“Your father? You are a queen in your own right?”
“I am.”
“How extraordinary!”
Indignant, Inos opened her mouth and then firmly closed it again; a queen with only two loyal subjects should be discreet. Which reminded her of her other loyal subject—
“Aunt, where is Rap?” She turned back to the curtain of jewels and pushed at it. It was still immovable from this side, a one-way curtain.
“Still in the chamber, I expect, dear.”
“The slut is in there, I presume?” Azak inquired. Inos and her aunt both turned to stare at him.
“The woman who calls herself Sultana Rasha? You have met her? She is beyond that drape—wherever that may be?” He folded his arms imperiously.
“Beyond that drape is Krasnegar, my kingdom!” Inos shouted, feeling her threadbare self-control starting to rip. This ordeal had been going for a whole day and night, and she just couldn’t take much more. “I want to go home!”
“Indeed?” He seemed skeptical. “You have no magic of your own, either of you?”
“None!” Inos shouted.
“Inos!” Kade frowned disapprovingly.
The djinn shrugged. “Well, I am no sorcerer, merely the rightful ruler of this domain. For sorcery you must deal with the bitch.”
“Is she not your . . . Well, if you are sultan here, then what is she to you?” Inos demanded, still ignoring glances from Kade. The djinn scowled grotesquely at the magical drape behind them. “You have met her, I presume?”
“Queen Rasha? I mean Sultana—”
His already ruddy face darkened and reddened even more. “She is no queen, no sultana! She was a dockside harlot who illicitly acquired occult powers. Now she styles herself sultana, but there is no truth in that! None!” Just for a moment, his anger betrayed his youth.
But Inos knew that Rasha had not truly impressed her as royalty. She had not sounded right, or moved right.
“What a marvelous view you have here!” Kade exclaimed, firmly changing the subject.
For the first time, Inos took a serious look at where she was. The room was big, much larger than Inisso’s chamber of puissance, but not unlike. It was obviously located high up, it was circular, and it had four windows. If those similarities were important and not just coincidence, they must mean that this also was a sorcerer’s chamber. A sorceress’s, of course. Rasha’s. The walls were of white marble, supporting a huge bulbous dome of the same milky rock. There were no windows in the great shell, but light flooded it from somewhere, apparently through the stone itself. Moreover, that strange brightness pulsed with inexplicable, eerie movements that Inos could see perfectly well out of the corner of her eye, but not when she looked straight at them. Then the shiftings ceased and there was nothing there except smooth translucent marble; while the haunting would have started somewhere else. Creepy!
And the view that her aunt had mentioned—the four wide openings were larger by far than the casements in Inisso’s tower, triple-arched and not merely unglazed, but lacking even shutters. Obviously Arakkaran’s climate was kinder than Krasnegar’s.
At her left, the austere yellow light of morning streamed in from a newborn sun, aiming a golden sword at her across the sea. All through her childhood, seaward had meant northwardthe Winter Ocean. At Kinvale, although it was well inland, seaward had meant westward, toward Pamdo Gulf. Sea to the east was wrong, horrifying. It told her she was appallingly far from home.
Southward, towers and more pointed domes obscured much of the view, but she could tell she was high in some castle or palace. Beyond them she glimpsed a coastline of dry brown hills falling to white surf, stretching off to meet the sky. Craggy peaks to the west were already almost lost in a heat haze. They were much higher and rockier than the Pondague range, and obviously desert.
Fatigue and despair crushed down on her. She struggled to recall childhood lessons from Master Poraganu, wishing she had been more attentive. Djinns were tall, fierce folk, with reddish skin and hair . . . djinns lived in Zark . . . desert and sand. Those mountains looked bare as any desert she could imagine. But Zark was somewhere in the extreme southeast of pandemia, about as far from Krasnegar as it was possible to be. Which would explain why Master Poraganu had not gone into details, and why she had not listened.
Her eyes went again to the shining water eastward. That must be the Spring Sea, and she remembered Mistress Meolome talking about silk once, long ago.
