The Sword And The Pen (27 page)

"Hurt her, I'll gut you and strangle you with your entrails."

Roark's laughter boomed throughout the chamber. "Brave words. Do as I bid and she'll live. Disobey and she dies." He pressed the blade deeper. Mauri moaned.

"Don't!" Spreading her arms wide, Serilda lowered her sword. "What do you want?"

"What I've always wanted."

"I'll never tell you my enchanted name." Ice flowed through her veins. He had to die. She watched and waited for an opening.

"Not even to save her?"

"How did she get here?" Serilda stalled for time.

"Pretty little thing. Pity she has to die. Now that she's grown, she'd have warmed my bed nicely." He stroked his hand down Mauri's unresisting body. "I summoned her."

"How?" Summoned? Roark's magic was small, not strong enough to command another without. . . She looked into Mauri's blank eyes and knew the truth before Roark continued.

"The connection between enchanted name and invoker transcends time and space. Long before she came into your hands, she was my creature."

"You know her enchanted name?" She viewed the motionless girl with different eyes.

"Poor lass." He touched Mauri's pale cheek in a mockery of tenderness. "Her parents dead. All alone. When I found her, it didn't take much to coax her enchanted name from her. Once I had it, I placed her in your path. I knew you couldn't resist rescuing her."

"She's been spying for you?"

"She's been my eyes and ears in your camp. Unfortunately, my opportunities to summon her have been few, barely enough to allow me to escape your numerous traps."

No wonder Roark had slipped through her fingers time and time again. Anger warred with pity in Serilda.

"Tsk. Don't blame the child. She has no recall of what she did. Every time I summoned her, she tried to resist giving me information. She fought my commands, so I wiped her memory of our encounters. I couldn't chance her love for you prevailing over her duty to me."

Serilda thanked the heavens that Mauri hadn't know the specific details of their recent attack. "Do as you will. I'll not surrender my soul to you."

Speaking Mauri's death sentence shredded her heart. She'd gladly die for the girl, but giving Roark control over her risked the lives and futures of more than just this one child.

"Why do you resist? Together we could rule Barue."

"I'll never be your consort." The thought of Roark's touch clogged her throat with bile.

"Sweet as it is, I have no desire for your body. You mistake my intentions...daughter."

Daughter? Shock rippled through her. "You lie."

"Do I?" He lifted an eyebrow and studied her. "I knew the moment I saw you that you were mine. Your mother thought she escaped me so many years ago, but she carried my seed."

One part of her screamed denial of his words, another accepted them. Now, her mother's aversion to touching her, her father's silent dislike, their emotional distance--it all made sense.

"It took me ten years to find her. To find you."

Serilda remembered the attack in the middle of the night. The shouts outside their modest home. Her father grabbing his sword and rushing out the door to face the attackers. Her mother hiding her younger sisters and brothers in the cellar, then pushing her out the back, telling her to run. Cowering in the woods as men on horseback surrounded the house. Seeing the man she called father cut down and trampled, his blood staining the ground red.

She remembered her mother screaming and trying to reach him as men grabbed her. Watching as the leader strode over to her mother. She hadn't heard the words that passed between them, but she'd seen her mother spit in the man's face. He'd slapped her. She sagged limp to the ground.

The crackle of fire when he'd ordered the house torched. Her mother's anguished sobs and pleas as screams began inside the burning house.

She remembered her mother snatching up her father's sword, attacking the man, her strangled cry as the man's blade plunged through her chest. The crackle of fire. The screams of her brothers and sisters burning alive. The smell. Her answering cries of grief as she tried to reach them, only to be driven back by the flame's intense heat.

She remembered the look of revelation on the man's face as he caught sight of her. Then she'd been running and running and running, heart pounding, gasping for breath, through the night. Escaping death, but never quite escaping the nightmare.

"And when you found her, you killed her, killed them all. Why?"

"She betrayed me. She was mine. What's mine, I keep. Her death was an unfortunate accident." He shrugged. "I meant to take her with me. Her attack surprised me. I reacted badly. I was much younger then," he said, as if that explained it all.

"You truly believed she'd go with you after you murdered everyone she loved?"

