If I Pay Thee Not In Gold

• Chapter 17

That night, the three of them shared a sleeping-place, with Ware between the two humans. And oddly, now that the temptation had been weathered, Xylina found that she no longer desired Thesius-and when he glanced at her, she no longer saw that mirroring desire in his face. He felt, instead, like the brother he resembled, and for the first time in her life, she felt complete-for now she had everything, a friend in Faro, a brother in Thesius, and a beloved in the form of Ware.

For the first time, she made love to Ware with Thesius lying naked beside them. When she finished, she lay without jealousy as Wara made love to Thesius. She had accepted the new reality, though it was alien to anything she could have believed before this excursion. She didn't even feel guilty. This was love of a different kind, but nevertheless love, all the greater for the understanding it required.

Her contentment was short-lived, but only because there was still a task ahead for all of them.

The next morning they saddled all four horses and moved out, leaving everything they no longer needed in the cave. With luck, they would be back for it, but if not, there was nothing there that they could not do without, and the less burden the horses carried the more speed they could make.

Ware had discovered an additional entrance to the shard-cave that the guardians did not consider to be as important as the main entrance. It was above the main entrance in the valley, in an area covered with goat-tracks. It led to a place where water had eaten a way down into the main cavern; a place that actually caused the lower caverns to flood on occasion. Granted, it was a very small entrance, and one that the average Mazonite could never squeeze through-but Xylina was small enough that she could get in. For once in her life, her small size was going to prove an advantage!

By the time they reached the cave and its guarded environs, their plan was as solid as any plan could be, considering how many variables were involved.

Xylina, Thesius, and Ware lay hidden just outside the valley of the cave. They were near enough to the entrance so that they could reach it quickly, but just outside the guards' usual perimeter. False dawn was just beginning, and the guards were at their most relaxed. No one truly expected an attempt on the shard in broad daylight, so the guards on the day-watch were not particularly alert. In fact, they often played at games of chance to wile away the hours-and that figured very largely in the plan.

Faro returned just as the sun crept above the horizon, a bundle of fabric under his arm. He passed it silently to Ware, who quickly donned it. It was one of the crystal-guards' uniforms; Xylina did not ask Faro how he had obtained one, and from whom. She was just grateful that there was no blood on it.

Even though Xylina would be entering the cave by a different route, someone would need to distract the guards at the main entrance, in case they heard a noise in the cave and became alarmed. Since Ware could not be harmed by any weapon, he was the logical choice for the role of "distraction." He would pretend to be a new guard, and would introduce the other guards to an entirely new game of chance, a very noisy one, and one that was both exciting and required a great deal of concentration. Faro had learned this game from the Pacha, and he had tutored the demon in it at every possible halt until Ware was as expert as any non-Pacha could be. To give him an initial stake for the game-and to whet the guards' appetite for it-Xylina had taken the risk of conjuring a small pouch of silver and gold nuggets. Ware would soon lose many of those; greed would make the guards want them all.

Ware fastened up the uniform tunic and tied the pouch to his belt. With a wink, he strode boldly up the valley to the entrance. Now it was time to wait again.

Finally, at mid-morning, excited shouts and cheers echoed up the valley toward their hiding-place. Ware had succeeded in his distraction, and it was time to go.

They slipped up the valley, then climbed the cliff above the main entrance to find the secondary way in. The ascent was not difficult-in fact, there was even a path there. The problem was not access, but the three guards that waited at the tiny slit in the cliff-face that led down to the main cave.

She needed a second distraction, but this one was easier to come by. Faro took one handful of gold nuggets-this time, though, they were dirty, loaded with quartz, and in general, looked very much as if they had just broken off of a larger mass. Xylina took a handful, and Thesius took the third handful. They climbed above the trail to the second entrance, and located the three little goat-tracks Faro and Ware had found. They scattered their nuggets all along these paths, until they reached the point where all three trails met. There, Xylina worked a little more conjuration, creating a false front to the cliff-face of quartz ribboned with veins of gold. It would take men with proper tools several days to chip the gold free- and those men below had no such thing. But she had no doubt they would try.

Then they returned down the goat-trails and concealed themselves in three separate places near and above where the guards would pass.

Xylina waited, as the others were waiting, and as the guard passed below her position, dropped the last of her nuggets so that it bounced down the side of the mountain and onto the trail just in front of the man, as if it had been naturally dislodged at just that moment.

The gold caught the light perfectly, and the guard leaned over to see what it was.

She could not see his face from here, but his whole form stiffened. He snatched up the nugget, and looked around furtively, then looked up.

