“You cannot,” said a familiar voice.
Of all the people Aurelius imagined might come to his defense against the queen, the princess was the last person he’d expected. He’d thought that with his final rejection of her, he’d finally made her an enemy and earned her lasting scorn.
The queen’s eyes left Aurelius and turned blinkingly toward the open entrance of her bedchambers. “What?”
The princess stopped beside Aurelius, and he felt her lay a hand on his shoulder. The queen eyed that hand suspiciously. “You cannot intervene on his behalf, my daughter. He is mine to do with as I please; you of all people know this.”
Lashyla was shaking her head. “Not yours alone, mother. I have claim to him as well. Last night—”
The queen’s eyed widened suddenly. “Last night he was with me!” she thundered.
Lashyla’s expression turned curious and she cocked her head suspiciously. “Then you
must
be lying. Perhaps you were lying from the first. . . .”
The queen’s eyes flashed. “How dare you!”
“I have two witnesses who can prove his innocence in this matter. Guards?”
Martanel came back into the queen’s bedchambers, along with the other witness. He was wearing a heavy frown.
“Would you and your fellow guardsman please tell my mother, the queen, what you witnessed last night?”
Martanel shifted uncomfortably on his feet as the queen’s astonished gaze turned to him. “I witnessed a mating between the princess and the one called Aurelius.” The queen’s gaze turned back to Aurelius accusingly. “It was consensual,” Martanel finished.
The queen spoke next, “Your abhorrence reaches new lows! Perhaps you’d like to tell my daughter where you went after you finished warming her bed?”
Lashyla was already shaking her head. “You cannot deceive me, mother.”
“I have no need to,” she said simply. “Ask your own guardsman. As the tides would have it, this one—” And she pointed to Martanel. “—was there to witness both acts in the same night. He was one of the guardsmen whom Aurelius knocked unconscious as he left my bedchambers with his stolen treasure.”
Her face painted in horror, Lashyla turned to ask Martanel the question which would seal Aurelius's fate. “Is this true?”
The guardsman merely nodded.
And suddenly all eyes were upon Aurelius, accusing and full of hate. He felt as though both mother and daughter wished to kill him on the spot. “Aurelius? Is this true?” Lashyla’s tone was full of hurt and confusion.
But none was more confused than he. Aurelius closed his gaping mouth into a grimace. None of it was true! But how to explain that to any of them? Nothing he could say in his defense would help him now, and he knew it. He hung his head. “I can say nothing in my defense.”
Lashyla’s hurt tone vanished in a sudden flash of bitter fury: “Then you will die in silence! Take him to the ring!”
Aurelius felt strong hands take him beneath his arms, lifting and dragging him from the room. He saw Lashyla’s pretty face crumble in anguish.
“There, there, my sweet.” The queen patted her on the back. “He fooled me, too. Do not feel bad.”
Whatever they said next was lost to Aurelius’s ears as he was dragged out of sight. Stunned, shocked, and overwhelmed by the hopelessness of his situation, Aurelius let himself be dragged as he scrambled to think of a way out. At last he appealed to his immediate captors—to one in particular.
“Martanel, you have to help me!”
“Me? I am but a lowly guardsman; I cannot interfere in such matters.”
“You’re the only one who knows the truth!”
“The truth? And what might that be?”
Aurelius gaped up at the man. Before Martanel had brought him to the queen, he’d implied that Aurelius had been framed by Gabrian, so why was he pretending to be ignorant now? “The truth that Gabrian—”
“Is missing? Don’t worry, we’ll find him, but it will not save you.”
“Martanel!”
“Quiet.”
The other guardsman hit him on the head, and the world quickly fell into darkness.
Gabrian sloshed through the abandoned under levels of the city. They smelled like fishy sewers. He was scowling. Something had delayed his escape from Meria. He’d tried to work the controls of the submarine by himself, but like Aurelius’s ship, they were too complex. Even using magic to reveal the workings of the vessel was no good without knowing specifically what he should reveal, which meant that until he had an opportunity to stow away again, he needed to disguise himself to stay in Meria a little longer. And in order to do that, he would need to find a face that was easily overlooked and often ignored in the intensely aesthetic culture of Meria. He would also need someone who would not be missed. To that end, he was on his way to the vestal quarters. He had just such a person in mind.
