and shoulder cleared his mind. Anger burned away his fear. His battle instincts took control.
'Come on, you bastards,' he snarled at the three shimmering suits of mail. 'You want a fight? I'll give you a fight!' He snatched a wickedly curved saber from the rack and waved it before him. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a fierce grin. This was what it felt like to be alive! One of the hollow suits of armor reached toward him. The thing was clumsy, opening itself to a slashing attack. Domeck spun inside and swung his the saber fiercely, striking the thing's breastplate.
'Take that!' he shouted. His blow was strong enough to cleave a man in two. That was his mistake, for there was no body within the armor.
In a burst of molten green fire, the suit of armor exploded. The strength of the castellan's swing spun him wildly around. He stumbled, fought to catch himself, then careened backward, crashing into the rack of weapons. Domeck tumbled to the floor. The wooden rack teetered precariously above him. For a second he thought it would hold. Then, slowly, it tipped toward him. A score of glittering sabers plummeted downward. Insane laughter welled up in Domeck's chest. Only yesterday he had given orders for all the weapons in the armory to be sharpened.
Laughter transformed into a short-lived scream as a dozen blades plunged deep into his body.
Wort watched in shock as something dropped from the darkness of the bell and onto the moldering straw. He hobbled toward the thing and picked it up. It was a leather glove, dark and sticky with blood.
Suddenly the bells above him began to ring deafeningly. They rocked wildly back and forth in a cacophony, guided by some invisible hand as they tolled the death of the castellan. All except the newest bell-the bell from the cathedral-which hung still and silent. Wort stared down at the bloody glove clutched in his gnarled hands. Then, low at first, but growing in strength, his own laughter rang out in time with the frenzied music of the bells.
Six
Mika gazed through the window of the ramshackle coach as it rattled down the earthen road. Outside, the somber landscape crept slowly by. Forested ridges, shadowed dells, dark-watered lakes-all seemed to brood under the leaden sky. From time to time Mika glimpsed a crumbling ruin that loomed forbiddingly upon a hill in the distance, like an ancient sentinel keeping watch over the land. She sighed deeply, trying to shake off a presentiment of gloom. Mika had guessed the country would be different from the bustle and splendor of the city. In truth she found the landscape magnificent. She had just not imagined it would be so vast and desolate.
Perhaps it was just as well. It was not as if she were journeying from II Aluk on holiday. She had heard that there were few doctors in the provincial villages and had decided to travel to the hinterlands of Darkon to judge the opportunities for herself. The truth was, in II Aluk she had found it harder and harder to forge a living as a doctor. In the city, men became doctors while women were permitted to become, at best, midwives. Most people held only scorn and mistrust for woman physicians. She could only hope that village folk would be too glad to have a doctor in their midst to bother with similar preju dices. Gazing now at the countryside, Mika could believe that in a dreary land such as this there would be many who would need her healing skills.
She bit her lip to keep from crying out as the coach jounced across a particularly deep rut. She glanced at the other two passengers who sat on the hard wooden seat across from her. One was a rotund man, a merchant of some sort yith ample jowls and muttonchop sideburns, stuffed tightly into a food- stained waistcoat. His eyes were shut, but Mika knew he was only feigning sleep. Next to him was a younger man, too weak-chinned and pasty to be handsome, clad in the gaudy finery of a minor lord. For the past hour he had been fidgeting with an ornate snuffbox. His face bore a peculiar mix of apprehension and longing.
That morning, when the three passengers had climbed into the coach in front of the dismal roadside inn where Mika had spent the night, the merchant had gazed at the other two with wary eyes.
'I suppose you're in league with highwaymen,' he had grumbled darkly at the young lord. He turned his mistrustful glare toward Mika. 'Or you. There's always one.'
Mika and the nobleman had only stared.
'Well, you'll not have my valuables,' the merchant had growled. 'Remember this-if one of you tries to pull a knife on me, I'll be ready.'
Clutching a bulky leather satchel, the rotund man had climbed into the coach and had not uttered a word since. As they had followed the merchant into the rickety coach, the nobleman had thrown Mika a wan smile she supposed was meant to be conspiratorial and friendly. She had shivered, thinking she had also caught lust in his dull eyes.
Now she learned her instincts were right. With a furtive glance, the nobleman moved to her bench and sidled close to her, exuding an odor that was part sickly sweet perfume and part old sweat. He held up the silver snuffbox. The lid was decorated with a grotesque face-a woman with snakes for hair. 'This was a gift from King Azalin himself,' the nobleman pronounced pompously. 'I am high in his favor, you know.'
He tapped the snuffbox, and suddenly the face of the woman lifted its silver eyelids, revealing glittering ruby eyes. The snakes sprouting from her head writhed silently. The lid popped open of its own accord, and a tendril of glowing crimson smoke rose from the box. The nobleman hesitated. A look that might have been fear flickered across his pasty face. Hastily he held the box beneath his nose and inhaled, breathing in the glowing smoke. For a moment, a crimson gleam flickered in his eyes, but then it vanished, leaving his gaze even duller than before, sated. The fear was gone.
He held the snuffbox out toward her. 'Care for some, my lady?'
Mika recoiled from it. 'No thank you,' she choked, eyeing the writhing silver snakes. She had heard King Azalin often presented his courtiers with enchanted gifts. She had also heard that these gifts exacted a dark toll on those who accepted them.
The nobleman shrugged. He greedily breathed more crimson smoke, then closed the box. The face shut its silver-lidded eyes once more. He jerked his head toward the merchant. 'Come, let us enjoy each other's touch while the old man sleeps.' His rouged lips parted in a lewd smile, revealing yellow teeth, as he reached out to caress her cheek.
A minute later the petty lord was regarding Mika from the opposite bench, an abhorrent expression on his features. 'I think you've broken it,' he whined pitifully, rubbing his hand.
'No, it is only a bruise, not a break,' Mika replied crisply. 'However, I would be happy to demonstrate the difference to you, if you'd like.'
The nobleman's powdered face blanched even further. Nervously, he breathed more glowing smoke from the snuffbox. Then, taking a cue from the merchant, he pretended to fall asleep so as to retreat from conversation. Mika was not exactly devastated.
Turning away from her traveling companions, she gazed once more out the window. For a moment she caught a reflection of herself in the glass. She was a pretty woman. Her cheekbones were high and slender beneath eyes that were the pale purple of wild larkspur. Despite her beauty, there was a hardness about her-in the firm set of her jaw, in the dark severity of her simple woolen dress, and in the manner in which her thick golden hair was pulled tightly back from her forehead. Mika downplayed her pretti- ness. Skillful hands, not beauty, healed the sick. She had learned that lesson five years earlier when she had watched a man with kindly eyes and a girl with hair as golden as her own being laid in the cold earth. The Crimson Death had stolen into countless homes, rich and poor alike, in II Aluk that winter. Why Geordin and Lia had succumbed and she had survived she would never know. They had left the world, and she lived on. That was all. It was cruel, and lonely, and true.
'I miss you, my loves,' she whispered softly, reaching up to grip a gold locket that hung about her throat. If only she had been a doctor then… But it was only after she had lost both husband and child that, ignoring the disapproval of others, she had entered the university in II Aluk and began her studies to become a doctor. It was too late to save Geordin and Lia, but there were many others whom she might yet heal.
The wagon shuddered to a halt, jolting Mika out of her reverie. The coach's door opened, and the ruddy face of the coachman poked through.
'This is your stop, milady. The village of Nartok. The Black Boar is just to your left. You can find lodging there.'
