***

The minutes crawled by at an excruciatingly slow pace. The weight of expectation was pressing on Amialis, as if someone were simultaneously holding her by the whiskers and pulling her by the tail. The former queen of Rual was alone in roomy, dark quarters. She stood still as if petrified, transfixed by the play of fiery tongues on the soot-covered lantern.

Rats were gnawing at her heart. She had gotten what she wanted... and then lost it just as quickly. And here she was, in the place where it all begun. Here to square up, to pay her debt, to fulfill her part of a bargain struck long ago. For the first time in many years, Amialis was afraid.

There came the sound of voices from the passageway, looming darkly at the far end of the wall to her left. She perked up her ears: the minutest detail, the slightest trifle could determine her very fate. The first voice was full, clear and strong. It was the voice of someone used to giving orders, and doing it well. And it spoke a language Amialis did not understand.

The second voice was despicable, rotten. Like that of a corpse-eating worm that had suddenly decided to change careers and become a servant. As she would soon find out, he fit the bill for a worm in appearance as well. His skin was a sickly pale color, and there seemed to be too much of it, drooping in thin, flabby folds. It was as if he had eaten the corpse of some fat, tailed creature from the inside and was now hobbling awkwardly along in this monstrous cocoon, reeking of sweat. A sack race for necrophages.

Despite her exceptional composure, Amialis could not restrain her disgust towards this sickening being; in turn, noticing her squeamish grimace, it literally swayed with pleasure, which, of course, only added fuel to the fire of her anger.

"Your work is done. And it's not yet time for the rest," his companion spat. He was a gaunt, stooped man in a warm dark sweater and badly sewn pants. He motioned the "worm" away and bowed to Amialis with vulgar cordiality.

"Well, well. Queen Amialis, Lady of Rual, in the flesh. I hope you too haven't forgotten Master Shilor."

Amialis had not forgotten. She nodded, not knowing what to say.

"I suppose the queen would like to know why she's here? Why we tore the loving mother away from raising her prodigal son?" He shook his head, as if judging his own wrongdoing. "It saddens me just as much, believe me, but no matter how erroneous his path, it leads to an extremely profitable situation for us. Your son is destined to play a significant role in our plans with respect to a certain sianae I believe you're familiar with."

"In your plans? A decade ago you wanted to keep Aniallu out of Rual at all costs, and now you're rejoicing in the fact that she's running around freely beneath this city?"

"Correct. Plans have changed. Better yet, they've evolved. But that's not the only reason we've gotten involved, sweet Amialis. You see, we did not want to lose you before you fulfilled your part of our little deal. And we most certainly would have lost the pleasure of your company if you had done what you were planning to do – you can trust me on that. I concede that it was rather a... definitive measure, but there was simply no other way."

"I'm here, then, to fulfill my part of our agreement?" Amialis asked with affected nonchalance. Her fear was waning, albeit in tiny baby steps, and the Alae's ever-present confidence was returning.

"Yes, that is exactly why you're here. I need your tel Alait," Shilor declared firmly.

"Tel Alait?" Amialis repeated, puzzled. "But how can I give that to you?"

"Exactly as the gods share their spirit with believers. Impart your grace to me. Squeeze every last drop of cat out of you."

"What?! Why?" Amialis' cool facade broke.

"You leave that to me. We didn't ask you what you were planning to do with the crown of Rual! We have many... projects, and you are lucky to be part of one of them. One of the most promising, by the way."

"And what will become of me... afterwards?" Amialis managed to ask, barely maintaining control.

"Do you know about the conquests of d'al?" the Master asked instead of answering.

"Yes," the Alae nodded in bewilderment. "I've read the chronicle in their city and seen the portal."

That's right, cat," the Master praised her. He pronounced the last word in a peculiar tone, and Amialis shuttered involuntarily. "I want you to go to them. I'm not entirely satisfied with their current vicar, even more so him being non-Alae, although he more or less plays the part. We thought it would be worth adopting your tradition and placing a couple in charge of that world – a male and a female. Although," Shilor whispered confidentially, "although, we wouldn't regret it if d'al once again had only one lord... or lady."

Catching his drift, Amialis couldn't hold back. A nasty, sharp-toothed grin spread over her face. Now that he had told her all this, Shilor certainly didn't mean to kill her. All the same, when the Master headed towards the door, inviting her to follow him with a motion of his hand, Amialis had to catch her breath. This was the end of her rope.

They entered a half-lit hallway carved out of solid rock. Apparently, the Master's palace was underground. She could feel the cold coming from the many offshoots – not quite side-passages, not quite cracks. Vague shadows fluttered under the high ceiling, in the scarlet torchlight. They gave Amialis an inexplicable uneasy feeling. She desperately wanted to cower, to shield her head with her hands, but the former queen did not give in to this shameful desire and strode forward, her back arched proudly.

An enormous human-like creature appeared from somewhere off to the right and snarled something to Shilor, who nodded and answered in the same incomprehensible tongue, apparently in agreement. As a result, Shog, as the Master called this thing, shuffled after them on its broad paws. This was an unpleasant entourage for the Alae, with its muffled sniffling into the back of her head, but she did not dare ask who it was, let alone why it was following them. The corridor continued downslope. It got much warmer; the air smelled of sterilizing decoctions.

