Part Two: Waiting for Dawn

 

He wiped the blood from his hands before he left the atelier.

He dined alone, on real food--plain, hard bread. The servants, as he’d instructed earlier, had a bath drawn for him when he reached his quarters. Steam rose like smoke from the big wooden tub and the water had been scented with mint. He scrubbed his bare skin until it reddened like boiled lobster. Dark, guilty thoughts made it impossible for him to relax. The memories were visceral: a metallic taste in his mouth, the sound of Tulthy’s sobbing. He wished his dogs were here, but he had promised. He had made so many promises, hadn’t he, and he was finding them harder than ever to keep. Dawn seemed far away.

The water cooled. The once clean water was now gritty with dead skin and it no longer felt good, but he did not leave the bath until he heard a soft knock on the door. Startled, he tossed on a robe.

Lyadra entered.

He stared at her.

"Midnight, you commanded me." She still wore lace and gold.

"Yes." He felt like an idiot. "I’m to paint you. Yes."

"Here? No servants answered my knock at the main door, so I just..."

"No, not here, in my studio. Come."

It was a typical studio, large, empty, with one bay window, which during the day provided excellent light. All it provided now was a backdrop of stars under a sliver moon. A pedestal, which usually held baskets of fruit, or other objects, such as knives, useful to glamour, stood in front of the window. He lit a dozen sconces one by one.

"No couch?" she asked. "No chains? Where do all the other slave girls pose for you?"

"You’re the first."

"What honor you do me." Her voice was rich with sarcasm.

Without asking, she removed her clothes. Cream silk and gold brocade puddled at her feet. The shameless wench. No doubt she couldn’t wait for the jewels he had promised her. She rested her hands on the pedestal. Auburn hair curled down her back, a cascade of corkscrews and curlicues. Her skin glowed like a Habtheine peach.

The first time he had seen her naked in the moonlight, she had smiled for him. They had both been so young, so in love—or so he’d thought. She did not smile now.

For a few moments, he studied her, saying nothing, nor moving. His fingers trembled when he reached for the jars of paint. Vermillion. Burnt Umber. Cadmium Red. Brushes, made from the fur of martens. Turpentine. The familiar scents, sharp and slightly alcoholic, reassured him. He set a new canvas on the easel and began to paint. He planned to paint wet on wet, with the sketch, underpainting and highlights all added swiftly, mixed on the canvas and done before dawn. He must finish before dawn.

The sketch went well. He outlined her pose, the angle of her head, the length of her calf. Firelight lit her from one side, starlight from the other. The mix of warm and cool struck him as evocative, the perfect way to capture her deceptive nature. But when he tried to draw her eyes, and the tiny frown lines around her lips, his strokes faltered. This was not working. He knew this painting could never capture her soul.

He put down his brush.

"Lyadra," he said. "Who has painted you before?"

Her lip quavered. "You can tell?"

"Did you give yourself to a lover? Body and soul?"

"It doesn’t matter. It was a long time ago."

"You little idiot. If someone else has your soul, I cannot take it. His painting must be destroyed before mine can be finished."

She lowered her head and her hair veiled her face.

"Tell me his name," commanded Othmordian.

Still, she stayed silent. He smashed the canvas to the floor, rushed at her, and shook her. "Give me his name!"

He lifted her chin. Her hair fell away and he saw that her lips moved but no sound came out. She was weeping, but silently, helplessly.

"The man who painted you, who bound your soul, he forbade you to reveal his name?"

She nodded. Even the slight motion seemed to cause her pain. After he released her, red smudges remained on her cheek, and for a heartbeat, he feared he’d somehow left blood stains, tainted her, but then he realized it was only paint, the dark mix of vermillion and burnt umber he had been using to capture the hue of her hair.

"When?"

He wasn’t sure she’d be allowed by the geis to answer, but she replied, "Just before I broke my betrothal to you."

Years. She had been enslaved years. And he’d never guessed.

"You took a lover when we were still betrothed? You were just a girl."

"Believe what you wish."

"Are you able to tell me where he keeps the portrait of you?"

Again, it surprised him when she whispered, "Yes."

Yet why be surprised? What would her master have to fear? If he controlled her soul, he could command her not to touch the painting, and she would have to obey, even if it were hanging on a wall in front of her. Those who had their souls stolen by painting could not destroy the art that enslaved them.

