The Lord of Illusion - 3 (4 page)

“Pembridge. Dowager duchess from the house of—”

Imperial Lord Roden waved her to silence. “It hardly matters. What shall your illusion be? A prancing unicorn? A garden fairy to delight the ladies?”

The duchess humphed again. “I am not some young girl, my lord, to enjoy such amusements.”

“Excellent! Some sophistication is in order, then! We sit all atremble, Lady P, awaiting your creation.”

Camille uncurled her fingers and edged her hand atop the duchess’s, squeezing those old bones lightly in warning.

But the lady ignored the touch, her brow furrowed in concentration, those weak eyes staring at a spot on the solid gold floor halfway between her and Roden. “I have tried,” she said, “to perfect the illusion of Grimor’ee.”

A hazy golden dragon took shape upon the floor.

“But I can never quite get it right,” finished the duchess, blinking her eyes at the illusion. “I told you, my lord, my powers are weak, barely worth your attention. This is the best I can manage.”

Camille gently squeezed Lady Pembridge’s hand again. This might not be such a disaster after all. If the lady insisted that this was the best she could do, the elven lord might humiliate her as badly as he had the young girl—but that would be all.

Roden looked scornfully at the illusion of his dragon-steed. “The scales look like fur and the eyes are all wrong. And it is barely two hands high. Surely you can produce better than this? Why, Grimor’ee would be insulted! He has been known to eat men for less.”

The duchess gaped. Camille knew the lady feared the dragon more than she did the elven lord himself. Indeed, that’s why she worked on her illusion of the dragon, to try and mitigate that fear. Camille also knew Grimor’ee did not eat humans, had tried to reassure her mistress that the dragon was certainly not the raging beast the court made him out to be.

But Camille could not reveal how she knew this for a fact. Could not repeat the story of how she’d been mishandled by soldiers, crawled to the tower to escape them, and for the first time had been met with concern. In the golden eyes of a dragon.

The duchess stared at her illusion in horror. “I… I meant no disrespect to Grimor’ee. Perhaps I can manage… yes, I shall try harder…”

Her frail body vibrated with intent. Camille squeezed the lady’s hand harder in warning. But she already felt the thrumming of the elven blood within those old bones, gathering whatever power the duchess possessed in an attempt to strengthen the illusion.

The hazy dragon-shape solidified and grew to the size of a small pony. The outline of golden scales became bright and sharp. The eyes blinked, now looking as real as Grimor’ee’s own, the irises separated by lines of red which made those golden orbs resemble a sliced pie. Wings delineated with ridges of muscle began to beat the air, fanning the silver-white hair of the elven lord.

Camille huffed and glanced at her mistress. Most half-breeds could create a realistic illusion. It took stronger power to add sound, touch, taste, smell… and only the elven lord himself could add them all to create illusions realistic enough to completely fool the senses.

“Who knew the old hoyden had it in her?” whispered a man to their left.

Imperial Lord Roden narrowed his eyes. “It appears that you have been withholding the true extent of your powers, Lady P.” He lifted his scepter. “I wonder what else you might manage given the proper incentive.”

“No, my lord,” blurted Camille. “She has very little power, I assure you. It’s just that she fears Grimor’ee.”

The court gasped as one that a mere servant had the temerity to speak within their presence. Worse, a servant who had once been a slave.

Roden ignored her, his attention completely fixed upon Lady Pembridge.

“I… I am astonished, I assure you,” said the duchess. “I have never held any power beyond a wisp of illusion.”

The dragon threw back his head and roared, streams of mist issuing from the cavernous maw. Several members of the court held their hands over their ears at the swell of sound, but Camille continued to hold onto the duchess’s hand, as if she could somehow stop the woman from embellishing the spell.

To no avail. A thin stream of gold issued from the tip of Roden’s scepter, heading directly for the wigged head of Lady Pembridge. Her illusory dragon doubled in size, lunged in front of that threatening beam of magic and snapped at it, dissolving the golden mist into shreds. And then turned upon the elven lord.

