'Gerald! Please! You must, it's a gift! Do you want to hurt my feelings?'
Hurt Lional's feelings? Good old Lional, his mate, his chum? 'No, course not!'
'Then put it on, Gerald. Let me see how it suits you.'
It took him two attempts to fish the box clear of his plate. Growing dizzier by the second he gave it a half- hearted swipe with his napkin. 'Sorry, Y'Majessy,' he mumbled.'Must've drunk a bit more than I realised.'
Lional laughed. 'Not to worry, old chap. We all get a bit tipsy from time to time. Quickly, now. Slip on the ring. Or I'll think you've not been truthful and you don't care for my gift.'
'No, Y'Majessy! Lovely gift! Never expected it!' With difficulty he extricated the ring from its box. It was cool, heavy, and slid on as though made for him. Weighted his hand and -
— dosed around his left forefinger like a vice. He was caught, trapped, held fast in a web with strands of metaphysical steel. He could breathe, move his eyes, but that was all…
In a searing burst of pain and light his foggy mind cleared and he remembered everything. The hunting expedition. The Wizard Trap. The captured images of all those other wizards screaming, burning, their powers ripped from them by magics fouler than the deepest pits of hell. Lional, laughing… Make me a dragon.
Drenched in sweat and horror, he stared. Oh, God. Oh, God.' remember.'
Lional appeared mildly interested. 'Really? I wondered if you might.'
Gerald's gaze shifted to the almost empty crystal carafe. Rising fast, understanding laced with bitter shame and self-derision. Wlien Reg hears about this she'll go spare…'The wine?'
'Your glass,' said Lional. He was smiling, a thin nasty curve of unkind lips. 'Coated with a neat little concoction I cooked up in my spare time. Very handy for rendering impotent any wizard who might fight back.'
He tried to wrench the ring from his finger but he couldn't even lift his hand. His body was like a sack of wet sand. Inert. Immoveable. You fool. You fool. You let your guard down…
Lional laughed. 'There's no escape, Gerald. Not even you are strong enough to break this binding. Trust me, after what happened in the woods I made quite certain of that.'
/'// bet you did, you murdering bastard. He'd never felt anything like this before. As though he were a puppet and his strings had been cut. 'You're wasting your time,' he said, forcing the words out. 'I won't make you a dragon.'
'No?' Lional shrugged. 'Well, we'll see. Now look into the sapphire, Gerald.'
Head pounding, he fought the command. The effort hurt him all the way to his bones. Lional's binding incant held a compulsion element too. 'No: 'Look into the sapphire!
Lional's voice lashed him like a whip, breaking his fragile resistance. Against his will his gaze began drifting downwards. He tried to close his eyes, turn his face away, but the impulse to obey was overwhelming. No. No. Fight him, you have to!
It was hopeless. On a despairing cry he stared into the sapphire's heart. The gemstone flared from blue to crimson, pulsing like a captive sun. He was falling… falling… fallen.
The crystal held him fast, like a fly in blood-soaked amber.
'Dear me, Gerald,' Lional said lightly as he stood and crossed to the dining room door. 'Didn't anyone ever tell you? Never accept gifts from strange wizards.'
Voiceless and paralysed, he watched as Melissande's murderous brother opened the dining room door and snapped his fingers. Almost immediately a nervous servant entered the chamber and bowed. 'Your Majesty?' With a friendly smile Lional rested a hand on his shoulder. 'Davenport, isn't it?' The man paled.'Yes, Your Majesty.'
Lional nodded and brought up his other hand in front of Davenport's face. His fingers crooked into a strange, vaguely threatening, almost obscene gesture. Davenport stiffened, his brown eyes bulging.
'Listen carefully' said Lional, silkily persuasive. 'The professor and I are retiring to my private chambers, where we are not to be disturbed. Shortly after that he will return to his apartments for extensive meditation upon matters of grave magical importance. Nobody is to be concerned if they neither see nor hear from him for some time and under no circumstances is he to be called for or have his contemplations interrupted.'
Davenport's eyes were glazed in his blank face. 'Yes, Your Majesty' he whispered.
