Silently Anna stood over him, watching him breathe, ignoring the ache in the bones of her tired feet. She knelt and took her thin leather shoes off. The cool stone floor felt good against the soles of her feet.
The king stirred, one hand twitching slightly; Anna held the hand in hers, squeezing gently. She liked to come here as often as she could, then stay by Kelren Andarys' side until she could no longer stand. The king had deteriorated slowly before her eyes, fading away physically and mentally until he could barely move or speak, or recognize anyone. Still, Anna spent time at his side, fussing over his appearance, his clothing and his hair.
Lord Kelren reminded her of all that had been, of the times when her husband was still alive, when the castle was filled with visitors and host to countless gatherings, when all Kamrit was as bright and alive as he was. Sir Renall and Kelren had been great friends, and Kelren had been a good friend to her when her husband was taken. The king had trusted her with the care of his only daughter.
A trust she felt she had betrayed, at least in some ways. Like her husband, Madia was also gone, and Kelren was all that remained of her, too. . . .
Every time she looked at him, she remembered all this. When he died and all that had been the best parts of her life died with him, she would have nothing at all.
She stood back as her feet ached again in protest, then she sighed, considering giving in to the hour, to the inevitable. Her thoughts drifted again, only to be interrupted by the click of the latch on the door behind her. She turned to find Lord Ferris entering the room. He was accompanied by the seneschal, Tristan, two squires, and behind them a pair of serfs and Lamarat, the court physician. Ferris greeted her; Tristan only gave her a nod. They approached the bed, but only Lamarat did not stop short. He edged in front of Anna, and she quickly retreated.
"We must tend to him now," Lord Ferris said, taking Anna well aside. "You may come again tomorrow, if you wish."
Anna barely looked up. Ferris had the most unsettling eyes she had ever encountered, and a certain way about him: agitated at times, frightening, like an animal gone mad. "Yes, my lord," she said, bowing to him. "Tomorrow."
"Good night," Ferris said.
She faded back and quietly let herself out.
When Lamarat was finished, he stepped back. "Forgive me, my lord," he said, "but there seems to be nothing left to do. His fate lies in the hands of the Greater Gods."
"It is enough that you have tried," Tyrr told him—made the mouth tell him. "More, no one can ask."
"Perhaps a priest or a wizard," Lamarat said. "I fear there may be sorcery at work here, though I cannot be sure."
"A priest will be called if one is needed," Tyrr assured him, working to form an appropriate expression on the construct's face. "But I fear Kelren's suffering is nothing more than nature's own cruelty." He paused momentarily, just long enough, then he turned to the others. "Please, leave me now, all of you, so that I may pray with my king in silence."
He waited while the physician left, taking the seneschal and the squires with him. The two serfs, however, remained. These were the men Tyrr had picked out, along with several others, to become more of his special allies, a rare dimension added to his perfectly evolving plan. He had given them special training and guidance, then set about working new spells with old; they were his now, completely. Soon, there would be many like them.
He nodded to one of the serfs, who turned and latched the door. Tyrr positioned himself, held the construct still, then focused the rest of his energies on the feeble, failing body of King Andarys. Even this newest incantation was similar to others he had tried, made to cause a specific human suffering; it was especially designed to draw much greater energy from both the natural world, and from the great reserves inherent in the power differentials between the human world and Tyrr's. This night Tyrr labored carefully, tirelessly, fighting his natural urge to rush in and finish up, to substitute raw energy for a sustained methodology. This was as much a test of his own resolve as it was a means to accomplish his goal—the death of the king.
He had reasoned that perhaps his failures so far were due to a lack of attention to detail and not to errors in his spells or their intensity. A problem, Tyrr believed, that had plagued his kind throughout the ages.
Until now.
The king was gravely ill. He looked terribly thin and pale, skin dry and limp, eyes nearly always closed, glazed when they were open. There was no doubt that Tyrr's efforts so far had had their effects, and the entire kingdom was convinced of the apparent sad outcome of Kelren's strange, worsening affliction—but somehow the man still lived! And clearly, that had gone on long enough.
Magic was at work, certainly, since no amount of mortal fortitude could have kept any man alive under Tyrr's repeated assaults. But even magic, no matter how layered or perfected, had its limits, its weaknesses, its gaps. Tyrr simply had to construct a spell that worked.
He made the mouth speak the spell's final words as he placed the construct's hands over the bed, palms open and facedown, letting the power of the spell flow to the king. Tyrr bore down, concentrating with all his faculties, letting the incantation do its work.
When the spell was finally spent, he looked down with his own vision, as well as through the eyes of the human construct, and examined the body of Andarys. He saw an utter lack of movement, sensed nothing there at all. A faint excitement began to build inside him, the hope of final victory! Then the king's chest rose, and fell, and rose again.
