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Authors: Joanne Bertin

BOOK: Dragon and Phoenix
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The aged parchment crackled as Lukai’s careful fingers turned the page with loving care. He went on, “‘But I fear I will never know why. None of the players, Merreb said, ever speak of what they saw; it’s as if once they leave the shores of Jehanglan behind, their memories of the place fall away from them. He has tried speaking to the members of more than one such troupe, he said, and none recall what happened there.’”
Lukai blinked up at them. “The list goes on for a bit more; shall I continue?”
“No,” said Lleld. “I think I’ve heard enough.” She slouched in her chair.
The archivist nodded and carefully shut the book once more.
Linden shifted uneasily in his chair. Not one tumbler who had traveled Jehanglan could remember what he or she saw there? That was not something he liked the sound of; it stank of magic—the magic that was not supposed to exist in Jehanglan. He looked around the table. The others, when they met his glance, shook their heads or grimaced, made equally uneasy by the reading.
All but Lleld. She gazed over everyone’s head, chewing on a thumbnail. At last she said, “Only traveling entertainers?”
“That’s what Lady Ardelis wrote,” Lukai said. “I would guess it’s the same yet.”
“Oh,” was all Lleld replied. “Indeed.”
 
Once the tunnels had been her secret and Lura-Sharal’s, one of the very few they had managed to keep from Lady Gei’s prying. Lady Gei had a nose for secrets like a rat did for food, Shei-Luin thought as she turned into one particular passage. Thank the Phoenix she no longer had to worry about the mistress of the harem. The woman avoided her now the way a cat avoided water. Shei-Luin paused for a moment just inside the entrance.
The tunnel felt like a tomb. Dust lay thick beneath her heavy felt boots, muffling each cautious step. The silence wrapped around her like a cocoon shrouding a silkworm. After what seemed like forever, Shei-Luin reached her goal.
She laid trembling fingers upon the latch. It had been years since she’d dared come to this place. She dropped her hand, afraid; reached out once more, hesitated; then, in a sudden burst of determination, she pushed the hidden catch.
Click.
A tiny sound, no louder than a cricket’s chirp, but it might as well have been a thunderclap the way her heart jumped. Shei-Luin held her breath and listened.
Nothing. No one cried for the guards, no one called out, “Who’s there?” Not even the hiss of silk brocade as someone turned to listen. Just silence, heavy and oppressive as the air before a summer storm. Shei-Luin let her breath out in a long, ragged sigh.
She slid the door open.
The room was huge; dark shapes loomed in it like monsters from a nightmare. Shei-Luin held up the tiny lantern she used to light her way in the tunnels, and stepped forward a few paces. The nearest shadows retreated before the glow, revealing an ornately carved chair and a tambour frame. A closer look told her the chair was of ivory inlaid with gold and jewels. She ran her fingers over it in wonder. How could she have forgotten this?
The carving on the back of the seat caught her eye: a woman standing upon the moon, a sword in her hands, but her head bowed in grief. Shei-Luin bowed to the image.
Then she wandered through the room, marveling anew at the riches here, riches matched only by the emperor’s chambers. It was all as she remembered from the night she and Lura-Sharal found this room. They had not dreamed of such a prize when they had discovered the long-forgotten tunnels only a few days before.
Shei-Luin wrapped her arms around herself and closed her eyes, the better to listen to the darkness. Memory welled up … .
Whispers darting through the dark room, soft and secret though there was no
one else to hear them.
“The emperor likes you,” Shei-Luin giggled, “but he looks like a horse.”
“Hush—he does not.
”
Even in the pale moonlight Shei-Luin could see her sister blush.
“What
—
doesn like you or doesn’t look like a horse? He does too like you. Hasn’t he called for only you these past three moons? Do you really think you are …
?”
Joy lit the beloved face. “Yes.
”
“Then this room”—Shei-Luin waved a hand at the opulent chamber—“will be yours. You shall be empress.”
“I—empress? There hasn’t been an empress for a hundred years. Don’t be sil
—”
Lura-Sharal broke off in a fit of coughing. She buried her face in her sleeve to stifle the sound.
Frightened by the violence of the paroxysm, Shei-Luin threw her arms around her sister’s shoulders and supported her as she sank to the floor. At last the fit ended; Lura-Sharal’s hand fell away in exhaustion.
Blood stained the sleeve.
“You told me you were getting better,” Shei-Luin sobbed, horrified at the amount of blood. There was much more than usual. Much, much more.
“I thought so, too,” Lura-Sharal gasped. “We must go back.”
They never returned to the imperial chambers. Three weeks later, Lura-Sharal was dead. And not even the hawk-eyed Lady Gei ever guessed Lura-Sharal’s final secret.
Tears leaked from beneath her closed eyelids, and her chest heaved in a sob.
Shei-Luin bit her knuckles against the sadness that consumed her, but couldn’t stop crying. It was three years ago today that Lura-Sharal had died.
At last the storm of tears ended. She wiped her eyes and looked around the chambers of the empress one last time.
“I will make this mine, sister—I swear it!—and burn incense to your soul each day,” she whispered.
An instant later the room was empty but for its ghosts.
 