'You will share this information with every palace servant assigned to the professor's suite, Davenport, and any others you happen to encounter.' 'Yes, Your Majesty' 'This conversation did not happen.' 'No, Your Majesty'
Transfixed, Gerald watched Lional pass his crooked fingers before Davenport's face left to right, right to left, down and up, and finally up and down. Then he pressed the ball of his thumb to the man's forehead. Davenport gasped as though the collision of flesh and flesh was an agony. A white hot brand burned like a furnace between his eyes.
Lional stepped back. 'Go now. Take Tavistock with you and make sure he gets a nice rump of something for his supper.'
By the time Davenport reached the door, a complaining Tavistock at his heels, the brand had faded. With a flick of his fingers Lional swung the door open then shut it behind them. He was grinning.
'I'll bet you weren't expecting that, Professor! Clever, aren't I?'
Diabolically. Gerald's stunned and captured mind reeled. Reg, Reg, come back. I'm in trouble.
'Oh dear. Has the king got your tongue?' Chuckling, Lional sauntered to the wall opposite the door. Ran his hands over the patterned wallpaper, pressed the centre of one floral bouquet and watched, humming cheerfully, as a part of the wall swung soundlessly inwards to reveal a small wooden platform and a spiral staircase, leading down.'Come, Gerald.Time to go.'
Numb, enslaved, he felt his body jerk. He stood, then plodded gracelessly forward. When he reached the opening in the wall Lional held up his hand and he stopped, teetering on the brink of darkness. Lional snapped his fingers and torches set into the wall above the wooden platform sprang into life.
'After you, Professor, and do mind your step,' said Lional, jaunty as a bus conductor.
And although he didn't want to, although he struggled against the force of Lional's voice until it felt like his heart would burst, he stepped through the hole in the wall, onto the platform and down the spiralling staircase. Lional came close behind, swinging the door closed in their wake, a steadying hand on his shoulder. He felt his skin crawl at the touch.
They travelled in a capsule of light, torches dying behind them, kindling ahead. Down and down they climbed, stair after stair after stair. The air was clean but faintly stale. Exhausted, he stopped fighting the merciless grip of the incant wrapped round his mind and threaded through his bones. Instead, he let it move him as it willed and surrendered himself to waiting.
After a lifetime of stairs they reached ground level and continued along a low-ceilinged, narrow-walled corridor of stone. On and on it unwound, sinuous as a snake. The temperature fell. Here and there the torchlight flickered on threads of moisture trickling down the dark, dank walls.
He lost track of time and distance. Thought suspended, he just put one foot in front of the other, following Lional without question or hope of defiance. Eventually there was no more corridor so they stopped. Set into the rock wall before them was an ancient rough-hewn door. Ugly glyphs, crudely carved into the weathered timber, marred its splintered surface. The shape of them woke fresh dread, reminding him of the obscenity of Lional's fingers as he worked his will upon the servant Davenport.
Humming again, Lional pulled a ring of keys from one of his pockets and began to sort through them. After a moment he turned, his shadow-flickered face grotesque with self-mockery. 'Aren't I a silly? You'd think I'd remember which one it is by now. Ah! Here we are… You know,' he added confidingly, a big brass key in his hand,'I could just as easily lock this with a spell but there's something so satisfying about a key' He fitted it into the door's lock and turned it. There was a click. Lional pushed and the door swung open. 'After you, Gerald.'
The space beyond the open doorway was pitch black and cold. He felt loose dirt underfoot. Lional locked the door again and pocketed the keyring. There was a snap of fingers and a whispered word and the absolute darkness disappeared in a coruscation of light. Unable to shield his eyes Gerald squeezed them tight shut instead and saw the world as a blood-red shadow.
'Come along now, Professor, don't be a spoilsport,' Lional's hateful voice reproved him. 'Don't you want to see your new home?'
What he wanted was to wake up from this nightmare to find himself safe in his shoebox room at the Wizards' Club. He wanted to be nothing more exalted than a probationary compliance officer, answerable to