She could easily see him, but he could not see her through the screening of the gorse bushes. She waited, and shortly she heard him ascending the goat-trail, on a furtive, silent hunt for more nuggets. With luck, the other two would be doing the same. If Faro and Thesius got the opportunity, they would knock the guards out, but only Faro had the skill and strength to carry such a move off without one of them calling a warning. Her plan called for Faro to dispose of his own guard; the other two would then presumably meet at the cliff face, and either quarrel over the gold, or reach some kind of conclusion, and each would greedily try and remove more than his fellow. In either case, there would be no further interference from the guards.

She dropped down to the trail and sought out the entrance to the upper cave.

It was less of an entrance than an exaggerated slit in the rock. Only the fact that Ware had been here before and that it was guarded left her inclined to trust that it led to the lower caves. She squeezed herself inside-literally-with no more space between her face and the rock-face than the thickness of a piece of paper, and rock pressing into her back.

Of all the things she had needed to do, this was the worst. It was dark, darker than the blackest, overcast night. She barely had room to take a breath-in fact, in order to make any progress at all, she had to exhale, inch forward, then stop to take another breath. She was very glad that her tunic was of leather, or she would have been leaving skin behind on the rock-face by now.

Several times she had to stop and fight back panic, telling herself that Ware had already been here, and that the passage did get wider eventually. All she had to do was to go a little further-just a little further-

Suddenly, she broke free of the rocky embrace, and tumbled into a larger chamber. She landed on her hands and knees, and quickly sat down to take several lung-filling, free breaths.

Now she took a chance and conjured a glowstone to light her way. The chamber in which she sat was a small one, but quite spacious compared with the passage.

At the end of the chamber opposite the passageway was a large hole in the floor of the cave. This, Ware had told her, led down to the guard-chamber just outside the one holding the crystal shard itself. It resembled a steep rabbit-hole, but it was large enough to take several people her size, slanting downward when she crawled over to it to look. Ware said that it looked to him as if had been made by the passage of a great deal of water down that hole over the course of many centuries, water that had since found another outlet. But there were marks in this upper chamber that indicated more recent flooding, and he had learned that from time to time a sudden storm might send water into that passage even these days. That would flood the lower cavern, and the guards would retreat to the valley, waiting for the full day it took the caverns to drain. She saw nothing down below, not even a light; the slanting passage and the distance it had to cross in order to reach the guard-chamber made certain of that. But if she listened, carefully, she could hear the guards talking.

She would have to risk one more conjuration, and hope that no one detected it. So far, no one had; Ware had thought that the shard itself might mask such magic-workings. She hoped he was right. Because this was going to be something more than a few nuggets of gold or silver.

She conjured water.

Floods of it, torrents of it. She sent it rushing down the passageway to the guard-chamber, filling the entire passageway with her conjured flood, creating a river of water that she sent pouring down on the heads of the unsuspecting guards. Who would, of course, assume that the upper chamber had flooded again, and abandon their posts for the length of time it usually took for the water to drain.

When she thought she had conjured enough water to fill the lower chamber completely, she stopped. Then, steeling herself, she took the glowstone in one hand and edged over to the passageway, sat down on the edge, and pushed off.

She slid, as if the sides had been greased. This was as exciting as the trip through the outer passage had been harrowing. The smooth walls of the water-tunnel slid by her; as Ware had instructed, she put out her feet now and again to brake her speed, but for the most part, she simply thrilled in the feeling of near-flight. As a small child she had slid down mud-slick banks on the family estate; this was to that feeling as her first primitive conjurations were to what she could do now!

Finally, and without warning, the slide ended. She had just enough time to gulp in a breath, before she plunged feet-first into her own conjured water. In a single heartbeat, she was several feet under the surface, glowstone in one hand, the other flailing away at nothing.

In the next moment, she had banished it, and she stood, completely dry, in the midst of the guard-chamber. She was alone.

Now there remained only the crystal.

She was almost disappointed when she spied it. The thing looked just like a piece of glass. But of course that was what it was: a glassy fragment of a much larger crystal. A shard.The shard. It was set into a holder in the wall, and she wondered why. But then it occurred to her that the guards would want to see it to know it was still there; if it had been locked into a box, it could have been stolen and no one would know until some later routine check.

Her immediate inclination was to take the crystal from its setting, and flee. But that would set off traps. Surely these people had traps. If she had been guarding this stone,she would have set traps!

She did not think that she would be able to conjure a copy of the crystal, either-at least not in time to get it into the holder without setting off the traps. Without a doubt, these people had planned for a Mazonite conjuror to attempt to take the shard, and would have acted accordingly.

