it felt, to know that Lional could feel terror.
“You do know you’ve gone mad don’t you, Gerald?” Lional whispered. “Madder than I ever was. I can see it in your eyes. And they’re going to hunt you down like a rabid dog when they realize. All those wizards in Ottosland’s famed Department of Thaumaturgy? Men you think are your friends? They’ll take one look at you and- oh.”
Mildly curious, Gerald watched as one by one the lizard scales peeled off Lional’s cheek, revealing the glistening and greenish-pink suppurating flesh beneath. The pulse in his throat beat harder, echoing his incoherent pain.
“I’d rather you didn’t talk about my friends,” he said. “I’d rather you didn’t do anything but scream.”
Which is what Lional did. Such a lovely, lovely sound.
It was truly extraordinary, what he could do now. How with a mere thought he could manipulate sinew and muscle. Spring blood free of its conduits. Crack bone. Twist nerves. Lional shrieked like a girl. Remembering those long days in the cave, the filth and the stink and the utter degradations, he spiced up Pygram’s Pestilences with a few neat quirks of his own. Remembering Reggie and all the other palace staff, those poor people in the capital and all of Rupert’s harmless butterflies, he honed his potentia like a sword-blade and blunted it on Lional’s soul. Remembering the trick with the hexed chicken, those terrible hours he’d believed Reg was dead, he scaled new heights of invention and was rewarded with Lional’s desperate tears.
After some time had passed, and Lional had pretty much lost his voice, he pushed to his feet and stretched, unkinking his spine. Breathed deeply of the fresh garden air, absently listening to Lional’s whimpering sighs. The afternoon was waning, dusk waiting in the wings.
“You know Lional, it’s a great shame,” he said, glancing down. “If you’d not gone mad you might have made a halfway decent king. You’re certainly handsome enough. Or you were. I don’t know why it is, but people like their kings to be handsome. Their prime ministers too. Leaders in general. As though a pretty face were any kind of measure of worth. It’s not, of course. I mean, look at Melissande. Even after I’d tarted her up, underneath the polish she was still-well- plain. But you’d be hard pressed to find anyone better at her job. Don’t you agree?”
Lional moaned, barely conscious. His thrashing heels had battered quite deep holes in the soft ground.
“Why, if you hadn’t gone mad you could’ve followed your father’s example,” he said, untucking his shirt-tail and wiping smears of blood from his fingers. “Found something to amuse yourself with and left all the real ruling to Melissande, behind the scenes. But you didn’t. You had to go and get all obsessed with being a wizard. As obsessed as Rupert is with his wretched butterflies. Which only goes to show you two have far more in common than you might think.” He glanced down again. “Lional? Are you listening?”
Stirring, Lional dragged open his eyes. The one that had burst when the sympathetico was severed looked painful. But then, so did the ruptured lizard scales on his cheek and arm, and the bruises and lesions and pustules and boils, and the splintered ribs and shins and sliced wounds in his chest and belly and thighs.
“Bastard,” Lional muttered. “Kill me.”
“Oh no,” he said, cheerful. “I couldn’t do that, Lional. I mean, you spared my life after the cave, didn’t you? Returning the favor is the least I can do.”
A crimson tear rolled down Lional’s ravaged cheek. “Illegal.”
“Yes, I know,” he said, dropping back to one knee beside Melissande’s brother. “Stealing a wizard’s potentia is terribly illegal-and for very good reason. What a blessing it turned out you couldn’t steal mine, eh? I mean, now that we know I’m a once-in-a-lifetime kind of wizard. Think of the mischief you’d have got up to…”
The holes in Lional’s palms had widened considerably, what with all his thrashing about. But the dragon’s teeth kept him safely pinned in place, secure as one of Rupert’s dead butterflies on public display. Kindly, Gerald brushed a fingertip across Lional’s sweaty brow. Smiled to see the mad king shudder and try to turn aside.
“Now, I know you think you’ve been punished enough,” he said softly. “But actually, Lional, I’m not sure you’re the best judge of that. I mean, admit it-you are just the teeniest bit biased, aren’t you? But I will admit there should be some kind of rhyme or reason to our proceedings. So how does this sound? Let’s say we assign an amount of time for each of your dastardly crimes, say, one hour of suffering-just one little hour-set against every life you’ve taken so far. Does that sound fair? I think that sounds fair.”
