CHAPTER 14: An Evil Sorcerer

Three weeks later, Alanna found herself back at the palace, in her bedroom, staring at Jarinth in horror. Dark circles rimmed her eyes, and wrinkles bit deeply into her skin, giving her the sorry demeanor of an old, beaten woman. Her body was frail and pale. Alanna wondered if she was dying.

"I'm fine," Jarinth assured her quietly with a small, forced smile, her voice weak with exhaustion. "Just tired. Tell me about Persopolis—Myles says something happened."

Alanna groaned. "I was hoping I wouldn't have to tell you. I disobeyed your orders so badly." She told her about the Ysandir, apologizing profusely at the same time. She was in trouble now.

Afterwards, Jarinth nodded. "I'm not going to yell at you. You made the right choice, even if you did have to disobey my instructions. I trust you more, now, if anything, simply because I know you can make a good decision on your own."

Alanna glowed at the praise, but, before she could reply, someone knocked at the door. Outside in the hallway, a maid stood in front of a middle-aged woman with graying chestnut hair and a tall, muscular yet lean man who Alanna recognized immediately.

The King of Thieves was standing outside her palace room. Oh shit, she thought frantically.

"If my lady pleases," the maid murmured, curtsying. "It was requested that I bring Mildred Wilson and her nephew to Lady Jarinth here in your quarters."

"Oh, it's Mildred?" Jarinth called from behind her. "Let them in, Alanna. She's a friend of mine."

Confused and stunned, Alanna opened the door wider so the two visitors could slip in. The Rogue tugged the door from her hands and shut and locked it in one swift movement. Then, blue fire bloomed in the room's four corners and around the windows and doors. Alanna recognized the magic as shields against listeners—both physical and magical—outside the room. Alanna could do little more than stare at them blankly for a moment before murmuring nervously, "Jarinth, I'm confused."

Jarinth nodded. "I'm sure you are. Sit, and I'll explain. First off, Alanna, this is Eleni Cooper—" she indicated the strange woman "—George's mother. She specializes in healing. We call her Mildred when anyone else is around. Alanna, that—" she nodded to George "—is George."

Alanna nodded. "The King of Thieves."

The others nodded. "That's right," George agreed.

"Alanna, do you remember last year when we were going to eat with the royal family, and I told you to watch Lianne? Did you notice anything strange?"

Alanna cocked her head to one side, thinking, and then shrugged. "Strange? No. She was ill, yes, but she's always been ill. That's not strange."

"You remember a pale face and cough, I believe? What is the Queen, who has better access to every healer in Tortall than anyone else in the world, doing with a pale face and cough? Duke Baird, Tortall's chief healer, dotes on her. Obviously, the Queen of Tortall doesn't fall and stay ill without a reason. She's being contaminated by someone's Gift."

"What? Oh, come on, Jarinth, no way. Her Majesty is sick because she has always been sick. You taught me this yourself: no one can help you once your body has accepted weakness. You can't blame it on contamination. You have no proof. If someone's killing her with the Gift, why take so many years to do it? Why don't you follow the contamination back to the contaminator? Why—"

"Alanna, I know this is hard to take in, but you have to hear us out," Eleni suddenly interrupted. "I'll explain everything."

"But you haven't given me any reliable proof—" she began.

Eleni held up a hand to cut her off. "Just listen. First off, you have to swear to us that you will not tell anyone about this. Not your friends, not your family, not anyone. And you can't discuss this with Jarinth, George, or I unless we clearly give you permission. Am I clear?"

Alanna rubbed her head, and then sighed. "Fine."

"Okay, firstly, we do have reason for suspicion. Every three years professionals check up on the palace to make sure it's working correctly. It happens to the palace's physical body—the stonework and all that—and the magical one. Well, this year they found the whole spell-strengthening charm gone. You know what that is, right?"

Alanna nodded. "It's a spell that's put over another to make it stronger. It's very hard to conjure and can be powerful and is always terribly expensive. It works, though. The one over the palace is supposed to be the largest and strongest ever known, strengthening all the protection spells over the entire place. And it's ancient. How—how could it be gone? That's impossible. No one could destroy it."

