Free Daughter of Regals by Stephen R. Donaldson Page A

requires testing. Or perhaps his capacity to
make and unmake a Creature is limited.” Still he did not look to my face. “I am
lost in this.”
    And you are afraid, I
thought in response. Your plans are threatened. It may be that you seek to
defend them by deflecting me from the alternative. Stiffly, I said, “No. If
what you suggest is true, then I am altogether doomed. I will not waste belief
on that which must slay me. Rather, I will concern myself with the casting of
images.
    “If Scour’s Dragon is
not Real, then there is indeed a true Dragon alive in the realm—a Creature such
as the Regals were, capable of concealing itself in human form. Is that not
true, Mage?”
    He nodded without
raising his head.
    “Then who is this
Dragon? Is it not Queen Damia herself? How otherwise would she dare what she
has done?”
    That brought Ryzel’s
eyes to mine. Fear or passion smoldered in his brown gaze. “No,” he said as if
I had offended his intelligence. “That is untrue. Damia is not such a fool, that
she would play games when only direct action will avail her. There is some
chicanery here. If she  is a Creature, why has she not simply taken the realm
for herself? No!” he repeated even more vehemently. “Her daring shows that the
Dragon is neither someone she can control nor someone she need fear. Her
caution demonstrates that she does not know who the Creature is whose image
Scour casts.”
    It was a plausible
explanation—so plausible that it nearly lifted my spirits. It implied that I
might still have reason to hope and plan and strive. But I did not like the
bleak hunger and dread in Ryzel’s gaze; they suggested another logic entirely.
    Abruptly, before I could
find my way between the conflicting possibilities, he changed his direction. “My
lady,” he asked quietly—almost yearning, as if he wished to plead with me—”will
you not tell me now how Thone and Cashon came to be parted from each other?”
    He surprised me—and
confirmed me in the path that I had chosen. If I had known of his power to
dispel magery earlier, I would not have needed to outface King Thone.
    But Ryzel had kept his
secret even from me. Carefully, I met his question with another.
    “Before he died, the
Phoenix-Regal spoke to me of you. He said, ‘He is the one true man in the Three
Kingdoms. Never trust him.’ Mage, why did my father warn me against you?”
    For an instant, his
expression turned thunderous, and his jaws chewed iron as if he meant to drive
a curse into my heart. But then, with a visible effort, he swallowed everything
except his bitterness. “My lady, you must do as you deem best.” His knuckles on
his Scepter were white. “I have merely served the realm with my life— and you
as well as I have been able. I do not pretend to interpret the whims of Regals.”
    Turning on his heel, he
strode away from me.
    He had always been my
friend, and I would have called him back, but that I was unable to refute my
own explanation for the apparently unnecessary indirection of Queen Damia’s
plotting. Her various ploys might be the caution of a woman who did not know
the true source of Scour’s Dragon. Or they might be the maneuvers of a woman who 
was still bargaining with Mage Ryzel for the rule of the Three Kingdoms.
    In my heart, I did not
accuse him of malice—or even of betrayal. His fidelity to the realm was beyond
question. Yet he believed that my Ascension must fail. How then was he to
prevent the Kingdoms from war? How, indeed, except by allying himself with one
of the monarchs and settling the power there before the others could defend
themselves?
    Perhaps he was in all
truth as true a man as my father had named him. But it was certain to me now
that I could not trust him for myself.
    So I went alone into my
chambers; I closed and bolted the doors. Then I hugged my arms over my breasts
and strove not to weep like a woman who feared for her life.
    For a time, I was such a
woman. Without Ryzel’s support I