Dragon Weather (58 page)

Sweet closed her eyes. “I don't think anyone can kill him,” she said. “He's a sorcerer, you know. He talks to the dragons as if he were a dragon himself. I don't think he can die, any more than they can—maybe he
is
a dragon, in human form. Maybe it's a disguise, like the one you wore.”

Arlian continued to stare at her, but his hands were still as frustration gave way to confusion.

“He talks to the dragons?” he said.

“I think that's why he calls himself Lord Dragon,” Sweet murmured, her eyes closing. “He
is
a dragon.”

Arlian looked around the room, as if for guidance—was Sweet speaking the literal truth, or was this simply the deranged imagining of a woman who had been subjected to two long years of torture and abuse?

It was at that moment that a servant entered with a heavily laden tray of food and drink, providing a welcome distraction. “Set it there,” he said, pointing to a low table. Turning to Sweet, he asked, “Can you sit up to eat?”

She started. “Is it morning already?”

“No, of course not—you're
here,
and can eat when you please,” Musk explained. “Come on, let me help you.”

Together, Musk and Arlian got the exhausted Sweet sitting upright, and a glass of wine to her lips.

She spluttered, then drank, draining the glass eagerly.

A honeycake followed, then raisins, then more wine and a slab of cheese. She ate voraciously for several minutes as Arlian and Musk watched.

Then abruptly she stopped, doubled over, and vomited onto the carpet.

“Too much rich food, too fast,” Musk muttered. “She's half starved, the poor thing!” She turned to the servant, still waiting in the corner, and said, “Fetch some broth—something fit for a sick child.”

The servant bowed and started toward the door.

“And send someone to clean this up,” Arlian added.

The servant bowed again, and left.

When Rime arrived, half an hour later, Arlian and Sweet and Musk were settled in another room, a drawing room where Sweet was curled up in a velvet-upholstered armchair, wrapped in her robe and a blanket, sipping a mug of beef broth. Hasty had joined them, and been repeatedly shushed for arguing with Sweet—Hasty insisted that Enziet simply could not have been that much worse than Kuruvan. Hasty was now visibly pregnant with Kuruvan's child, and determined to think well of the baby's father and all his friends.

Arlian stood when Rime hobbled into the room, and bowed respectfully; the three women could not rise, of course, but Musk attempted a partial bow. Rime waved her cane at them in acknowledgment.

“So is this one of your four witnesses, or just another whore you've rescued?” Rime asked Arlian without preamble. “Black didn't seem very certain on that point.”

Wither had accompanied her, and now stepped into the room behind her; Arlian bowed again. Black, who had opened the door for the two guests, now hesitated.

“Come in, all of you,” Arlian said, beckoning. “This is Sweet—and yes, she's another of the women I sought to rescue, but she may be a witness to Lord Enziet's treachery, as well.”

“Treachery?” Sweet looked up, startled.

“You said he spoke to dragons,” Arlian said gently. “What did you mean?”

She looked up at Arlian, puzzled. “I meant he talks to dragons. He uses his sorcery and a bowl of water—I saw him do it once. I didn't hear anything, but I saw the dragon in the water, and he told me what it said.” She shuddered.

Wither leaned forward and studied Sweet intently; Rime leaned on her cane and stared.

“You're serious?” Rime said.

“Of course I am!” Sweet said, pulling the blankets closer around her.

“What color was the dragon?” Rime demanded.

Sweet hesitated, and glanced at Arlian. “Black,” she said. “But maybe that was the magic, because I thought dragons were green.”

“They're black,” Arlian said.

“Some of them,” Rime agreed. “The biggest ones.”

“Why did he show you this?” Wither asked.

“And when?” Rime added.

“He was … he was tormenting me,” Sweet said. “He was taunting me, saying I would spend the rest of my life as a plaything. I said that no, sooner or later I'd die, just as Dove did, when he got bored and killed me, and he said no, he would keep me alive until I was old and gray and even more helpless than I was then.” She swallowed. “I was … I was braver back then—it was, I don't know, a long time ago, in the summer I think, but a long time after he brought me to Manfort. A hot day, I remember. Anyway, I said that he was older than I was, and would be dead before my hair turned gray, and he laughed and said he was a sorcerer and would live forever. And I didn't believe him, so he took the bowl of water he used to wash off the blood, and showed me that he talked to the dragons.” She glanced at Arlian, and added, “I think he might
be
a dragon, in human form, but he never said that, I'm just guessing.”

“He's no dragon,” Wither said.

“Not yet, anyway,” Rime added. “He seems more like one every year, though.”

Wither looked at Rime. “Do you think it was an illusion?”

“Probably,” Rime said.

“But it would explain how he knew my village would be destroyed!” Arlian said. “The dragons
told
him what they were going to do!”

“It would, at that,” Rime agreed thoughtfully. She asked Wither, “Could
you
make a dragon's image appear in a bowl of water?”

“Not just like that,” Wither said. “Blood in the water … no, that wouldn't help.” He looked at Sweet. “Did he use anything else? Any powders or devices?”

