Triplet

Chapter 36

It was quite probably the most unusual sight the employees of Castle Numanteal had ever seen. And possibly, Ravagin thought grimly, one of the most subtly terrifying.

Certainly if the expressions of those setting out places at the long table were anything to go by.

Frozen in place, some with the gilt-edged plates they were holding suspended above the table in motionless hands, the servitors all stared wide-eyed at the sky-plane as it slid through the window into the high-ceilinged dining room and floated across it. In the room's sudden silence the faint clatter of pots and pans and conversation from the kitchen beyond could be clearly heard, and Ravagin abruptly realized it was toward that noise that their rogue sky-plane was making a leisurely turn. Behind him, he could hear a hooting from the walls outside as the trolls there sounded the alarm; beside him, Danae's fingernails were digging into his arm. Do something! the grip seemed to say; but for the first time since their escape from Melentha he felt totally helpless. The sky-plane ducked down toward the floor as it aimed for the kitchen door—

Beside the table, someone screamed... and the frozen disbelief broke into total pandemonium.

"Keep down!" he snapped automatically to Danae as a handful of silverware flew up at them and scattered harmlessly away at the sky-plane's edge barrier. All around them, the servitors were making up for their earlier inactivity, either scurrying madly to get out of the sky-plane's path or else running toward it in an attempt to stop it; mixed in with the angry shouts and screams were calls for weapons and trolls. Another flight of silverware ricocheted off the barrier directly in front of Ravagin's face, making him flinch. From the corner of his eye he saw Danae unlimbering her crossbow— "Put that down!" he barked at her. "You can't use it anyway—you want us to look hostile to them?"

"You think we look peaceful the way we—"

She broke off with a gasp as, with a sudden jerk, the sky-plane came to a midair halt.

What the—? A horrible suspicion rose up into Ravagin's throat— "Sky-plane: follow my mark.

Mark."

And without any hesitation whatsoever, the machine curved smoothly away from the kitchen doors toward the direction he'd indicated.

"What are you doing?" Danae shouted in his ear.

"Trying to get us the hell out of here!" he snapped back. "The spirit's gone; I've got control again.

Sky-plane: follow my mark, mark."

The carpet swung around in a one-eighty-degree curve back toward the window they'd entered by...

but even as it did so, Ravagin realized with a sinking feeling the spirit's sudden departure hadn't been a mistake. The window was directly ahead, perhaps fifteen meters away... and abruptly the sky-plane slowed and came to a gentle halt.

Ten meters from the wall.

"Ravagin!"

"Shut up, Danae," he snarled back, all his fury and tension and suffocating sense of helplessness welling up his throat and flooding out toward her. "I can't do anything, damn it all—the sky-plane thinks it's outside approaching a building."

The shouts around them had taken on a tone of triumph as the servitors saw the intruders apparently at a loss. A hundred plans flashed through Ravagin's mind... a hundred plans, each of which stood a good chance of getting them killed before they could even get out of the dining room. The precise fate, no doubt, that the spirit had planned for them.

There was no way out. Which meant there was only one chance left for survival.

He took a deep breath. "Sky-plane: land," he said, fumbling his sword and scorpion glove from his belt and pushing them up against the edge barrier. "Danae; get your hands away from that crossbow and put them on your head. We're surrendering."

The sky-plane landed, and in a moment they were surrounded by a ring of knife-wielding servitors who stood there menacingly, clearly at a loss as to what to do next. They were still sitting there quietly on their sky-plane when the trolls and human guards finally arrived.

For Ravagin, Castle-Lord Simrahi was something of a surprise.

He was young, for one thing, as castle-lords went: no more than forty-five, though in the full trappings of his rank he looked perhaps ten years older. The full trappings were a surprise all by themselves; they were seldom used except for formal protectorate events or when a castle-lord would be meeting with his peers. To see Simrahi dressed that way for what boiled down to a simple indictment hearing was more than a little unnerving.

As it was no doubt meant to be. Scanning the huge room as his flanking guards brought him forward, Ravagin noted with a sinking feeling that what appeared to be the full senior court were also present, including advisors, minor nobles of the protectorate, and even commoner observers. Clearly, Simrahi was determined to start his investigation with all the psychological weight on his side.

Making Ravagin and Danae sweat in the cells beneath the manor house for four hours while the event was being staged hadn't hurt, either.

The stir that had accompanied Ravagin's appearance had died down by the time he finished the long walk to the bar set a few meters before the castle-lord's chair. Probably staged that, too, he decided, giving the faces an unobtrusive once-over. The faces stared back, either blankly or with carefully measured hostility. A rubber-stamp crowd, almost certainly—here to applaud the castle-lord's decision.

Which was to be expected from a Shamsheer protectorate, of course; and to some extent it actually made Ravagin's task easier. It meant there was only one man in this entire forbidding crowd whom he had to convince of his innocence.

A bearded advisor type standing beside Simrahi took a pace forward. "The court of Castle-lord Simrahi is now seated," he intoned. "The prisoner will first state his name and home."

So Simrahi wasn't much for flowery pronouncements, despite his fondness for the other trappings of office. Doesn't want his time wasted unnecessarily? Ravagin wondered. "I am called Ravagin," he said, keeping his voice respectful yet firm. "I call no land but Shamsheer my home."

The advisor wasn't to be put off. "Then state the land and village of your birth," he said.

