Dragon Stones (9 page)

"Keep it.  You'll want more later."

She looked up at him.  "I would still appreciate it if you'd help me escape."

The man scratched his head, clearly uncomfortable in her presence now.  He probably thought she was mad.  "I don't know if you're telling the truth or not, but the princes would have my head if I let you go, and that's for certain."  He opened the door and went back into the hallway, pausing to add:  "If you need anything, just call or knock.  There'll be someone out here all the time."

The door shut; the lock clicked.

What had just happened?  She had wasted an opportunity to sow uncertainty in the minds of her guards.  She'd formed lies in her head, but been unable to speak them.  Something in the food, she thought; the twins had drugged her, given her some sort of truth potion.

But that explanation rang false.  Much more likely, this was a side effect of the excessive vapors that Tomari, in his ignorance, had inflicted upon her.  The fumes had left her mind intact, but stripped away her ability to speak untruths.

If that were the case, she hoped it would wear off soon.

How could one go through life without ever telling a lie?

Gelt's hired men proved to be adequate sailors.  They stayed tightly fixed on the course that Ponn and the navigator had plotted, and when he spotted new shoals—by tiny black jags just breaking the surface like a baby's growing teeth, or by the pattern of the swells as they crossed shallow water, or merely by the bubbles that indicated heat below the surface—they quickly obeyed his shouted instructions to avoid the obstacle.  And when a breeze finally came up from the west, they quickly unfurled the sails to take advantage of it and give the rowers some relief.

As the ship neared the volcanic archipelago, they adjusted the canvas, slowing their forward momentum.  Ponn had warned Gelt that the waters here were shallow and especially treacherous, and it appeared that he had taken the threat seriously.

"Innkeeper!"

Ponn looked over his shoulder at Gelt, who stood nearby, eating some sort of sandwich.  "What?"

Gelt jerked his thumb upward.  "Into the rigging.  If the sea here is as dangerous as you say, I want warnings as soon as you can give them."

With a sigh, Ponn left the prow and climbed the mast, settling into the rudimentary crow's nest.  From here, he could see a vast network of black reefs beneath the water, forming a treacherous maze surrounding the islands.  The shoals grew and shifted so fast that it was pointless to chart them; any sane mariner gave the region a wide berth.

"This is your last chance to turn back!" Ponn shouted.  "Once we're in there, we won't get out again quickly!"

Gelt grinned up at him, waved, and went back to eating his meal and looking at the islands.

Ponn clung to the rigging and scanned the crazy patterns of stone, trying to guide the ship through the labyrinth without dead-ending or running aground.  "Port!" he shouted.  "Starboard!  Hard starboard!  Hold fast!"  A couple of times they scraped reefs that Ponn didn't see; they were too deep, or obscured by dazzling reflections of the sun.  The vessel's shallow draft kept them from being wrecked or running aground, but still, Ponn found it unnerving to imagine sharp, jagged stones clawing at the hull of his boat.

The near misses didn't dampen Gelt's enthusiasm in the slightest.  "Keep it up, innkeeper!" he bellowed, after they had just navigated a narrow gap between craggy black heaps of frozen lava.  "You're making your daughter proud!"

Then they entered the archipelago, and Ponn's task became more difficult still.

While the volcanoes slumbered, the smaller vents and fumaroles spewed steam constantly, producing drifting banks of acrid fog.  Every time they entered such a patch of vapor, the sailors retched and cursed as they breathed the noxious fumes.  Conditions were slightly better up in the rigging, because the miasma tended to hang low above the water, but Ponn still found himself coughing and wiping away tears with increasing regularity.

The clouds thickened as they progressed; the air became even hotter and closer, redolent of ash and sulfur, smotheringly humid.  They must be very near an active underwater eruption, Ponn though, molten rock seeping out of the earth and boiling the sea above it.  It must be terribly hot in the hold; Ponn prayed that Pord wasn't hiding down there.

