Dragon Stones (19 page)

"I suppose I shall tell the headmistress that."

Diasa grunted, then nodded at the swaddled henchman at the back of the line.  Adaran found himself the subject of an intrusive pat-down as the creature searched for hidden weapons.  It came away with one last blade, a small, thin dagger that he'd had down his boot.  "Forgot about that one," Adaran said, untruthfully, as the guard took it away.  Diasa raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

T
he gate creaked shut behind them; Adaran, meanwhile, watched his arsenal disappear into a small building set into the thick walls, next to the gate.  "I will get those back, you said?"

"If it pleases the headmistress.  Come."  They proceeded along a broad central avenue of crushed stone held together with some rubbery black substance of a sort that Adaran had never seen before.  Flower beds lined the street, although most of the blooms had faded, leaving only foliage.  Buildings poked from the trees here and there, made of the same sort of stone as the walls, and equally lacking any sign of masonry.  A thin layer of dust covered everything:  Residue from the storm, or perhaps just the natural state of things in this arid region.

The interior of Flaurent was smaller than he had expected; the scale of the walls gave it the illusion of great size, but he judged it only occupied a few acres.  The college was obviously meant to mimic an oasis in this wasteland, which would of necessity limit the size that could be sustained.

"So this is a school?" Adaran said.

"Among other things."

"I don't see any students."

"There are never very many," she said.  "But look carefully.  They are here."

He peered around, and spotted a few figures moving along paths through the trees; but they wore hooded robes and he couldn't be sure if they were people or more of Diasa's unconventional henchmen.  Then they passed a small, grassy amphitheater, where a man in a faded blue cloak lectured to a small group of similarly clothed people who sat on the grass before him.  The speaker fell silent as they passed.  He and the students watched them go by; then the lecture began again, only to halt almost immediately, subsiding into murmurs and pointing fingers.  Adaran heard running footsteps approach.  He whirled, fingers reaching for weapons that he no longer carried, clutching at empty scabbards as a wizened little man came to a breathless stop just in front of him.  Pointing up at Adaran, he cried:  "I've seen this one!  I've seen him coming!"

Diasa moved next to Adaran, regarding this new arrival with amusement and a small degree of curiosity.  "Have you, now, Wert?" she said.

"I have!  I've dreamed of him!"  Then he dropped his voice and added, conspiratorially, with a sly look to either side:  "He has enemies."

Diasa shot Adaran a glance.  "Yes, I expect he does."

"They are powerful.  They seek him from the sky."

"Yes?  What else?"

Wert raised his hands up high; his dirty sleeves slid down, piling up at his shoulders, revealing pale, smudged, bone-thin arms.  "They will turn the earth against us!  They will rain fire upon the plains!"

"They do sound fearsome," Diasa said.  "Is that all?"

The little man blinked at her a few times and lowered his arms.  He looked somewhat bewildered.  His sleeves stayed bunched up for a moment, then unrolled to his wrists.  "Yes, that's all."

"You've finished?"

"Yes."

"Run along, then."

Wert turned and toddled away, heading for the lecture that Adaran had noticed earlier.  The students hastily got to their feet and retreated, following the instructor toward a low, ivy-covered building that extended from the outer wall.

"That was Wert," Diasa said.  "Wert the Wart, the students call him."

Adaran stared at the little man as he hurried after the retreating students.  He was much too slow; by the time he got to the building the door was securely closed and, apparently, bolted against him.  Turning back to Diasa, he said:  "Is Wert an oracle?"

"Not exactly.  He inhaled too deeply of the vapors a long time ago and has been raving mad ever since.  He always makes wild predictions, and they never come true."

"Never?"

"Well, hardly ever."

"But what he said about enemies from the sky … people
are
searching for us, and they will be riding eagles like the one I stole.  How would he know that?"

"How?  Because we spotted you leading that creature across the flats, and word spread quickly.  It takes little enough imagination to realize what a giant, saddled bird is for."

"You saw us?  Why didn't you help us?"

"We were making ready for the storm.  Perhaps if I had taken note of the child I would have made a different decision, but I was not prepared to risk losing men in a rescue attempt."

"You call those …
things
men
?"

She fixed him with a glare that was every bit as sharp as the point of her spear.  "You are at the very bottom of my list of concerns.  First come the students, then the staff, then the Withered Ones, then the physical structures of the college.  You rate somewhere below the flower beds."  She turned away.  "Now, come along.  We're almost there."

Adaran, seething, was not inclined to follow Diasa any further, but the guard who had been shadowing them—a Withered One, he supposed—prodded him with the butt end of his pole-axe, encouraging him to move.  They soon turned left onto a side path that led to a squat building made of orange rock.  A chiseled sign above the door said
Headmistress
.  Diasa stood on the front step, holding the door open.  Adaran entered, finding himself in a small, square chamber.  Stone benches lined three of the walls; the fourth, opposite the entrance, was punctured by a pair of doors.

Diasa entered and shut the door, leaving the guard outside.  "Sit," she said.  "I'll be back shortly."  She vanished through the door on the right, leaving them alone in the waiting room.  Adaran reached up, lifted the girl from his shoulders, and set her down onto one of the stone benches.  She sat there swinging her feet, looking around with interest, although there was not much to see in this dim and tiny space.  Slit-like windows painted lines of illumination on the floor, creating an effect uncomfortably like a prison cell.  Probably it was meant to intimidate those who waited for an audience with this so-called headmistress.

He went to the door on the left, gave it a jiggle.  Locked.  He moved to the door Diasa had gone through, cupping his hand over his ear and listening at it carefully.  He heard nothing, so he tried the knob.  Unlocked.  He debated opening it, going exploring, but thought better of it and went to sit next to the girl instead.  "Are you ready to tell me your name?"

