The Princess of Trelian (34 page)

“Yes, dear. Young Calen is here to rescue you! Sadly, it does not seem to be going very well.” She looked at Calen curiously. “And where is the princess, I wonder? I know she would not let you come alone.”

Calen felt a rush of relief and struggled not to let it show in his expression. Sen Eva did not know everything. For a moment, he’d thought she did. If she didn’t know everything, there was still a chance they would get out of this. Somehow. There had to be.

“Now,” Sen Eva went on, “part of me would like to just kill you right now, but I suspect you may still prove useful in some small way, and so I will refrain. For now. You may have a seat beside your little friend there. If you attempt the slightest bit of magic, I will know. And then I will kill her.”

Maurel whimpered at this, and it nearly broke Calen’s heart. He sat down beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t worry, Maurel,” he said. “We’ll get you home. I promise.”

Sen Eva shook her head, smiling.

All this time the men around them had been watching impassively. The ones up on the road had turned back around to face away, perhaps keeping an eye out for Meg or whoever else Sen Eva suspected might be with him. Calen didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know if there was anything he
could
do. He was afraid Sen Eva wasn’t bluffing about being able to tell if he tried doing any magic. He couldn’t risk testing her on that, not with Maurel’s life at stake. He didn’t doubt that Sen Eva would kill her. She had been planning to kill Maerlie, after all, and had tried to kill him and Meg, too.

Near where Sen Eva was standing, there was a small cleared area between two of the tallest pointy rocks. It looked almost like a narrow doorway, and all the weeds and grass had been removed somehow from the space around it. He noticed Sen Eva watching him looking at it, and she looked expectant, as though she were waiting for him to comment. He didn’t, just to spite her. Even though he really wanted to know what that was all about.

He supposed he could just wait until Serek and the others arrived. He hoped that their plan, whatever it was, would still work. It would not exactly be the triumphant encounter he’d been imagining, though. His cheeks burned at the thought of Serek’s finding him here, needing to be rescued along with Maurel.
No.
He couldn’t let that happen. He had to do something.

“All the pieces are not yet where they need to be. . . .” Sen Eva murmured to herself. She looked up at the sky, then back down at him. “Do you think she will come after you right away, or must I do something to draw her attention?”

He supposed she meant Meg. Calen didn’t say anything. He just looked back at her with what he hoped came across as brave defiance.

She twisted up her mouth but only said, “Fine. Be stubborn if you wish. I could make you talk, but I believe I’ll give it a little while longer to play out on its own. If you interfere too much, you risk changing the forces at work, and I certainly don’t want that, not now.”

Calen had no idea what she was talking about. He wondered if she’d gone entirely crazy since they had last seen her. She had seemed to be well on her way back then. No sane person would be doing the things she was doing — kidnapping, murder, following the evil orders of a creepy mage who spoke to her in portals from another place and promised her impossible things . . .

If only he could try something without her knowing. He couldn’t just sit here! But what if whatever he tried didn’t work, and she hurt Maurel? How could he ever face Meg after letting her sister get killed? No. No, he had to wait. For . . . something. He just wished he knew what.

Maurel was still leaning against him. “Don’t worry,” he told her again. “It’s going to be all right.”

“Liar,” Sen Eva said sweetly. She looked at Maurel. “It’s definitely not going to be all right, little girl. People are going to die. Probably your whole entire family. There’s going to be war, and chaos, and if you do happen to survive, you’ll probably wish you hadn’t.”

Maurel had started crying again. Now she turned her face against Calen’s chest and sobbed. Calen glared at Sen Eva with helpless fury. “What do you want?” The words fell from his mouth before he could stop them. He hadn’t meant to say anything, but he didn’t understand the point of any of this. What was she waiting for? What was she expecting to happen?

“I want a great number of things,” she said coldly, all mocking sweetness gone from her voice. “And I am going to have them this time.” She paused, considering. “But it’s still too soon.”

“Did you — did you send those creatures, the ones that attacked the Magistratum?” Now that he was talking, he couldn’t seem to stop.

“Hmm?” she said. “Ah, yes — did you enjoy my little gift? Did they do anything exciting before your friends were able to contain them? We weren’t sure what would happen, exactly, only that they would stir up the hornets’ nest, help to widen the divide in some way.”

