Dragon Stones (56 page)

Here he spotted more people, a group of young toughs who were obviously plundering the mean homes, taking advantage of the poor construction to bash down the doors and ransack the contents.  Ponn couldn't imagine what sorts of valuables they might be finding.  Fishing poles?  Burlap sacks?  Bottles of strong drink?  Or perhaps they were merely doing it for the pleasure of breaking and entering.  In any event, he certainly didn't want to be noticed by
this
crowd.  He waited until they were involved with prying open a particularly resistant door, then darted across the street, cutting through a narrow alley between a fish market and a chandlery, coming out on the wooden planks of the quay.  He stole along it as quietly as he could; the timbers creaked beneath his feet, but the sound was indistinguishable from the other groans and sighs that the structure made as the water rose and fell beneath it.

At length the wharf detached from the shoreline, which had become rocky and unstable; now there was a gap to his right, four or five feet of black water.  Too far to jump, but a gangplank lay ahead of him, leading to shore where the boardwalk ended.  He was near the edge of town now, could see empty land ahead, barren riverbank dotted with boulders, tufts of saw-grass, leaning trees that trailed long branches like maidenhair in the river.  It might have been such a tree that had saved him when he should have drowned.

He reached the gangplank, started across it, heading for the shore; but before he reached it, he heard a voice from beneath the bridge hiss:  "You there!  Foreigner!  Hold!"

Ponn froze, looking down at the riverside.  Two pairs of suspicious eyes looked back, belonging to men dressed in the uniform of Dunshandrin's town guard.  They had spread bedrolls among the rocks beneath the shelter of the footbridge, evidently deciding it would be a good place to camp.  Neither of them appeared to be armed, and it would be a rough scramble up the bank to pursue him.  Hoping they would not think it worth the trouble to give chase, Ponn bolted for shore, ignoring a shouted order to stop.

He heard a crossbow discharge, the twang scarcely audible.  He dodged, but the bolt struck him in the left shoulder, spun him around, sent him sprawling in the mud.  Agony.  He reached around, felt for the shaft.  It had struck just to the outside of his shoulder-blade.  He couldn't get a grip on it; his fingertips barely brushed it, but even that slight touch sent ripples of burning pain spreading across his back.

He looked back, saw three dark shapes climbing up to the road.  Three, not two.  He had missed one of them, and that one had been armed with a crossbow.

Why bother shooting at him?  Why bother chasing him?  Did they know he was with the dragon?  Or were they just looking for someone they could kill?

Hoping he wouldn't find out, he stumbled to his feet, and ran.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

T'Sian peered down at Tolaria.  The oracle seemed nervous in her presence; perhaps the dragon form frightened her, especially now that she had witnessed the destruction T'Sian had wrought at the castle.

Good.  A frightened human was a compliant one.

"What … what do you want to know?" Tolaria said.

"
I want you to tell me—
"  She broke off at a shout from the river, followed by the sound of a crossbow firing.  
That could only mean Dunshandrin's soldiers.

Tolaria said:  "What's wrong?"

She turned back to the oracle.  "
Return to the fire.  Stay with Diasa.  Warn her that there are men about, and they are armed.
"

Tolaria, open-mouthed, nodded, dropped the sticks she had gathered, and hurried away.  T'Sian headed for the river, sliding across the ground, keeping her body low and her wings folded.  Her vision showed her three warm shapes gathered around a fourth, who lay in the road.  The men, occupied with kicking the fallen one, did not notice her approach until she was very near; then two of them screamed and fled, while the other foolishly raised his crossbow and fired it at her.  The bolt bounced harmlessly off her nose.  Annoyed, she lashed her tail forward and snapped it like a whip across his midsection; he died at once, a look of astonishment on his face, as the top half of his body fell one way and the bottom fell another.

That done, T'Sian examined the man on the ground; anyone drawing the ire of Dunshandrin's men was worthy of attention.  But she was surprised to find that she knew him.

"
You were supposed to have been drowned, not shot and beaten
," T'Sian said.

Pyodor Ponn looked up at her.  He must be in considerable pain, she thought, but still, a faint smile flickered across his blood-smeared lips.  "Drowning was less painful than this," he said.  "You ran them off?"

"
Two of them.  One stayed to fight, so I killed him.
"

"Thank you.  What about the others?  Are they safe?"

He must mean Prehn and the rest.  Typical Ponn, always concerned about himself last.  "
They are here.  I will bring you to them.
"  But then something occurred to her.  "
You are injured.  If I move you, will you die?
"

"I don't think I'm hurt that badly.  Just be careful."

She delicately picked him up in one of her massive claws, mindful of what had happened to the other man—Ponn's friend, whose name she had forgotten—when she had been too rough with him.  Holding him as gently as she could, she returned to the campsite.  Tolaria was tending to the injured prisoner; Diasa had her weapon drawn and watched guardedly as T'Sian approached.  When she reached them, Diasa said:  "What's going on?  Tolaria said there are armed men around?"

"
No longer.
"  T'Sian
laid her burden on the ground.  "
I found Pyodor Ponn.  He is hurt.
"

"Ponn?"  Diasa crouched down beside him, examining him.  "First you fall in the river, and then you get yourself shot.  Are you always this unlucky?"

"I'm not
that
unlucky," he said.  "I'm still alive."

"So you are," Diasa said.

"
He will live, will he not?
" T'Sian said.

"Yes, if we can remove the arrow and stanch the bleeding," Tolaria said.  "The wound itself doesn't look too serious.  Diasa, what do you think?"

"I agree."

"Pull it out, then," Ponn said.  "I'm ready."

