Only reluctantly did she agree. "Go with Athos' blessing, Seyonne. You must send me word of the Prince's safety ... and your own. I'll not rest until I hear it. If you ever have need of anything-anything at all-send a message to Hazz- ire at my house in Avenkhar. Say it is 'from the lady's foreign friend,' and he'll get it to me."

"I would like to believe the Prince is worthy of your kindness, Lady."

"Save him, Seyonne, and we'll find out."

Chapter 18.

I was loaded with such a pile of pillows and silk sheets, soli towels and royal clothing that no one could see my face, so I felt fortunate not to trip and break my neck on the steep, curving tower stair. I had even picked up a letter that had come for Aleksander, to make sure I had a good enough excuse to see him. My guess was that no n.o.ble visitor or gentleman attendant would be allowed inside the room without an escort, but no one fears a slave. Indeed the two Khelid magicians made only a cursory inspection of my load, especially once I tried to give them all of it to take inside the room themselves.

"I've heard the Prince is mad," I said, making sure my voice quavered in terror, a disconcertingly easy deception. "He beats me enough in ordinary times. Won't you take his things to him? There's clothes to dress him in for his jour ney, pillows for his comfort-"

The Khelid laughed, and the echoes of their twisted music clawed at my soul. I couldn't make myself look at them. "We're not here for slave's work. If you want him to have his comforts, you will have to stir yourself to do it. But I'm sure he can do without for tonight, if you're too squeamish."

"Oh, no, sir. The Empress commanded it, so it must be done. There's someone inside, then? To protect me? The Empress said it."

"You will have to take your chances with the mad Prince all alone. Lord Korelyi has retired for the night."

I had seen the pale-eyed Khelid leave and was relieved to hear he was not expected back.

"You won't lock me in there with a madman?"

"We are commanded to keep the room locked. If we should get distracted, you might have to stay with him until he wakes."

"Oh, no, my lords. The Prince detests me. I dare not be inside when he wakes ... and to touch his body, when I am not his body slave ... prepared ... you know, so as not to be truly a man. It's worth my life to touch him." It was un- nervingly easy to put on the person of a craven coward.

The demon-infested pair unlocked the door, then kicked me through it so hard that pillows and towels went flying. "But then your life is not worth a gnawed bone, is it? Perhaps we should give the Prince a knife so he can 'prepare' you to be his body slave himself." They took great good humor from this thought. They would leave me with Aleksander a goodly time, I guessed. I hoped it would be time enough.

The small room was lit only by cold moonlight slipping through a tiny, barred window. No possibility a man could fit through it. One alternative gone. There was nothing within the bare stone walls save a small table with a bra.s.s wine pitcher and a cup, and the low, narrow bed. Aleksander, still in his embroidered white satin, was laid out like a royal corpse, hands straight at his sides. His dull eyes were open and fixed, as if no one had done him the courtesy to close them when he died, and I took a moment to make sure there was still the pulse of life in his veins. Only when you took a closer look did you see the leather straps binding him to the bed at wrists and ankles, chest and neck.

I rummaged in the pile of linens and ripped open the pillow where I had hidden the Prince's short sword. I sliced away his leather bindings, then filled the mug with wine and knelt beside the bed.

"Your Highness, can you hear me? It's Seyonne. I've come to get you away."

He did not stir, not even to blink. I brushed his eyelids closed then shifted my senses to examine the spells that bound him. It was as I thought. The demons were very confident. I shifted back quickly to silence the demon music.

"My lord, they've put only a simple spell on you and given you a sleeping draught to make you drowsy. You feel yourself paralyzed, but you are not.

You can convince your body to move, but it will take a great effort of will. You must want to do it." I dribbled a few droplets of wine on his lips. "Taste and feel the wine I just gave you. Focus your mind on it. Think of it washing through you, cleansing away this foul enchantment, diluting the sleeping draught until it can have no influence on you." I coaxed and wheedled, giving him more wine, trying every image I could devise, but ten minutes pa.s.sed with no sign of movement. I began to change his clothes and slip the silk sheets underneath him, lest someone poke their nose into the room to see how I progressed. My pleading and bargaining came to no avail. I soon believed it was a matter of will-lack of it. I needed a harsher tactic.