“But
how
— I mean, why?”

She smiled again, chillingly. “You do wish you knew how, don’t you? Your masters don’t teach you anything quite so useful as mine does.”

She looked away, back toward the road. “I know your friends are watching somehow. If your failed attempt is not enough to make them take the next step, perhaps . . .” She looked at Maurel, then at one of the men standing guard. “Do something to make the little girl scream for her sister, Erick.”

“No!” Calen shouted, and he lunged upward, trying to stand and push Maurel behind him at the same time. He didn’t even know what he intended to do. He just knew he could not let Sen Eva hurt Meg’s sister. He felt the magic energy gathering within him and wavered, wanting more than anything to strike out but terrified that Sen Eva would just kill him, and then kill Maurel, too. He stood frozen,
again,
unable to act, unable to do anything useful at all, shaking with confusion and fear and helpless rage.

Sen Eva barely even glanced at him. She lifted a hand almost dismissively in his direction. Calen’s only comfort was that he could see that the magic was blue, not red, before it struck him and everything went black.

The first thing Calen saw when he opened his eyes again was Maurel’s worried face. She was leaning over him and nudging his head with her knee.

“Calen!” she whispered. “Calen, please wake up!”

He groaned. “Maurel, what? Stop it. What do you —?”

And then he remembered, and struggled to come fully awake.

“Wake up, wake up, wake up!” Maurel said, emphasizing each “wake up” with another violent knee-nudge.
Ow.
She was definitely Meg’s sister, all right.

“Okay, I’m awake — stop it,” he said, pushing himself upright. It was morning. How was it morning already? Whatever Sen Eva had done to him had apparently kept him unconscious all night. His lips tasted like dirt. He shook his head and then looked around. “What’s —?”

He suddenly remembered the last thing he’d heard Sen Eva say. “Maurel! Are you all right? Did she —?”

Maurel sniffed. “She told that man to hurt me,” she said, indicating the guard who had been closest to them last night. He was farther off now; Calen supposed the men took turns at guard duty. “But I screamed before he did anything, and then he left me alone.” She scrunched up her face. “Was that bad? She wanted me to scream. Should I have tried not to? I couldn’t — I couldn’t really help it. I was so scared, and I thought you were dead.”

“No,” he told her. “You were right to scream. We don’t want them to hurt you, Maurel. You didn’t do anything wrong.” He hoped that was true. What did Sen Eva think making Maurel scream would accomplish? Did she think Meg was hiding just out of sight somewhere and would come running if she heard Maurel screaming?

“Ah, you have come back to us,” Sen Eva said, striding over to them. “Your princess is tardy. I would have thought she’d be here by now, but I think she must still be at the castle. That doesn’t make sense to me, but I think I would be able to tell, if . . .” She paused and seemed to listen to something he couldn’t hear. “I shouldn’t . . . I don’t want to interfere. . . .” She shook her head and looked at him again, considering. “Well. Perhaps a little nudge won’t hurt.”

She shouted an order, and several men ran off toward the second row of rocks. And then one of those terrible slaarh screams tore through the air around them. Maurel screamed again and leaned desperately into Calen. Even the men guarding them seemed uneasy. Calen put his arms around Maurel, shaking, as one of the monstrous creatures rose clumsily into the sky from behind the row of tall stones. One of the men was riding it, holding on to a chain looped around the creature’s disgusting head and neck. The slaarh screamed again and took off in the direction from which Calen had come. In the direction of the castle.

Sen Eva stood there watching them, smiling. Behind her, more slaarh were lumbering up into the sky. These didn’t have riders. Calen didn’t know what any of it meant. What was she sending them to do?

A shout from some of the guards made Sen Eva turn. And then she froze, staring, as Wilem walked into the pass.

Calen stared. What was Wilem doing here alone? Was this part of Serek’s plan?

“Hello, Mother,” Wilem said.

“Wilem,” she said. Her coldness slipped, and a terrible hunger showed on her face. “Have you — have you come to your senses, then? Are you truly —?”

“No,” he said, and her face closed up at once, slamming like a heavy door. “I am here to try to reason with you, if I can.”

