The Seascape Tattoo Read Online Free Page B

that I will be there quickly,” Neoloth answered. Damnation! He had been up all night. His clothes would be ruffled, his hair a mess, his breath like something that had crawled out of a swamp and died.
    â€œI will wait,” Redbeard replied.
    Neoloth closed the door. Well. Magic might be in short supply, but a simple spell … another test of the talisman, he told himself.
    Neoloth held the cylinder at arm’s length and passed it over his body, chanting an incantation as he did. He felt the tingle as dirt and sand fell from his body and clothes. His hair straightened itself. Fatigue, collected in his joints like sand in a watch, just … dissolved.
    Neoloth scrubbed his teeth with a scented mint stick. Once upon a time he had used spells for such things, but why waste even a smidgeon of power in these milk-and-water days?
    He examined himself in the mirror. From elegantly forked beard to the fall of his clothes (and they had made small adjustments, were no longer as tight about the waist, where his recent weight gain was more noticeable than he wished), he looked … perfect.
    Excellent. His investment in the cylinder had been a good one.
    He opened the door and was privately pleased that the guard’s eyes widened at his transformation. “Please,” Neoloth said. “Take me to the queen.”

 
    THREE
    The Princess Tahlia
    Neoloth’s private minipalace was connected to the main dwelling by both a public path and a hidden tunnel. They took the tunnel. Whatever purpose Queen Quilla had in mind must be something clandestine.
    The air in the tunnel was pleasantly cool and dry, cooler than it would have been in the streets above. Quillia, wealthiest of the Eight Kingdoms, was built on a desert, and the incantations that had once brought water to her streets had been largely replaced with aqueducts and reservoirs.
    A series of torches cast overlapping circles of yellow light along the way. Once, magical golden plates had illuminated the walls. Now, such excess was too wasteful by far. The tunnel ended in a set of stairs carved into the rock. Neoloth mounted them, climbing up into the castle. The stairs emptied out into the back of the throne room walled with marble and veined with gold.
    Queen Quilla was present, all angularity and calm command. Just to her right was an unexpected surprise and pleasure … Princess Tahlia, her golden hair brighter than the golden throne on which she sat, its seat a hand width lower than the queen’s.
    He bowed again, relieved that he had spent a little magic to tidy himself up before making an appearance. The queen was reason enough … but this situation went beyond logic. Neoloth was older than he appeared, a testimony to the herbs and magics that sustained him in his seventh decade of life. There were times when, despite those spells, he felt old, a sensation like frost at the core of his spine.
    But that feeling vanished when the princess was near.
    Princess Tahlia combined the refined beauty of her queen mother and the strength and intelligence of her deceased father, a warrior and scholar who had inherited much but expanded his holdings with conquest and crafty negotiation. Tahlia moved with such grace she seemed almost to be suspended by strings from above.
    He held his breath when he saw her, afraid that her protective mother might know what he was thinking and feeling.
    Then again, any woman smart enough to keep a throne could probably guess how he felt, how every man who didn’t favor buggery would feel in her presence. On the other hand, he sincerely hoped she didn’t know what he might have done to gain advantage.
    Every wizard knew love spells.
    â€œGood morning, Neoloth,” said the queen.
    â€œYour majesty.” He bowed deeply. “How may I serve you?”
    â€œI am advised to bring you into my confidence,” she said. “The royal daughter will be traveling to her cousin’s wedding,