They had gambled together. Inos had lost.

And Rasha had lost. So Azak had won.

And if Inos accepted the job of son-breeder, what happened when she was forty, with Azak long since a.s.sa.s.sinated and someone else on the throne? To whom would the chattel be rea.s.signed?

She thought about all these things in the hot and stuffy carriage as it climbed the hill. She was still thinking about them as it rattled to a halt in the palace yard.

"After the rigors of the desert and the confines of a ship," Kade said brightly, "it will be nice to enjoy some really luxurious decadence again."

3.

Their old quarters had been taken over by another prince and his household. Kade and Inos were ushered to a small suite of rooms that they had never seen before. Compared to the others they were dingy; compared to anywhere else they were still opulent. A half-dozen shrouded women waited to attend them, but they were surly and uncommunicative. There was no sign of Zana.

Inos demanded a bath, and enjoyed it. Then she defiantly scrabbled through her trunk until she found a slinky Imperial dress of cool green and white silk, and she braided up her hair herself. She smothered herself in pearls and admired her reflection in a mirror and wanted to weep.

Kade, when she appeared, had donned a Zarkian chaddar of white cotton, although her head was uncovered.

They hugged without words, and wandered out to a balcony overlooking a jeweled garden. Parrots screamed among the trees. "Nice to be home?" Inos asked bitterly, sniffing the flower scents in the air.

"I enjoy the little comforts." Kade waited, and when she received no answer, added, "Don't believe everything that Master Skarash says, my dear. He's not a very reliable witness."

"But it makes sense. It all makes sense. And nothing else does."

Kade sighed and went to sit on a soft chair. "Well, you may have lost your kingdom. We can't be sure of that yet. And even if you havea"it wasn't ever very much of a kingdom, you know." Battling a lump in her throat, Inos said nothing.

"Kinvale was always more comfortable. And Kinvale is still there. We shall always be welcome."

"To accept charity from that sly old b.i.t.c.h who set Yggingi on us?"

"Inos!"

"It's true! And she will still believe I have a word of power. She will brew up some other foul scheme to rack it out of me for her precious moronic son."

Kade beamed, being motherly. "Well then, not Kinvale. We know hundreds of people in the Impire. We shall go and visit Hub."

"And just how do we get there? On camels? Will our earrings buy camels? "

"They would buy a lot of things." Kade smiled brightly. "You are young, and healthy, and wealthy, and well educated. You have beauty and grace. I am sure that Sultana Rasha will still be sympathetic, perhaps even more so now. You have been harshly treateda"by mena"and she disapproves of women being oppressed. She will see you on your way, back to the Impire where you belong. She may even magic you there. Now that the wardens know about her, she has no reason to conceal her existence or her powers."

Inos was not sure she believed all that. She did not trust Rasha, and certainly did not want to be beholden to her. Kade tried again. "Remember the G.o.d's words? You were told to trust in love. Love is worth more than all the kingdoms of Pandemia."

"Whose love? Azak's?"

Her aunt hesitated and pursed her lips. "If you want my honest opinion . . . No, I don't think so. You do have a great attraction for men, Inos. He will not be the last man to fall in love with you."

"But none more truly," said Azak, coming out of the doorway.

Inos jumped and bit back a sharp comment about eavesdroppers. He was sultan again; she must watch her tongue.

He strode over to her and stopped, very close, and his jewels glittered in the sunlight. His fringe of beard was a two-week stubble, but it was enough to distinguish him from the dashing imp he had been in Ullacarn, or the bushy lionslayer of the desert. He stared down at her with his dark red eyes.

"I have not changed," he said.

She tried not to show how much that meant. Then she felt guilty. She wanted to use that love against him, to win favors, not to love him in return. Could she ever? Queens did not marry for love; they married for reasons of state.

Was that so very different from what Rasha had done in her younger days?

He smiled, but it was not a very warming smile. It looked too deliberate. "No answer?"

"Azak . . . I don't know what to say. Kade was just warning me that we still don't know for certain about Krasnegar. Skarash is not the most reliable of witnesses."

Azak snorted. "Of course not. Well, you shall remain here asa""

He twisted and went rigid. She saw beads of perspiration break out on his face.

"Azak! What's wrong?"

He relaxed with a gasp and shivered. "I came to tell you that we are summoned. I must be taking too long. That was a nudge, that's all."

Rasha! The spider at the heart of the web. "Then let us go right away!"