The only light in the sleeping chamber came from the leaping flames in the fireplace, dancing red and yellow and blue in the darkness. A log settled and spat a burning coal onto the hearth.
Linden picked it up and rolled it in his hand before tossing it back into the fire. He turned at the strangled yelp from the bed behind him.
“Surely you’re used to that by now,” he said, smiling. “You’ve done it yourself.” He pulled off his tunic and tossed it onto one of the clothes chests at the foot of the bed.
Maurynna sat up, back against the headboard, hugging her blanketed knees. Long black hair spilled over her bare shoulders and down her back.
“True,” she said. “But I have to make myself. I still think that fire should burn me. I don’t know if I shall ever get used to it.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed and worked his boots off. “You will. It takes a while, that’s all,” he said.
“Linden—” Her odd-colored eyes were huge in the dim light. “Linden, I’m worried for the truedragons. I’ve heard so much about the magic that guards Jehanglan … .”
“And if Taren’s right? That there are no mages?”
She tossed a stray bit of hair back over her shoulder. “Maybe their mages stay hidden. He was a slave; maybe they lied to him. Maybe—oh, I don’t know. But I’m frightened. I’ve heard too many stories. Almered knew someone on board a ship that was lost in the Haunted Straits.”
Her hand stretched out to him. Linden caught it, yielding when Maurynna pulled him to her. There was a desperate feel to the hands that stroked his back, to the lips that sought his.
He answered it with his own feeling of unease, seeking refuge in Maurynna’s arms.
 
Haoro met with certain of his fellow senior priests in the night-shrouded grounds of the Iron Temple. When they were certain that no one lurked nearby, they gathered in a circle, a small lantern in the center the only light. Wrapped in robes and cowls against the night chill, only their faces showed, floating like ghosts in the lamp’s glow.
He told them of Hodai’s confession.
“Phoenix help us!” one said, shocked. “No wonder there have been so many calamities! Isn’t it bad enough that the emperor fails in his duty? But for the
nira
to doubt—!”
“Next he’ll be sending for Kirano the Blasphemer,” another said bitterly.
Hands flashed in the gesture to avoid misfortune. After a silence, the first speaker said, “So now what, Haoro? Do we move against him, though we haven’t much proof, just the boy’s word? It won’t be easy.”
No, it wouldn’t be, Haoro thought. While pious, these men had no desire for the role of
nira,
nor had they the stomach to attempt deposing Pah-Ko unless they were certain of success. They came from poor families who could not protect them. He, on the other hand, had Jhanun as a shield—and he was the only one who wanted the feathered mantle. When it came time, they would support him.
“We don’t move openly against him—yet,” Haoro said slowly. “First, let us see if he says more. If we could get a younger priest or one of the older acolytes to ask Pah-Ko’s advice for his own doubts, then pretend to sympathize with Pah-Ko’s …”
The others nodded.
“It might work.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open for such a one.”
“There are one or two who might do among those acolytes who see to the incense on the main altar.”
“Sound them out, then,” Haoro ordered. “We’d best get back; soon it will be time for the midnight ceremony.”
They scattered like a flock of startled crows, each taking a separate way back to the temple.
 
Linden lay in bed with one arm tucked behind his head, the other across the blankets pulled up to his chest. He ignored the cold night air on his bare shoulders and arms; there was too much to think about and it might help him stay awake. Beside him Maurynna breathed deep and easily, sated after their lovemaking, curled so that her back pressed against his side. He guessed she was already asleep. Which didn’t help him; he wanted nothing more than to fit himself around the curve of her warm body and drift away. But now he needed to think.
He blinked and yawned. Damn; something Taren said tonight was bothering him. But he couldn’t put a finger on just what, and now he was growing too sleepy to chase it down. But it was something important, very impor …
…
He was in the great hall at Dragonskeep. Nothing strange in that, but standing beside him was his sister’s husband, Fisher. Although one part of his mind told Linden that Fisher had died centuries before, it seemed right that his brother-in-law was here.
“Shall we go hunting today?” Fisher asked. “I’ve some fine new ferrets that will do well after rabbits, I’m thinking.” He patted the reed basket slung from
one
shoulder and grinned. From inside came an eager scratching and chuckling.
Linden grinned in return. If there was one thing Fisher was always ready to do, it was hunt with his ferrets. Linden wondered if Fisher’s well-known fondness for rabbit stew was the result of ferreting or the cause of it.
“Let’s,” he said. “There’s a warren in the apple orchard that’s been after the young trees. I’ll warn you, though, it’s a fair walk.”
But when they passed the gate of Dragonskeep they found themselves in that orchard. Yet, with the logic of dreams, Linden was not surprised. Things were as they should be. Fisher set the ferrets’ basket on the ground.
“Be ready, Linden,” Fisher warned. “We’ll have to herd the lot of ’em into the rabbit holes.”
Before Linden could ask him what he meant—surely the basket could hold no more than one or two ferrets, and where were the nets for the rabbit holes, anyway?—Fisher threw back the lid and pushed the basket over. Ferrets poured out and raced about, leaping and dancing. The breathy, staccato ah-ah-ah “laugh” of excited ferrets filled the air. Already there were far more than the basket could have possibly held, and still the slinky animals bounced out.
“Quick! Quick! Herd them down the holes!”
Linden stood bewildered amid the army of sleek, leaping bodies playing around his feet. “Herd ferrets? Are you mad? There’s too many!”
“Aye!” Fisher roared in glee. “A whole business of ‘em! Better yet—an army of ’em! And there’s more.”
With that, he upended the basket and the last few ferrets tumbled out. There were six of them, all wearing little robes with magical sigils. They sat up on their hindquarters in a line before Linden, front paws crossed solemnly over their stomachs. One, a white ferret, fixed ruby red eyes on Linden and said, “We have agreed upon the best way to churn butter.” Then the white ferretmage waved a paw, and all of the cavorting ferrets were garbed in robes.
The
next instant, the entire business raced down the rabbit holes.
Linden could only gape in astonishment. “What the-Fisher, I don’t—
“Understand,” Linden muttered. He shook his head and pushed up onto his elbows. Darkness pressed around him. From the fireplace came the dull red glow of embers.

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