“Is this truly Zark?” Kade exclaimed. “How thrilling! I have always wanted to see more of Pandemia. This will be a very informative and educational visit.” She beamed warningly at Inos.
“Arakkaran is a small, poor place compared to the Impire,” Azak proclaimed, “but its people are a proud and noble race, jealous of their own ways and their independence. We draw our strength from the desert, scorning the decadence of those who dwell in milder climes.”
Oh, just juicy! Barbarians.
Again Inos tried the infuriating drapery of gems; again it refused to admit her. What was Rasha doing? Was Rap all right, or had the impish legionaries finally broken down the door? Her legs wobbled with weariness, but she must stay close to this impossible sorcery in the hope that somehow it would lead her home again.
Azak’s eyes had made her think of rubies on first sight, but now they had darkened to garnets and were regarding her with a haughty stare that reminded her of Firedragon, the stallion. “You truly have no occult power . . . your Majesty?”
Inos shook her head, feeling weary now beyond speech. A whole world between her and Krasnegar, and Rap. Rap? Suddenly she realized that, more than anything else, she wanted Rap here beside her. Solid, dependable, reliable Rap. How strange! Rap?
The sultan fingered his beard thoughtfully. His feet had not moved since she entered. They were enclosed in very softlooking shoes that curled up absurdly at the toes. Certainly not desert wear. Rather decadent, in fact.
“That is indeed curious.”
“In what way?” Aunt Kade inquired, casting another worried glance at Inos.
“Because the sorceress slut has cast a spell upon me. By rights you should both have been turned to stone before now.”
“Turned to stone!” Inos and Kade echoed in chorus.
He nodded. “Anyone who grants me my correct honorific . . . I wonder if the curse works only on my own subjects, not strangers? No, the ambassador from Shuggaran was smitten.”
It would have been kind of him to have mentioned the matter sooner.
“This petrification,” Kade murmured, obviously deeply offended by the idea, “is it . . . reversible?”
He glanced in surprise at her—Kade’s queries were often much sharper than her appearance led one to expect. “In the beginning it was not. The first half dozen or so victims are still statues. Now the jade usually restores them to life after a week or two.”
“That is the most disgustingly stupid thing I have ever heard of!” Inos said.
“I told you—she is a whore, an evil woman, and spiteful.”
“She must also be half-witted, if she did not see what would happen with a spell like that loose! Six people died before she changed to a sorcery she could undo?”
He shrugged. “But why were you not immobilized when you gave me my legal title?”
Obviously he had expected it to happen. That realization left Inos at a loss for words.
“The effects of the curse are limited to the palace itself,” the big man mused. “Can it be that this odious sorcerous chamber is excluded?”
Again Inos looked around. She could see nothing obviously sorcerous, only an excessive amount of bright-colored furniture, much of it ugly and garish, intermixed with ill-suited statuary. Nor could she see any doorway. The floor, where it was visible, was a spectacular mosaic of vines and flowers, all intricately intertwined and as brightly hued as a swarm of butterflies, but the effect was ruined by a litter of rugs, as gawdy and mismatched as the furniture. Everything looked expensive, but nothing fit or blended. Whoever had assembled the collection had been sadly lacking in even the rudiments of taste. One glance at this warehouse would give Duke Angilki a seizure.
But being turned to stone . . . Was this oddly youthful sultan trying to be humorous? As Inos was planning a suitable query, the drape jingled again. A huge gray dog bounded through, skidded on the polished tiles past both Inos and her aunt, and came to a stop facing Azak. The dislike was immediate, and mutual.
The dog bared teeth, flattened ears, and raised hackles. Azak put hand to sword hilt.
Inos was about to speak, then her courage failed her. Rap had called the monster “Fleabag” affectionately, as if it were a cuddly lapdog instead of an overgrown timber wolf. It had obeyed him eagerly, but dogs were always happy to go along with Rap’s suggestions, and Rap was not present now. It had not noticed Kade or Inos, apparently, and even to speak its name might attract its hostility.