Alusair lifted her hand in consent-until Vangerdahast gave a short, 'Ahem.'
Finally unable to contain himself, Rivalen spun toward the wizard. 'What now?'
Vangerdahast gave him a synthetic smile. 'Nothing to upset yourself over-a mere formality, really,' he said, turning to Alusair, 'but the law requires due regard for anyone seeking judgment before the crown.' Alusair frowned in confusion. 'And?'
'This is not due regard,' the wizard explained. 'For that, you must consider the matter overnight.'
'She must?' Myrmeen asked, puzzled. 'Where does it say that?'
'In the Rule of Law, of course,' Alusair said, somehow at once smiling at Vangerdahast and frowning at Myrmeen. 'Do you mean to tell me one of the King's Lords doesn't know her Iltharl?'
Myrmeen's face fell. 'No, er, of course not,' she stammered, frowning. 'I, uh, just hadn't considered that the, uh, passage applied to this situation.'
'Well, it does,' Alusair said. She turned to Rivalen. 'I'm sorry, Prince Rivalen, but you'll have to wait until morning. You understand-laws can be such pesky things.'
'Yes, can't they?' Rivalen smiled thinly and inclined his head. 'I trust you have secure facilities.'
'Oh, very secure.' Alusair looked to her High Warden and said, 'Dauneth, see to it that these prisoners are lodged in the citadel-and put them in the deep dungeon. When Prince Rivalen comes for them in the morning, I want them to be there.'
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
21 Mirtul, the Year of Wild Magic
Flapping the warding symbol off the wall as she left, Vala ducked out of the tiny lair and scuttled down the ancient sewer in a low crouch. A knot the size of a fist was throbbing atop her thigh, and the wound itself oozed a steady stream of hot fluid. Fortunately, the cause of Vala's injuries had died without depositing its egg. She found the thing in the phaerimm's tail when she cut off the barb to add to her collection. After the levitation magic had finally lapsed, she'd fallen onto the dead creature and had to wait for the paralyzation poison to wear off. If the egg had been implanted, she would still have been lying atop the dead phaerimm with her face buried in its entrails.
As it was, Vala was so feverish that catching up to her quarry was out of the question. It required all of her strength just to limp down the tunnel in such an awkward stoop and avoid splashing her bandage with the cloudy fluid standing stagnant in the bottom. Though the sewer had not been used for its intended purpose in six centuries, the filth that filled it had been spawned of constant death and decay and reeked even more horribly than the offal it had been intended to carry. She came to a T in the passage and, ten paces up the right branch, glimpsed a short length of thorny tail disappearing around another corner.
Vala stepped into the mouth of the opposite fork and brushed her shoulder and arm against the filthy wall, leaving a broad drag mark in the mildew, then retreated back to the intersection and pressed her back to the wall. Having predicted the little phaerimm would flee to the right, Corineus was waiting a hundred paces up the tunnel, ready to drive the thing back toward its lair. Vala would have preferred to force the thornback into the baelnorn's ambush, but his aura of cold made it impossible for him to surprise anything in the dungeon.
The crack and rumble of an approaching spell battle heralded the return of the phaerimm. Vala kissed the blade of her darksword and said a prayer for her son in case Tempus should decide to take her in this rank place, then held her weapon ready next to the intersection. A few moments later, a brilliant orange light erupted from the tunnel mouth, blinding Vala and scalding her skin. She turned away, raising her free hand to shield her face as a crackling ball of flame hissed past and vanished down the opposite passage.
Vala opened her eyes and saw only circles of popping orange. The phaerimm could have been three inches from her face preparing to sink its tail barb into her throat, or it could have been lurking ten feet up the passage, waiting to see what its spell flushed out. Guessing the phaerimm would be a little behind its spell, she counted three seconds, brought her sword down, and hit something solid.
A fierce wind gusted through the sewer and died almost instantly. When Vala's sword fell free and touched the floor and she found herself still alive she deduced that she had at least hit the thing and began to slash about the intersection at random, weaving her blade through a blind figure-eight defense and trying to blink the orange spots from her eyes.
'You killed the phaerimm,' Corineus said from up the passage. 'Are you trying to kill its ghost as well, or do you have no further use for me now that we have destroyed the last phaerimm?'
'It's dead?' Vala stopped weaving but did not return her sword to its scabbard. Phaerimm were tricky creatures, and even if the Shadovar helmet protected her from its mind control, it would be an easy matter for it to use its magic to impersonate the baelnorn. 'You're sure?'
'I am sure.' An icy hand grabbed hers and guided the darksword back toward its scabbard. 'Put that away. I have something I want to give you.'
Vala sheathed the weapon, certain of the baelnorn's identity. She had grown so accustomed to his chill aura that she'd scarcely noticed it until he'd taken her hand.
'You'll have to tell me what it is,' she said. 'I'm afraid my eyes are still a bit dazzled from that fireball.' 'It is a treasure from Myth Drannor.'
Corineus slipped a ring onto her finger, and she could see him-not the withered baelnorn she had come to know during her trials in the Irithlium, but a tall sun elf with gold-flecked eyes and a long mane of silky red hair.
'When you wear it this way,' the elf said, 'you will see things as they truly are.'
He turned the ring a quarter turn, and Vala's vision returned to normal-which was to say that she couldn't see a thing, since her hand was not on her darksword.
'When you wear it this way, no one will know you are wearing it.' He turned it another quarter turn. 'And when you wear it this way, no one will see you.'
Corineus started to remove his icy hand, but Vala caught it between hers.
'You know I killed the phaerimm for my own reasons,' she said. 'It's not necessary to gift me.'
'I think it is, Vala Thorsdotter.' Corineus freed his hands from hers and stepped away. 'I have seen a little of the future while we were together.'
The chill aura began to fade rapidly. Vala turned the ring and saw the dead phaerimm floating in the water in two pieces, neither as long as her arm. She nudged them aside and peered down the tunnel from which it had come, where Corineus's noble figure was wading into the darkness.
'Thank you, Corineus,' she called after him, 'and not only for the ring.'
Corineus turned his head around on his shoulders and gave her a broad grin that reminded her of Galaeron’s joyful smile-back when he had one.
'Thank you, Vala Thorsdotter,' he said, 'and not only for killing the phaerimm.'
As dungeons went, the one beneath the Citadel at Arabel was kinder than most-certainly kinder than the cramped cells of the Evereskan Tomb Guard, where crypt breakers were forced to kneel with their arms locked in stocks and gags in their mouths. Here, Galaeron and Ruha sat in side by side cages, with Aris chained to a wall in the interrogation chamber outside. There were no rats and only the typical human infestations of fleas and lice. Save for the acrid stench of the impure oil used in the wall lamps, the place didn't even smell that bad.
But it was secure. Aris had been scratching at the mortar around his chain mountings for half the night and done nothing more than bloody his fingertips. Ruha had tried half a dozen spells, only to have the magic sputter away as soon as it left her hands. Galaeron had kicked at the latch of his door until an ominous rumble sounded from above and he looked up to realize that the cell ceiling was a set of interlocked drop-blocks, with the keystone supported by the same jamb he was kicking. Fearful that ill-considered attempts might cost his life, he had given up trying to escape the cell at all.
Galaeron pressed his face to the bars and strained to see if there was anyone in the guard station, which was positioned at the end of the row of cages where it was almost impossible to see from inside a cell. He could see flamelight dancing on the walls, but no shadows that suggested someone upright and moving.