Ware had not been able to give her any advice here. He had not been able to get near enough the chamber holding the crystal to see how it was held. The attempt would have caused him harm.

Xylina came close to the wall and stared at the holder, taking a good look at it. How could she remove the shard without setting off traps and alarms? As transparent as the shard was, it was fairly easy to see the rods set into the holder, pressed against the crystal itself. And it was easy to see how the slightest movement of the shard would move the rods. No, these people had planned very carefully for a Mazonite conjuror-

But suddenly she saw her solution, and smiled. For they had planned for the kind of conjuror that Adria was: one who concentrated on major effects. Adria would have either snatched the crystal and attempted to insert a duplicate, or smashed the holder.

There was another way. For as she stared at the shard, she felt its magic ambience. It reached out to her, touching her mind, making it more clever, and it touched her heart, making her desire it with a passion as strong as she had ever desired a man. It touched her power, and suddenly she knew what she could do. And the crystal itself would help her.

Lightly she touched one finger to the shard, closed her eyes, and concentrated. Creating-vapor. Water vapor. Forcing water into every tiny crack and crevice of the holder until it was completely saturated. And then, with a twist of thought unlike any she had done before-

She turned it to ice.

Water, she had learned in her lessons from Marcus, expanded when it was frozen. Everything else contracted. In a moment, she had chilled the area down to where her breath made clouds in the air; the ice itself was as hard as steel.

In the past she had been able to conjure many substances, but they were normally of ambient temperature. Metal would not be hot or cold, water would seem cool but be the temperature of the surrounding air. One exception was ice: that was by its nature cold, so conjured that way. Otherwise it would have appeared as a puddle of water. But to actually, magically, change the temperature of an existing object or substance-that was a power hitherto reserved to the demons. Now, by virtue of the shard, it was hers. So she could heat water-or freeze it. She could do what no other Mazonite could, and what therefore the defenders of the shard had not anticipated. It had outsmarted them.

The frozen ice held the rods in place while she carefully extracted the shard from the holder, and continued to hold them while she conjured a perfect replica in its place.

Tucking the shard inside her tunic, she returned to the outer chamber, conjured a ladder of stone to the hole in the ceiling, then continued conjuring and dissipating stone steps before and behind her, until she had reached the chamber above.

Then it was another squeeze through the passageway to the outer world-and a joyful, but silent reunion with Faro and Thesius, before the three of them made their escape into the mountains and the rally-point with Ware.

Only one thing disappointed her: she did not know how long that conjured replica would last. It had, after all, been produced with the aid of the shard itself. It might last only the day; it might last for weeks, months, or even years.

But eventually, it would dissipate on its own. And she truly regretted the fact that she would not be there to see what happened when it did!

"Xylina, why are you stopping?" Faro asked, as Xylina reined in her horse at the edge of the Pacha realm. Their trek across it had been a near mirror of their original trip, although with fewer people, and instead of the Pacha visiting their camps, they had traded conjured wine and feasts for Pacha hospitality. The Pacha had been thrilled with the bargain, and nearly every chieftain that had hosted them had begged them to stay.

She did not answer at once; instead, she stared at the bleak, and yet beautiful landscape. Finally, she spoke.

"Gentlemen-do you still like the Pacha? Do you think you could live here?" Perhaps it was the effect of the shard, which she now wore in a conjured gold locket, so that it enhanced her while not harming Ware or the men. But perhaps it was instead the time she'd had to think on the way back-to reflect on exactly where her loyalty should lie, and the effect on the Mazonites when the shard came into Adria's hands.

Ware urged his mount to take the few steps needed to bring it beside hers. "You are not going to take the crystal to Adria, are you," he said quietly, making it more of a statement than a question.

She shook her head. "No matter what I do, if the shard goes to the Queen, it will change my realm and my people, and for the worse. Adria will become a terrible tyrant, and no one will be able to stop her. Eventually, the shard will force Adria to bring it to the main stone, and that will be the end of everything I have known."

Faro's brow wrinkled for a moment. "You did make a vow-" he reminded her.

She smiled. "I am learning to think like a demon, my friend. I made a vow to retrieve the shard. I did not vow to give it to Adria."

Thesius shook his head as she turned to see his reaction. "You can't take it back to where it was. That would be stupid and suicidal!"

She sighed, and her horse stirred restively under her. "No. I can't take it back, I can't simply 'lose' it, for some poor fool will be drawn to it and in her ignorance take it to the main stone. I must keep it, and attempt to use it as little as possible. And if I am going to keep it-I must stay out of Mazonia." She looked searchingly at all of them. "This is an exile, you know-"

"Not for me," Thesius protested. "You can't be exiled from somewhere you've never been! The Pacha are plenty interesting enough to keep me busy for a long time!"