"My lord, you did not kill your uncle. Of course you are not blameless. You sent him away and toyed with him. You were careless and foolish, thinking only of your own comfort and pleasure as you have ever done. You will never be able to rid yourself of this burden, nor should you. But it was the demons who wanted him dead. Not you. It was the demons who set bandits on him.

They take special pleasure in killing with cold, as they suffer from it so themselves. They left him to die, my lord, to bleed slowly and to freeze, and if you wish to make right this great wrong, you must not let them profit from it.

Killing Lord Dmitri was the only way they could convince your father to let them have you." I pulled away his pearl-studded tunic and slipped a plain loose shirt of soft linen over his head and arms. "You can move if you wish. If you do not, they will take you to Khe-lidar and make a demon out of you.

Neither your body nor your soul will be your own any longer-and you will have to huddle in a dark corner of your mind and watch it happen. Perhaps you desire this, thinking it fitting punishment for your sins. But can you not guess what the demons plan for you? You will kill your father, and the demon will rule your Derzhi Empire."

I was out of words. If he couldn't or wouldn't walk, then somehow I was going to have to carry him out. As I tugged the riding breeches over his feet and up to his waist, I was planning how Durgan might be able to obtain one of Giezek's blue vials to put the Khelid guards to sleep. My heart set up a clamor when a cold hand clamped around my arm.

"This is all your fault, you know." His hoa.r.s.e voice was scarcely above a whisper.

I whirled about to see the heavy-lidded amber eyes open, though bleak and dulled with drugs and enchantment and grief. "I didn't ask you to buy me," I said.

"No. Of course, you didn't." He sat up and pressed his fists to the sides of his head. "Horns of the bull, what is this horror in my head? It's like every musician in the world playing together, all of them out of tune."

"It's the music of demons ... the signature of their spell workings. It will fade ... if we get you away from them. There are two of them outside the door."

I offered him his riding boots, and he stuck his feet in them. Once I latched the buckles, he rose from the bed, stretching his long limbs. "Stand aside. I can take on two guards."

I moved quickly to stand between him and the door. "No, my lord. You cannot."

"Your tongue runs away with you." Nothing like a spark of temper to burn away the remains of a sleep spell.

"Think, my lord. They are sorcerers, not illusionists. They have a binding on your mind that can send you instantly into a painful transformation. Do not imagine that they are unprepared for you to walk out of this room."

'Then, how the devil do you expect me to get out? Shrink myself to a bat and fly out of the window?"

I picked up the sword I'd brought, and held it out to him. "I think you should give them a surprise. They can't trigger what's already happened."

"You're not serious!"

"I see no other way. I would gladly yield you these." I pointed to my wrist bands and the scar on my face. "But you could hardly pa.s.s for anyone but yourself. I can't smuggle you out in a pillow. It was hard enough to find out where you were, so it's already near the end of fifth watch. We've no time for elaborate plots, and we don't dare involve anyone else. They plan to take you away at dawn."

"My father won't allow it."

"He has decreed it. He declares you mad, because he cannot stomach you as a kin murderer. He won't stop it."

Aleksander walked to the window and ran his fingers over the bars. His face was as rigid as the iron he touched. "Then, I'll wait until they take me out of here. I'll surprise them on the journey. You can come after us and help-"

There was no time to parry words with him. "If I am caught walking out of this palace, I'll be beaten until my head is pulp, and my foot will be taken off with an ax. If you challenge the Khelid, they will make you a shengar and carry you in a cage until you reach Khelidar. You must not underestimate them. Choose, my lord. We have only moments."

"But as I change ... they'll hear it." Revulsion and dread were deep upon him.

"You will have to be silent. I'll be with you, my lord. You can bear it. You must."

"Athos, save us." It was the closest thing to a prayer I had ever heard from him.

"If he cares about his Empire, he will. If he wishes Lord Dmitri to be properly avenged, he will."

Aleksander reached for the sword. "Someday you will explain why you're helping me. You've never given me a sufficient answer."

"Time enough for all that," I said as he took the sword from my hand and gazed on it as if it was itself a demon. "We need to speak of other things right now. You will have to remember the way through the palace. You are in the west tower. You must get to the kitchen garden and not kill any- one along the way, as it might be someone you would regret killing. Can you do it? The alarm will be up within minutes. Your soldiers will be after you with every weapon they can muster. They'll have the palace gates closed, so you must not panic. The beast will demand that you panic, but you will have to control it. No matter where you run to get away from them, return to the kitchen garden. I'll be there as soon as I can. Or if I can't, Durgan will be watching, ready to help you."

