The little Favorite chattered a spell, head darting this way and that, looking, looking…
He jabbed a finger to the east. There, Master! he cried.
At first all he saw was the glare of the Demon Moon above the palace. Then he saw a shape take form. It looked like a wolf's head. A wolf with long fangs like a demon's. Baleful eyes moving. Searching.
Then the wolf saw him. It bayed in hellish joy and shot forward, head growing larger as it came.
But it wasn't the head Safar feared. It was the killing spell coming like a desert storm behind it. So strong it was impossible for him to stop.
Safar pointed the dagger at the wolf's head, the tip glittering blood red from the moon.
He made that his center. Then he cut to the side, once for Luka. Another slice. Twice for Kalasariz. Again. Thrice for Fari. And then the fourthfor Iraj.
Then he aimed the dagger at the center again. Right between the wolf head's glaring red eyes.
He felt the force of its gathering hate. Felt the first buffet of searing magical winds.
He put all of his might, all of his will behind the dagger tip.
And he shouted'Protarus!'
There was a clap of ungodly thunder and the wolf head shattered. He heard a distant howl. And then the sky was empty and the air was still.
He looked around and saw the troops fleeing down the hill. Leiria was coming up to him, leading her horse, which was bleeding heavily from many wounds.
'There's more of them, Safar, she said. You can see from the edge of the hill. Hundreds of soldiers. They're milling about now, gathering their nerve. But they'll come soon enough. This isn't over yet.'
'I couldn't kill him, Safar said. I hurt him, but I couldn't kill him. There wasn't time.'
'Iraj won't give you another chance, she said.
'Then let's not give him one, Safar said.
He turned to find Nerisa, saying, We'll head for the village just like we'
Nerisa was sprawled on the ground. There was an arrow through her breast, blood stain creeping across her tunic.
Palimak was kneeling beside her, weeping and blubbering over and over again'Shut up, shut up, shut up! as if he were trying to silence Death himself. And perhaps he was.
Safar felt nothing. He was too shocked to grieve, too numb for thought. The only sensation was the cold stone in his chest where his heart had once lived.
He felt a tug at his sleeve. We have to go, Safar, Leiria said. I'm sorry she's dead, but there's nothing we can do.'
Her voice sounded distantlike a gull crying above a great sea.
Then it came closer, clearer. Safar! They'll be here any minute.'
Still, he did not move.
Leiria rushed over to Nerisa's body. Gently she picked up Palimak, soothing him, but awkwardly in a soldier's manner.
She carried the child back to Safar and pushed him against his chest. Safar didn't react and so she grabbed each arm in turn and folded them across the boy, forcing an embrace.
'They'll kill the child, too, Safar, she said. Nerisa's child!'
Safar came unstuck and clutched the weeping Palimak tight.
'I won't let them, he said. I'll kill that whoreson, I swear I will!'
'Killing will have to wait, Safar, Leiria said. We have to get away first.'
And so that is what they did. They rode off the hill, Leiria leading the way and Safar carrying Palimak. Exactly how they escaped, he'd never be able to recall. He remembered only the shouts of soldiers behind and to the side of them. The sound of shutters and doors slamming as they clattered through the streets. Screams and blood at the city gates. The countryside whipping past. Switchback trails, splashing in creeks, hiding in woods.
Finally they arrived at the village where Safar and Nerisa had planned to meet.
There Safar came alive again. His heart was still stone, but he felt a growing heat.
It was hate that brought him alive, desire for revenge.
He sent Leiria on with Palimak. Perhaps she argued, he couldn't remember. There was only a vague recollection she'd return on a certain date. Soon as she was gone he forgot the date.
There was a large stream running through the village. Safar searched the banks until he found a small clay bed of the purest white.
He gathered what he needed and mounted the hill that rose above the village. He could see Zanzair from that hill. See the palace where King Protarus sat on his throne and ruled the land.
Safar spread out the things he needed. He gathered wood and lit a small fire and when it'd burned out he stripped to his loin cloth and covered himself with ashes.
He cut the first slab of clay with his silver dagger and started on the model of Iraj's great palace.
And there he sat, day into night, and night into day, mourning Nerisa and planning his revenge.
EPILOGUE
The spell was ready.
All his hate was gone. Contained, now, in the model of the Grand Palace.
He'd conjured up every bit of bitterness and made each into a monster. Some he enclosed in the gilded turrets. Others in the smooth domes. Each parapet bore a devil's visage. Anger, betrayal, murder and lust, on and on until the whole palace was ringed with the faces of hate.
In the bowels of the palace, deep, deep within, where the only sounds were the cries of tortured things and the clank of the chains that bound them to their pain, he placed the greatest hate of all. And that was what had been done to Nerisa.
Satisfied, he looked up from the model. Shimmering under the Demon Moon he could see the real Zanzair, the real Grand Palace where Iraj Protarus sat upon his golden throne. He wondered what Iraj was thinking, what he was seeing as he looked out over his teeming court. Who were his friends, now? Which were his foes? Iraj could hurl the greatest army at the gates of that riddle and never seize the answer. All the mailed men, all the horned demons, could not bring it down.
Safar recalled a riddle from Asper's book:
'Two kings reign in Hadin Land,
One's becursed, the other damned.
One sees whatever eyes can see,
The other dreams of what might be.
One is blind. One's benighted.
And who can say, which is sighted?
Know that Asper knocked at the Castle Keep,
But the gates were barred, the Gods Asleep.'
Safar took one last long look at the gleaming city and glorious palace that had been another man's dream. He turned away.
And would not look again.
Only the final touches remained to make the spell. He surrounded the model with the dried branches of a creosote tree. They had an oily smell, not pleasant, but not unpleasant either. He sprinkled powders all around, concentric circles of red, green, yellow and black. He made a wide patch of all the colors just in front of the gate. And in that patch he first pressed the silver dagger, making the impression firm and deep. Next, the horse amulet, pushing hard so the stallion seemed to rear up from the mark of the blade.
When he was finished he cleaned the dagger and amulet, scouring until every speck of powder was gone. Then he put them carefully away in his saddle bags.
