Dragon Stones (8 page)

"Who are these men?" Ponn said, gesturing at the people working on his boat.  "They are not from my village."

"No, of course they aren't," Gelt said.  "You think I want to sail on a ship full of your friends and cronies?"

"You don't have enough sailors.  I sail with a crew of ten.  You have half that number."

"You aren't counting me or my companions."

"I thought your skills ran more to kidnapping and larceny."

"You wound me, innkeeper!  My men are experienced seamen.  I have no more desire to be shipwrecked than you do.  Is that a knife I see?"

"Yes.  You'll want it, I imagine."

"Clever innkeeper.  Yes, I want it."

Ponn drew the weapon and turned it around, offering the handle to Gelt.  He made a gesture and one of his lackeys took it, inspecting it as if it were something he might like to buy.  As the man carried it away, Ponn called:  "I'll have that back at the end of the voyage."

Gelt laughed.  "I hope that wasn't a family heirloom."  Then, cocking his head:  "Do you savages
have
heirlooms?"

Ponn ignored the jibe.  "My oldest boy is missing."

"You do have trouble keeping track of your children, don't you?  If it makes you feel better, we didn't take him."

"I thought he might have sneaked aboard the boat."

"Nobody's come on board while we've been here," Gelt said.  "He probably got tired of living in the jungle and ran away."

"I'd like to go aboard and search for him."

"I'm afraid not," Gelt said.  "I can't have you wandering the ship, getting in the way, learning all our secrets."

Ponn took a deep breath, then said:  "And my daughter?"

"Impatient innkeeper!  You'll have her back when we return safely.  No treachery on the high seas from you."

"Is she here?  Are you keeping her in Shaumi's hut?"

"Who?"

"The caretaker."  Ponn pointed at the guarded hovel.

"Caretaker?"  Gelt glanced over his shoulder at the cabin.  "Oh, is
that
the old man's function?  We thought he was some sort of crazy hermit.  He raised quite a fuss when we arrived; I'm afraid we had to get rough with him."

He was grinning as he said it.  Ponn imagined Gelt's brutish thugs surrounding Shaumi, knocking the poor man to the ground, kicking and stomping on him, laughing all the while.  He shook his head in disgust, walked away, and sat in the shade of the ocean palms as Gelt's hirelings finished preparing the boat.  When they started leading the eagles aboard, he stood and found Gelt again.  "What are you bringing those creatures for?" he said.

"You're the guide, not the captain," Gelt said.  He looked at the sun.  "It's time you came aboard and had a look at our maps."

"Have you found any sign of Pord on the ship?"

"Pord?  What's a Pord?"

"My son," Ponn said icily.

"Why do all your names sound alike?
 Pord, Ponn, Prehn."

"It's a family tradition.  All our names start with the same letter."

"You savages have traditions?  How amusing.  What about your wife?  Her name's Plenn, isn't it?  Did you wed your own sister?"

"She took that name when we married," Ponn said.  "Have you found Pord or not?"

Gelt shrugged.  "I don't know.  All you people look the same to me.  If he stowed away, he'll just have to come with us.  Perhaps we'll find him and put him to work, eh?  Can he sail?"

Ponn, tight-lipped, said nothing.

"Boys do love an adventure," Gelt said.  He threw an arm around Ponn and steered him toward the gangplank.  "Now come aboard.  There are charts to be reviewed."

Gelt guided Ponn onto the ship and directed him to the forecastle, where he found the navigator plotting a course on a hand-drawn map of the nearby waters.  Ponn immediately saw that it was badly out of date.  "Where did you get this?" he asked.

"Gelt gave it to me."

"Gelt must want to run aground, then.  The sea changes quickly here because of the volcanoes.  A chart this old is worse than useless."  He took the man's charcoal and reshaped the reefs and islands, then began adding new ones.

While he was working, Gelt entered, watched for a while, and then said:  "What are you doing?"

"Updating your chart so that you don't wreck my boat."

"You see, this is why I needed you along."

Ponn put down the charcoal and looked at the man.  "I don't suppose it occurred to you to hire me instead of coercing me by abducting my daughter."

"You wouldn't have accepted a hire to go to the islands."

"No, but I would have drawn a chart for you.  What do you want out there, anyway?"

"You're forgetting your place again.  I'm the captain, you're the guide."  He gave Ponn a pat on the back.  "I know you savages have difficulty learning, but try to remember that, at least."  He turned and went back out onto the deck.

Seething, Ponn returned to the chart.

They set sail just as the sun cleared the mountainous ridges surrounding the lagoon.  The helmsman guided them through a narrow gap in the barrier reef; they sailed directly out to sea until the water became deep enough to alleviate the danger from unseen, uncharted shoals.  Gelt gave an order to swing the bow south and head for the islands.  The riggers adjusted the limp sails, the rowers grunted with their oars, the navigator consulted the chart, the wheel squeaked in the helmsman's grip.  Ponn went to the prow and watched the hull split the water.  To his right, the jungle scrolled by, thinning as the chain of fire mountains came down to the sea, finally replaced altogether by smoking, steaming piles of black rock.

Since Ponn had last taken the boat this way, a new peninsula of lava had grown, like a spiny, smoldering black finger jabbing into the sea.  The water around its outermost edge bubbled like broth in a soup pot.  Ponn looked over his shoulder at Gelt and the helmsman.  "Stay well clear of that!" he shouted, pointing at the formation.  "There will be shoals all around!"  Gelt nodded; the helmsman guided them farther out in the water.

As they cleared the high promontory, the distant archipelago came into view, the volcanic islands eternally shrouded by a haze of smoke and fog.  The seas were very active out there, bubbling and steaming with underwater heat.  Ponn shaded his eyes from the sun, looking for dragons in the mist.  He didn't see any, but that didn't mean they weren't there; they could be slumbering on a warm stretch of newly-born rock or playing in the hot water of a tidal pool.