"No one destroyed it—they used it. Two years ago, in March, a sickness struck Corus, and it was bad, hitting Her Majesty especially hard. We think that a mage sent the illness and strengthened it with the palace's strengthening spell. Healers couldn't heal it—we didn't tell anyone, though, in fear that they wouldn't believe us. What confuses us is that the sickness vanished after a week, and we don't know why. And recently, the mages discovered the lack of strengthening spells; their power probably ran dry when that sorcerer used them. That was when Duke Gareth called Jarinth up from Persopolis, so she and Duke Roger could get to work to figure out what happened—"

"Duke Roger?" Alanna gasped. "But he's one of the strongest mages in the world!" She swung around to gape at Jarinth. "You're working with one of the strongest mages alive?"

"Well, Jarinth's stronger than Roger in some aspects, being a black robe and all," Eleni pointed out.

Alanna reeled backwards. "What?" Though the University of Carthak was world-renown for its general academic standards, it was especially famous for training many of the world's strongest mages, eight of whom had reached the highest level of witchcraft possible and now wore the symbol of their rank: the black robe.

Eleni's eyes widened in horror, and she, too, swung around to Jarinth. "You haven't told her?" she demanded.

Jarinth had taken a sudden fascination with the ceiling. "Apparently not," she replied crisply. To Alanna, she explained casually, "I graduated from the imperial university almost twenty years ago."

"Alanna, Jarinth is just as strong as Roger. If anything, Roger should be intimidated by Jarinth, not the other way around."

Alanna frowned, side-glancing at Jarinth. For having just been announced strong and almighty, she still looked half dead. When she mentioned this, Eleni cut in firmly before Jarinth could have her say about her appearances, "And that is where the next part of our story comes in. Jarinth and Roger discovered someone's blood-colored Gift splattered all over the spells, chewing like acid through them. We can't follow the Gift back to its owner because the mage cut himself off from it. Now, Jarinth and Roger have to clean out that Gift, replace the ruined spells, and replace the strengthening spell, which is completely gone. And I'm depressing myself. George, could you continue, please?" Eleni leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, trying to relax.

"Although Duke Roger is helping a lot, he also spends much of his time teaching the Gifted pages and squires how to use their magic, so Jarinth gets the brunt of the work," George immediately took up calmly. "Jarinth and Roger have also been asked to help deal with Tusaine, who is looking to cause trouble for Tortall. Plus, she has recently found out that someone has created a doll of her."

Alanna blanched. "You mean, a wax doll, shaped to her appearance pefectly, that acts as the real person. What one does to it, one does to her."

"That's right. Jarinth has spent the last month holding the spell off, and it is the effects of that that you see on her. Her Gift is now practically drained, and she is near powerless. After good food and a full night's rest, she has just enough strength to hold off the doll-charm and work on the palace spell repair for another day."

Alanna stared at Jarinth, scared. She didn't like Jarinth being powerless.

"Mages as strong as Jarinth can feel when a doll of them is being made. She doesn't know where the doll is, why it was made, who made it, how many other dolls there are with hers, or who else in this palace is acting under this spell. She is too weak to find out. When she is done with the palace and is more refreshed, though, she will be able to trace the doll-spell to the sorcerer who made it.

"Until then, however, she has a more important problem: the Queen. Two weeks ago, she was fine—or as fine as you can expect an ill woman of her age to be. Since then, she's been running a dangerously high fever that Duke Baird can't bring down, and she's been vomiting uncontrollably. Jarinth was allowed a moment with her for one of her few sane minutes—"

"Alanna, she's covered in the blood," Jarinth whispered shakily. "Even if I were up to my normal strength I wouldn't be able to help her, even with Roger's and Baird's help. The illness had seeped into her very bones. It ran in her veins almost more than her own blood did. Her body had accepted it, as if it didn't realize it was killing her."

"The blood-colored Gift, right?" Alanna checked, just to be sure.

George nodded. "That's right."

Alanna sighed and shook her head. "I don't understand. No offense, George, but you're the King of Thieves. And we're using spells to guard us from listeners as if someone has his ear pressed to the door and—gods, how do I know that you three aren't working for this evil sorcerer?" she demanded.

"That's why Eleni and George are here," Jarinth said simply.

"The listening-shield spells are here for a reason," George told her amiably. "Jarinth has found spells around her room that allow people miles away to hear what she has to say."