In a single moment, the warmth was sucked out of the room. Aleksander dropped the sword on the pile of pillows, sat heavily on the bed, and bent over his knees, his arms wrapped around his middle. "Daughters of night..."

"Can you remember all that?"

"Yes... west tower... kitchen garden... don't panic "

He rolled to his side, smothering a groan in the thin bedding. Sweat burst from every pore of his skin, dripping from his face and neck and instantly soaking his shirt. Even as the tower room grew deathly cold, heat radiated from his body as if he were the sun in his own small universe. "Be there, Seyonne."

"I'll be there, my lord."

As his torso began to stretch and blur, he wrapped his arms around the bedding and fought to keep from screaming.

"You are in control, Prince Aleksander. Your mind is not gone away...."

In fifteen long minutes the shengar stood before me, a low, angry, gravelly rumbling coming from its throat as it stretched its tawny limbs.

"Well-done. And now we go. Do not let the Khelid recover from their surprise, my lord. Make for the kitchen garden. No panic. I am going to scream in just a moment, and you must not be startled by it. You will run through the palace, killing no one, and you will get outside and find a place of safety. Are you ready?"

It was indisputably strange to be talking to a beast that could kill me with one blow. Though, as I thought about it, it was not so different from talking to Aleksander any other time.

With no little trepidation I began beating on the door. "Help! Guards, please help! I beg you." I let out a dead-raising yell.

The Aleksander-beast bawled its fury, sounding like the screams of a dying woman. It was not entirely pretense when I hammered on the thick wood.

When the door opened, I jumped aside and the wildcat leaped outward through the doorway. One of the two Khelid had a moment to yell before he was tossed against the curved tower wall. The other one had already been batted senseless by the great paws. A golden blur disappeared down the curving stair.

I s.n.a.t.c.hed the sword and threw it out of the tower window. No surer way for me to get skewered on the way out than to be seen carrying a weapon. Though I was likely to die soon enough. It would not take them long to learn which slave had come to succor Aleksander. Perhaps I should have kept the sword, I thought, as I crept out of the door. It would be quicker and less painful overall.

The Prince had not killed either of the Khelid. That was good. Their resident demons would have been set loose and ended up in someone else. Someone we didn't know.

I slipped quickly down the tower stair. The alarm was raised through the palace, like fire racing along a trail of spilled lamp oil. "Run, Aleksander," I whispered as I scurried like a rat through the labyrinth of back pa.s.sages across the vast bulk of the Summer Palace. By the time I got to the kitchen courtyard, torches were blazing throughout the palace grounds. Shouts of terror and amazement rang from every quarter.

"What was it?"

"I heard that it came from the west wing."

"How could it have got inside? Was there some entertainment planned with it?"

"There's three guards down. Drak thought he got a shot at it, but it didn't slow down."

"The monster's headed for the north parkland. Careful in those woods."

I crept around the edges of the kitchen courtyard, behind the refuse bins, between stacks of wood and barrels of ashes, ducking into corners and crevices every time I heard a step. Two groups of men-at-arms ran through the courtyard brandishing swords and crossbows, but soon the dark expanse fell silent. By the time I reached the alleyway that led from the courtyard past the carpenter's shop, the stonemason's workroom, and the other palace workshops and storehouses toward the kitchen garden, I was convinced the way was clear. But no sooner did I step out from behind a broken-wheeled cart, than I felt a flesh-ripping whip across my shoulders, the stinging tail tearing a streak in my right cheek. I stumbled on the broken cobbles of the lane and fell heavily to one knee.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, slave?" asked Boresh.

I moved to get up, but the whip cracked on the wet paving, scattering broken chips of rock that pelted my side and flew into my eyes. I stayed on my knees, bent forward.

"Well, well, it is the sneaking Ezzarian who knows not his place." The diminutive under-chamberlain grabbed a fistful of my short hair and yanked my head back. "It's time you learned it. The mad prince will have no say in your future, so you will have to put your ambitions aside ... starting now." He spit in my face, jammed his whip handle into my stomach, and shoved me forward. "Face down, vermin."