"Absolutely not," Diasa said.  "We have to push it all the way through to the other side and then cut the head off."

Ponn looked horrified.  "What?  Why?"

"Dunshandrin uses arrows with barbed heads.  Pulling it safely would require tools that we don't have.  If we just yank it out, it will tear your flesh and you could bleed to death."  She looked thoughtful.  "Does your arm still work?"

"Yes."

"We must be careful not to do more damage when we remove it, then.  Otherwise you could end up like Adaran."

"
You men are so fragile
," T'Sian said.

Ponn closed his eyes.  "Don't start that again," he said.

Tolaria had stuffed her pockets with the rags she'd been able to find in the inn's kitchen.  They had not been particularly clean, so she'd boiled them for a while before using them to bind Adaran's wounds; now she needed a few more for Ponn.  She stirred up the small pot, swirling the scraps of fabric around with a stick to make sure they sank in the roiling water.

"Why are you doing that?"

Startled, she jumped and nearly tipped over the pot, even as she answered automatically, "I'm going to use them to bandage Ponn's shoulder."

T'Sian, shrunken down to human form again, had silently come up behind her; Tolaria hadn't even realized that the dragon had slunk off to make her transformation.  For such an enormous creature, she could move with remarkable stealth.

The dragon peered into the water.  "Why do you have to cook them first?"

"I'm not cooking them, I'm boiling them because they aren't clean.  There could be things living in the cloth that would make Pyodor Ponn sick; the hot water will kill them."

"Things living in the cloth?"  T'Sian looked dubious.  "Like insects?"

"No, smaller.  Have you ever had food poisoning?"

"What is that?"

"It's when you eat something spoiled and it makes you sick."

"I eat whatever I want.  It never harms me."

Of course it didn't.  "Well, sometimes people get sick from what they eat."  Tolaria poked and stirred the rags.  "You can't see the things in the food that are bad for you, but they're still there.  It's the same with these rags.  They were probably used to wipe off counters or dry dishes.  If they touch Ponn's open wound, the things that live in them might get into his body and make him ill."

T'Sian appeared to consider this.  Tolaria wondered if she was going to have to launch into a full-blown explanation of sanitation and disease.  At Flaurent, it had taken months for many of the students to accept that invisible creatures lived on many surfaces, and that some of them could make people very sick.  Such concepts were largely unknown to the general public; even some oracles left Flaurent unconvinced.  Certainly a dragon, not subject to the ailments common to humans, would be completely unaware of the subject.

Finally, T'Sian shook her head and said:  "You men.  Always making up stories to explain away your frailties."

"Yes," Tolaria said, "we are an imaginative bunch, aren't we?"  She lifted one of the rags, examined it.  "Are you sure it's wise to be back in human form when there are soldiers about?"

"They cannot hurt me."

"They can hurt the rest of us."

"None will be foolish enough to approach."

"Why not?  Those other men tried to kill Ponn."

"They attacked Ponn because he is small, and he was alone and unarmed.  They have no spirit left for a true fight."

Tolaria remained unconvinced, but decided to drop the matter; Ponn and Diasa might be willing to debate the dragon, but not her.  "You're probably right."

"Certainly.  I
am
concerned about something, though."

"What?"

"Qalor's crystals.  Something is wrong with them."

"Wrong?"

"They will not stop growing.  Look at the castle, and tell me what you see."

Tolaria looked.  Against the evening sky, it glowed orange, lit up by the small fires that still burned within the structure.  "It's on fire," she said.

"Look closer.  Can you see the blue glow?"

She squinted, but couldn't see what T'Sian described.  "No."

"Then trust me.  The blue crystals are there, and they are spreading quickly."

"All right."

"I never asked you my question, before."

So they were back to that.  Tolaria glanced at Adaran.  Diasa had taken over bandaging him; now he lay on the dirt, staring up at the night sky.  She hoped the question would not be about him.  Ponn sat nearby, his face gleaming.  She didn't know if he was sweating from the pain, fear of Diasa's prescribed treatment, or both.  Nearby, Prehn lay asleep, the only one of their group who was getting any rest.

Tolaria turned back to look at the dragon.  "What is your question?"

"I already swallowed some of Qalor's crystals."  T'Sian put her hand over her chest.  "I feel them inside me; they burn much hotter than the natural variety.  I am … afraid that they will harm me in some way, or that they already have."

"I'm not an alchemist," Tolaria said.  "I can't answer that."

"You are an oracle.  You tell the future.  Is that not why Dunshandrin took you in the first place?"

"Yes."

"Then tell me if the crystals will harm me or not."

Tolaria looked at the dragon, feeling nothing, no oncoming trance.  T'Sian watched her expectantly, evidently believing she could spout prophecy on demand.

"I don't know," Tolaria said.

Diasa approached.  "You must ask her a question," she said.  "You've just been making statements.  But we may not need to ask the oracle; I've been thinking about what Qalor told me."

"Yes?" T'Sian said.

"Qalor altered the crystals.  He knew it would be difficult to obtain more, so he experimented with them, exposing them to his potions and chemicals until they began to grow on their own.  Then he found he couldn't control the growth of the blue ones, except by keeping them very cold, so he connected them to that device that funneled river water into their vat."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"The crystals are almost certainly growing inside you now, but if you keep breathing fire and consume them faster than they can spread, eventually they will be used up.  Then you can go wherever it is you go, and get more of the normal crystals."

"But when I use them to their full power, they … they burn me," the dragon said.  She seemed to have difficulty even discussing this; to her it must be like admitting some horrible weakness, Tolaria thought, the equivalent, perhaps, of a man revealing that he was impotent, or a woman that she was barren.