LITMIR.BIZ

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table of young people to laughing. Tolo flushed and lowered his head to hide his anger as he accompanied the page to the high table and bowed deeply.

      ‘How may I serve you, Great Queen and Mother?’ he inquired. All expression had now been banished from his features. He was a thin lad with fair hair and skin that was very pale, as though he spent too much time sequestered indoors.

      ‘Your Aunt Kadiya has a proposition to put to you,’ Anigel said.

      The Lady of the Eyes explained in some detail, not minimizing the hardships of the expedition, for they would travel downstream when the Great Mutar was in flood, and the seas on his journey home from Var would doubtless be wracked by storms.

      To Anigel’s surprise, Prince Tolivar’s listlessness dropped away like the husk of an emergent nas-beetle. His eyes shone with excitement and he exclaimed, ‘Oh, yes, Aunt Kadi! Take me and Ralabun with you! I promise to obey you in everything, and never complain or shirk my duties or vex you.’

      ‘Then it is settled,’ the Lady of the Eyes said, clapping the boy on the shoulder.

      ‘I only wish you would let me help in your quest against the Star Men,’ Tolivar said stoutly.

      The three women laughed.

      ‘You are brave, but still too young,’ said the Archimage.

      ‘The world must be saved from Orogastus,’ the lad said in a low voice. ‘I have personal knowledge of his evil and treacherous ways. If necessary, I would give my life to destroy him.’

      ‘It will suffice if you serve your aunt faithfully,’ said the Queen. ‘Leave graver matters to those older and wiser.’

      ‘Yes, Mother.’ The Prince’s demeanour could not have been more respectful and docile. He bowed and took his leave from the great hall, saying he was eager to tell the exciting news to Ralabun.

      ‘Poor Tolo.’ Anigel’s concerned gaze followed her son. ‘He was so deeply affected by his time of captivity with Orogastus. He still feels guilty because he believed the sorcerer’s lies about becoming his heir and his apprentice in enchantment.’

      ‘He was too immature then to understand the enormity of his actions,’ the Archimage said kindly.

      But the Queen shook her head. ‘He was eight years old, and capable of knowing evil. Again and again he has besought Antar and me to forgive him for repudiating us, and we have tried with all our hearts to reassure him. But his guilt remains un-assuaged. Kadi … be kind to him. Try to ease his troubled spirit.’

      ‘I will do what I can,’ said the Lady of the Eyes, ‘but I suspect Tolo’s healing will come only with time. And with some atoning action he himself must perform.’

      ‘The times are perilous,’ Haramis said with a sigh. ‘There will be dangers and challenges and opportunities for heroism sufficient for all of us, even the young Prince. Pray that we will measure up to them, Sisters. Pray with all your hearts and souls, for I cannot help but feel that some fresh disaster will confront us very soon.’

      Long after the midnight hour he dared to unlock his iron strongbox, which he had refused to let the servants take away until the very moment of the caravan’s departure. He took out the smaller cloth bag, unwrapped the Three-Headed Monster, and held it in trembling hands. The silvery coronet shone in the light of the guttering candle on the bedside stand, shadows making the awful faces carved upon it seem almost alive.

      Did he dare? Was there a chance of success if he did?

      The unexpected great opportunity had come almost like a miracle, but it would not last long. He placed the coronet upon his head, took a deep breath, and strove to speak without faltering.

      ‘Three-Headed Monster,’ he whispered, ‘you belong to me! Answer me true: If I obtain the dead Three-Lobed Burning Eye from my Aunt Kadiya and place it in the star-box, will it bond to me?’

      For a moment, nothing happened. Then a mysterious voice within his own head replied: Yes. If you press the coloured gems within the box in consecutive order, the Eye will cleave to you alone, slaying any other person who presumes to touch it without your permission.

      ‘Will the Eye obey my commands?’

       It will, if the commands are pertinent.

      Tolivar nearly shouted with elation. ‘Can – can you make me invisible so that I may enter my aunt’s room without her seeing me?’

       The question is impertinent.

      The Prince nearly burst into tears of frustration. Not again! Not now! ‘Make me invisible! I command you!’

       The request is impertinent.

      The talisman would sometimes obey his commands – especially when he asked it simple questions, or bade it give him Sight of some person or place far distant – but more often it spoke that maddening phrase of refusal. His attempts at sorcery, undertaken either in the hut out in the mire or in his other hiding place in the Derorguila ruins, had always been timid and hesitant and not often successful. Tolivar had good reason to be afraid of his talisman. Sometimes, for reasons unknown, the power would turn upon the one who wielded it. This had happened to Orogastus while Tolivar was his hostage. The sorcerer had not been seriously hurt.

      Hut even though there was danger, Tolivar could not let this fortuitous opportunity pass by.

      ‘I will not give way to faintheartedness,’ the Prince said to himself. ‘After all, the Monster did make me invisible once before, when I first obtained it.’ He squeezed his eyes shut, breathed slowly in and out until he felt calmer, and then spoke to the talisman again, this time choosing his words with care.

      ‘Instruct me how I may become invisible.’

       Visualize the deed to be accomplished and then command it.

      Could it be that simple? Was the talisman’s operation triggered by his thoughts, then, rather than by spoken words? Was that the great secret to successful wizardry? It was a notion that the boy had never considered before. Had he perhaps done the visualization inadvertently earlier on, when issuing the successful magical commands?

      Let it be! Please, let it be!

      With his eyes still closed, Tolivar conjured a picture of himself within his imagination, sitting on the bed in his room, wearing the coronet. Keeping the vision clear, he caused his body to fade away like dissipating smoke. He did not speak until the imaginary bedroom was empty.

      ‘Talisman,’ he intoned, ‘now render me invisible.’ He waited for a few heartbeats, then opened his eyes. Slowly, he lifted his hand in front of his face.

      He saw nothing but the room and its furniture.

      There was a small mirror mounted on the wall near the washstand, and he rushed to it. No face returned his gaze into the glass! The talisman had obeyed him.

      He sat down on a stool and pulled off his boots (which immediately became visible once they dropped from his hands), and ran on tiptoe to the door. There he paused as a thought struck him, inspired by the reappearing boots. Would the Burning Eye seem to vanish when he picked it up? If it did not, and if Aunt Kadiya woke and saw it wafting away from her, borne by a magical force, she might lash out with her dagger. Invisible or not, if that happened he might be wounded or even killed.

      He experimented, lifting the silver pitcher from its basin on the washstand, and uttered a groan of disappointment. Horrors! The thing did remain quite visible, seeming to float in mid-air. But then he collected himself, once more closed his eyes, and imagined that the pitcher disappeared. Without speaking aloud this time, he formulated a thought-command:

       Talisman, render the pitcher invisible.

      He opened his eyes. His fingers still grasped a smooth metal handle and his arm muscles were aware of a weight being held. But he saw nothing. Carefully, he put the invisible pitcher back into its basin. He heard

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