He was angry at having revealed weakness. "There is no hurry. Have you a shawl or something . . . for the walk?" Inos nodded and ran ahead indoors to find a cloth to cover her hair and shoulders. Kade came close behind her.

4.

Jeweled amber eyes rolled to inspect the visitors, and the carven demon face writhed into speech. "State your name and business!" On the other flap of the door, the matching demon merely curled its wooden lips in a sneer.

"Sultan Azak of Arakkaran and Queen Inosolan of Krasnegar!" No occult fakery could teach Azak anything about sneering.

"Who is the other one?"

"Her Royal Highness Princess Kadolan."

There was a pause then, as if the grotesque were reporting to its mistress. The corridor was dim; it felt as cold as a Krasnegarian midwinter. Inos was trying not to shiver, absurdly glad that Azak was there beside her. She doubted she would have had the courage to come and face the sorceress alone. Then she sensed him looking down at her. She glanced up.

"She has power," he said coldly, and there was no doubt to whom he referred, "but remember what she is. And what you are, Cousin."

I am nothing! "Of course, Cousin."

He nodded and went back to outsneering the demonic faces on the door. Inos's black mood darkened further.

He said he had not changed, but he had. He was sultan again, as he had been when she first met him. On the dock, back in the palace yard, he had spurned the fawning princes, made strong men leap to obedience with one cold glance. She had forgotten just how intimidating he was in his royal role.

And she had changed. She was a queen no longer. Royal status was much more important to Azak than it had ever been to her. Now she was an outcast, like one of the banished princes who sank to being family men in other palaces, or lionslayers serving tradesmen. Although he denied it, he despised them as failures. Rasha's nudge had come before they had finished their talka"had he been about to offer Inos marriage, or escape to Hub, or steady employment as a breeder of sons? Which did she want?

Rasha's curse still kept them apart.

"The two of you may enter, the third may not," the carving stated.

"No!" Kade looked ready to argue with the door.

Inos kissed her cheek. "You go back and wait in the suite, Aunt. Don't hang around here. We may be some time."

"I think it is my dutya""

"Go!" Azak boomed, and Kade capitulated.

Inos watched sadly as her aunt wandered back along the long gloomy corridor, and she felt loneliness settle aver her like h.o.a.r frost.

Then a squeal from a hinge made her jump. The double doors had swung open.

She entered at Azak's side, and saw at once that the Kinvale influence had been discarded. Again the great circular bedchamber was overflowing with chests and tables in every possible style. The sumptuous floor was hidden again below a discordant mismatch of rugs, and the lewd wall hangings and erotic statuary that Kade had banished had now been replaced. Inos had been shocked by the first collection, and the replacements were even worse; she blushed to see them. The air reeked with syrupy scents.

Beyond the two big windows stood the white vertical blaze of noon. Light spilled also down the central well of the spiral staircase, and yet it was curiously muted . . . smoky? . . . less bright than Inos remembered or expected, so the big room seemed oddly dim, and cool.

The doors closed with a boom and a fading echo like a drum roll. The two visitors continued to advance, heading for the bottom step. Then Azak halted, and so did Inos. The enormous canopied bed still stood at the far side of the room, beyond the stair, and the sorceress was standing at one corner of it, leaning provocatively against the carved post as if embracing it.

Inos felt a shiver of apprehension and disgust as she saw that Rasha was in her seductress mode, more voluptuous than ever. Only a small s.p.a.ce around her eyes was actually uncovered, but the mist of gauze and jewels that floated over the rest of her concealed nothinga"not the long fall of russet hair, nor the hot glow of nipple and areola, nor the many ropes of pearls looped around her body and limbs, next the skin. Nor the skin either, the hot, ruddy skin of a nubile djinn maiden. Nothing above the bright enamel of her sandal straps was leaving any mysteries to tempt the imagination. She looked no older than Inos. Did men really appreciate such an obscenity? Did they not see the vulgarity, or the contempt?

"Come closer," said the moist red lips.

Azak and Inos advanced more slowly, stopped. Inos waited for his cue, until she realized that he would not bow to a dockside trollop. She had set her own precedents long since, and to change them now would be a defiance, so she curtsied. Rasha acknowledged the move with a flick of one shapely eyebrow.

Then Azak fell to his knees and steadied himself with his hands. That fall had not been voluntary, and had probably hurt. "You seem to have learned no lessons, Muscles," said Rasha. "Oh, but I have!" Azak's ruddy-stubbled face parted in a joyful gleam of white teeth.