Shilor pushed a glass door. Amialis entered the room, in the middle of which, on a high twisted pedestal gently shone a teardrop-shaped vessel.

"I remember our last meeting well," Shilor said pensively. "I remember how the young Rual princess' eyes sparkled... in anticipation of her father's demise. Only one thing remained a mystery to me: what exactly prompted you to make such a decision? Love for your husband or the desire to have power over the country?"

The Master waited. Amialis would have relished plunging her claws into his flippant eyes, turning his eye sockets into gaping wounds. But she restrained herself and soberly considered her response. She tried to go back in time, to recall, to search for the version of herself she used to be, back then...

Of course, she had loved Krian, and that love had not been the fleeting whim of a runaway princess seeking adventures. Her heart belonged to him even still, although Amialis' love for her husband had long since turned from a refreshing breeze into sticky molasses, holding her tight by all four paws, which used to be so nimble and strong...

Yes, Amialis had loved Krian. But she had loved power no less. She could have remained with her beloved in DreamValley, but she didn't. The throne was beckoning, and Amialis had returned to Rual, to the battlefield. She knew full well she could not topple her father on her own, so she had sought the aid of the Masters, Shilor in particular, who had appeared before her like an evil sorcerer from a children's fairy tale. Emulating the genre's best traditions, he'd offered to help her in exchange for a favor in the distant future. A deal had been struck. Agir had been vanquished, and Amialis crowned. However, her victory had been incomplete. Even at the moment of her triumph, she had missed Krian.

Amialis knew what she was risking in going back for her husband... and she went for it anyway. It was an immense undertaking to organize – to justify her excursion beyond the Curtain in the eyes of the priests. It wasn't a bit easier persuading Krian to trade his dragon's body for an Alaean one. But she managed. Managed to cope with everything but the rebellious spirit of her adored spouse. Try as you might, you can't cram a dragon into a cat's skin. Especially not the skin of a devout Rual cat.

At times Amialis wanted to break all her better half's bones to get her way, but that didn't stop her from loving him passionately. The queen could not fight this detrimental feeling, even after her position in Rual was shaken on the account of Krian. It was at that moment, and certainly not while she was deciding whether or not her father should live, that Amialis was faced with the hardest decision of her life. Krian or the throne, the throne or Krian? Power or love? To others it may have seemed that, in abdicating, she chose the latter, but the queen herself thought otherwise.

She sacrificed her power over rual not so much for love as for the ability to control her own fate. She suddenly saw it all so clearly: if she left Krian now, obeying the priests' decree, the memory of it would haunt her and poison the rest of her life. She wouldn't forget... and neither would the priests. No, she could not act in such a way. Power for her had always been synonymous with complete, absolute freedom, the ability to control everything and everyone, not submitting to anyone, the opportunity to be higher than the law, to be the sole possessor of the ultimate truth, even if only here, in tiny and remote Rual. Was that the kind of power she was being offered for the price of breaking with Krian? Not in the slightest! And it was precisely that kind of power that was Amialis' purpose in life.

"I needed power," she answered firmly, rejoicing in the fact that her sincere answer, as it seemed to her, was also what Shilor wanted to hear.

The Master nodded slowly.

"Well then, my curiosity it satiated. Now we can proceed... assuming, of course, that you prefer not to die and submit yourself to the will of Alasais... or Veindor?" he stared straight at the Alae, but she didn't hesitate for a moment, shaking her head in refusal.

And then, without any warning, the Master threw up his hands and flung them forward as if to grab Amialis. With tremendous resolve, she managed to stay still and not flinch. Shilor squeezed his fingers together and slowly, with exertion, as if stretching a thick rubber band, began spreading his hands to each side...

There was no pain. The room's walls parted, moving away from Amialis. Her vision went dark. She almost didn't feel her body. It became somehow foreign to her – clumsy, uncomfortable. It was all she could do not to let her legs buckle, but it wasn't long before she lost control completely. Her sense of touch, hearing and smell faded as well. The darkness waited until its victim was sufficiently weakened, then went in for the kill. Like a whirlpool it surrounded Amialis, clutching, twisting her limp body... or was it the soul itself? The Alae no longer knew. She felt like a chunk of jelly washed down the kitchen sink. Streams of the darkness interweaved with one another all about her, licking her body, draggins parts of her down to the ice-cold depths of a chasm. Amialis was melting, waning in size and substance... Only a small fraction of her essence, like the stem of a cherry stuck across a pipe, was left. The Alae tried to concentrate on it alone, to become it and only it, rejecting all else – all that the ruthless whirlpool was sucking out of her, pulling her like a monolith into its deathly black jaws... her tel Alait. She was giving up her spirit to save her soul. With a gargantuan effort, Amialis was able to contain herself, to find solid ground, but then the former queen lost consciousness and collapsed. The now-dim fur on her tail fell out, like needles from a withered pine paw.