The Shining Falcon

He let his words trail off suggestively. Fuming, Ljuba stared, seeing nothing but bland self‑control on his face, unable to get past that smooth, practiced facade. Despite herself, she was shaken, wondering… Was this only some desperate bluff? He couldn't know about Finist, and the potion—but what other hold could Semyon possibly have over her? What evidence might he have been able to collect?

After a moment or two of tense silence, Ljuba bit her lip in frustrated rage. Damn him, he'd overmatched her; she dared not call his bluff. Her authority was shaky enough. The slightest bit of scandal, and farewell Regency, farewell hopes of power.

«I think," said Ljuba carefully, fighting to keep her voice steady, «that it might be best for you if you were to retire. Are we in agreement?»

He looked as though he was aching to argue. But Semyon evidently realized he'd best not push an angry magician too far, and yielded.

«You understand, lady, that my estate lies within the city walls.»

«I don't care where you go, old man! I just want you gone from here!»

«So be it. Lady, you shall have my written resignation by midafternoon.»

«I shall be expecting it," said Ljuba flatly. «Now get out of my sight!»

Semyon bowed in reluctant obedience as Ljuba swept by, then straightened slowly, painfully, a storm of rage behind the practiced blandness of his face. Curse her! After all the long years of service, to be casually thrown aside by that fickle, malicious child!

That sorcerous child.

Damn it, why did I try to challenge her?

If only he'd kept his mouth shut! Maybe Ljuba did have something to do with the death of poor Maria, but such things could have been settled when Finist recovered. Now it was too late. Words spoken couldn't be unspoken, and now he must leave the palace—and Finist.

Akh, Finist! As long as I was still within the palace, you had at least one loyal protector, old and worn though I may be. Now …

But surely Ljuba wouldn't hurt her own cousin.

«Or, rather," murmured Semyon with more than a touch of cynicism, «she wouldn't hurt her one real hope for genuine power!»

Would she… ?

But the guards were eyeing him with wary, sympathetic glances—sympathetic glances that certainly wouldn't stop them from following their Regent's orders. Rather than suffer the shame of being formally thrown out of the palace, Semyon gave them the curtest of bows, and left.

Midnight: The chamber was small and dark and window‑less, there beneath Ljuba's palace, almost featureless, the door bolted fast by iron and magic both. And in the center of the room, within a circle marked—for those who could see it—by glowing lines of force, Ljuba stood, naked, trembling more from exertion than cold, her golden hair a long wild mass clinging to skin glistening with perspiration there in the candlelight.

As always, it had been a struggle to form the circle properly, to hold the mystic forces properly in place. But now it was complete, the correct scrolls were open before her, the correct items stood on the small table beside the scroll-stand, all of them properly aligned to the four directions. There was no reason to delay.

No reason save fear. There on the table was the object of her magic, no great or terrible thing, just a small pin such as a woman might use to hold back her hair, nothing frightening at all. But that pin was made of iron. Pure, cold, magic-hating iron.

And Ljuba didn't know whether she had the strength to work with iron. If she failed, even for a moment, and the force of it broke free…

She would be dead so quickly she'd feel nothing. And no magic at all could be worked through a fog of self‑doubt! Ljuba set about casting her mind inward and inward… calming… calming…

Cool-eyed, she began. Stretching out her hand to the eastward item, a candle red as flame, Ljuba murmured, «Svarozits, hear my call," dimly aware that the force she invoked had once been a god of the old, pagan days. «Svarozits, Lord of Fire, hear my call.»

The candle burst into flame at her touch.

«Svarozits, once I call you, twice I call you, thrice I call you: as this candle burns, so shall this iron pin burn Finist's will. In your name, be it!»

Too soon to tell if her charm was working. Quickly Ljuba reached out a hand to the southern item, a clod of dark, fertile earth.

«Syra, hear my call. Syra, Lady of Earth, hear my call.»

She crumbled the earthen clod, let it sift to the chamber's floor.

«Syra, once I call you, twice I call you, thrice I call you: as this earth covers the floor, so shall this iron pin bury Finist's will. In your name, be it!»

Odd; the air within the circle seemed to be growing so close, so heavy, making her eyes burn. Ljuba wiped a hasty hand across them to try to clear them, then reached out for the third item, the westward item, a small bowl of water.