The sunlight dimmed as smoke enshrouded them.  Navigation became impossible.  Gelt shouted a command to drop anchor; there was a splash, and a moment later the ship halted, an indication of just how little water supported them.  "Innkeeper!" Gelt shouted, coughing.  "Get us out of here!"

"I can see no better than you!" Ponn said.  "I warned you—"

"You said nothing about these stinking clouds!"

"Are you mad?  What did you think you would find when we neared the volcanoes?  Until the wind shifts, we are blind!"

A fit of coughing overtook Gelt, preventing him from answering; and then, over the hiss and bubbles, Ponn heard the sound of wings.  A massive shadow passed overhead, longer and wider than the ship, heading toward the west; a moment later a tremendous downdraft shook the vessel, nearly knocking Ponn from his perch.  He swung around, clinging to the rigging, feet kicking in the air.  The smoke thinned momentarily, revealing an open channel running at an angle to the left, passing between high walls of rock into open water.  Gelt had stopped them in a volcanic bowl, perhaps the crater of a newly-forming island, the absolute worst spot he could have chosen; if they could make it through the gap and into open water, they might be able to see again.  One thing Ponn knew:  They could not stay where they were.  The pitch would boil out of the planks, the ship would sink, they would all roast.

"What was that thing?" Gelt cried.

"That was a dragon, you fool!" Ponn said.  "We have to get out of here before it notices us!  If he's at all competent, your navigator has been plotting our route; tell him to retrace it!"

"Turn back?" Gelt said.  "Not when we're so close to our destination!"  He began speaking to the helmsman; Ponn couldn't hear his instructions over the lather of the sea, but he knew well enough what the man was doing; despite the presence of the dragon, he was going to push on to the island and doom them all.  But it had been flying to the west; it may have been departing the islands rather than arriving.

He could only hope it was so.

Now Ponn heard the clink and rattle of the anchor being raised.  The ship began to move again, slowly, angling to the left.  Gelt's rowers would be doing this work; how could they perform in such heat?  They entered the channel.  Stone scraped  against the hull.  Gelt barked orders, sending men down into the hold to check for leaks, to the sides to pole them away from the walls.  Ponn clung to the rigging and waited for them to be wrecked; blinded, there was nothing more he could do.

At last, they emerged into open water.  Gelt's target island loomed ahead of them, a hellish landscape of barren rock and smoke; but compared to where they had just come from, it looked like paradise.  Two arms of the island curved outward, forming a small, sheltered cove.  The oarsmen guided the boat into this unwelcoming harbor, but there was nowhere suitable for a landing; they dropped anchor in the center and set about preparing a large canoe.

Ponn climbed down from the rigging.  Gelt ignored him, moving from position to position, issuing instructions.  Ponn trailed along behind him, and finally said:  "You can't possibly go ashore here."

Gelt did not favor him with a glance.  "Of course we can."

Ponn gestured at the unbroken black rock that surrounded the sapphire-blue water.  "But there's nowhere to beach a canoe.  It's nothing but stone!"

"I'm not worried," Gelt said.  "I'm sure you'll manage."

CHAPTER FOUR

Adaran awakened from a nightmare with a stiff back, a dry throat, and no idea where he was.  He sat up and looked blearily at his surroundings, remembering that he was hidden in the supply tent at Dosen's camp.  The ability to sleep under adverse conditions was an important skill, but this time he had taken an enormous risk; he was not very well hidden, and could easily have been spotted if anyone had hankered for a bit of beef jerky, or if they had decided to break camp.  Fortunately, his luck seemed to be holding for now.

He peered at the tent flap.  From the light filtering in, he guessed it was late afternoon.  Apparently they were going to stay for at least one more day; perhaps they were still out there searching for him, while he dozed right under their noses.  That provided a small amount of satisfaction, but didn't make up for the fact that he was still quite likely to perish out here.

