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 a faint clink, withdrew his hand momentarily, then poked the unseen vessel. It was there, all right.
He found himself smothering a delighted laugh. He was getting the hang of it! Not even speech was truly needed. The thought was what counted in wreaking magic.
‘Is that true?’ he asked the talisman.
And the voice within him said: Yes.
Serious again, he caused the pitcher to reappear. Then he slipped out into the corridor and headed for his Aunt Kadiya’s room.
She had kept it, as always, at her side in bed; but when she awoke the next morning the Three-Lobed Burning Eye was gone, leaving only its empty scabbard. Jagun swore to her that no one had entered, for he had slept just outside her door. The Citadel servants and guards had noticed nothing unusual. Nevertheless the Burning Eye had undeniably been stolen.
What was worse, Haramis’ Three-Winged Circle refused to show the whereabouts of the magical pointless sword, nor would it say who was the thief.
‘This can only mean,’ the White Lady said to her two badly shaken sisters, ‘that Kadi’s talisman is now bonded to another and empowered. There is no use attempting a physical search of Ruwenda Citadel. It is too vast, with countless potential hiding places. Besides, the thief is no doubt long gone with his booty. A search would not only be futile, it would also trumpet the fact of the second talisman’s theft and dishearten the people. Only we Three and Jagun must know of this.’
‘Now we are surely lost,’ the Queen said, her voice heavy with despair. ‘All this time, one of my own courtiers has had both the star-box and my purloined coronet! And now he owns the Burning Eye as well. The wretch is probably already on his way to a rendezvous with Orogastus! The situation is hopeless.’
‘Don’t talk like a fool, Ani,’ snapped Kadiya. ‘We will carry on – as we did once before when the sorcerer himself owned two talismans. Now that was a time seeming to be truly without hope – and yet we prevailed. If the Triune wills, we shall do so this time also.’
On the following day the three sisters said their farewells and quit Ruwenda Citadel.
The Archimage Haramis used her magic to transport herself instantly to her Tower on Mount Brom. There she began preparing proposals for the defensive conference in Derorguila, as well as devising instructions for those Folk who were to be entrusted with the blockade of the viaducts. After that she intended to search her own archives and those of the Blue Lady, in the hope of discovering a way to either control the invisible portals or destroy them. She was not optimistic of swift success.
Kadiya, Prince Tolivar, Ralabun, and six of the Queen’s valorous Oathed Companions set off on the first leg of their journey to far Sobrania. The Prince was allowed to bring along a locked iron box of modest size, which he said contained certain of his most valued books.
Lightweight boats drawn by rimoriks would carry them through Lake Wum. After bypassing Tass Falls they were to travel down the Great Mutar through the vast Tassaleyo Forest to the Wyvilo town of Let, where they would take passage on an aboriginal tradeboat bound for the kingdom of Var and the Southern Sea.
∗ ∗ ∗
The caravan with Queen Anigel, King Antar, and all of their court began the long journey northward to Labornok, which was expected to take at least thirty days. The Wet Time was now well and truly begun, and unrelenting rain poured down upon the long train of coaches, carts, riders, and foot travellers like a cataract from heaven.
In spite of the inclement weather, the advance of the slowly moving royal entourage through the swamp was marked by many a furtive eye.
By the time the travelling court was ten days out of the Citadel, Anigel was bored to death riding in her lumbering great carriage with Immu and the four ladies-in-waiting. The new Queen’s Mireway, opened only the previous year, was living up to its reputation as a great marvel of the world. It was as sturdy as any dryland thoroughfare, even in the exceptionally heavy rains that plagued the trip this year, and Anigel saw no reason why she should not go riding up and down the procession visiting and sightseeing, as the King and the royal children and the male members of the nobility did.
The women were shocked at her daring and tried to dissuade her, but the Queen swept their objections aside. After all, it was her mireway. For nearly six years she had supervised its construction, eking out funds from a shaky budget, coping with rebellious Glismak road-gangs and other aboriginal problems, and bolstering the confidence of engineers who insisted
