bedroom curtains were still closed, and candles burned in their holders. The same night? Another night? He didn't know. He didn't care. He closed one eye and Shugat vanished.
So. It wasn't a dream or his imagination. In darkness he heard Shugat say, 'You said you would pay the price, wizard.'
Darkness was safe; he decided to stay there. 'Your gods did this to punish me?'
He heard a gentle sigh. 'No, wizard. You did this.' 'To punish myself?'
'Forget punishment,' said Shugat. He sounded impatient. 'Think… consequences. Look at me, wizard.'
He opened his eye. Shugat's grave expression rearranged itself into a fierce and unexpected smile. The stone in his forehead was quiet. Unremarkable. 'You have courage.'
Rolling over beneath the blankets, he pressed his maimed eye to the pillow. / don't have the strength for this.'I have blood on my hands, Shugat. That's what I have. The dragon I made killed people. Innocents it was my duty to protect.' He had to stop. Gather himself. 'And then there's Lional.' Another difficult moment, i helped make him what he became. I showed him what was possible.' 'And you destroyed him.That debt is paid.'
Lional groaning. Lional dead. Dead by my hand. Like him I'm a killer.'You think I'm proud of that?'
Shugat shook his head. 'There is no place for pride in wizardry; you have learned a bitter lesson.'
Resentment welled. 'And what have you learned, Shugat? Holy Man Shugat and your omnipotent gods. Where were they when people were dying? You're very good at reading lectures — are you going to lecture them?'
He flinched as the dull stone in Shugat's forehead burst into life. Power licked his bones, threatened an inferno. Something ancient, something living, pressed him to the mattress like a claw — a talon — a padded paw… in his short life a man is many things,' said Kallarap's ancient holy man. 'A lover. A liar. A killer. A king.' Shugat bent down, his dark gaze incandescent. 'A hammer… and sometimes the hand which holds the hammer.'
Gerald turned his face from that implacable regard.'So you used me. You and your gods.'
Shugat shrugged. 'Better to be used by the gods than a Lional.'
'I don't want to be used by anyonel' he said hotly, glaring now. 'I just want to be left alone!'
'The choice is not yours, wizard,' said Shugat, shaking his head.'The power within you has seen to that. You can choose your master… and that is all.'
His fingers fisted in the bedclothes. 'I can choose to walk away! I can choose to have no master. What am I, a dog, to be whistled for whenever someone needs something fetched?'
'Not a dog,' said Shugat. 'A lizard. Reborn a dragon. Destroyer… or defender. The choice is yours. Choose wisely, wizard. My holy man's healing is a precious gift. It is not to be wasted.'
Heart thudding dully, Gerald stared at him. 'You saved my life? I really was dying and you saved my life?' Shugat nodded.
'Why? It didn't seem to matter to you when you refused to help me fight Lional! The bastard nearly killed me before I — before the end.' Another infuriating shrug. 'The gods willed it.'
He struggled to sit up. 'Why? What have your gods got to do with me? I don't worship them, Shugat. These Three of yours, who the hell do they think they are?'
Shugat thumped his staff into the carpet. Behind the curtains panes of glass shivered. Echoes of thunder, rolling. 'Does the hammer demand of the hand that holds it why the chosen nail should be struck?' 'This hammer does, yesV
Incredibly, Shugat smiled. 'Yes. It does.' Then he nodded and headed for the door. Reaching it, he slowed. Turned. 'You tread an interesting path, wizard.We will meet on it again.'
Oh terrific. Just the news he wanted to hear. 'We will? Wlien? Why? Shugat — ' But Shugat was gone.
'DamnV he said. And was ambushed by exhaustion.
The third time he woke it was in daylight. The curtains were open, letting in warm sunshine. Melissande sat reading in an armchair close by his bed, and for once she actually looked presentable. Well groomed. Green silk blouse with cream pearl buttons. Darker green linen trousers. Not baggy but tailored, and crisply ironed. No disastrous bun; her auburn hair was sleek and smooth and captured demurely in a flattering braid. She was even wearing… makeup?