"She was supposed to love me." The madness in his eyes echoed the insanity of his words.

"Why not kill me as well?"

"You're my blood. My daughter. You're mine. You belong to me."

"I don't belong to you. I belong to no man." But suddenly, she knew she lied. Her heart belonged to Donnie. Not the king who'd dominated and commanded her while satisfying her body, but the new man who'd appeared, who fed her soul, who loved and desired her. Donnie, who'd come to help her in her quest, sacrificing himself and his need to rule his kingdom in order to help her, no matter what. Body and soul, she belonged to him, though he could never be hers. He was like a storybook hero, one created by bards but specifically for her--though her world could know no happy endings.

Horror filled her. Roark's blood flowed in her veins. She wanted to purge the knowledge from her mind, drain the evil taint from her body, cleanse her soul. First, she had to eliminate him from this world.

"Unlike your deceitful mother, you will love me," he was saying.

"I'll never love you. Kill her if you will." Better Mauri died than the girl remain in physical and mental thrall to Roark. "You won't escape my blade."

His smile was a warning, and it came a split second before he spoke. "I won't kill her. You will." He thrust a dagger into Mauri's hand and shoved her forward, commanding, "Kill Serilda."

Blade poised, Mauri lunged forward. Her eyes were blank.

Seri suffered only a moment of remorse. She caught the girl's wrist and gave it a sharp twist, heard bones crack. She winced, but the girl's dagger tumbled to the floor. Eyes wild and unfocused, fingers curled like talons and shrieking, Mauri continued her attack, so Seri struck her with the pommel of her sword. With a whimper, the girl crumpled to the floor and lay still.

She bent and quickly checked Mauri's pulse, found it strong and steady. So doing, she stood and looked around for Roark. This was the only chance. Once he died, Mauri would be free of his control.

Her heart stuttered as she surveyed the room. The chamber was empty. The door was still barred behind her, though. Where had he gone?

Next to the hearth, where there was no breeze, a tapestry rippled. She tore it down to expose a gap in the stone wall. Light from hearth revealed a vanishing secret passageway, a circular stairwell. She couldn't see her foe, but she heard the clatter of Roark's boots as he ran downward. Sheathing her sword, she squeezed through the narrow opening and followed him into oblivion.

*** *** ***

I twisted out of the pool of ooze into which I'd been smashed when the warhorse collapsed upon me. Mud caked my body from head to toe, but its consistency had saved me from being crushed. Since I fell, the fight had shifted away from the gate, leaving me alone in this corner of the bailey. I stood and let the ceaseless rain rinse the filth from my face and eyes, then looked around. Seri was nowhere to be seen.

In the center of the bailey, Gerhan's mounted soldiers surrounded Roark's remaining men; the fighting here was all but done. Without Roark appearing to lead them, his soldiers had surrendered.

My gaze went upward. High in the keep's tower, the light still burned. In almost every version of my book, I'd set a major confrontation between Roark and Seri in that chamber. They had to be there. But I could see the main door was closed, access to the keep cut off. How could I get in?

Heavy with mud, the parchment inside my garments stuck to my chest. I pulled it out and read. Nothing was going as I'd planned. Ink ran in illegible streaks and smears across the page. Only the last line of what I'd written remained, for all the good it would do. In my gut, I knew the end of Seri's story--the end that I'd always intended. A sense of helplessness came over me.

My presence in this world negated the measly power I wielded with my pen. I couldn't control what happened here any more than I could control the future in my real life--a real life that had always scared me, been out of my grasp. But as my fingers curled around the hilt of the sword hanging at my waist, I realized there were other methods of making a difference than with a pen.

The castle gate opened. Occupied by disarming Roark's soldiers, Gerhan didn't notice the small figure wobbling out into the bailey.

I rushed to her side. She collapsed in my arms.

"Mauri."

"I'm sorry. I tried not to tell him anything, but I couldn't resist," the girl whispered.

"Damn." I felt trapped in a nightmare of my own design. "Mauri, where's Seri? Roark?"

"I don't know," she whimpered. "They went through a secret escape tunnel in the wall."

