The Gates of Winter - Mark Anthony [76]
“Well, here goes nothing.”
Grace sat down. If Chair Malachor had a curse, it was simply that it was extremely uncomfortable. The seat was hard, and the carvings in the back poked her from behind. Other than that—and the fact that the chair seemed to have been constructed for someone three feet taller than she—there seemed to be nothing special about it.
But there had to be something here. Sit in the chair that is forbidden to all others, the forest queen had said, and the key shall be revealed to you.
Grace didn't see anything sticking out of the chair that looked remotely keylike, and all of the knobs and protrusions were firmly attached. Perhaps it was a riddle of some sort—perhaps there was something that could be seen only when sitting in this chair. Except the chamber looked the same from this angle as it did from any other.
All right, so maybe there was something about the table in front of the chair. She groped along the underside of the table with a hand, half-expecting to encounter a chewed piece of gum someone had stuck there, but there was nothing. Grace sighed, feeling cold and tired and more than a little sick. What had she really expected? It was just a chair, and she doubted that the story of the witch who had cursed it was true.
“Tell that to the Earl of Wetterly,” said a croaking voice. “He fancied himself descended of King Ulther, and he tried sitting in the chair a few centuries ago. All they found of him the next morning were his teeth. No one's touched the chair since. Until now.”
Grace gasped and looked around, but she could not see the speaker. “Who's there? Show yourself!”
“Why, I'm right here, Your Majesty.” A lumpy form clad in gray rags shambled around from behind the chair.
“Vayla,” Grace said. She cocked her head, thinking of the hag she had met in King Kel's camp. “Or is it Grisla?”
The crone shrugged knife-edged shoulders. “Why don't you decide, Your Majesty?”
“Let's stick with Vayla for now. She's a bit less . . .”
“Fun?” the old woman said.
Grace smiled. “I was going to say impertinent.”
Vayla let out a snort. “Suit yourself, Your Majesty. But maybe it would be better if it was Grisla who was here and not me. You see, she wouldn't hesitate for a second to tell you what an enormous dolt you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.” Vayla jabbed a bony finger at her chest. “You're always so sure there's no hope. After all you've seen, do you really think so little of magic? So little of life? By the first and the last, sometimes you make that Embarran fellow look like a ray of sunshine. Perhaps you should change your name to Lady Lamentsalot?”
Grace's eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you aren't really Grisla?”
“We all have different faces. It's just a matter of which face we choose to wear at any given moment.” The crone peered at Grace with her one bulbous eye. “So which face are you going to put on today?”
Grace started to say that she didn't have different faces, but that wasn't true, was it? She was a doctor and a witch. And, whether she wanted it or not, a queen. She was a woman as well, frightened and alone. But which of them was really her?
“I don't know what I'm going to be.”
“Humph,” Vayla said, hands on her shapeless hips. “You'd better decide.”
“What will happen if I don't?”
“Madness, that's what. Doom and death.” The crone leaned into the chair; she smelled like old leaves. “We have many faces, but we can wear only one at a time. If you try to be everything to everyone, then you'll end up being nothing at all. So pick one and stick with it.”
“Even if it's not the right one?”
“And if what you choose comes from within you, daughter, how can it possibly be wrong?”
These words startled Grace—and filled her with a strange excitement as well. Ever since her heritage was revealed, she had resisted the idea that she was a queen. But what was the