[Nurumaiel]

"My Lord Korak..."

Korak raised his gaze from the floor, which he had been studying absently as he lay in a leisurely fashion on the cushions in his room. Morashk was standing at the door, as pale and skulking as ever, but perhaps more pale since these dark times had come. He was fumbling with his hands, his eyes darting here and there, keen and observing.

"Well, speak up!" said Korak sharply. "Why have you bothered me?"

"Your mother is asking to see you, m'lord," Morashk mumbled, and then withdrew.

Korak heaved a deep sigh and stood, scowling impatiently. His mother was always wanting to see him, to ask him if he was all right, to implore him not to leave the safety of their home, to ask him to stay with her and make sure no harm befell her. Wasn't it enough that Gjeelea was always there? Must she call him again and again, when he'd much rather be left alone?

Much had changed in the past months. Korak and Gjeelea had been married, and their affection for one another was no stronger than it had been the day they were first betrothed. The dark shadows that had descended upon their home had affected the Lady Hababa the most, for she had grown pale and sickly and now spent her days lying nervously in her bed. Gjeelea was often there with her, for the only other place to go to find human comradeship without leaving the house was to Korak and Morashk, and, though human, they showed no hints of comradeship. Morashk had because a nervous, flitting figure, though as sharp in words and glance as ever. And Korak was always annoyed at the sight of his wife. He had never cared much for her, but the fact that he did not become King at the moment he became her husband made him resentful against her.

He cast her a scowling look as he entered his mother's room, where she lay trembling. Gjeelea did not raise her eyes to his face to catch his look towards her, but merely kept them fixed on the frail old woman in the bed. Yet Korak could tell that Gjeelea's eyes were not cast down to hide their dancing at the joy of his presence.

"Ah, son," said Lady Hababa, stretching out her thin arms. Her appearance had changed greatly, but her gracious manner of actions and speech had not changed at all. Through all her fear and suffering, she retained the air of the lady that she was, and the heart of the good mother that she felt, while thinking upon Korak, she had not been.

Korak bent to brush his lips against her hair, and then cast a disapproving look around the room. "Where are your maids?" he demanded.

"Gjeelea is here," said the Lady, with a fond smile directed at that one. "She has just come in from the garden to sit with me."

"I do not care if she is here or not," Korak snapped. "I asked where the maids were."

The look of brightness that had come over the Lady's face when her son entered the room was instantly subdued, but she lost none of her fondness of manner. She lifted soft eyes and gazed steadily into Korak's face, her expression a mixture of devotion and sorrow. The months had not improved Korak, but had worsened him, and, though his smiles had been seldom before, they were hardly ever seen now... except when Hababa happened to speak of Lady Arshalous, and worry over her. Then Korak would smile a malicious smile, and say: "No need to wonder, Mother. I'm sure she's worse than us."

A little, timid voice piped up from the doorway to the room. "I am here, m'lord," it said.

He turned, and glared heavily at the white-faced little maid, who dropped her eyes in a frightened manner and began to tremble. "Why," he demanded, "are you not here attending your mistress, as you should be doing?"

"She gave me leave to go," the maid murmured. "I went to the dining room, where there was a fire. That is where my sister is now. It is so cold in here, m'lord."

"It is cold because you did not start a fire," he said. "Rather than work a little to start one here, you leave to find one that will already warm you, and leave your mistress to be cold."

"But, m'lord!" she cried in feeble protest, raising her eyes for a moment and then dropping them again when she met his own stormy ones. "I do not know how to make a fire."

"Ignorant little creature!" he cried. "Go fetch your sister, and then come back here to attend to your mistress. I do not care what she tells you. I insist that you do not leave her."

The little maid hastened from the room.

"Please," said the Lady Hababa, weakly, from her bed. "Do not be harsh on my little maids. It is true that they do not know how to make a fire. They were trained to fix hair and such things. And they are just barely past childhood... they are not as strong as I, son, and the cold would harm them more."

"Strong?" said Korak, and he sat down heavily. His mother was mad to think she was strong. She was as weak a woman as he had ever seen. But had he ever seen anyone who was strong? Perhaps he could love Gjeelea if she were strong. But she was weak. Morashk was weak, as well. In olden days he had had some strength, for all his skulking ways, but he had lost that strength years ago, the day when he met Arshalous.

"My father was strong," Korak muttered, and then glanced hastily at his mother and wife to make sure they had not heard.

The little maid and her sister came scurrying in, not daring to look at Lord Korak, and hastened to sit by Lady Hababa and the Princess, awaiting a command. They, and Morashk, were the only servants who were still in the house. The others had fled. Morashk had stayed because of his strange devotion to his master. The little maids had stayed because, as Hababa said, they were just barely past childhood and they were much too frightened to go out into that terrible, dark world.

Nothing that had happened had effected Korak very much. He did not live under the reign of fear. His only thought was that it was very inconvenient to have to do without servants. And... he wondered if the King, being in such a strange mood of late, would be less likely to favour him now.