"No!" Tyrr said out loud, realizing in the same instant that he had done so unconsciously, that he was losing definition—slipping! "Don't let it control you," he said, again out loud, this time on purpose. Rage and frustration could force the quick unraveling of all his carefully adopted constraints and resolutions, could make the construct too real or destroy it altogether.
He saw the door to failure again creeping open before him—a trap, the same trap that had swallowed so many of his kind in ages past, and one he had sworn to outwit! Mild panic swelled within him. He sought to suppress it, to replace it with any sort of calm and confidence. But already he noticed that the body construct he had labored so long to complete was beginning to dematerialize. . . .
"Think," he made the mouth say. Control, he told himself. More thinking is needed, and more control!
He turned away from the body, then paced the room for a time, diverting the energy of the storm of emotion within him to the walking motion as he had seen humans do. Like shouting, this seemed to help, though he was not quite certain why.
Think!
Finally Tyrr returned to the bedside and looked down.
And there it was! The answer nearly struck him like a blow: try as he might he could not make the king die—this, sadly, was truth. The solution, then, was to simply lie!
Anna was halfway up the east stairs when a slab of rough stone scuffed her toes, and she realized she'd forgotten her shoes. She hesitated to go back—Lord Ferris would hardly be pleased, no doubt. Perhaps he and the others will not stay long, she thought. I could go and wait near the door for a bit. And if they didn't come out directly, it could wait until tomorrow.
She went back down the stairs, along one quiet corridor, then turned into the next, nearing the king's chambers. Here she passed by the doors to other chambers unoccupied for a generation, where Hual Andarys had kept family and friends, and finally Madia's room, now empty as well. When she reached Kelren's chamber door, she paused, listening. She heard nothing, so she pressed her ear against the door.
Mumbling drifted through the thick oak, but nothing she could understand. Then she heard something that sounded like grunting. Suddenly she was aware of footsteps echoing faintly, somewhere behind her. She spun about, hurried up the hall, and ducked through the door to Madia's chambers, then pressed the door carefully shut behind her.
She could hear the footsteps clearly as she huddled near the floor: someone passing by the door, stopping at Kelren's chambers. Then a knock, a voice begging entrance, the voice of Ceanlon, the new prelate of Kamrit's Church of the Greater Gods, a priest that had become a close spiritual advisor to Lord Ferris since Kelren had taken so ill.
They have given up hope, Anna thought, feeling the loss in her own heart as the implications forced themselves upon her. Then she heard the chamber door open and close. She waited a moment to be sure no one else was outside the door. When she was satisfied, she slowly pulled the door back a crack. Voices grew suddenly loud as the king's chamber door pulled open. Anna quickly retreated. She could hear Ferris talking to the prelate Ceanlon, and to other men, who made brief, mumbled replies. She couldn't be sure what any of them were saying, though she was certain she did hear the word "body" mentioned twice.
So he is gone, she thought.
As the group moved down the hall, Anna took a breath, then held it, and inched the door back just far enough to get her nose into the opening. She could see Lord Ferris and the prelate moving away. Between them, two serfs carried the body of the king. Anna's heart sank still further. She had wished to be near when death finally came to him, to say her own good-bye. She waited for the party to reach the adjoining corridor at the end of the hall—to turn left toward the west wing of the castle, the way that led to the underground catacombs and vaults, where Kelren's father had been laid to rest. The place where Kelren's body would be prepared.
They reached the intersection and paused, speaking momentarily, then Ferris and the prelate turned west as expected and disappeared around the corner. The serfs and Kelren's body, however, turned the other way, and headed east.
Still in bare feet, Anna padded down the hall, staying well back and out of sight, but close enough to follow the faint echo of scuffling feet ahead. She trailed the serfs through numerous corridors and down two main levels, then down another. She finally stopped when she reached a turn no citizen of Kamrit wished to take. Beyond lay a large open stairway leading down to the castle's oldest, darkest dungeons.
She poked her head around the corner. Only one torch lit the top of the stairwell; the second was missing, taken down the stairs by the serfs. A small table and two chairs stood next to the stairs, a place for the guards—though, as far as Anna knew, only the new dungeons had guards these days. A single soldier stood by the table now.
What for? she wondered. Here to guard the king's dead body? But from what? From whom?
Only darkness filled the stairwell beyond. Then she heard footsteps again and saw the helmet of a second guard rising out of the black hole that surrounded the light from his torch. The two serfs followed, empty-handed. Anna felt a chill rake her spine, felt her feet ache, her head beginning to throb. She turned and hurried away.