Triplet

Chapter 20

The sun was nearing the western horizon by the time Danae returned to Melentha's mansion, and she was nearly to the archway in the post line before it registered that there were no lights showing in any of the windows.

She reined her horse to a halt, frowning as her eyes flicked over the grounds for signs of life. But no one was visible, at least not on this side of the house. Could everyone be in Melentha's inner sanctum, perhaps, working on God only knew what?

"Danae."

She jerked at the voice, spinning to look behind her. No one. "Who's there?" she called.

"Do not pry into matters that are none of your business."

She licked her lips, fighting down a surge of panic. Her eyes darted all around—

Came to rest on the carved demon face in the archway.

Oh, God, she thought, stomach tightening painfully as she automatically clutched the pouch Gartanis had given her. She'd had more than her fill of demons at Coven, and the last thing she wanted right now was a confrontation with another one. "What do you want?" she asked, fighting unsuccessfully against the trembling in her voice.

"Do not pry into matters that are none of your business," the demon repeated.

"Why isn't it my business? Your friends dragged me to Coven and scared me half to death—I figure that makes it my business."

The stone didn't change... but even as she watched, the demon's eyes seemed to take on a fox-fire glow. "You are not of this world. It is not your concern. You will not interfere."

Danae licked her lips... but even as a new shiver of fear ran up her back, an odd surge of determination flooded in on top of it. She'd been right—there was something going on in Coven—

and the demon's attempt to scare her was just one more bit of evidence that whatever it was was important as well as nasty.

The demon's futile attempt to scare her, she remembered suddenly. Its limits had been well defined for it... or at least had been so once. Mentally crossing her fingers, she twitched the reins and started tentatively forward—

"You will not interfere!"

The horse shied violently, and it took all Danae's equestrian skill to bring it back under control... and by the time she'd done so the last of her fear had been completely buried under a white haze of fury.

"Forget it!" she snarled at the demon. "You can just forget it. I'm a human being—I give you the orders on Karyx. And in case you've forgotten, I was right there watching when Melentha told you to allow me free passage. So knock off the bluff-and-scare tactics and let me through."

For a long moment she could feel the demon's resistance like an invisible balloon filling the archway. Then, reluctantly, it collapsed into itself and faded away. Gripping the reins tightly, Danae guided her horse through, fighting the urge to kick the animal to full gallop and get the hell away from there. But she really did have nothing to fear from the demon... and she was damned if she would lose her dignity to a spirit trapped in a chunk of stone. But still she couldn't resist taking a quick look behind her as she started up toward the house... and so it was she saw the green patch of haze detach itself from the post line and skim off toward the southeast.

They had spent over an hour in Besak before they finally found someone who remembered seeing Danae.

"Yes—the traderess with the fancy bow, true?" the hunter asked. "Yes, I saw her some time ago over on the Hawkers' Way."

"Was she talking to the weapons sellers?" Ravagin asked.

"Not when I saw her. She was already past most of their booths, heading toward the south."

Ravagin looked at Melentha. "Anything down that way she might have been interested in? Or anyone?"

Melentha shook her head slowly, forehead furrowed in thought. "Not that I can think of. How long ago was this?"

The hunter glanced at the setting sun. "Three hours at the least. Possibly longer."

"Well, whatever she wanted there shouldn't have taken this much time," Ravagin growled, feeling his jaw tighten. He'd been right; Danae was in some sort of trouble again. "We'd better get down there and see if we can pick up her trail."

"She could just be browse shopping," Melentha suggested slowly.

"Or perhaps gone to see Gartanis," the hunter suggested.

"Who is—?" Ravagin began.

"DAMN!" Melentha exploded. "Of course—that damn idiot's gone to Gartanis to buy a spell."

"Who's Gartanis?" Ravagin asked, fighting against the infectious emotion almost visibly radiating from Melentha. "Is he a fraud or something?"

"He's a spiritmaster who came here from Torralane Village a few months ago," Melentha bit out.

"And, no, he's not a fraud. At least not a deliberate one."

"Well, let's go talk to him, then," Ravagin suggested, wheeling his horse around. "Danae might even still be there."

"It may not do any—AHH!"

Ravagin twisted his head around. "What?" he snapped.

Melentha's eyes were wide and unfocused. "She's at the house," she breathed. "She's... gone inside."

Ravagin felt the tension beginning to drain from his muscles. "Well, great," he sighed. "Then at least she's safe—"

"No, no, no. Don't you understand? She's been to Gartanis. She has the incense for a new spell—

surely she's going to want to try it out."

"Oh, hell." An untried spell, from a spiritmaster... in the hands of an amateur. Would Danae really be foolish enough to try something like that alone?

