Broc interrupted. “You know Hylle, he would think himself above any threat of reprisal, or else scheme how he could turn it to his own advantage. As he schemes now. Yaal—as he schemes now!”
“The stars have come full turn, and the serpent is ready to strike. I do not think Hylle either schemes nor stirs his great pot to any purpose this night. Now is the hour for us to make an end.”
Together they walked toward the stairhead, Ysmay trailing them. She would not stay alone in this haunted place.
The monster hissed. It had flattened its body to the floor and its red eyes were fixed on them. Broc made a pass of hand through the air and between his fingers he now held a sword.
No light reflected from any steel. The blade had no cutting edge, but was ruddy brown and carved as if from wood. However, seeing it, the monster slunk away. It hissed and spat, retreating steadily. Thus they came down to Hylle’s workshop, where noxious fumes were heavy.
In the center was a fire in a stone-lined pit. From a crossbar over the fire hung a giant pot into which Hylle was flinging handfuls of objects from a nearby bench. As he filled the pot so he chanted, paying no attention to those who came.
“Are his wits turned?” Broc asked. “Surely he must know that this will not work again.”
“Oh, but it will!” Yaal held up her arm. The yellow eyes of the snake glowed, grew larger, larger, became a single orb, a sun hanging in the dark room. The monster gave a bubbling scream.
It raced across the floor—not toward the three by the stair, but for its master. At the same time the amulet flamed in Ysmay’s hand. The color it gave off was green, and its light rippled and lapped across the floor, speeding to the pit.
The green flood boiled over the lip but did not douse the flames, merely set them leaping higher. Now they were green flames.
Ysmay heard the break in Hylle’s chant. He screamed as the monster reached him. They writhed together, tottered and fell forward, still entwined, into the bubbling pot.
Instantly the orb was gone, the green flames died. In the pot a liquid seethed quietly just below the rim, and there was no way of seeing below the surface.
Dawn and a new day. Ysmay leaned against the outer wall of the star tower. It was hard to believe that she could breathe the fresh winter air after the fumes of the tower and its stench of evil. That she had survived the night past was a miracle. For the moment she was content with that alone.
Then Yaal’s hand was on her arm and they were three in the courtyard with the gray sky above them.
“It is changed, sad changed,” Yaal said. “This is not Quayth as it should be.”
“It can be changed again,” Broc said briskly. “That which ate its heart is gone. And we have the future—”
What of Ysmay? She was not Lady of Quayth, nor had ever been. Would she now ride to Uppsdale, even less than she had been before?
“I was Hylle’s wife,” she said slowly. “It was by my own choice that I came to Quayth—though I knew not what he was—yet I took this path without protest.”
“And so were the saving of us all.” Broc looked at her. His face with its resemblance to Hylle moved her in a way she did not understand. No—he was not Hylle, rather what an untried girl once thought Hylle might be. “Nor were you Hylle’s wife,” he continued, “nor his creature—if you had been, you could not have worn the serpent, or stood with us this night.”
“Say not Hylle’s wife, but rather Rathonna’s daughter!” Yaal’s voice had almost the tone of an order. “Many and strange are the weavings of fortune. We are of an old people, we of Quayth, and we have learning which has given us powers the ignorant grant to godlings. Yet we are also of human kind in many ways. That is why we can have such as Hylle among us. They are of our own brood. Hylle wanted to master certain powers it was not right to meddle with—”
“He wanted more,” Broc broke in. “He wanted—”
“Me? Perhaps, but rather he wanted what he thought he could gain through me. And he was strong, too strong then, for us, though we did what we could—”
“Like hiding the serpent?” Ysmay asked.
“Like that. But the waiting was long until one would come who could use it, Rathonna’s daughter. You say you are not Lady of Quayth, but do not say that again! Hylle wished to use you to gain the true amber he must have to build the false he used for dark purposes. For the false must always have a grain of the true within it. He wished to use you, but you were not for him. Be proud and glad, daughter of Rathonna.”
“Welcome to Quayth,” Broc added. “And this time a true welcome, doubt not that!”
Nor did Ysmay then, or ever. Though whether she was the Ysmay of Uppsdale in those after days, or someone much changed by fate, she sometimes wondered. Not that it mattered for Quayth’s welcome was warm enough to content her.
Nor did she need to go into that shunned tower and look upon a lump of miswrought amber in which man and monster stood locked in endless embrace, to remind herself of what lay behind.