“I should have known you would never truly understand.” Her voice had changed again. The hope and arrogance both were gone, and she sounded just like a regular person having a regular, if disappointing, conversation. She sat down on a flat rock and looked sadly at her son.

“I don’t understand,” Wilem agreed. “I wish you could let this go.”

She laughed bitterly. “It’s far too late for that, I’m afraid.” She seemed about to say something else, then changed her mind. “I won’t get drawn in to talking to you. I don’t know what you hoped to accomplish by coming here, but it was foolish. And now you’ll have to stay. Why don’t you have a seat with your new friends? Please don’t speak to me again. I can’t allow you to distract me, and if you try, I’ll be forced to take unpleasant measures.”

Wilem’s eyes widened when he saw Calen. Then he looked back at his mother, clearly confused. “But — we thought, I thought . . .” He stopped and tried again. “Are you not willing to make a trade for Princess Maurel?”

“A trade? Oh, I see.” She shook her head slowly. Almost regretfully. “No, I’m afraid you have misinterpreted the situation, my dear. I did not truly expect that you would come to me, although I could not help but try. Can you blame me for not wanting to give up hope of having you by my side in the new order?”

“What new order? Mother, why are you doing this?”

“You know why,” she said. “And now please stop talking to me, as I asked. Or I will have to silence you.”

He stood looking at her a moment more, then came and sat beside Calen without another word.

Calen was trying to figure out how to ask where Serek was without actually giving anything away to Sen Eva, when there was a commotion up near the road.

The soldiers who had ridden off with Serek the day before suddenly rushed the pass and clashed with the outer perimeter of Sen Eva’s men. Sen Eva glanced at the fighting for only a moment. Then she turned and scanned the surrounding area.

Bolts of red and orange energy suddenly came flying at her from behind the fighting men. Sen Eva threw up a protective shield just in time and sent her own red magic flying back toward the source.

Serek! It must be. Calen’s embarrassment was nothing compared to his immense relief. Now things would be all right. Wilem must have been intended as a distraction, or maybe he really had meant to attempt negotiation before they resorted to fighting. It didn’t matter now. Serek came slowly into view, still casting. Calen waited to watch Sen Eva fall before Serek’s magical attack.

Except she didn’t. They kept firing things at each other, but nothing seemed to land. They both had shields before them, and they were both apparently able to block whatever the other mage was sending. Sen Eva had obviously had a lot more practice than Calen when it came to fighting with magic — which really wasn’t very surprising, he supposed, given that he knew pretty much nothing. Serek also appeared to know a lot more than he’d ever deigned to share with his apprentice. Which, again, wasn’t really a surprise.

Finally Sen Eva pointed a hand in Maurel’s direction. “Surrender or I’ll kill her,” she said. “Right now.”

“No, you won’t,” Calen said, and flung up a shield of his own.

“Calen?” Serek asked, staring at him in obvious bewilderment. And in that moment of confusion, Sen Eva fired at Serek again.

Calen fired a second later, barely thinking, trying to send something to protect his master. Desperately, he willed his magic to reach Serek first, or at least to catch up with Sen Eva’s and alter it somehow. Serek belatedly tried to refocus his own magical defenses. Calen couldn’t see if he had managed to cast anything before there was an explosion of color where Serek had been standing a moment before.

Calen lurched to his feet, pulling Maurel with him.
I killed him,
he thought.
I distracted him and I killed him and now he’s going to be dead and it’s my fault, my fault, my fault. . . .

But no! He wasn’t dead. He was . . . what? Calen squinted, trying to understand the chaos of color that still swirled around his master. It looked as though Serek had managed to put up some kind of shield, but it had — it had fused, somehow, with the other magic. He didn’t seem able to dismantle it. Sen Eva was staring as well, trying to figure out what had happened. Almost experimentally, she released a small bolt of red magic at the shield. Nothing happened, but when Serek tried to fire back at her, his magic couldn’t get past it, either.

“Hmm,” said Sen Eva. “That’s interesting. Well, I suppose it will do for now, as long as you can’t actively annoy me from in there.” She turned away, dismissing Serek from her attention. Almost as an afterthought, she lifted a hand and sent small bolts of deadly energy at the Trelian soldiers, still fighting valiantly against Sen Eva’s greater numbers.