"Can you show me?"

"Yes." She knelt and clutched her cream and gold garments, twisting the cloth around her fingers. She glanced up at him. He had always admired the translucent grey of her eyes, but now they looked opaque. "What will you do?"

"Destroy it."

"If you can’t?"

"Is your lover a master glamourer?"

"May I dress?"

He nodded. Lyadra stepped into her pants, raised her arms and pulled on the lacey blouse. Her breasts jutted forward, and he had to resist the urge to pluck one like a peach and taste it. It infuriated him to think of another man, a real man, not a painted boy like Drajorian, touching her, tasting her, as Othy had when they had both been sixteen, in love with each other, themselves and the starlight. A moment later, she buttoned her jacket tight across her cleavage.

"I can have a dog carriage summoned," he said. He also dressed, and strapped on a kukri.

"No need. It’s in the palace."

"You astound me. Lead on."

She walked without looking back. They traversed corridors lit only by infrequent pools of lamplight. The carpet gave way to stone and the cold seeped through his slippers. He wished he had taken the time to put on boots.

They reached a double door of thick, carved wood, which he did not recognize. He had seldom visited this part of the palace. She did not touch the bronze knobs, only waited. He pushed experimentally. Hinges creaked, the door swung inward. He entered first.

 

#

 

Othmordian was not sure what he expected. A ceiling three stories high arched over a large hall, empty except for a cavernous fireplace at the far end. A fire blazed, two chairs before it. There were no other furnishings except thousands of paintings . Every space on the ample walls had been taken by a painting, large or small, until the walls looked like giant jigsaw puzzles.

Every picture was a portrait.

Most of the figures were shown head to toe: men in armor, holding kukris or pikes or crossbows. The largest paintings had dozens of figures, all martial. Each painting was tied with a dark plum colored ribbon.

The Painted Army. So it was real. He whistled.

"The one who enslaved me," Lyadra said bitterly. She pointed.

His sister Forthia rose from her high backed chair.

"Lyadra, step away," said Forthia. "You’ve done your part."

"This was a trap?" Othmordian asked Lyadra.

"I never had a choice," Lyadra. "Not when I broke my vow to you. Not tonight."

Forthia smiled sadly. "It had to be done, Othmordian. The royal family needed the alliance with Lyadra’s lineage. Drajorian was the heir. But you were so besotted with her, and she with you, you refused to see that. I only did what I had to. Just as I do now."

She cut the ribbon on a large mural beside her. Twenty soldiers stepped out of the painting. Glamours, not brinks, but they would be invulnerable until dawn. They rushed him. He grabbed his kukri and split open the head of the first attacker, then spun and lopped off the arm of a second assailant. He slashed at a third, kicked a forth, but the odds were hopeless. Not only did the soldiers outnumber him, even those he downed would not stay down. The glamour whose head had split open slurped back together, and the armless man reattached his limb. The painted soldiers would always return to the way they had been painted, and they could not be killed. They surrounded him with bows and kukris drawn.

"I don’t hate you, little brother," said Forthia. "I understand the jealousy that must have gnawed at you. First Drajorian took away Tulthy from you, then he took away Lyadra. Even if you didn’t covet his throne, you would have hated him for that, I think. But you haven’t killed him yet, and that was your mistake."

"I spit on your pity." He did spit. The glob of mucus struck the cheek of one of the soldiers, but the glamour did not blink, or wipe it away.

"And you were jealous, ultimately, because Drajorian was better than you. He was a decade your junior, but more of a man than you ever were. You were weak, sulky. All you wanted to do was daydream in a corner and draw dogs. He was a man. He is the perfect prince, handsome, strong, charming—all the things you are not, Othy. But if you will tell me where you are keeping the real Drajorian prisoner, I will spare your life."

"Ask Tulthy where the real Drajorian is," sneered Othmordian.

"I did not see her at dinner." Forthia’s eyes widened. "No! You did not!"

The doors opened and the false prince Drajorian, the glamour, hurtled down the hall, howling. He attacked the soldiers surrounding Othmordian. It was glamour versus glamour. They hacked off his limbs but he regrew them; they smashed in his head, but it popped back out. They finally overwhelmed him with sheer numbers and bound him.