She heard his little sound of surprise. Looked up and smiled at him nervously. 'At last. You've been asleep ever since Shugat left and that was three days ago.'
Muzzily he stared at the ceiling. 'Three days?' He closed his good eye and the ceiling disappeared.
Not temporary, then. So much for Doctor Reg's diagnosis. I am. I'm blind. It is a punishment.
Melissande cleared her throat. 'Look. I'm not very good at this, all right?' He unclosed his eye. 'At what?' 'Apologising!'
'There's no need. None of what happened is your fault, Melissande.'
'Of course it is,' she said harshly. 'I brought you here.'
Her pain was palpable. I'm not strong enough for this. I don't have the stamina. 'I brought myself. I wasn't kidnapped. Melissande, forget it.'
Her eyes filled with tears. 'How can I forget it? Lional was my brother.'
Lional. Memory flexed its cruel, sharp claws. 'And so is Rupert. What's your point?'
'Yes… Rupert…' Despite the tears her lips twitched in a curious smile but it didn't last long. 'Gerald, let me talk. I've been rehearsing this speech for three days, all right?'
Oh lord. Can I pass out again, please? Can I sleep till I'm fifty? Melissande was staring anxiously. He sighed. 'Fine. If you must.' For all the damned good it'll do either of us.
She dropped the book to the floor and tangled her fingers together. 'All my life I made excuses for Lional. I said, he's just temperamental. He's highly strung. Burdened with being the heir. I told myself that people were jealous. He was so… beautiful. And he could be kind. When it suited.' Her breath caught in her throat, and at last the tears spilled. 'I should've faced the truth about him, Gerald. I was a coward, a disgrace to every Melissande who came before me. I should've stopped him before — '
He reached for her. 'Melissande, don't. Please, just don't. This is my fault, not yours. The blame is mine.'
She dragged an angry hand across her wet face. 'Yours? Don't be stupid. You didn't make him read those awful grimoires or murder Bondaningo and the other wizards. You didn't — ' i made him the dragon.' Oh God. The dragon. Emerald and crimson and brimful of death. 'How many people did it kill? Do you know?'
She wouldn't look at him. 'Gerald, don't. You can't — ' 'How many?'
'Ninety-seven,' she whispered. 'More than twice that number injured.'
His heart boomed like a drum. Nearly one hundred. Nearly one hundred murdered. 'Were any of them children?' Her fingers laced and unlaced in her lap. 'Twelve.'
Retreating into his blindness didn't help… but he stayed there regardless.
He heard her swallow a sob. Then the creak of the armchair and the swish of her linen trousers as she stood. 'I'll leave you alone. The others can come back another — '
'Others?' Reluctantly he admitted light and the altered world. 'What others?'
'Nobody dreadful.' She pulled a face. 'Well, Reg. But Monk and Rupert, too.' The last damned thing he needed was a conversation about butterflies. Monk, though… 'Don't send them away.' 'You're sure?'
'Yes. Melissande… you will feel better. Eventually'
She folded her arms and raised one eyebrow. 'You mean there'll come a day when I'll wake up and there won't be this great gaping hole in my chest where my heart used to be? When every breath doesn't hurt me and every corner I turn in this wretched mausoleum of a palace doesn't ambush me with a memory? And that soon, dear God, I'll stop talking like some dreadful heroine out of a book I wouldn't be caught dead reading?'
Incredibly that made him smile. 'I promise. Now let the others in before I fall asleep again.'
But instead of going to the door she frowned. 'I'm so sorry about your eye, Gerald. Did you know it's turned silver?' ' What?'
She fetched his hand mirror from the chest of drawers. 'Gerald?' she said, as he stared at it, remembering… 'What's wrong?'
With a convulsive shiver he banished the clawed memory: his naked body butchered and eaten… the glistening snakes… his battered heart, bleeding a river… and pain… such awful pain… 'Nothing.' He took the mirror and made himself look. It was true: his left eye shimmered an opaque silver beneath a strange creamy film… like the scaled underbelly of a full-grown skink. The mark of the dragon. Magic's thumbprint. Payment tendered… And