After a moment, she said, "Prehn."

"That's your name?  Prehn?"

She nodded.

"How old are you?"  She smiled, shrugged, continued kicking her feet in the air; perhaps she didn't know the answer.  "Where are you from?"

The girl rolled her eyes, as if this were the stupidest question she had ever heard.  "Home."

"Well, yes, but where is that?"

She shrugged.

"All right.  My name is Adaran.  Can you say that?"

"No."

"Do you know why those men kidnapped you?"

She shook her head and then started whistling tunelessly.  Evidently, all he was going to get out of her was her name.  He pitied anyone who tried to interrogate this child.

Before long, Diasa reentered the waiting room through the door on the left; just as well he hadn't tried to sneak out through that one.  "The headmistress will see you now."

They followed her down a short hallway, generously appointed with woven rugs and hanging plants that overflowed their baskets, tumbling in green disorder to the floor.  Tiny, rectangular windows gave a limited view of the grounds outside; through them, Adaran caught a glimpse of a small, blue-clad figure furtively moving through the trees, apparently shadowing their own movements.  He pointed this out to Diasa, who merely shook her head.

At the end of the corridor, they came to a closed wooden door.  A tall, empty bin stood beside it.  Diasa opened the door and ushered them into a chamber scarcely larger than the waiting room, though better lit.  A broad desk made of stone took up most of the available space; papers, scrolls, and even a few books cluttered its surface.  Adaran eyed the tomes, thick and hand-bound.  He knew how valuable such items could be, having stolen more than one, and was surprised to find them treated like common objects.

The woman who sat behind the desk was busily rolling up parchments, tying the bundles off with bits of string.  She looked about the same age as Adaran's mother, the old whore, with a face dry and creased as old leather, white hair streaked with black falling loosely past her shoulders.  Without looking up from her labors, she said:  "Well, have them sit."

"Working on it," Diasa said.  She had removed a stack of scrolls from a chair, and her arms were quite full.  "This office would be less cluttered if you didn't leave your things everywhere."

The headmistress looked at Diasa's burden as if she'd never seen such things before, then said:  "Put those in the hallway.  They need to go back to the library."

"Well, they won't get there sitting on your furniture," Diasa muttered as she dumped them into the bin outside the door.

"I heard that," the headmistress said.

"As you were meant to."  Diasa maneuvered Adaran into the chair that she had cleared; Prehn climbed into his lap.  Then Diasa shut the office door and went to stand behind the desk, arms folded, looking down at him with half-lidded eyes.  He supposed this was meant to intimidate him.

The headmistress finished collating her papers and dropped them on the floor next to her desk, then leaned back and examined Adaran as if he were an interesting sort of rodent that had appeared unexpectedly in her kitchen.  Adaran shifted uncomfortably, waiting for her to speak, but she didn't; finally he said:  "We could use something to eat."

The Headmistress blinked a few times, then looked at Diasa.  "Go and fetch Wert.  You'll find him lurking outside.  I would ask him a few questions."

Diasa nodded and departed through a narrow side door wedged between two shelves overflowing with papers and knickknacks.  The headmistress watched her go, then returned her gaze to Adaran, templed her fingers, and said:  "Diasa tells me you stole a giant bird."

"Yes, I did."

"Some of the students have seen such creatures."

"Flying around the college, you mean?"

"No.  In visions.  They appear to figure in some sort of event that's about to happen.  Unfortunately we are not at all certain what that event is."

"Can't you just look into the future and see?"

"It's not a matter of turning a book a few pages ahead and reading what's written," she said.  "Where do they come from?"

"What, the eagles?"

"Of course."

"They belong to Lord Dunshandrin."

"And where does he get them?"

"I don't know."

"How did you happen to steal one?"

"That's a long story."

"I have the time to hear it."

And so Adaran launched into a highly edited version of what had happened in the mountains, from stealing the dragon's crystals to the double-cross that had killed Redshen and the others.  He played up his heroism in rescuing Prehn, played down his killing of Dosen, and ended with their blind flight through the clouds and unexpected landing not far from the college.  Throughout his tale, Prehn sat in his lap, staring at the headmistress with the sort of unreserved fascination usually reserved for storytellers and grandmothers.  Perhaps she was the oldest woman the child had ever seen.

When he finished, the headmistress said:  "Interesting."

Her tone made him wonder if she knew the details he had left out.  "Interesting?  That's all you have to say?"

"At the moment.  I do wonder, though, why Dunshandrin would go through all the effort and expense of sending you to get the dragon's stones."

"I can't say.  He didn't tell us."

"Unfortunate."

"He could just want them for a potion.  Or perhaps he's making himself a new crown."

"No.  He is up to something grave, and we don't know what it is."  The headmistress leaned forward to look down at Prehn.  "You've been very quiet, child.  Where are
you
from?  Why did they have you prisoner?"

Prehn squeaked and buried her face in Adaran's dusty cloak.  After a moment, he said:  "She's a bit shy."

"So I see."  The headmistress leaned back in her chair.  "She's clearly Enshennean.  With that skin, that hair, she could be nothing else."  She looked at him.  "This is a long, long way from Enshenneah."

"I don't know what you're getting at," Adaran said.  "I didn't kidnap her, if that's what you're suggesting; I've never even been to Enshenneah."

"Nothing there but jungles and savages and insects."  She shuddered.  "So many insects."

The narrow door opened and Diasa entered, dragging Wert by the collar of his robe.  The little man's feet scrabbled against the floor in a futile effort to escape.  Holding him with one hand, Diasa swept a huge heap of papers aside, revealing another chair.  She tossed Wert into it, then stood there glaring at him.  He tried to stand up twice; she pushed him down both times.