The small room was comfortably furnished with a fireplace, two chairs, and a table between them on which sat a steaming silver teapot, two dainty white cups trimmed with gold, and a plate of round pink objects that Verdsmitt could tell just by looking were mostly sugar.
Two Royal guards stood at attention on either side of the fireplace, rather like overgrown bookends.
“You may wait here,” the secretary said, pointing Verdsmitt to one of the chairs. “His Majesty will attend you presently. Please help yourself to refreshments.”
The secretary went out, closing the doors behind him. The two guards ignored him. He sighed and reached for one of the pink trifles, expecting a long wait; but in fact he had barely popped the dainty trifle into his mouth (and it was every bit as sweet as he had expected) before King Kravon entered the room through a door opposite the one through which Verdsmitt had come.
Aware of the guards, Verdsmitt got to his feet and bowed his head. “Your Majesty,” he said. “Thank you for seeing me.”
Kravon looked very different from the boy Verdsmitt remembered. Years of soft living and pleasure had taken their toll. While Verdsmitt, hardened by life on the stage and in the Commons, remained almost as slim as he had been at sixteen, Kravon had… expanded. His stomach strained at the buttons of his scarlet waistcoat, his calves bulged in white tights above soft black indoor boots. The golden belt he wore seemed barely big enough to contain his ample belly. He had three chins, his hair was mostly gone, and what little was left was liberally streaked with gray.
He looked twenty years older than Verdsmitt, twenty years older than he should have looked, and Verdsmitt felt a renewed surge of hatred at the way he had let himself deteriorate, as though the bulging middle-aged man in front of him had somehow murdered the boy he had once loved.
But, no-that boy had voluntarily turned into this loathsome creature.
In a small corner of his mind, Verdsmitt wondered at the depth of his hatred, after so many years, wondered why it seemed so fresh and ever-renewing, as though it didn’t spring from himself alone, but from somewhere outside…
… but that small, questioning voice drowned in new waves of gut-wrenching loathing.
It was all he could do not to kill the King there and then, but he wanted Kravon to know who was killing him. He would wait just a few moments longer.
“Yes, yes,” the King said, waving his hand airily. “Sit down, sit down.” He plopped himself into the other chair and Verdsmitt resumed his place in his own. “Stelp told me of this ring you carry. Show it to me.”
“Of course, Your Majesty.” Verdsmitt reached inside his own plain black vest and drew out the ring from the inner pocket. He handed it to Kravon.
The King, who had filled the empty moment by stuffing one of the pink trifles into his mouth, took it. “ ’Straordinary,” he mumbled, mouth full. “Fellow this belonged to is dead. Thought this went to the bottom of the lake with him. Where did you find it?”
“I didn’t ‘find’ it, Kravon,” Verdsmitt said, and his deliberate familiarity made the King’s head jerk up as though hearing his voice for the first time. “I’ve always had it… since the day you gave it to me, and pledged we would be together forever… just weeks before you renounced and denounced me and left me to ridicule and ruin.”
The King’s eyes widened. “Calibon?” he breathed. “SkyMage, it is you!” And then he turned white. “Guards!” he shouted, shoving his chair back, stumbling to his feet. “Arrest-”
It’s a pity we didn’t get to chat more, Verdsmitt thought in that last instant, as the guards, moving, to his eyes, as slowly as insects caught in tree sap, began to draw their swords and lurch toward him. It would have been nice to know what he thought of my plays.
Ah, well.
He reached out with his will. Kravon screamed as the ring in his fist turned searingly cold, but he had barely begun to open his fingers before he and everything else were blotted out in an enormous explosion of blue fire.
Anton, looking west, saw the flash reflected on the bottom of the envelope above him, and on the gleaming surfaces of the brass-bound burner and propeller controls. He shot a look over his shoulder, but could see nothing amiss.
Down in the bottom of the gondola, Brenna didn’t even notice the flash. But she felt the magical blast that had just killed the King deep in her bones-deeper, in fact, in the very pit of her soul, a searing wave of agony that ripped through her like wildfire through dry grass. She stiffened, her head snapping back against the wicker of the gondola, breath whooshing out of her in one wordless cry of pain and terror, turning instantly to a cloud of white in the icy air.
Karl, holding her, felt her shudder in his arms, saw her head jerk back, saw her breath explode out of her… and not resume. “She’s not breathing!” he screamed. “She’s not-”
He could think of nothing else to do. He pulled her rigid body closer, put his mouth on hers to share his breath with her…
Anton heard Brenna’s grunting cry, then Karl’s shout. He tied off the tiller, surged around it to help Brenna…
… and skidded to a stop so suddenly his feet slid out from under him and he fell hard on his rear end. He barely noticed.
Karl and Brenna were locked in a kiss, both unmoving, and around them the air glowed blue.
The glow waxed second by second, brighter and brighter. Streamers of blue flame, burning nothing, poured across the night sky toward the airship, passing through the wicker of the gondola, through the envelope, through him, he realized with horror as he looked down, pouring soundlessly, faster and faster, into Brenna, into Karl…
Anton had to shield his eyes, unable to face the light, now as bright as the sun and getting brighter. He closed his eyes but still the light blinded him, turned and pressed his head into his gloved hands and could still see it, threw his whole arm across his eyes and could still see it…
… and then, like a candle being snuffed, it vanished.
Anton raised watering eyes. The yellow glow of the steering lantern now seemed only a feeble spark, but it was enough for him to see Brenna and Karl, still locked together… and then to see Karl jerk straight and push himself away from Brenna, gasping for air. Brenna slumped to the bottom of the gondola and fell over on her side, limp and lifeless as a rag doll.
“No!” Anton cried, and lunged forward. He pushed the stunned and unprotesting Karl out of the way and rolled Brenna over onto her back. She still wasn’t breathing, but when he put his fingers to her neck he could feel her pulse, slow, weak, weakening…
He pulled her head back, pinched her nostrils, began giving her his own breath as Karl had begun to do moments, or ages, before. In. .. out… turning to watch the rise and fall of her chest…
… and then, suddenly, she coughed, gulped air, and started to choke.
He rolled her over on her side just as she spewed watery, yellowish, foul-smelling liquid across the bottom of the gondola. Karl scrambled back further to avoid it; Anton ignored it, but rolled her onto her back again… and was rewarded with her eyes opening. She blinked at him. “Anton?” she asked. “Are we safely away from the manor?” And then she frowned. “No… that was a long time ago… I…” She closed her eyes. “I’m confused,” she mumbled, and then she slept, but now her breathing was normal and her color was good, and Anton leaned back from her with relief.
Karl seemed to be slowly coming around, as well. “What… what happened?” he said. “Brenna… I tried to help her breathe, and then… light…” He shook his head. “I don’t…” And then his eyes widened. “Or…” He scrambled up, looked behind them at the fading yellow glow of New Cabora. “We have to go back.”
Anton gaped at him. “Are you crazy? They tried to kill you!”
“ Falk tried to kill us,” Karl said. “Falk’s dead. You shot him yourself.”
“Mother Northwind isn’t,” Anton said.
Karl shook his head. “Mother Northwind has no use for us anymore,” he said. “What she wanted us to do, we just did.”
It was Anton’s turn to stare. “You mean… that was the Keys? The King died, the Keys came to Brenna, and you…?”
“Do you have any other explanation?” Karl demanded.
Anton barked a laugh. “I didn’t even believe in magic two weeks ago. Of course I don’t have an
