Parol stood at the foot of the throne, facing the delegation with a set smile. A merchant whose cheeks were as ruddy as his thick velvet robe turned from Hale and pointed toward the apprentice wizard.
Of course. The villagers were demanding that the perimeter be expanded—and that meant replacing Parol with a competent wizard.
Parol’s face didn’t change. He gestured, and a phantom formed in the air. It had smokey bones and the head of a pig, also in shadowed outline. It stepped toward the delegation.
Villagers backed, stumbling on their unfamiliar formal garments. Then they turned and ran. Parol’s expression was the unchanged. Behind him, Hale covered his face with his hands.
“I don’t want to see this!” Dennis shouted. His words were still ringing in the air when Emath Palace became the gray reflection of a hut and a young man staring back from the glass with an anguished look on his face.
“I don’t understand why that’s happening,” Dennis whispered.
“Your father was a king because the sea hag made him a king, Dennis,” his companion said. “Now he must be a king on his own—or no king at all…”
Chester’s tentacle squeezed Dennis’ hand.
Dennis hadn’t looked at himself since he awakened. The ointment had done a wonderful job of healing his wounds. Pink welts marked the tan of his skin, but he’d expected deep scars at the least…
Dennis’ left hand rose and tugged at his ear as he watched the mirror. He’d been sure that Malbawn had torn it off with his first blow, but the ear was fine, just twinges of pain in it as in almost every muscle of his body.
“Show me the Princess Aria,” he said softly, and the mirror shimmered in response…
She had set the bracelets and jeweled combs from her hair on the table beside her bed, but she still wore the crystal pendant. As Dennis watched, she took off the dress she’d been wearing when she and Conall visited his room.
When Dennis had insulted them both; and they’d deserved it, Dennis knew they’d deserved it… but they’d been coming to check his condition, and their faces from his delirium were surely memories of earlier visits.
She tossed the dress toward the cabinet into which it vanished like fog melting before the sun.
Aria wore nothing beneath the dress. The fine hairs on her body gleamed like liquid gold as she stepped into the tub. Steam rose as her slim legs stirred the surface.
She settled. The crystals between her breasts spun dancing light over the room and the water as it bobbed, now beneath the fluid and now above it…
“I don’t—” Dennis said. He couldn’t finish the command until he turned his face toward the doorway. He was gasping for breath.
“Don’t show me this either,” he said in a husky voice. “Let me—”
He bent at the waist and the rush of blood to his head restored his balance. “Chester,” he said, “let’s go—”
A cow blatted from across the field.
Dennis straightened, looking at his companion.
“Do not undertake a duty unless you have the power to enforce it,” Chester said.
“I’ve got the power,” Dennis grunted, lifting the sword a finger’s breadth in its scabbard to prove that it would slide freely. He stepped out into the sunlight.
Malbawn was dead. The odor of his decay permeated the air around him.
Therefore it wasn’t Malbawn who stalked toward Dennis from the other side of the pasture.
CHAPTER 36
The cows were in restless motion. Their sidling movement away from the creature, always with their black-and-white heads twisted back to watch for surprises—was punctuated as a half dozen of the beasts suddenly decided to bolt a hundred yards in a snorting gallop.
Their eyes rolled when they saw Dennis. They bolted from him as well.
Dennis drew his sword. The grass the cows had cropped short brushed his ankles as he strode toward the yellow-gray creature. He saw Chester in the corner of his left eye, following on liquid-rippling tentacles a pace behind and a pace to the side.
The creature was advancing on all six legs. Fifty yards from Dennis it lifted itself and waved the saw-edged front and middle pairs.