"Nor for me," Faro said. "This isn't exile-"

"No, my dearest friend," she told him, with a warm smile. "For you, it is freedom. You may stay with me if you wish, or go if you wish-"

"I'll stay," he said firmly. "Someone has to keep you out of trouble."

That left only Ware, but as he slipped his hand wordlessly into hers, she knew what his answer was. She squeezed the hand, the unhumanly graceful, beloved hand, for a long moment-

Then turned her horse and led them all back to the last Pacha village they had visited.

There was only one thing remaining.

To wait for the Queen's answer to this betrayal.

The answer was not long in coming.

"What?" Adria shrieked, rising from her throne like an enraged cat.

The Pacha agent, still in her leather and paints, repeated her news, although she shrank back a little from the Queen's rage. "Xylina has obtained the stone you wished, but has evidently decided to retain it for herself. She has had it set in gold and wears it about her neck. She has taken up residence with the Sandfox Clan of the Pacha. They are building a home for her and her retinue. There are three men with her: the demon, her personal slave, and another man who looks like her brother."

Adria's anger cooled as swiftly as it had heated, but it did not leave her. Instead, it turned to something colder and more purposeful. She sank back down onto her throne, and considered the matter carefully, dismissing the spy with an absent wave of her hand.

She had hoped that the naive child would bring the shard directly to her, but the demon must have revealed what it was and what its powers were to her, and greed had overcome her. This was unsurprising, really; it was what Adria herself would have done if their positions were reversed.

But there were only three with the girl. The Pacha would not protect her against the Queen's wrath. They had a treaty, after all; they would abide by that treaty. There was only one thing to be done: to go and take the shard from the girl by force.

Adria summoned her majordomo and ordered him to bring Xantippe to the private audience chamber. When the old warrior appeared, Adria studied her for a long time before speaking.

"You once commanded one of the armies, did you not?" she asked.

Xantippe nodded, brusquely. "It was before your reign, my Queen," the older woman replied, "But yes, I did. My record will show that I was a very successful commander."

"Good," Adria replied, leaning forward. "Now-how would you like to participate in both the downfall of Xylina and the destruction of her slave Faro?"

Xantippe's eyes widened slightly, and she smiled.

Less than a day later, two armies marched out of the capital. The first, smaller and faster than the second, and composed entirely of veterans, was commanded by Xantippe, and was intended to cut Xylina's path of escape across Pacha lands. The second, composed mostly of newly-recruited slaves, was commanded by Queen Adria herself. This was the army that Xylina was intended to see.

The other, she was not meant to see until it was too late.

"I'm sorry, Xylina; I should have guessed she would do something like that-" Thesius was babbling; this was the fifth or sixth time that he had repeated his apology, but the second of Adria's forces had come as a terrible surprise to all of them. Xylina could not blame him for babbling. The jaws of the trap had closed on them, before they even realized that it was a trap.

Adria had done exactly what Xylina had expected-in part. She had brought an army across the border, and had come straight for Xylina, presumably to claim the crystal. Xylina had thrown dozens of traps, pitfalls, and dangers into the army's path; Adria had simply used her men to clear her way, marching forward sometimes literally over the bodies of her slaves. The Mazonite Guards with the army had ensured that no man who tried to desert survived the attempt-so the poor slaves had the choice of a probable death, or a certain one.

All four of them were exhausted by their work on defenses; they had not changed their clothing in days, or eaten except whatever they could snatch on the fly. But Xylina was the weariest, for upon her had fallen the burden of conjuration. She had been aided by the shard, but the time and effort still were hers. It had not helped that Ware had insisted on training her in a special way, to learn to better control the new power the shard gave her to affect temperature. So that she could not only freeze water, but heat it to boiling, or heat other substances to the burning point. She understood his logic, for the ability of temperature conjuration was potentially an enormous asset. But the constant practicing was wearing, and she wished he had been willing to let it wait until she didn't have so much else to do.

Xylina had been sickened by the wholesale slaughter; so much so that she had not thought to look for some other trick of Adria's until it was too late. Now their only route of escape was closed-and Adria and the remnants of her army were closing quickly.

There must be something she could do, she thought in desperation. There had to be some other way out of this trap! If only she could challenge the Queen to single-combat...

"Xylina," Ware said urgently, recalling her to her surroundings and the tiny rock-walled room in which the four of them sat, "you must challenge the Queen. It is the only way."