He arrived at the galley as the vestals were preparing breakfast. No one seemed to bat an eye that he was there; it was only natural for the vestal wing to be full of the old, the ugly, and the supposedly useless. All the same, he kept his distance from the guards and tried to avoid any brightly-lit areas. Gabrian smiled ironically to himself as he made his way through the galley to one “useless” man in particular.
“Hello, Cardale.”
The meek little man looked up from shelling crabs to see who had addressed him. His eyes found Gabrian and widened. “What are you doing here?” He leaned close and whispered, “They’re looking for you. Aurelius and that hairy guy have already been sent to the ring.”
Gabrian had to fake his surprise. “Really? Since when?”
Cardale shrugged. “Since this morning as far as I know. Some guards arrived to look for you. They put out the notice.”
Gabrian cast a quick look to the guards scattered around the room, and all the other witnesses besides. He formulated a quick plan, and then made a deliberate swipe with his elbow, knocking a bowl full of crabs to the floor. The creatures scattered under the table and began scuttling away.
“Oops,” Gabrian said. “Sorry, would you help me pick them up?”
Cardale sighed and they bent to the task. Once they were both under the table and relatively shielded from view, Gabrian whispered a spell. Suddenly it was as though he were looking in a mirror. Cardale, a man of roughly thirty years, nondescript and freckle-faced, became much, much older, with a flowing white beard and hair, and wrinkles to match.
“What the?” Cardale asked, lifting his flowing beard to his astonished eyes.
Gabrian smiled wickedly and whispered another command. With that, Cardale’s now pale blue eyes rolled up in his head and he collapsed in a heap to the floor amidst the scuttling crabs.
Gabrian stood up and raised the alarm. “I found him!” he said, pointing to the floor where Cardale lay. The nearest pair of guards looked over curiously. Upon seeing someone collapsed and apparently unconscious they frowned and made their way over.
One of the guards toed Cardale experimentally. “Did you do this?” they asked, looking accusingly at Gabrian.
Gabrian smiled with a face that was not his own, a face much younger than his years—Cardale’s face. “Turn him over. He’s the man you’re looking for. He came to me hoping I could hide him, but I knocked him unconscious so you could capture him.”
One guard bent to turn the old man over. Seeing that he matched the description they’d been given, he nodded. “Good work, Cardale. I’ll be sure to mention that you helped in the arrest. Perhaps there’ll be something in it for you.”
Gabrian knew there would in fact be a reward for his capture, but of course the guards wouldn’t convey that reward to Cardale, a mere vestal. “Thank you for your consideration.” He could have cared less about the reward. His eyes suddenly brightening, Gabrian asked, “What will you do with him?”
“Orders are to take him to the queen. He has something that was stolen from her.”
“I see.” Gabrian watched them leave, carrying the boy between them. They’d get nothing out of him of course. The boy wouldn’t wake up. He’d die mysteriously unless another spell were cast soon to break the magic of the first, and who would know to do that? It seemed a cruel fate, to suddenly fall asleep and then die in one’s sleep, but Gabrian couldn’t afford to have the boy telling anyone who would listen that he was really Cardale and not Gabrian as he appeared to be. After all, someone might believe him.
And besides, Fate was always cruel.
* * *
Aurelius awoke with a stunning headache. He sat up and blinked fiercely in the gloom, trying to get his bearings. He was sitting on a cold floor. Scattered patches of rust-colored coral glowed on the walls and ceiling, but the room was dim, the air damp and fetid—moldy smelling.
“You are awake.”
Aurelius turned toward the voice and watched a giant silhouette swelling out of the shadows to greet him. He felt a sweaty rush of panic, until the man’s hairy body came into view. “Oh, Reven. They arrested you, too. “
“Yes,” the wolf man growled. “Have I you to thank for that?”
Aurelius grimaced and climbed unsteadily to his feet. “No, I believe we both have old Wrinkles to blame.”
“I see.”
“Where are we?” Aurelius asked, looking around.
“Prison.”
“Ask a stupid question . . .”
“What would be the point of asking a stupid question?”
Aurelius laughed despite himself. “Never mind. What I meant to say is, what now?”
“We wait.”
“Wait?” Aurelius asked. “I don’t know that we have much time to waste.”
“No, we don’t, but for now, we have no other options, so we wait.”
Aurelius walked up to the bars of his cell and frowned out into the gloomy corridor beyond. “Good point.”
“Are you the one they call an elder?” a sweet, melodious voice asked softly from just beside Aurelius and he started suddenly, casting a quick glance toward the voice.
He saw nothing but a solid wall. Then he realized the voice was coming from the cell beside his. “Who are you?” he asked.