For once in his glib life, Lional had nothing to say.
“So if we use that as a yardstick, Lional, I think you’d agree that we’ve barely begun. I mean, only today you must’ve killed over a hundred people. So that’s at least one hundred hours of suffering you owe this kingdom, Your Majesty. And it doesn’t include the five wizards you murdered. Now, by my reckoning you’ve been screaming for two hours. Well, two and a bit. Which means-”
A ripping in the ether. A stirring of new potentias. A familiar, unwelcome flapping of wings. And then he and Lional were no longer alone.
“Gerald Dunwoody!” cried Reg. “What’s the meaning of this?”
It took Monk a moment to make sense of what he was looking at. And then, when he did, he wanted to close his eyes. Or run away. Or possibly throw up what little food he had in his stomach.
Bloody hell, Gerald. Have you gone mad?
Beside him, Melissande clutched at his coat sleeve, making soft little sounds of distress. It was taking everything he had not to echo her. Beside her Rupert breathed harshly, close to groaning. And then there was Sir Alec, who “Wait,” he said, his voice low, grabbing hold of the government man’s elbow, keeping him back. The portable portal had spat them out a long stone’s throw past the stricken dragon. In other words, uncomfortably close to Gerald and the half-butchered man on the ground. “Just wait, Sir Alec. Let Reg handle it. He won’t lash out at her.”
“Are you sure?” Sir Alec murmured, then glanced pointedly at the hand restraining him.
Oh. He let go. “Yes.”
Sir Alec wasn’t convinced. “Look at his eyes, Mr. Markham. I don’t think you can say with any authority what your friend-your former friend-is likely to do.”
He didn’t want to, but he looked at Gerald’s eyes. The last time he’d seen them they were a nice, ordinary brown. And now- now “I don’t care,” he said, dogged, his stomach heaving in protest. “I know Gerald. No matter what he’s done, no matter what-what kind of magics he’s mucking around with, he would never hurt Reg.”
Sir Alec snorted. “Well, for the bird’s sake, Mr. Markham, I hope you’re right.”
Yeah, well, so do I. He glanced down at Melissande. “Is that Lional?”
Shivering, she nodded. “Please, Monk. We have to do something. I know Lional’s awful but-”
“But he doesn’t deserve that,” said Rupert. “Melissande’s right, we have to-”
“ Wait,” he said sharply. “Because I’m telling you, right now Reg is our best hope of this mess not blowing up in our faces.”
Landed safely on the bright green grass-well, green where it wasn’t splattered with blood-Reg was marching to and fro like a sergeant major at mess-time inspection. Ignoring Lional, Gerald had dropped to a crouch and was watching her closely, his lips twisted in a faint, almost amused smile.
“-don’t believe this, Gerald,” Reg was saying, her voice unusually high-pitched. “I mean, not that I care a fat rat’s ass about this tosser-” she flipped a contemptuous wing at Gerald’s prisoner and kept on truculently marching, “-but even if you are giving him a taste of his own medicine-and I don’t blame you for that, nobody would, he did you such a mischief-I do take exception to you ignoring my excellent advice and dabbling your fingers in those mucky grimoire pies!”
Sighing, Gerald shook his head. “Reg, honestly. I’m fine.”
“Fine? Fine? ” she demanded, and bounced up and down. “Gerald Dunwoody, have you looked in a mirror? You are not fine. Your eyes would give a ghost nightmares!”
“My eyes?” said Gerald, puzzled. “What are you talking about? What’s wrong with my eyes?”
“They’ve gone crimson, you tosser!” Reg shouted, tail rattling fiercely. “Like someone’s stuck two live coals in your daft head!”
“Oh,” said Gerald, after a moment. “Oh, well. It could be worse, Reg. They could have exploded, like Lional’s eye.”
Bloody hell. Monk exchanged a glance with Sir Alec, whose carefully blank expression gave nothing away. And then, before he or anyone else could stop her, Melissande abandoned the sensible wait and see approach and launched herself at Gerald.
“Professor Dunwoody! As New Ottosland’s former prime minister I demand to know what you’re