"How can I?" she wailed, despairing. "This is not Mazonia! She is not bound by the rules with a traitor and an oath-breaker! She need not-"

"But you have something she wants, little mistress," Faro pointed out, shrewdly and unexpectedly. "You have the shard. Send to her by the Pacha, and tell her that you will destroy it unless-"

"Unless she agrees to meet me! Of course!" Xylina's despair turned again to hope, and she jumped out of her simple wooden chair to hug Faro around the neck. He blushed, but grinned. Thesius had already run out of the room to fetch one of their Pacha "allies," who were willing to act as messengers and sometimes scouts so long as such duty did not directly involve them in combat.

But no sooner had the messenger been dispatched than Xylina's mood deflated. "I will not need to-" she said to Ware, pleadingly. "Will I? I do not think I could bear to-"

He sighed. "You do realize, beloved, that this is the shard's first effect upon you? That it makes itself so precious to you that you cannot bear the thought of destroying it?"

She nodded, sadly. She did know that, and her intellect rebelled at being so controlled-and yet, controlled it was, and she could no more smash the shard than destroy Ware.

But the demon moved to stand behind her, and put his hands on her shoulders, massaging the tense muscles of her neck and shoulders gently. "Do not worry, beloved. The Queen is more influenced by her desire for the shard than you are. She will think only that you are serious, and seeing yourself lost, your cause in ruins, and yourself about to be killed, that you will be willing to take the shard with you. She will believe your bluff, and she will not know that it is a bluff. You will see."

Before half the morning had passed, the messenger had returned, and all was as Ware had foretold. The Queen had agreed to meet Xylina in a traditional Mazonite challenge. She had even proposed the conditions, all of which both Ware and Xylina agreed were reasonable. With one addition. They were to meet at noon, in an isolated area of Xylina's choosing. All men and Mazonites were to stand out of bowshot range of the site. Xylina was to be permitted to booby-trap the area, so long as she led the Queen inside herself, thus ensuring the safe way in. They were to meet nude, so as to ensure than neither carried in physical weaponry, and the crystal was to be placed on a stone in the middle of the ground, to be taken by the survivor. Other than that-there were to be no rules. Just one modification, concerning the crystal, to make that aspect fair.

"You are younger and stronger, since this journeying has hardened you, beloved," Ware said, when they had read the proposal through. "But do not underestimate Adria. She is cunning and vicious, and she has survived many of these challenges."

Xylina took a deep breath, and looked into his eyes. It had finally come to this-a challenge that she did not want, for power she did not wish to have; something she had tried to avoid and which had, in the end, come for her.

And yet-the reward would be something Adria had never known, and would never understand.

"I have to survive only one, beloved," she told him. "And believe me, I do intend to survive that one."

The burning sun beat down upon the two women: two combatants, who were the very antithesis of each other. Xylina, small, slender, long-waisted and high breasted, with her blond hair streaming down to her waist-and Adria, lean, whip-cord-tough, no more figure than a boy, and with her dark hair cut aggressively short. And yet Adria, who was by far the more experienced and tougher-looking, already showed some slight discomfort-perhaps from the exposure to the sun. Xylina, clothed only in her signature banner of hair, seemed completely serene and at ease-perhaps because she had been the plaything of the elements for some time now, and had gotten used to them.

Between them lay the crystal, on a flat rock in the center of the makeshift arena. Xylina had insisted on that one change in the challenge-rules; the crystal lay beneath a pair of transparent domes of near-unbreakable adamant. She had created one, Adria had created the other. Any force great enough to smash the domes would also smash the crystal. Neither of the combatants would be able get at the crystal unless the other was dead, for at death, all conjurations dissolved.

Adria had not liked that rule, although she had agreed to it, and her glance kept straying to the glinting gold-and-crystal shape of the protected shard. Perhaps she hoped to trick Xylina into dissolving her conjuration so that the Queen could grab the shard and use it to win. Or to lure Xylina away from it, to where she could be ambushed or driven away. In a day her conjuration would dissolve anyway, and then the Queen could get the shard. Ware had warned Xylina that if the Queen found any way to get the shard without finishing the combat, she would. "Kill her," he had cautioned. "No mercy, no hesitation. Just kill her, as quickly as you can. Nothing else." Faro and Thesius had nodded agreement.

So Xylina did not look at the shard. She kept her attention fixed firmly on the distant figure of Xantippe. When the old warrior dropped the banner she held, the combat would begin. Only Adria knew what Adria would do first, although it was a fair bet that it would be a sudden and overwhelming attack. One of the reasons that Adria had been so successful in these challenges was that she never did the same thing twice, so there was no way to anticipate her. Every combat she had undertaken had begun differently.

