All That Lives Must Die - Eric Nylund [286]
She sighed. What silly sentimentality and dreams of things no longer possible.
She swept the obsidian shards off the table.
Mephistopheles has been a fool. He could have won; he should have won, had he but tempted Fiona to his side . . . the thing that almost happened at that last precarious moment.
Almost.
Pity. Love. Honor. Weaknesses all that had caused his downfall.
And yet, she wished, just for once, one of her kind would act thusly toward her. Even her departed Uri’s ambition had tainted his loyalty. Where was her unrequited, self-sacrificing hero?
Sealiah laughed halfheartedly and drew a cover over the map table, desperately trying to ignore the lump in her throat . . . the longing for just one taste of love again.
She inhaled and banished these thoughts. They were dangerous at any time for their kind—doubly so before a Board meeting.
She turned her attention to the smaller table that held the circular mat and stones of her Towers game.
Sealiah touched the cubes and retraced her moves—the maneuvering of her Jezebel to Paxington—capturing Eliot in her orbit and with him drawing in his sister and Robert—all vital pieces used in her final ploy.
She shuddered with satisfaction. It had been a good opening round.
But far from over.
She moved the basalt cube that represented Jezebel to the opposite side, stacking it upon the two stones that were now Eliot’s, nestled them together in the square that was his domain, The Burning Orchards. Precisely where she wanted them.
Wheels turning within wheels, as Louis was fond of saying.
She then stroked the stack of three white stones that now displayed hairline cracks. That was Fiona Post. Indeed, she had plans for her as well.
Sealiah dragged her fingernail along the curve of the game board until she rested upon another white cube, whose edges had been smudged with soot.
Would this be her hero? A minor piece, to be sure, but often it was useful to let some pawns believe they were knights . . . at least for a time.
A knock on the door distracted her. Sealiah’s temper flared, and then cooled as she recalled the circumstances of today.
“Come,” she commanded.
The door opened, and one of her personal maids entered and immediately fell to her knees.
“Are they ready?”
“Yes, Your Majesty,” the maid said, groveling upon the floor. “They have assembled and await your glory.”
With a flourish, Sealiah floated past the supplicant maid and up the spiral staircase. She emerged atop the tower called the Oaken Keeper of Secrets. Overhead the sky was luminous silver, the sun properly buried behind puffy layers of steaming altostratus clouds.
She strolled into the hedge maze of her tea garden, past the legion of gardeners who made sure the topiary was in tip-top shape, clip-clip-clipping the thorns and twisted branches of the agonized souls within, which had been meticulously shaped into rows of flamingos and prancing horses and elephants balanced upon turtles.69
Heirloom roses bloomed at her approach, and their colors popped along the perfumed pathway. She stepped in the center yard, where fountains sprayed champagne and a long table had been set with a hundred different teakettles, trays overflowing with pastries and sandwiches, and serving sets arranged with raw sugar and opium honey and lemons and cream and three dozen types of serving spoons and red current jam and orange marmalade and royal queen bee jelly.
All these preparations and delicacies, of course, were lost on her assembled cousins . . . save, perhaps, Ashmed, the Chairman of the Infernal Board and Master Architect of Evil.
He stood at her approach, brushed his lips with a napkin, and pulled out a chair next to his at the head of the table. Ashmed was as professional and handsome as ever, in a light gray suit and silver tie, tastefully accessorized