It had been years since Ponn had set foot on any of those bleak and barren rocks; only the northernmost few were remotely habitable, with green plants and colorful birds and rich soil in which to grow crops.  He'd been raised on one, a tiny pelagic island with a single village at the foot of an extinct volcano.  The dragons didn't bother them; the monstrous beasts preferred to flit about the jagged, smoldering active craters, drawn by the heat and smoke and fire.  But if they caught a man on one of
their
islands, they would surely make a meal of him.

Gelt appeared at his side.  "Your map has worked flawlessly.  Keep cooperating like this, innkeeper, and you'll have your daughter back soon."

Ponn didn't bother to reply.  He knew better than to trust Gelt's word; and even if he did, the seas out here were treacherous, the weather fickle, the dragons intolerant of trespassers.  There was a good chance that none of them would survive this madman's errand.

And if they
did
return, what would Gelt be bringing back with him?

Tolaria awoke with a sour taste like iron in her mouth and a fuzzy, unpleasant tingle in her head; but the mere fact that she had returned to consciousness was an unexpected blessing.  After Tomari had botched the preparation of the vapors, her last conscious thought had been that she would never emerge from the ensuing trance with her mind intact.  And her mind
was
intact.

Wasn't it?

"My name is Tolaria," she whispered.  "I'm an oracle.  I was born in Yttribia and taken to Flaurent as a child.  I was at the Crosswaters for the last three months, before I came to this forsaken castle."  Yes, that all sounded true and accurate; although if she had gone mad, she would surely believe all her delusions to be sterling fact.

She remembered being tied to a chair, but now she was in a bed.  The matted straw shifted beneath her as she rolled over and sat up; the blankets fell away from her naked body, but her fire had been replenished and the air against her skin felt pleasantly warm.  Who had removed her garments?  The twins?  She thought of Torrant's leer, Tomari's wandering hands, and wondered what liberties they may have taken while she was unconscious.  She reached down, touched her sensitive areas.  To her enormous relief, everything remained intact; they had raped her mind, but left her body alone.  For now.

Her trunk stood on the floor beside the bed.  She knelt in front of it, rummaging through her belongings.  They had taken her oracular supplies, toiletries, everything but her clothing.  She pulled out a tunic and breeches, suitable for traveling, although it seemed unlikely she would be leaving the castle any time soon.

As she dressed, she tried to recall what the twins had talked about while she'd been entranced.  She couldn't remember much after the vapors had begun to fill the room.  This was not unusual; oracles often came out of a fugue with no memory of what they had said or heard.  The Crosswaters employed a number of scribes whose function was to discreetly record everything that transpired during a session, but she doubted the twins had brought anyone in to write down their nefarious plans.

She heard a gentle rapping at the door as she was pulling on her boots.  Not the twins, she thought; they wouldn't bother to knock.  She finished adjusting her clothing, stood, and went to the door.  "What is it?" she said.

A voice from the other side said:  "I heard you moving around.  Would you like some food?"

"Yes, please."  Tolaria had had nothing to eat since arriving at the castle; at first she had simply refused all the meals that the twins had sent up to her, and then she had spent an unknown length of time lying insensate in bed.  Now she was ravenous, and willing to abandon her hunger strike.  It hadn't accomplished much anyway.

She stepped back as the lock turned and the door opened.  A guard entered, bearing a tray of bread and cubed cheeses, dried fruit and meat, and a clay flagon.  He brought it to the table near the window and set it down, watching as she descended on the food with the abandon of a starving beggar, ripping off hunks of bread and mashing them around pieces of cheese, washing the huge mouthfuls down with gulps of water from the flagon.

"I'm sorry the food is a bit stale," he said, apologizing for something that Tolaria hadn't even noticed.  "I was told it would be a long time before you woke up, but I was starting to think they had killed you."

"How long was I unconscious?" she said, her words muffled by a mouthful of bread.

"A day and a half."  The guard hesitated, glancing at the door.  "I've heard that you are an oracle."

"I am."

"Is it true, what they say?"

She stopped eating, looked at him.  "I don't know.  What do they say?"

"That if you harm or waylay an oracle, you'll go mad."

Tolaria had hoped for this opportunity; the twins were too worldly to influence, but she could play up the possibility of supernatural retribution with this man and let him spread the word among the guards and servants.  Eventually, someone might decide the risk was too great and help her escape.

"Well?  Is it true?"

She opened her mouth to encourage his fears, and said:  "No, it's not true."  Then, startled by her own words, she took a drink of sour water from the flagon.

"It's not?"

"No.  It is a common superstition, and encouraged by oracles for our own protection, but it has no basis in fact."  She turned back to the table and put her hands on either side of her head.  Why was she saying these things?

"But everyone has heard stories about highwaymen who rob an oracle and are struck blind, about kings who imprison oracles and lose their minds.  Aren't those stories true?"

"No.  They are apocryphal at best."

Now he looked confused.  "What does that mean?"

"It means they are of doubtful origin, and probably false.  The events likely never actually occurred, and if they did, their correlation to the attack on an oracle is merely coincidental."

Why was she telling this man the truth?  Why was she answering him at all?  She put a piece of jerky in her mouth, chewed it worriedly, hoping he would stop asking questions.

The guard watched her eat for a little while, then said:  "How do I know you're not just telling me this because you want us all to go crazy?"

"You don't.  But I would rather be set free than remain a prisoner, so why would I lie?"

The guard pondered this, scratching his stubbly beard.  At length, he said, "Why would you tell the truth?"

"I don't know," Tolaria said.  She had lost her appetite and pushed the tray away from her.  "I'm not hungry anymore."