"I was born somewhere inside the borders of the Trassp Protectorate, to parents who were also wanderers," Ravagin replied evenly. It was a story he'd used more than once before, and while a bit unusual it was also almost impossible to disprove. "Whether or not my parents registered my birth I do not know."

"A convenient tale," the bearded man said with barely hidden scorn. "And your companion?—does she also have no home?"

"She is a citizen of a small village named Arcadia in the depths of Darcane Forest," Ravagin said, working hard to keep his voice and expression steady. This one wasn't nearly as safe, but there was little he could do about it. If Simrahi bothered to cross-check with the soldiers who'd stopped them in Ordarl Protectorate he wanted the stories to mesh. At least this one would take time to disprove.

That thought was apparently on the advisor's mind, too. "A forest village far from any place with a crystal eye, ay?" He snorted. "How very convenient."

"Do you wish convenience or truth?" Ravagin countered. "Convenience would have all justice done away with."

"You speak of justice, do you?" the other spat. "You, who used black sorcery to defy the laws of magic and of the Castle-lord Simrahi's realm?"

"I've already told the guards and the cell-wardens that the behavior of that sky-plane was no doing of mine," Ravagin said, letting some heat creep into his voice.

"A story as totally without proof as that of your origin," the other said.

"But equally true," Ravagin shot back. "If you prefer another explanation, perhaps you can explain to the castle-lord and the assembled court why I chose to use these alleged powers to enter his manor house in the clear light of day. And why I would exhibit such power and cleverness and yet fail to damage either him or his household."

"The burden of proof is not upon the castle-lord—"

"Enough," Simrahi said quietly.

The other bowed and stepped back into his place in line, where he glowered silently. Ravagin shifted his attention to the castle-lord, found him staring thoughtfully back. "You speak as one accustomed to courts and the presence of the lords of Shamsheer," he said, his voice smooth and cultured. "That by itself sets you apart from the common man of Shamsheer. And I will further admit your tale has much to commend it. Tell me, would it stand equally well against the scrutiny of my crystal eye?"

Ravagin felt his stomach muscles tighten. No, it damn well wouldn't, at least not if Simrahi was willing to put forth enough effort to really dig into it. "Of course it would, my lord. My companion and I have nothing to hide."

The other's thoughtful expression didn't change. "Of course not. Tell me, Ravagin, what is your profession?"

"I deliver private messages," Ravagin told him. "Those who wish to send such communications may hire me to travel the long distances—"

"Such as between traitors among my kitchen servitors and their allies outside?" Simrahi barked.

Ravagin blinked, thrown off balance by both the question and Simrahi's sudden change. "No, of course not, my lord."

"Then tell me why you used your black arts to bring your sky-plane into my house!" he thundered.

"My lord—" Ravagin spread his hands out helplessly. "I tell you again, it was none of my doing."

Beside the castle-lord, a hard-looking man in the tunic of a guard officer cleared his throat. "My lord," he said quietly, "even if there was such a message, he could hardly have drawn more attention to himself this way. Would he not have done better to wait until the day was fully born and then to arrive by horse or sky-plane in a lawful manner?"

"Perhaps." Simrahi's voice was controlled again, but his eyes still smoldered. "Perhaps this was simply part of the plot, though. Perhaps the black sorcerer's arrival was the signal to act—and what better way for the news to be spread quickly to any and all conspirators throughout the protectorate?"

He glared up at the guard officer, then turned his eyes back to Ravagin. "You see, my innocent traveler, there is much about yourself you have failed to mention," he said, his voice calm but with an edge of iron to it. "I have spent part of the past few hours in the Shrine of Knowledge, seeking information of you through the crystal eye. Shall I tell the court that you were detained in Ordarl Protectorate less than a month ago on suspicion of being a black sorcerer?—and with the same companion that you travel with now, who claimed then to be on her way home? Or that you and this same companion attacked three men in Kelaine City shortly before that with weapons that bordered on the black arts? Or that the sky-plane you claim you were innocently riding had in fact come directly from the Dark Tower near Missia City?—which no normal person has ever entered?"

Ravagin had to work to get moisture back into his mouth. "My lord... all of those seemingly bizarre events can indeed be explained. The incident in Kelaine City—"

"Enough."

Ravagin swallowed hard. Simrahi's voice, barely louder than a purr, was infinitely more frightening than even his earlier shouting had been. It was the voice of a man who had already made his decision.

"You are accused of being a black sorcerer," Simrahi continued in the same soft voice, "possibly in league with forces attempting to overthrow my rule. In any case, you are a threat and a danger to the Numant Protectorate, and indeed all of Shamsheer, and you will remain in the cells of Castle Numanteal until I decide how to deal with you."

He rose to his feet, the signal that the hearing was over. The guards on either side of him took Ravagin's arms—"My lord!" he called over the buzz of conversation that had begun. "What about my companion? Surely she is blameless and can be released—"

"Your companion will remain in the cells with you," Simrahi said. "She who has shared in your activities will surely share in their consequences."

"But—"

"For that matter, I have not yet determined which of you is the actual wielder of the black sorcery."

Simrahi shifted his eyes to Ravagin's guards. "Remove him."

They did so, none too gently. Apparently, Ravagin realized dimly as the blows began to fall about his face, speaking to a castle-lord out of turn was frowned upon.