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.Ilna was short and dark and slim; pretty or at least handsome, but likely to be overlooked when she was in the company of her friend Sharina, a lithe blond beauty.If Ilna resented that, she kept the feeling well hidden—even from Sharina herself."Then let's go talk with Liane," Sharina said, offering Ilna her arm and starting toward the council chamber."She may know something about this even if Tenoctris doesn't."The chamber was unexpectedly dim.The sky wasn't dark yet, but it didn't send much light through the clerestory windows.Nobody'd lighted the lamps in the wall sconces.The guards hadn't let servants in to do that, Sharina realized.Sharina stepped back outside.The guards had a lighted lantern dangling from the edge of the portico.The hook supporting it normally held a polished marble 'sparkler' that threw sunlight onto the interior as it rotated.Sharina lifted down the lantern."I'll borrow this if I may," she said, twisting the base away from the barrel to expose the burning candle.She walked into the council chamber with it."Your highness?" said the puzzled officer behind her.Of course nobody objected to Princess Sharina taking a lantern if she wanted to, but he was probably surprised that she knew how to take it apart.Sharina knew how to light lamps too.She walked from sconce to sconce, holding the candle flame just below the wick of each oil lamp in turn.The Lady only knew how many winter evenings she'd done this same thing at the inn, though generally using a splinter of lightwood instead of a candle.She turned, righting the candle in her hand.One of Lord Tadai's clerks stood at her elbow, looking nervous."Jossin here will take that back to the guards, your highness," Tadai said."I was remiss in not dealing with the situation myself earlier.""It's not part of your job, milord," Sharina said."And it has been part of mine."She turned her attention to Liane, saying, "Do any of your sources know where the creature might have come from, Liane? Or who sent it?"Cervoran moved.He held the uncut topaz, and it threw foggy highlights across the room as he lowered his hands.He'd been so still that Sharina hadn't noticed him until then."Not yet," said Liane, "though—""The Green Woman sent it," Cervoran said."She made it in her Fortress of Glass and sent it to attack me."His voice was rising in pitch and volume.The oil lamps gave his complexion a yellow tinge and brought out blotches beneath the skin that daylight had concealed.Neither Sharina nor Liane moved away from the recent corpse as most of the others in the room did, but Liane had her right hand between the folds of her sash."She will attack me while she lives and I do," Cervoran said."There'll be more of those hellplants?" Sharina asked sharply.Waldron and Attaper with their aides had entered the chamber behind her; the soldiers' faces were taut with the instinct to attack or flee."There will be many more!" Cervoran said.His fingers moved over the topaz like maggots crawling on a yellow corpse."But I will prevail!"* * *Ilna looked at the man she'd saved from death on his own funeral pyre.If he was still a man, of course; and if she'd saved him."A meteor struck the sea yesterday," Cervoran said."We must find it.The Green Woman is there, and I will defeat her.""The sling stone struck, right enough," said Chalcus with cheerful bravado, the backs of his wrists against his hipbones and the fingers turned outward like flippers."And I or anybody who was with the fleet can show you where, easily enough; any sailor, at least.But it won't do you any good, I fear."Cervoran looked at him.Ilna had begun picking apart the pattern she'd knotted from lengths of twine as the hellplant slithered across the courtyard."Take me to the meteor," Cervoran said.Only his squeaky voice and the muffled breaths of the others in the room could be heard."It is necessary.I will defeat her!"The pattern would've frozen a man in his tracks.A man's eyes don't see: they gather patterns that his mind turns into sight.The patterns Ilna wove in fabric had a greater reality in the minds of those who saw them than a mountain or the blazing sun above."I can take you there right enough, my friend," Chalcus said.He feared the Gods—he didn't worship but he feared.He feared no other thing in this world as far as Ilna could tell, beast or man or wizard."But the place I'll take you is the deepest trench in the Inner Sea.A full league down a wizard said, or so the rumor has it.If your Green Woman's on the bottom of that, then you'll not be going to her unless you're a fish, not so?"Ilna's pattern hadn't stopped the plant.Now she was beginning to wonder what effect it would have on the recent corpse."Do you think to mock me, little man?" Cervoran said.It was odd to hear so shrill a voice speaking as slowly as a priest praying while the villagers came forward with their offerings during the Tithe Procession."Take me to the place.It is necessary!""Your highness?" Chalcus said, looking past Cervoran to Sharina."This is a thing I can do well enough in the Heron, should you wish it.But.?""It is necessary!" Cervoran repeated shrilly [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]