Xylina hoped that her own first move would take the Queen off-guard. The banner dropped.

An enormous block of stone appeared just above where Xylina was standing, and crashed down into the ground, smashing everything beneath it to powder. But Xylina was no longer there.

She had created a tiny springboard just in front of herself, and had used it to catapult herself through the air, landing well out of range of the stone, and-most importantly-right next to the domes protecting the shard. Now she could use the domes as a kind of shield, and unless Adria wanted to risk smashing the crystal, she could not use any more weapons like that block of stone. If she dispelled her own dome, Xylina would be able to get her hands on the crystal, thus greatly increasing her own power. Adria's scream of rage told Xylina that this first ploy, at least, was a success. Now Xylina took her second move, while Adria was still off-balance. It was the essence of simplicity: she copied the Queen's first move.

A block of stone the same size as the one Adria had made appeared over the Queen's head. And stayed there-for the Queen had conjured several stout metal posts to support its weight. A standard defense for a standard attack.

So the first round was done. There were no turns in such combat, but the action did tend to fall into segments as one attacked and the other countered. A woman who did not counter would soon be dead.

There was more than the usual significance to this round, however. The Queen had tried to finish the battle swiftly, and had failed. Conjuration was limited; a woman's magic grew progressively fatigued, until finally she was unable to conjure any more. The victor in past battles between ranking women had generally been the one whose power of conjuration outlasted that of her opponent. Xylina suspected that the Queen had gambled most of her power on the first ploy, hoping not to have to follow up. She also suspected that her own power of conjuration was now significantly greater than the Queen's, because of her practice in the wilderness. Xylina could conjure a second block the mass of the first; she doubted that the Queen could.

But at the moment this didn't matter, because there was no way to drop such a block on the Queen. The stout posts would support both, leaving the Queen unscathed. Defense in such cases was usually cheaper than attack. So the massive conjurations were over-unless Xylina could somehow force the Queen out of her impromptu shelter where she would be vulnerable to another block. She wanted to save her power until the Queen thought she was safe from it. So for now Xylina planned to limit herself to diminishingly smaller conjurations, as if she were weakening, hoping to make the Queen overconfident.

The Queen conjured a spiked metal ball that she hurled at Xylina. Xylina, wary of what else might be coming, stepped aside while conjuring her own matching spiked ball. Sure enough, the Queen's second ball came at her, and she was unable to dodge it. So she conjured her own second ball in the path of the Queen's. The two collided in air and dropped to the ground as Xylina threw hers at the Queen. The Queen stepped behind a post, and the ball missed. But Adria looked wary; she saw how readily Xylina was matching her, and she didn't want to try something that would hurt her when the response came. Xylina was, in effect, teaching her manners.

This was proceeding into early stalemate. Xylina didn't trust that. She knew she could not afford to stand around while the Queen figured out something more deadly. But she wanted to force the Queen to use up her power of conjuration. The very best thing that she could do would be to make Adria so angry that she would stop thinking and merely react.

And the way to do that would be to attack Adria with a weapon that Adria was not expecting, and by her very nature, would not ever expect.

She must make Adria look ridiculous. While the Queen was still trying to change her plans to include Xylina's use of the domes as a shield, Xylina concentrated and conjured something of her own above the Queen's head. Directly above, and so near that Adria would not react by creating anything to shield herself from what was about to drop over her. For the Queen had left Xylina an opening, inadvertently, by remaining under the propped-up block of stone.

And since this was one of the simpler things Xylina could have conjured, it appeared instantly. On top of the block. Then Xylina dissolved the block, for it was hers. Before Adria even knew that Xylina was launching an attack, she had been buried waist deep in a very large, and very fragrant, pile of manure that lost its support just above her head and fell on her.

And to add insult to injury, Xylina topped it off with a brief rain of overripe vegetables.

Of course the Queen reflexively conjured a small shielding tower, so that the material did not land on her head. Such fighting reflexes made it difficult to score directly with barbs or acid, which was why Xylina hadn't tried them. But the stuff did pile up around her, and enough of it slopped in around her body to achieve good effect.

There was shocked and startled silence. And then, from the sidelines where the slaves of the army watched-and smelled-came the unmistakable sound of laughter. No one had expected such a joke in such a serious contest, which made it twice as funny.

Just one man laughed, and slightly hysterical at first- but that one was joined by another, and another, until the whole army was laughing, and the voices of the Mazonite officers trying to restore order were drowned in the sound.