Women screamed. Tables toppled.

Roden raised a brow and instantly created his own golden dragon. This one from the stuff of nightmare. Jagged teeth, elongated claws, barbs along the golden scales. It hissed at Lady Pembridge’s illusion and pounced.

Several members of the court tried to leave the room. The enchanted walls heaved and swelled. Doors slammed and windows collapsed, preventing any escape. The more savvy of the aristocrats took refuge behind velvet couches and overturned tables.

Camille could only stare in horror as the two dragons rolled about the room, tails slamming into mirrors with a shatter, growls piercing the air, teeth snapping on golden scales.

She could not lose another employer. Not again. She would never manage to climb her way out of the destitution of slavery for a third time. Camille gritted her teeth and squeezed the duchess’s hand once more, but this time not in warning. This time she willed the old woman to fight back with everything she had. For if her illusion faltered…

Imperial Lord Roden smiled. Lady Pembridge stared in stupefied fascination at the two dragons.

Roden’s illusion clasped the other about the throat and sunk its teeth into the smaller scales there. Blood as red as the finest claret began to ooze from scale and teeth. The duchess’s dragon writhed about, finally managed to break that hold, and bit down on its opponent’s wing.

Roars shook the room.

Another tumble of scale and wing and teeth. Blood now covered the golden floor. It soon became apparent that Roden’s illusion would prevail.

A ghastly sound of flesh ripping. A clawed arm flew across the room to knock the wig from the head of a lady in white, who promptly screamed and fainted.

Camille now began to pray that Lady Pembridge would allow her illusion to fade. But her mistress no longer seemed to have any control over her creation. It bled and screamed and scattered shiny guts about the room as Roden’s dragon tore it slowly to bits.

Tears tracked a path down the duchess’s wrinkled cheeks.

With a final roar, her illusion finally winked out of existence, leaving not a single stain upon the palace floor, although Camille still held the shadow of grisly death within her eyes. As she looked about the room, she realized that others did as well.

“Well done,” said Imperial Lord Roden. “I underestimated you, Lady P. That was more entertaining than I had ever dreamed.” He tapped his beautifully sculpted chin with the golden scepter. “But it does leave me with a dilemma, my dear. In light of the developments at Verdanthame, I fear I must make an example of you.”

Camille’s heart raced. Lady Pembridge did not react at all, her frozen eyes still tracing tears down her face.

Roden’s dragon turned its red eyes upon the duchess and approached her chair, talons screeching jagged gouges into the floor. Camille wanted to scream, wanted to fling herself over her mistress’s body to protect her. But she could not move. Her legs would not listen to her commands. Her arms shook as if the muscles had been fatigued beyond endurance.

“You see, my dear,” continued the elven lord while his dragon took one long sniff down Lady Pembridge’s frozen body. “I cannot allow my subjects to hide any of their powers from me.” He turned to the courtiers, who still crouched behind whatever barrier they managed to find. “Get up, the lot of you. From this moment forward, you will report anyone who shows the slightest increase in their powers. If you do not…”

The dragon hissed, his nose inches from Lady Pembridge’s face. The sound finally broke the spell of terror that held her frozen, and she looked up, up into those cruel red eyes.

“No,” growled Camille.

“No,” said her mistress at the same time. But that maw opened, wicked sharp teeth glittering in the firelight, and engulfed the old woman’s head so swiftly Camille barely had time to blink.

“It cannot truly harm you,” insisted Camille. “It is only an illusion.” But she knew that unless one possessed enough elven blood to see through it, it held more reality than the stool she sat upon. And her mistress held little elven blood within her veins. Yet, surely the lady could use whatever power she managed to conjure today to fight the elven lord’s own?

But the duchess’s dragon lost the battle, had he not?

A grinding sound followed as the dragon worried at his prey. Then the loud snap of bone.