Of course she would, he thought viciously. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's get back, try and stop her."

"You go." Melentha's eyes turned to Ravagin, and he was startled to see anger building into genuine fury there. "I'm going to Gartanis—find out what spell he gave her. And then deal with him."

"You—? Hey, wait!"

But Melentha was already galloping off through the narrow streets, oblivious to the pedestrians scattering frantically before her mad rush. "What the hell?" Ravagin muttered as he watched her go.

Like a woman possessed... and come to think of it, how had she known Danae was back at the house? There hadn't been any messengers, at least none he'd seen.

But there was no time to wonder now. Whatever Danae was up to this time, she was likely to get herself hurt in the process, and it was his job to get her out of it. Again.

Turning his horse savagely, he started back through Besak.

The sky was already growing dark as he passed under the post line archway at full gallop and reined to a halt in front of the mansion. The windows were also dark; if Danae was in fact back, she hadn't put on any lights.

Or else was in Melentha's windowless sanctum. Swallowing a curse, he slid off his horse and sprinted through the high doors.

Inside, it was pitch black. "Sa-minskisk tooboosn," he snapped, throwing the placement gesture over his shoulder to set the invoked dazzler's location back out of his eyes. The room blazed with light; his shadow a dark mass angling sharply off to the side, Ravagin headed toward the stairway.

She was there, all right, seated cross-legged in the middle of the sanctum's large pentagram with tendrils of smoke curling up from a crucible set on the floor before her. "Danae?" Ravagin called tentatively.

There was no response. "Danae!" he called again, sharper this time. "Come on, snap out of it."

No response. Gritting his teeth, Ravagin moved to the edge of the pentagram and sniffed cautiously.

Incense, all right, presumably one of the many varieties spirithandlers sometimes used to help clear and focus their minds for particularly touchy invocations. Interfering with her invocation could get them both fried to crisps; but if she wasn't too far along, there might yet be time to safely stop her.

Certainly whatever spirit she was trying for hadn't yet made an appearance.

And then his eyes fell on the floor beside her... and he bit down hard on his tongue.

Sitting full in the light from his dazzler, she had no shadow.

He thought about that for nearly a minute. Then, with a sigh, he moved back and sat down against the wall near the door. Well, she's done it, he thought wearily. She's finally managed to get herself into a situation I haven't a snowflake's chance of getting her out of. Great job, Danae. All he could do for her now was wait. And hope like hell that the spirit she was working on didn't eat her alive.

The wait seemed to go on forever, but it was probably no more than twenty minutes. His first warning was the quiet fading in of her shadow; a moment later she suddenly shook and began gasping for breath. Her eyes fluttered open, squeezed shut again against the dazzler's light. "Who

—?" she breathed.

"It's Ravagin," he told her, rolling back to his feet and hurrying to her side. The smell of the incense, he noted peripherally, had disappeared; a quick glance into the crucible showed it to be as as empty as if it had been scoured. "You all right?"

She took another few deep breaths and allowed him to help her to her feet before replying. "I think so. I guess—I think I got off easy."

"Got off easy doing what?" Ravagin asked.

She raised a hand to shade her eyes and squinted back in the dazzler's general direction. "Is there any way to turn that thing down? I don't think my eyes have come all the way back yet."

Suppressing his impatience with an effort, Ravagin released the dazzler. The darkness closed in, and he felt Danae stiffen beside him. "Wait a second," he grunted, guiding her to the wall and sitting her down against it. Groping around in the dark, he located the flat dish of a fireplate on Melentha's table and invoked a firebrat over it. The gentler reddish light flickered into existence, and he made his way back to Danae.

"Thanks," she said, taking a shuddering breath. "I guess I wasn't ready for total darkness, either."

"That's okay," Ravagin said, squatting beside her and giving her face a quick once-over. Tight, strained, but with no signs of injury or serious trauma. "What happened?" he asked, taking one of her hands between his. It was, he noted uneasily, icy cold.

She licked her lips. "I invoked a demogorgon."

He felt his stomach tighten. "You what?"

Her eyes flashed. "Don't snap at me! All right, so it was stupid—" She broke off and closed her eyes.

"Ravagin... you have no idea what it was like."

"Can't argue with that one. So tell me."

She opened her eyes and looked around the room. "An entire world, in its own little universe—that's what Karyx is, isn't it? And Shamsheer too, of course. Triplet: three worlds for the price of one. Only it's not."

"What do you mean?" Ravagin asked cautiously.

She gave him a brittle smile. "There are actually four worlds here. The fourth one populated only by spirits. And I was there."

And abruptly, the smile vanished, and she turned her face into Ravagin's shirt and began sobbing.