"You've found listening spells?" Alanna gasped in horror.

Jarinth nodded grimly. "And I contacted Eleni because she was one of the few people I knew who couldn't have a doll made of her—who knew Eleni? George tagged along because—"

"To protect my mother, of course," George joked, reaching over to squeeze his mother's hand. And then, more seriously, "Evil sorcerers affect my Court too. I can't have problems like this over my head, especially when it's so secret my spies know nothing of it." Then, he stood. "If that's all? There's someone coming down the hallway to see you."

"What?" Alanna asked quizzically, swinging around. The door was firmly shut, locked, and spelled. She didn't see anyone.

"George has the Sight, dear," Eleni explained, standing as the blue fire on the walls vanished.

George opened the door. "We'll see you two later."

They had only just left when someone knocked on the door again. Jarinth answered and then swung it open wider. In the hallway stood one of the most handsome men Alanna had ever laid eyes on. He was tall and muscular with broad shoulders that fit his tunic perfectly and limbs that moved as deftly as a professional swordsman's. His brown-black hair was thick and wavy, and a slight beard framed his face neatly. His eyes were a dazzling bright blue that accented his light skin elegantly. Even a girl like her—uninterested in boys to an extreme extent—had to admit he was a dream come true.

But he was overly charming. He was too dominant and sure of himself. His posture screamed that he was cute and he knew it, that he was well aware of what she had dreamed of last night, that he was all-powerful. It almost scared her to realize that she didn't like him, and she didn't even know his name.

"Alanna, Duke Roger. Roger, Alanna of Trebond, my student," Jarinth introduced cheerfully. "Why don't you come in? We were just about to go down to dinner, but we have time."

"Actually, I want to go work on the repairs. I feel as if I've been shirking my work lately. I was just wondering if you were going to meet with Gareth about Tusaine, in which case, I won't."

"Are you suggesting we trade Tusaine for the repairs, Roger? I accept gladly," Jarinth laughed.

"Perfect. Good evening, and nice to meet you, Lady Alanna." He smiled at her charmingly and bowed.

After a forced smile and gracious curtsy, Alanna watched his retreating back with narrowed eyes.

After shutting the door, Jarinth ducked into the dressroom to check her hair and called out, "Usually I eat with Roger's squire when Roger eats over his Gift-work, because Alex doesn't have the Gift and is given the night off. You may know Alex, actually. He's a friend of His Highness'. Alexander of Tirragen. Really nice boy and incredible swordsman."

Remembering Alex's former reaction to her, Alanna followed Jarinth out of the room wondering if the day could get any more exhausting.

Alex, however, greeted her with a friendly smile when she sat next to him. The first chance he got, he turned to her and said earnestly, "I want to apologize. I should be thankful you saved Jon's life and be happy Jon has as strong an ally as you. I was biased about you before I even met you because I knew your brother, but now I know better. I'd like to start over, if that's okay with you." He offered his hand to shake, watching her solemnly.

Alanna frowned, watching for a trick, and realized there was none. She took a deep breath and nodded. "Okay. Friends, then." She shook his hand.

He smiled. "Good. By the way, I saw you fencing at Persopolis."

Alanna stared at him. It had taken the Bazhir three months to discover her, and then a newcomer found out in less than two weeks!

"Oh—don't worry. I haven't been stalking you, or anything. I was talking to Ali, actually. I just slipped down to see you because I wanted to see what you were like. You know what you're doing. You fence better than some pages your age, you know. I take private lessons with Duke Gareth—"

"Not your own knight-master?" she asked curiously.

"My lord is an excellent swordsman, of course, but I had started these lessons before he even arrived in Corus, so he allowed me to continue with them. But, anyway, I was wondering if you would like to join Duke Gareth and me for a lesson tomorrow morning. He suggested it himself."

Alanna's jaw dropped. Duke Gareth was renowned for his fencing skills. He wanted her to take lessons from him? The very idea was unbelievable. She told Alex as much, and he just laughed and told her to be at the fencing court furthest east at dawn the next day.

After dinner, Alanna was stopped on the way to her room by Francis, who, like Alex, wanted to apologize for his obnoxiousness, though he said so quite nervously.

For all the day had been tiring, it had also proved quite rewarding.