But Othmordian had not wasted the distraction. He lay about with his kukri, dismembering every glamour in his path to the fireplace. He reached his left hand into the hearth, and, ignoring the pain, squeezed a burning brand. A sketch: quick, sharp lines against the white inside wall of the fireplace, in the shape of a dog; followed by a palm print: blood from his blistered hand to bring it too life. The Smoke Hound jumped from the fireplace and tore into the glamour soldiers. They caught fire, the only thing glamours could not survive.

He strode to Forthia. She backed away until she was pressed against the wall.

"Am I weak now, Forthia?" he asked. "My scribbles have learned to bite."

"Are you going to kill me, Othy?" she whispered. "As you killed our brother and Tulthy?"

He reached his hand around her throat. She shut her eyes. He felt for the slim gold chain hidden beneath her jacket, and yanked it out hard enough to break the necklace. At the end of the necklace was a miniature of Lyadra, which he dropped on the flagstones and stomped. The shattered enamel cut through the sole of his slipper.

Behind him, he heard Lyadra gasp the moment the geis was broken.

"You should learn to look beyond the foreground, Forthia," Othmordian said. "Did it never occur to you to wonder if Drajorian was the perfect image of a prince because he was only that—an image? I cannot tell you where the real Drajorian is because I do not know. Because even the real Drajorian is not real." He raised his voice, "Isn’t that right?"

A figure in a hooded, crimson cape-coat stood in the doorway at the other end of the hall. She stepped around the ashes of the battle. The Smoke Hound panted sparks at her, but did not stop her.

"I was young." Tulthana pushed back her dark red hood. "If I had only been content with you as an heir to begin with… It wasn’t that I didn’t love you, Othy. I just wanted a baby of my own so very, very much."

"I was glad to have a nephew," he said. "I had wanted to become a glamourer for some years, and it seemed an impossible dream. But—Tulthana—what you did—"

His eyes slid past her to the false Drajorian. There were no windows in the room, but the glamour prince and the Smoke Hound dissolved. A blank sheet of paper fluttered to the ground where the prince had stood.

"It’s dawn, isn’t it?" he asked. "We must make the blood sacrifice now."

"Yes," said Tulthana.

He released Forthia. He waved an invitation tot her and Lyadra . "You are in this deep. If you are not afraid of the truth, come with us."

"No," said Tulthana.

"You cannot keep this from Forthia any longer," he said, "And I will not keep it from Lyadra."

Tulthana bowed her head. "Then come," she said. "See my folly, for which I have paid dearly."

 

#

 

On the third day, Othmordian stood once more on the dais before the assembled notables and four Officiants. Today, all would learn whether he would next be charged for regicide and high treason or anointed Regent and married to his nephew’s former betrothed. The three women who had stood to challenge him three days before, stood now in a row before him, youngest to eldest.

The First of the Four Officiants stepped forward.

"Challenger the First, Lady Lyadra," intoned the old man. "Do you stand fast to your challenge or do you renounce it?"

Lyadra met Othmodian’s eyes. For a moment, he allowed himself to admire the sheen of her auburn hair falling over a peach gown. Each bell-accented curve of her body tinkled as she moved. She was beautiful, he thought, with a twinge of his old heartache.

"I renounce my challenge," she said smoothly. The audience of notables shifted uneasily at her response. Othmordian allowed some of his grim satisfaction to show. The rabble had wanted blood. Too bad.

Even the supposedly neutral First Officiant frowned. However, he continued the formal ceremony without demure.

"Challenger the Second, Princess Forthia," he said. "Do you stand fast to your challenge or do you renounce it?"

Forthia stood tall in royal purple. "I renounce my challenge."

The First Officient glanced sidelong at Othmordian. By now the old man must have known how the rest would go, although from the old man’s angry frown, he’d no idea how Othmordian had convinced all three challengers to back down.

"Challenger the Third, Queen Tulthana," said the First Officiant. "Do you stand fast to your challenge or do you renounce it?"

"I renounce it," said Queen Tulthana.

A vast, almost soundless, yet palpable groan passed through the hall. So. The Pretender was judged no pretender, but the legitimate Voice of the Throne. No one who still suspected Othmordian of murdering his older brother would dare make that accusation openly now.