Lord Roden waved his scepter and his illusion disappeared to reveal Lady Pembridge’s head tilted at an odd angle, only Camille’s grip on her arm keeping the old woman upright in her chair.

“This will be your fate,” pronounced Roden. “Now, I will take your petitions for testing at dinner this eve. I cannot seem to bear your faces for another moment. Such surprise! Did you think you would not suffer the same doom as my champion if you overstepped yourselves? I had thought to make an example of him, but it appears you needed more proof of my intentions. Do any of you still doubt your peril?”

A whisper of denial rushed about the room.

Roden smiled. “Excellent. Oh, and send that damn slave back to the kitchens where she belongs. Those mottled eyes are disgusting to look at.”

***

The kitchens looked exactly as Camille had left them two years ago, from the dried herbs hanging from the ceiling to the enormous oak table where most of the staff took their meals. No magical illusions had been wasted on this part of the palace. The reality of soot-stained fireplace, worn stone floor, and blackened walls stayed the same.

In many ways, Camille preferred the battered decor to the illusions of upstairs. At least she knew her surroundings would not change from one moment to the next.

“Sent ye back, eh?” said Cook, glancing up from the mound of dough he’d been folding. “Can’t say as I didn’t warn ye.”

Camille nodded. Cook told her she could not fight fate, yet she had stubbornly refused to listen, using every opportunity she could to find another way out of slavery. She thought she’d found a home with Lady Pembridge…

“Go on with ye, now. The slave master is waitin’ for ye.”

He sounded almost… sorry for her.

A few soldiers already sat at table, drinking their nightly ration of gin, and they all turned to stare at her. Camille glared back at them, feeling as if they stripped her naked with their stares. Damn this slave clothing. It marked her as a nobody, lacking even the rights that servants were entitled to.

She turned her head away and pretended to ignore them as she walked carefully to the cellars, wincing at the sharp cracks in the stone floor. After two years of wearing shoes her feet had grown tender, and it would take some time for them to toughen up again. She did not miss the trappings that came with the rest of her servant’s uniform: the hoops and tight stays. But she did miss her shoes, and the feel of softly brushed wool against her skin.

And she already missed Lady Pembridge. Her kindness and humor and even her absentminded ways.

Camille’s eyes burned although they did not water. She couldn’t remember the last time she actually cried. She had realized quickly enough that it did little good.

She hoped to reach the little closet she and Molly had once shared before the slave master spotted her. But he stood in the hallway, waiting for her. A smile of anticipation on his pockmarked face. Slapping a whip into the palm of his hand.

“Ye didn’t learn the first time, did ye? Couldn’t pass yerself off as a nursemaid, and now the ole lady dies and yer back again, ain’t ye?”

The large man who resembled a hairless ogre took a step forward. Camille fought the urge to flee and held her ground.

“And now I got to teach ye a lesson again.” He leaned closer until she could smell his rank breath. “Ye is a slave, ye will always be a slave, and it’s best ye remember it from now on, girlie. I’m doin’ this for yer own good. Unbutton yer dress.”

Camille could run. But the soldiers would catch her and be driven to a sexual frenzy by watching her beating and she’d never escape them tonight. And the slave master would add twenty lashes for her efforts. If he had to tie her to a post, he would beat her until she could no longer stand. She learned long ago that fighting the lash would only make the beating worse.

She reached behind her and struggled with the buttons.

The master’s eyes glittered like a beastly predator. “I went easy on ye the first time ye thought to rise above yer station. This time I’m thinking ye need a more severe lesson.”

Camille’s mouth went dry and she fumbled at the buttons.

“Devil take ye, girl. Get it off or I’ll rip it off for ye and then ye’ll have to work nights to earn a new one.”

She just managed to unbutton them before he yanked her arm and spun her around, shoving the bodice over her shoulders to expose her back, kicking her to the ground with a well-aimed boot to her bottom.