He shook his head.  That sort of thinking was not going to help him escape.  Slipping out of his hiding place, he began looking for something to keep him warm as he trekked out of the mountains; his cloak and tunic would not be sufficient against nights as cold as last.  He'd hoped to see furs lying about, but no such luck; the men probably kept such things in their own tents, to insulate themselves from the chill.  He picked up the blanket that had covered the girl's cage.  Thin, but better than nothing.  He folded it as small as he could and stuffed it into one of his many large pockets.

And what about the girl?  What had they done with her?  He crept to the tent flap and peered out at the camp.  Afternoon light slanted from the south, filtering through the tallest pines, stretching out the shadows.  The temperature had dropped from earlier in the day, the air nipping at his face, promising another icy night among the dripping pines.

Dosen's men—he counted five of them, gathered around the fire a few dozen yards down the slope—wore warm, if tattered, fur cloaks.  The little girl's woven prison sat on the rock near the fire; he could see her inside, a tiny shadow, like a caterpillar inside its cocoon.  If they were planning to feed her to the eagles, why would they bother putting her near the fire?  What was she doing here?

He withdrew into the tent, contemplating the odds.  Five to one?  Suicide.  Dosen's henchmen were not the most competent fighters in the world, but neither was he.  He might dazzle them for a while with his speed and agility, but eventually one of them would score a lucky thrust with a dull sword and it would be over.

Whatever plans they had for the child, her fate was not his concern.  He had to escape now, and take advantage of what was left of the light to get some distance down the mountain.

Returning to the back of the tent, he slipped out through the slit he had cut earlier, sliding out onto the weathered, uneven stone.

He froze.

Scarcely ten feet away, a guard crouched at the edge of the ridge, breeches wadded at his feet, straining to relieve himself.  No time to duck back into the tent.  Adaran drew a throwing knife and flung it as the soldier looked his way.  The man opened his mouth to cry out, but the blade struck his throat before he could make a sound; he toppled backward and vanished over the cliff.

Shaken, Adaran pressed himself flat against the tent and waited, listening.  Had anyone noticed what had just happened?  Had they heard the guard fall?  He didn't think so; no one came to investigate, no one called out.

He had just decided it was safe to move again when someone said:  "Looks like Dosen's coming back."

Dosen?  Coming back?  Adaran crept to the edge of the shelter, peered at the henchmen.  They were looking off to the northwest.  He followed their gaze to a group of dark shapes, hanging low in the sky.  Eagles.  He counted at least five; he couldn't tell how many of them had riders, but Redshen had speculated that each eagle could hold two men.  Dosen might be bringing in ten additional soldiers to help search for Adaran; or he might be coming to break down the camp and carry everything back to Dunshandrin.

Adaran looked toward the fire again.  The men had moved away from it, gawking at the sky, leaving the little girl more or less unattended.

Now.

He dashed out from behind the tent, loping silently along the stones.  He snatched up the net by its leather handle, pivoted, and fled to the edge of the steep, rocky, jagged slope on the western side of the ridge.  He could see the body of the man he had just killed, wedged into a fissure where a great boulder had begun to shear away from the mountain.  Too bad he didn't have time to retrieve his knife.

The little girl had begun to whimper; crying was probably imminent.  There was no time for subtlety, or even to pick a likely route down the slope.  Instead he flung the net over his shoulder, leapt off the edge, and started running.  He bounded from rock to rock, maintaining a precarious balance on the steeply angled mountainside.  He reached the tree line and plunged into the wall of pines, heedless of the slapping branches and jabbing needles; then he slowed down and cut to the right, moving at an angle through the forest.  This direction led deeper into the mountains, but the cover seemed thicker, and Dosen would likely expect him to head in the opposite direction.

The girl, who had been fairly quiet until now, suddenly began screaming and beating on his shoulder with her little fists.  He stopped, panting, and held her up in front of his face.  She lay in the bottom of the sack, curled up as if she were in a hammock; but she was glaring at him with big, dark, suspicious eyes, as if she expected him to throw her off a cliff.  "I won't hurt you," he said.  "I rescued you from those men.  They're bad men."