I forced myself to submit. It was not yet time to take the step I could never retract. His boot on the back of my neck ground my face into the cold wet grit of the cobbles, and I braced myself for a beating. Get it over with. But I felt a quiet scuffling at my back and heard a m.u.f.fled expulsion of air. just as the weight was lifted from my neck. Quickly I rolled to the side, just in time to see Durgan pull his knife from Boresh's back. So the step had been taken for me.

"Off with you." He wiped the blade on the under-chamberlain's breeches. "I'll take care of this refuse."

I got to my feet, wiped the muddied nastiness from my face, and bowed.

"Thank you, Master Durgan." Then I started down the lane again.

"Ezzarian!"

I paused and looked, just in time to catch a wad of cloth. It was Boresh's cloak. I bowed again, this time deeper, and ran toward the gardens.

The dark kitchen garden was as silent as a burial ground after a plague. I couldn't tell where the hunt had gone. Half the palace was lit up, and there were cries and shouts from far more places than Aleksander could possibly be. It sounded as if he'd got outside, at least.

I couldn't go chase him. If he had kept his wits, he would come. If not, I didn't want to be near him anyway. But it was very hard to wait. Twice I heard running footsteps and shouts close by, and I ducked into the corner of the garden and pulled a pile of rotted netting over me. Another hour fled past. If he didn't come soon and change again, he wouldn't have the cover of night to get away. His "episodes" had lasted between two and four hours each time.

Longer would put us right at dawn.

It was another hour until a quiet, ominous snarling from across the garden told me that Aleksander had arrived. I peeked out from my hiding place and saw the dark shape creeping through the starlit garden, pausing every so often to smell the wind. I stepped out and called softly. "My lord."

The amber-eyed cat loped across the dead earth and circled about me, as if to make sure who I was.

"Are you all right?" I said, sitting on the bottom of a splintered wheelbarrow.

He slunk toward me and settled on the ground. "You set up quite an uproar."

I talked of nonsense, dreading to see the dark midnight start to pale. But it was less than half an hour until he began to change. Even coming from beast to man, he was silent this time, smothering his agonies in his throat so no uneasy sentinel on the palace grounds could have heard him. "Come," I said, wrapping Boresh's cloak about him as soon as the transformation was complete. I helped him to his feet and led him, shaking and miserable as before, toward the copse behind the wash-house. I trusted that Durgan had managed what I'd asked. "It's time for you to leave Capharna for a while."

"I'll not run away," he said, shaking his head and struggling to force words through chattering teeth and the remnants of confusion and enchantment.

"I'll go to my father...."

"And what will make him listen to you? You've told him you killed his brother-a lie he believes. You've told him the Khelid are demons and that they changed you into a beast-a truth he discounts. Why would he believe you now?"

"I'll be calm this time. I'll explain about Dmitri. I'll show him. Touch a sword and let him watch."

"And if Lord Kastavan is there, I'll be unable to help you; he would see instantly what I was doing. If you can't control the beast-and with a demon watching, that would be quite likely-you could end up killing your father. Is that what you want?"

I had thought his face could get no paler. "I cannot run away. I'm a Derzhi warrior. I am heir to the Empire."

"They'll not allow you to be anointed until you are theirs. You must rid yourself of this enchantment or you'll be a demon emperor."

He had no answer.

We slipped into the copse-a thick little stand of barren alders that had grown up where the dirty water from the washhouse ran downhill and got caught in a shallow bowl of land. There stood the Prince's own Musa, happily munching on a pile of hay. Three filled saddle packs hung over his back, and a large cloth bag hung from a thick branch. I pulled down the bag and helped the Prince get on the dry clothes: a thick shirt, st.u.r.dy breeches, and a good, heavy cloak to replace Boresh's thinner one.

Now it was time. I steeled my heart and wished I believed in a G.o.d from whom I could beg forgiveness for the betrayal I was about to commit. "Your Highness, the only return I ask for this night's doings is that you not ill-use what I'm about to tell you. There are those who can help you... but they are those that Derzhi law requires to be held captive. I must have your word that you'll not do so."

"You must have my word? How dare you bargain with me?" Even after all, he rankled at my boldness.