Adria’s face turned red, then white, then red again; this time an apoplectic-looking purple-red that betokened exactly what Xylina had hoped for. Complete loss of self-control and concentration. Xylina had gambled that the Queen was fatigued by her conjurations and the tension of the occasion, and prone to overreaction, especially to the ridiculous and insulting. Stressed-out, she felt the laughter of her own troops like a physical attack.

Adria's next attack showed just how far she had fallen from that self-control; she began manifesting and throwing metal lances, one after the other. If the domes had not been in the way these could have been deadly, but now mostly clattered harmlessly off the adamant. This was basic, unsophisticated conjuration, worthy of a girl's first arena demonstration-as had been the case with Xylina. It was almost beneath the notice of an experienced Mazonite.

Xylina's reply was a deluge of water that washed away the manure, and left Adria’s legs dripping wet. She looked almost as ridiculous as before. The men roared again with helpless laughter, which was redoubled when Xylina dropped an enormous sponge and recognizable bar of soap in front of her. Mazonia had never seen combat like this!

But Xylina's purpose was not humorous at all. Her life was on the line, and she knew how dangerous the Queen remained. Adria had attacked once from above and once directly; she would probably come up next from below. Xylina could use that if she did.

Xylina was prepared when lances of rock thrust up from the sand; she had already created a table-like shield just beneath her feet, and the thrust of the rock spires carried her up into the air so that she could jump from the table to the top of the domes. Before Adria had a chance to react to so obvious a target, Xylina turned the water about her to ice, making the Queen slip and fall when she flinched back, then sent shards of ice lancing upwards in mimicry of Adria’s rock-spires. Now Ware's insistence that she practice with temperature conjuration was paying off; the Queen had not been prepared for this. Indeed, Adria probably didn't yet realize exactly what was happening.

Adria dodged out of the way, slipping ridiculously and causing the men to laugh until tears ran down their faces. She was really losing it-if this weren't a ruse. Then when Xylina continued to create the razor-sharp ice-spires, the Queen angrily countered with a great pile of cotton batting to protect her from them. This would both shield her from their points and soak up the water as they melted. She was evidently nonplused, realizing that Xylina's power was greater than anticipated; she had not expected to be forced into a defensive mode.

"Spin it!" someone called, laughing.

"No," Faro called. "Burn it!"

His voice was like a light illuminating the arena. Yes- she could make it burn.

This was just what Xylina had been waiting for. Adria had made a critical error. She had surrounded herself with flammable material. She didn't know what Xylina could do with it. And of course Xylina would not have been able to conjure flammable material around the Queen and ignite it; it had been all she could do to keep Adria at bay. She had to work on one thing at a time. But now that she had her opening, it was time to pounce.

Xylina got to work. She lay down on the dome, getting as close to the shard as possible, and felt its power radiating out to her. She concentrated as hard as she could, heating the Queen's cotton. It was hard at this distance, but her recent practice had made it possible. She drew from the shard and conjured a tiny spot of heat.

"Giving up, child?" Adria called mockingly. She thought Xylina was lying on the dome from exhaustion. She had no inkling what was in the offing.

It better light soon, though, because the Queen was getting ready to return to the attack. An ominous fog was forming over Xylina. She focused with all her might-and saw a tiny wisp of smoke just behind Adria.

Then there was a puff of flame. She had done it! The batting was burning!

The Queen turned, smelling the smoke. "What-?"

Xylina wasted no time. She knew that the Queen would banish her cotton in a moment, leaving nothing to bum. She had to pounce while she had the flame. So she conjured more fluid.

This time, what Xylina doused the Queen with was not water. It was naptha. And she followed it with oil.

The Queen, and everything around her, exploded into flames. They leaped up throughout the area as the oil flowed. It was impossible for Adria to run out of the fire fast enough-not with her oil-soaked legs already burning. There was so much oil that it fueled a fire that reached far into the sky, an inferno. Much more than the Queen must have thought Xylina was capable of conjuring at this stage. So she had been caught by surprise, thinking her opponent no stronger than herself.

Xylina slid down off the domes to cower behind the adamant as the fireball blasted everything in the vicinity. The Queen's scream of agony echoed in her ears, and went on for a long and terrible time; she covered both her ears with her hands, and still it echoed in her very soul, until she feared that the echo of it would never leave her, and she would hear it in her dreams for the rest of her life.

Finally she could not bear it any longer. She conjured one last time; another block of stone identical to Adria's first attack, a stone which she dropped on the burning Queen, extinguishing blaze, scream, and the last pitiful remnants of Adria's life.

