The king follows my glance, sees the young man, and frowns. “Edmund, you know better than this! What are you doing here?”
The prince flushes. “Forgive me, Father. I didn’t mean to—to interrupt. I came looking for you. Mother is ill. The physician thinks you should come. But when I arrived, I didn’t want to disturb the council and so I waited, and then I heard … I heard what Baltazar said! Is it true, Father? Will we have to leave—”
“That will do, Edmund. Wait for me. I will be with you presently.”
The boy gulps, bows, and fades back, silent and unobtrusive, to stand in the shadows near the doorway. My heart aches for him. I long to comfort him, to explain. I meant to frighten them, not him.
“Forgive me, I must go to my wife.”
The king rises to his feet. The council members do likewise; the meeting is obviously at an end.
“I need not tell you to keep this quiet until we have more information,” the king continues. “Your own common sense will point out to you the wisdom of such an action. We will meet together again in five cycles’ time. However,” he adds, his brows knotting together, “I advise that we take the recommendation of the Farmer’s Guild and make an early harvest.”
The members vote. The recommendation passes. They file out, many casting dark and unhappy glances back at me. They would dearly love to blame this on someone. I meet each gaze with unruffled aplomb, secure in my position. When the last one has left, I glide forward and lay a hand on the arm of the king, who is eager to be gone.
“What is it?” the king demands, obviously irritated at my interruption. He is much concerned about his wife.
“Your Majesty, forgive me for delaying you, but I wanted to mention something to you in private.”
The king draws back, away from my touch. “We do nothing in secret on Kairn Telest. Whatever you want to say to me should have been said in the council.”
“I would have said it in the council, if I were certain of my facts. I prefer to leave it to the wisdom and discretion of His Majesty to bring up the matter if he thinks it proper that the people should know.”
He glares at me. “What is it, Baltazar? Another theory?”
“Yes, Sire. Another theory … about the colossus. According to my studies, the magic in the colossus was intended by the ancients to be eternal. The magic in the colossus, Your Majesty, could not possibly fail.”
The king regards me in exasperation. “I don’t have time for games, Necromancer. You were the one who said the colossus were failing—”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I did. And I believe that they are. But perhaps I chose the wrong word to describe what is happening to our colossus. The word may not be failure, Sire, but destruction. Deliberate destruction.”
The king stares at me, then shakes his head. “Come, Edmund,” he says, motioning peremptorily to his son. “We will go see your mother.”
The young man runs to join his father. The two start to walk away.
“Sire,” I call out, the urgency in my voice bringing the king again to a halt. “I believe that somewhere, in realms that exist below Kairn Telest, someone wages a most insidious war on us. And they will defeat us utterly, unless we do something to stop them. Defeat us without so much as letting fly an arrow or tossing a spear. Someone, Sire, is stealing away the warmth and light that give us life!”
“For what purpose, Baltazar? What is the motive for this nefarious scheme?”
I ignore the king’s sarcasm. “To use it for themselves, Sire. I thought long and hard on this problem during my journey home to Kairn Telest. What if Abarrach itself is dying? What if the magma heart is shrinking? A kingdom might consider it necessary to steal from its neighbors to protect its own.”
“You’re mad, Baltazar,” says the king. He has his hand on his son’s thin shoulder, steering him away from me. But Edmund looks over his shoulder, his eyes large and frightened. I smile at him, reassuringly, and he seems relieved. My smile vanishes, the moment he can no longer see me.