"Do tell."

"I have learned that you are no match for Warlock Olybino!" Rasha leaned even more seductively against the carved post of the bed, stroking it with her breast. "So what do you expect to happen now?"

He shrugged. "I suppose, when he gets around to it, the warlock will come for you, to claim your words of power. But I hardly expect that an aged, malformed, mutilated wh.o.r.e will be of use to him. He will torture the words out of you and have your throat cut like a pig's!"

"You would like to be there to watch, of course."

"I would enjoy few things more."

"And volunteer to help?"

"Why not? You have caused me enough pain in the past." Now it was Rasha who shrugged, and the gesture seemed to involve her whole body. She turned her gaze of languid contempt on Inos. It felt like impudence from a girl so young.

"I offered my help and you spurned it. Now you have been disinherited. You are a homeless refugee."

Woe! So it was true. Skarash might have been lying, but a sorceress had no need to lie.

"Your help seemed to involve marrying a goblin," Inos said, keeping her words slow and level.

The sorceress slid around, so the post was behind her. "If you just keep your eyes closed, honey baby, they're all much the same. Some are heavier than others, some hairier, some hurt more. That's all."

"I can hardly keep my eyes closed all the time."

"You have never had them open! You are a fool."

Inos felt no anger, only apprehension. "It would seem that my kingdom was disposed of without my presence being necessary. In that case, your help would have been no help. There never was any way you could put me on my thronea"the Protocol forbade it."

The sorceress's eyes flashed in fury.

Inos did not wait for a comment. "I appreciate that you had good intentions, your Majesty. Now I humbly ask that you return my aunt and myself to Krasnegar, where you found us."

Rasha laughed hard scorn, like hail. "I may keep the dog as payment for services rendered, though? How about compensation for the votary I have lost because of your stupidity? No, Inosolan, you forfeited any claim on me when you fled from my city."

Her city? Azak growled wordlessly.

"You organized that whole affair!" Inos shouted, and at last she began to feel anger. "It was all your idea, anda""

"It was your idea, kitten. I did not put it in your head. And had my sorcery not prevented him, that slab of brawn on the floor there would have had you with child by now."

Fury! How dare this s.l.u.t speak such lies? Inos took a very deep breatha"

"Be silent, or I shall make you silent. He cannot look at you without half choking on his l.u.s.t." Rasha chuckled softly, and shivers ran down Inos's spine. "No, we shall keep you here. We shall teach the royal parasites how to be useful. Your aunt we shall put in the sculleries, scrubbing floors. And youa"you I shall a.s.sign to one of the guards. I have one picked out already. He has unusual tastes in recreation." She was watching Azak as she spoke.

Oh, G.o.ds! She had found another way to torture him, by torturing the woman he loved. Inos felt her hands start to shake and clasped them behind her. She would suffer to make Azak suffer. Every humiliation inflicted upon her would be reported to him so that he would be humiliated also. He might even be forced to watch.

Silence. No one spoke.

Then the sorceress jeered at the man on his knees before her. "And you, Wonderstud? Let me give you some disappointing news."

Azak's eyes narrowed, but he still did not speak.

Rasha straightened up and laid hands on hips, thrusting her dainty chin forward in a curiously inappropriate gesture. "It is true that Elkarath's allegiance has been turned, so Olybino broke my spell. Possibly he does have more power at his disposal than I do, for he has votaries to aid him. But I did not put my full power into the spella"sorcerers almost never do, for this very reason. I still have power in reserve, and he can't know how much. More important, I am in my stronghold." She waved both hands high, triumphantly. "Why do you suppose sorcerers build towers? The whole palace is shielded, and it will take enormous power to defeat me here. If he sends in votaries, I may turn them. If they blast their way in, then the entire complex may be razed by the energies released. Think again, Pretty Man."

Azak studied her for a moment and then said quietly, "And did the warlock of the east spell me, also?"

Rasha hesitated, and Inos sensed that the tension had somehow changed.

"Not that I can see," the sorceress remarked cautiously. He sighed deeply. That news would be a great relief to him. "Let me up, please."

Please?

Rasha's smoldering eyes widened a fraction. "Rise, then." Azak rose, rubbing a bruised knee. He drew himself up to his full height and crossed his arms. "On your promise to behave yourself, your Majesty . . . I invite you to my wedding, three days hence."

Inos gasped. Rasha's face blazed with fury at such defiance. Before she could speak, Azak repeated softly, "Your Majesty."