I searched my memory for the details of my original ending and went cold inside. Roark and Seri had made their way to where the fortress rose along the edge of a steep cliff. Locked in combat, they tumbled to their deaths together.

"My lord. Are you injured?"

I looked up through the rain to see Gerhan. "No. See to the prisoners and the girl," I commanded. That should keep him occupied.

But I'd underestimated the old warrior's devotion to Donoval. Gerhan hurried after me as I headed across the bailey. "Where do you go, my lord?"

"Lady d'Lar follows Roark to the cliffs." As I ran, I heard Gerhan shouting commands to his men, but I didn't stop to explain or wait for him. Every second counted.

Torrents of icy rain sluiced over me. Thunder rumbled, shaking the ground. Jagged streaks of lightning flashed across the grey skies, blinding me with their brilliance. Each bolt illuminated a scene of horror. Bodies of men and horses littered the bailey, blood glistening red in puddles of muddy water. Thunder drowned out the moans of the injured and dying.

Outside the fortress I made my way along the wall to the cliffside. In the heavy rain I couldn't see more than a few feet in front of me. Only the brief flashes of lightning lit my path. Ahead, just as I'd written, the castle had been erected along the edge of a deep chasm.

Keeping a hand on the solid rock of the fortress wall, I crept forward. Deep mud sucked at my boots. With each step the ground dipped downward. One misstep and I'd slide right off the edge into the abyss.

Again the question plagued me: If I died as Donoval in this world, would I die in the real world as well? Strangely enough, this didn't concern me as much as Seri's imminent demise. This woman I'd created, this woman I'd believed only a figment of my imagination--whoever and whatever she was, no matter how I'd come here or where I'd go afterward, I only knew I had to save her.

Back pressed to the wall, I eased around the corner. Less than three feet wide, a stony ledge ran along the backside of the castle walls. In front of me the world fell away into nothingness, a pit of black with no discernable bottom. My stomach flipped as my boots scrambled for purchase on the slick, sloped ground.

With nothing to grab, I slid toward the edge. In desperation I threw myself flat, splayed my body across the ledge and dug my fingers into the ground. Sharp rocks sliced my palms. My toes hung off the edge, but my slide toward doom ended. Heart pounding in time with the rain, I hugged the ground.

After a few moments, I cautiously rose to my knees then my feet. How far to the secret tunnel entrance? I'd written so many different descriptions of this stupid castle, I had no clue where the damned thing might be. I peered into the watery gloom. To my left rose the castle wall, its bulk a forbidding barrier. On my right, the world disappeared into a well of nothingness so black and deep even the flares of lightning couldn't reveal its secrets.

I hadn't written or even considered what lay beyond this point. Did this world end here? What would happen if I tumbled into this void? Would I fall forever? Or would I wake with a start, safe in my bed? Questions without answers swirled in my mind. Questions without point. There was only Serilda.

Pulling my sword, I moved forward, step by cautious step. Around the noise of the storm I heard them.

"Stand and face me, coward!" Against the noise of the storm, Seri's shout sounded like a whisper.

The wind whipped away any answer Roark gave. Above the grumble of thunder, cracks of lightning and pounding of rain against stone, the clang of metal against metal sounded clear. Fear clutched me like icy fingers, squeezing my lungs of air and hope.

I increased my pace. The clanging stopped. The voices grew louder, but I still couldn't see the speakers.

"Did you think I'd let you escape so easily?" Like the growl of an angry lioness, Seri's voice reached me.

Against the faint glow of light from the open secret entrance, I could see them. Swords raised, they stood at the edge of the cliff. Rain blurred their outlines.

"I had confidence you'd join me here. The child was no match for you. Did you kill her?"

The cold curiosity in Roark's question turned my blood to ice. In that moment I knew he intended to kill Serilda now, daughter or not.

"You're mad."

"Perhaps, I am, daughter." He chuckled, but the sound held no amusement.

"Before you die, tell me why?"

Anguish laced Seri's words. Anguish I'd put there with my words, anguish that had been an eruption of my own unhappiness. Roark's insanity. Seri's pain. All the death and destruction. All were my doing. Nothing Roark said or did would remove my guilt.