and saw no way past it, yes?'

'Yes,' Belard admitted. 'Wherefore I risked…'

'Much, and more when you got here and I gave you my smile,' Talyss said quietly, taking a swift swallow that sent fresh comforting fire down her throat. 'I value that more than you can probably believe, Bel. You're not the only one who knows loneliness as a knife that's never far away, and ever sharp and cruel.'

Belard chuckled. 'Even our brothers and sisters would be surprised to hear these words from us, so well do we play our parts; me the rake, and you the claws-always-out cat, both of us too eager to hurt, in our separate ways, to feel hurts.'

Talyss let her catlike smile reach her lips this time. 'Yes, and we must use their judgments of us to give us chances to do the unexpected. Our first chance must be good, and we must use it, mind. Mother's no fool; the slightest hint that we're working together-or that either of us is able to step out of being what the world sees us to be-will have her watching us sharper than the Falcon itself. We-'

She broke off, looking up sharply, as dry branches snapped underfoot not far off in the forest.

Their wards started to sing, that rising note of resistance to an intruder, and on its heels sounded the crackle of dead leaves, crushed under foot or paw by something moving forcefully. Something the size of a hunting cat, or a man.

Belard was on his feet with sword in hand, bent forward to get out of the moonlight and try to peer into the night-drenched forest.

They heard a stifled curse-a man, trying to keep his oath to a whisper-and more snappings of trodden dead wood. By then Talyss had snatched up her own slender sword and the best-balanced of her poisoned knives, and had the smaller fang poised for throwing.

The wards were almost shrieking now, the shrill sound they made when fighting someone who had his own magic to counter them.

For the intruder, striding closer to the hollow would be like wading upstream against a strong current, or forcing his way onward through a biting wind-not the stabbing pain the wards would force on the unprotected, where to advance far enough would be to die.

Belard felt for his boots. Seeing him made Talyss look for her own, and-

Light was blazing up in the darkness now, the wards starting to burn with the fires that both warned ward- owners and seared imprudent intruders. Most men would have turned back long since, and many of the rest would be screaming by now, plunged into agony by the flames streaming over them.

They could see him, or rather his outline, trudging rather unsteadily toward them through the thick trees. One man alone, hands apparently empty…

'Forestmother, defend me!' he declaimed, in the manner of a priest.

Boots on but otherwise still stark naked, Belard Tesmer strode to the edge of the hollow, sword raised and