“I am Esephalia.”
“You are . . . a mermaid? I thought they only sent their men to the ring.”
The voice turned indignant. “I’m an
elf
.”
Aurelius’s eyes widened. He tried to crane his head to see her through the bars of his cell, but he only succeeded in seeing her hands. “I saw you fight. You killed an old man.”
“I had no choice.”
“You could have chosen not to fight.”
“Then
I
would have been killed.”
Aurelius grimaced. “There are some things worse things than dying.”
The was a long pause from the direction of the woman’s cell. “You are right about that, Aurelius, but I do not have the luxury to choose death.”
“How do you know my name?”
“I know many things about you. You are not from here. You came to us by the relic.”
There seemed no point in lying, so he asked, “What do you know about that?”
“Everything. The elves created the relic. We’ve guarded it for millennia to prevent just such an accident as your coming here.”
“Gabrian told me he was the relic’s guardian. He’s not an elf is he?”
“Half elf.”
Aurelius blinked. “I didn’t know that. Has he always guarded it?”
“His father was the previous guardian, until Malgore killed him.”
“Who is this Malgore? Whenever I see him, he looks almost exactly like Gabrian.”
“Then they are both here?”
“Yes.”
“Do not trust your eyes, Aurelius, a wizard can take many forms.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of why I’m here. The queen thinks I mated with her and used her to steal the relic, but it wasn’t me.”
“Then who was it?” Esephalia asked, her voice suddenly sharp.
“Gabrian.”
Esephalia sighed. “That’s good.”
“Good? I’m going to be executed for that good.”
“There are some things worse than dying, Aurelius.”
He grimaced, not happy to have his words used against him. “Yeah, I suppose there are.”
* * *
The queen kicked Gabrian’s unconscious form, a dull thud issued from the impact, but drew not so much as a groan from the man. “What use is it to bring him to me for questioning if he’s already dead? If you think you’ll be collecting a reward for that, you are thoroughly mistaken.”
“But he was—”
“Silence! Take him away. You’ll get your reward when you find my missing property.”
The guards bent to collect their burden. “What shall we do with him?” one of them asked.
“He’s dead, isn’t he? Throw him to the sharks.”
“As you command, oh beauteous queen.”
As the queen watched them leaving, she considered her next move. It wasn’t so much that she missed the mysterious glowing orb that Aurelius had stolen from her, but the principle of it was infuriating. No one stole from her and got away with it! She would not allow it. She couldn’t. Coming to a decision, the queen raised her voice. “Guards?”
They looked up and stopped dragging the corpse from her bedchambers, but she shook her head and waved them away. “No not you guards, the other guards—the door guards.” There were some disadvantages to not learning all their names, but she hardly had the patience for that, made worse by the fact that she had to periodically rotate her guards to keep from getting bored of looking at them.
The door guards peeked their heads around the corner. One of them looked familiar. The queen beckoned them closer, and they came into her room. “Go to Aurelius in the ring; tell him we’ve found his friend—dead. Ask him one last time to reveal the location of what was stolen from me. If he pretends he doesn’t know, or offers any resistance whatsoever, be sure to convey to him my
displeasure
.” With that, she waved them away. “Hurry off.”
The guards bowed hastily as they backed away. “It will be done, my queen,” Martanel said.
* * *
Martanel marched through the halls of Meria, paying little mind to the endless parade of stunning, scantily-clad maidens who directed appreciative glances his way. He was unused to the attention, to being objectified. Worse, their desire begged constant attention with clouds of potent pheromones which clouded and confused his every thought. He had to expend his strength constantly just to keep his head clear.
Yet even when his thoughts were clear, he was confused. His quarry’s moves made little sense. Why lie with the princess? What had she to do with anything? And now that he had the relic, would he use it immediately to travel back in time, or try to escape Meria with it?
At least escaping was not so easy. The mermaids guarded all the entrances and exits from their city, and they would see him leave. His quarry could certainly use magic to aid him in his escape—he'd have to if he were to survive the long swim to the surface—but Martanel would sense him using magic and give chase the minute he did so. For the moment, the old man was keeping a relatively low profile, but he was still somewhere in Meria. Of course Martanel had watched the old man’s body arrive in the queen’s chambers. At first he’d been shocked, but his instincts had told him that it couldn’t be, and a simple spell of revelation had confirmed it. No, Martanel’s quarry was still somewhere in the city—alive and well.