The Four Officiants began to chant, resuming the ceremony of investiture as Regent that had been interrupted by challengers three days ago. Othmordian hardly heard them.

"Prince Othmordian," the First Officient addressed him. "Will you accept the responsibility of Regent until such time as your nephew, Crown Prince Drajorian, comes of age and ascends the throne as King of Cammar?"

After Forthia had learned the truth, she had agreed with him, that, if necessary, he must kill Drajorian. But if Tulthana’s hope proved right and there was a chance that this entire pretense could be made real? If it required that Othmordian bleed himself, body and spirit, every day for another five years, it would be worth the price.

"I will," said Othmordian.

 

#

 

Another dusk. Another visit to Tulthana’s atelier. The difference was that Lyadra accompanied him up the steps of the tower.

"You don’t have to come with me every time," he said. "Only Tulthy and I have to be there each dusk and dawn."

"I wished to speak to you," she said. "About our…marriage. When you first proposed it, after my challenge, I only agreed because I thought you would murder Drajorian if I did not."

"I understand." He sighed. "I release you from that promise. And of course, I will destroy the painting I began of you. I did wrong to start it."

"I knew you thought I only wanted the wealth and power of the position. Because I thought you were…you had…well, I didn’t care what you thought of me. But I care now. I don’t…even if we can save Drajorian, I cannot marry him."

"Of course not. Not now that you know."

"That’s not what I mean. I am in love with someone else. If he would still have me."

They came to the top of the stair.

"You would marry me even if I never became king?" Othmordian asked.

"Do you still think I ever cared about that?"

No one could see them. He kissed her. "This will only convince everyone I am after the throne, you know. They’ll be sure I want your father’s gold."

"Do you care what they think?"

He laughed, ruefully. They entered the atelier.

Tulthana waited by the pomegranate curtain, and she pulled it open to reveal large, life-size oil painting with a scenic landscape in the background, and, in the foreground, a blank silhouette the shape of a missing man.

Othmordian wondered what would have happened if his first attack on his nephew had succeeded. Back then, Othy had been a boy of thirteen, and Drajorian had been three. This same canvas, in those days, had shown a toddler. At first, upon finding the painting, Othmordian had thought that someone had captured Drajorian’s soul. Only the lack of ribbons tied around the painting had revealed the truth, that Drajorian was a brink. Even so, Othmordian had not guessed the whole of the matter, but assumed that some evil glamourer had tried to draw a monster to take the flesh-and-blood Drajorian’s place. How could he have guessed that his beloved aunt and uncle had used magic to create the baby they could never have naturally?

"Thank you for doing this, Othy," said Tulthana, "It was not Drajorian’s fault that I brought him into this world. He could not help what he was. He could not help that he had no soul."

Or that, like the monster he was, Drajorian killed his own father, then fled the palace before Othmordian could stop him. But Othmordian did not say it aloud. It had all been said. Most brinks were given the power to cross the twixting by a human sacrifice. Tulthana and Arnthom had been convinced there was another way. They had not killed anyone to mix the paints for his portrait. They drew their own blood, day after day, a little at a time, in the belief that if both a man and woman give one drop of blood each day for twenty-five years to a brink, they could imbue him with a soul. Unfortunately, until then, he was still a brink: picture perfect prince on the outside, soulless monster on the inside.

Five more years of blood, every sunrise, every sunset, from a man and a woman, was needed to give Drajorian a soul.

"Do you really think I can take Arnthom’s place?" Othmordian asked. "If my brother’s daily blood was not enough to give soul to the brink, how then a pale substitute?"

"You promised to try."

"I know, Tulthana, I know." Secretly, however, he felt a heavy weight inside. He did not think Drajorian would ever grow a soul no matter how much blood Tulthana or anyone else poured out.

Lyadra touched his arm. Though she said nothing, her trust glowed in her face.

Othmordian tightened his jaw. He unsheathed his kukri. Then he unwrapped his bandaged right hand, exposing the scars from the previous cuts to his palm. He dug the dagger into his flesh again. Tulthana did the same. Drops like pomegranate seeds fell into an empty paint jar. Lastly, she picked up a paintbrush, and as she had every day for twenty years, began to mix the tiny drops of blood into the still wet oils of the painting.