Complete silence descended upon the field of combat, and in that silence, Xylina dissolved the sole remaining dome of adamant and claimed the shard. Then there came a low exclamation of amazement, as the watchers realized that Xylina had actually conjured almost three times as much mass as the Queen had. Xylina herself hadn't realized how much, until she paused to ponder. Maybe the mere nearness of the shard had enhanced her power in that respect too. What awful power lay in that little bit of glass! Yet she could not fear it; she loved it, despite her knowledge that it was really doing its will, not hers. It would inevitably corrupt her, and she would be an absolute fool to believe she could resist it indefinitely. But she had to-for as long as she could.

She looked out over the armies-which now technically belonged to her. She could become Queen of the Mazonites by right of battle. While her association with the demon made her technically ineligible, she could now change that law by fiat. The victor made the law, ultimately. But of course she wouldn't. That would be early corruption. She could return to her own land,and she could keep the shard. There was nothing that she could not do, but this was all she would do.

Though she was far from those assembled armies, there was one emotion she read clearly in every pair of eyes, slave or Mazonite.

Fear.

The new Queen of the Mazonites tasted her power, and found it a bitter drink. She looked out over her troops, and she said only three sentences into the waiting and frightened silence.

"I will not be Queen. Go home. All of you, go home."

Then she turned and walked wearily back to the comfort of the three who loved her.

The little rock-walled room was very crowded with five people in it. "My Queen-" Xantippe said, awkwardly. Xylina interrupted her with a shake of her head. She was bone-weary, and wearing the plainest tunic and trousers she owned, simply to try to show Xantippe by her very clothing that she had no intention of taking power.

"I told you, I am not your Queen. I am not anybody's Queen. Do I have to go all over this again?" She sipped cold water to ease a throat raw from weeping. And she was not certain for whom she had wept more-the Queen, the hundreds of slaves slaughtered in this stupid battle, or herself. "Or do you finally understand?"

"I do not understand, but I know what you want," Xantippe replied, dubiously. "You want someone else to be Queen; you do not care whom, so long as the new Queen leaves you in peace. You even suggested me! You do not want power. You will sign a treaty with the new Queen that pledges you will remain in Pacha lands and attempt to keep this stone you wear from dragging you off to the main crystal-and in return, you wish some trade with the demons, all of Ware's property and gold to be accessible to him so that he may build you and Thesius an estate here, and sanctuary for any slaves that escape and make it this far. I do not understand this, but I think that we can pledge it."

"Good." Xylina sighed, and leaned back in her seat, which was now of fine leather and strong velvet. The only spoils of war she had accepted were the Queen's traveling properties-a luxurious tent and all appointments-and those slaves who wished to remain in Pacha lands and join one of the tribes. She could not grant that wish of her ten dead men-but she could grant it to others. "Xantippe, I wish only to preserve my land and its way of life for as long as I am able. The shard is dangerous. I will not be able to do this forever. Ware tells me that eventually this shard will cause me to turn against you, and on that day, when I cross the border of Mazonia, you must consider me an enemy. But that will be long after you are dead, and probably long after every other Mazonite in this army is dead. For now- just leave us in peace. We will not trouble you, and we will not permit the freed slaves to trouble you."

Her eyes flashed for a moment, and Xantippe stepped back a pace. "And remember always, that if you will not grant this as a wish-it will come as a demand that I can enforce. The shard gives me enormous power. Do not force me to use it."

"Yes my Qu-yes, Xylina." Xantippe could not bow, but she did salute smartly, before turning and leaving. Xylina turned to Ware and Thesius.

"Well?" she asked.

"If you are asking me whether you made the right decision, I cannot tell you," Ware replied, truthfully. "If you are asking me if you made an honorable decision-I would say yes."

"I would agree," Thesius seconded, dropping a fraternal kiss on her forehead. "Now-I must see to all those slaves who have been newly emancipated. It is not easy learning to be a free man. Faro would be the first to tell you that, and he is the farthest along of any of them."

The handsome blond clapped Ware on the shoulders, and took himself out, leaving Xylina and the demon alone.

"Was it worth it, beloved?" the incubus asked, his face mirroring a concern he had not shown the two men. "I know how everything since the challenge has troubled your soul. It was I who urged you to all of this in the first place. If I had not done this, entrapped you, gotten you involved-"

"I would have ended my life a bitter and hateful woman, just like Adria," Xylina interrupted, taking his hand and kissing it. "If not long since ignominiously dead. And with your help-we have given my people some warning, and perhaps some time to adjust to what will inevitably come. Perhaps this time when the change comes, it may come without terrible cost, death and chaos. And no matter what happens-"

She took his hand in hers, and looked deeply into his eyes, smiling for the first time in many days. "We will meet it together."