“I don't know,” Sweet said. “I didn't see any.”

“If he just wanted to make an illusion to prove he's a sorcerer,” Arlian asked, “why would he choose the image of a dragon?”

“Suppose he
can
talk to the dragons,” Wither said. “Why wouldn't he
tell
us?”

“He's keeping it to himself so he'll have resources we don't,” Rime said.

“But what could he
do
with it?”

“Well, he knew when he could loot the Smoking Mountain,” Arlian pointed out.

Wither waved it away. “How often would
that
be of any use?”

“And even if he can speak to them, why would the dragons tell him that?” Rime asked.

“Perhaps he can
compel
them to speak?” Black suggested. Rime and Wither turned, startled, as if both had forgotten that Black was still present.

“Compel a
dragon
to do anything?” Wither countered.

Black shrugged. “Well, you'd know more than I about that,” he said, “but didn't someone, or several someones, compel them to leave humanity to its own devices, while they slunk off to their caves?”

“It wasn't…” Wither began. Then he stopped and frowned.

“We don't
know
why the dragons gave up and left,” Rime said. She glanced at Wither. “Do we?”

Wither didn't reply, and after a few seconds of uneasy silence, Arlian suggested, “Maybe Enziet
does
know.”

“Maybe Enziet knows a great deal he hasn't told us,” Wither growled. Abruptly he turned and stamped out.

The others stared after him, caught flat-footed by this sudden exit. “Wait a minute,” Rime called. She began to hobble after him, but gave up after a few steps—Wither might be old, and his arm a useless ruin, but there was nothing wrong with his legs, a claim Rime could not make.

“Should I go after him?” Black asked Arlian.

“And do what?” Arlian asked. “Drag him back here by force?” He shook his head. “I don't think so. I don't know where he's going, but wherever it is, what harm can he do us? Enziet's sworn not to kill him, or myself, or Lady Rime, and we have Sweet safe here with us, and the Aritheians to protect us all from Enziet's sorceries. Let him go. If he tells Enziet what we've learned, what of it?”

Rime had heard this as she gave up the pursuit and hobbled back. “You may be making a mistake,” she said. “Wither's angry now, but he and Enziet have been friends for centuries.”

They heard a distant door slam.

“Well, it's done now,” Arlian said. He looked at Sweet. “That's why Enziet didn't want me to visit him, I suppose,” he said. “He was afraid I might find Sweet and hear what she had to say.”

“Oh, he probably just didn't want to be bothered with you,” Rime said. “But letting this girl see what she did, and live—that was a mistake. And there's the tale of your home's destruction—it's unusually careless of Enziet to make two such slips in a single decade, and unfortunate for him that they should involve people who know one another.” She shook her head. “He's been getting stranger and stranger of late.”

Sweet shuddered. “He's a horrible creature,” she said. “What he did to me, and to Dove…”

“What
did
he do to you?” Rime asked curiously.

Sweet looked up at her, and then around at the others—Hasty and Musk, Arlian and Black.

“You don't want to hear this,” she said.

“If you want to tell us, we want to hear it,” Arlian said. “But if you don't want to talk about it, that's fine, too. Whatever you want.”

Sweet hesitated, then said, “I need to tell someone. And I need to tell it soon. When I had a particularly bad customer I used to tell Rose about it, and it made it easier to bear. And she would tell me. But Rose is dead.” She suddenly burst into tears, and Arlian hurried to comfort her.

When she had calmed, she began to speak.

“At first I thought it wouldn't be any worse than the brothel,” she said in a dull monotone. “I thought it would be the same sort of thing, but with Enziet and his guests, rather than whoever paid Mistress. Dove and I told each other that in the coach, and the first night at the house it seemed we were right—he put us on a bed in an unused room. But then the next day he had the
other
room prepared, the room where you found me, Triv…”

She spoke on and on; she had not even begun on Dove's death by slow torture when Hasty could stand no more and asked to be taken away. Black obliged her.

Musk wept frequently, and covered her ears during some parts of the recitation.

Black returned after carrying Hasty to her room, but had to leave shortly thereafter, after the account of the disposition of Dove's body, to empty his stomach.

Arlian felt ill several times, cried once or twice, but stuck it out.

Rime seated herself at the beginning of the narrative, and simply sat and listened, not visibly moved, until Sweet had finished.

She had begun not long after midday; by the time she finished the sun was down and candles lit. There had been a few brief interruptions, for food and other necessities, but she had spoken almost constantly for several hours. Her voice had grown faint and hoarse.

“… I didn't know him at first,” she said, reaching up to stroke Arlian's hair. “He said who he was, but I couldn't believe it. I thought it was a new trick, a new way Lord Dragon had thought up to try to drive me mad. But it truly was Triv, and he carried me out and pulled me up over the roof and lowered me down outside the house and carried me here on his back. And I'll love him for that as long as I live.” She pulled him down for a kiss.

“Well,” Rime said, reaching for her cane, “I think that's a good way to end the tale, and I'd better be going.” She pointed her stick at Arlian. “Tomorrow, midmorning, I expect to see you on the Street of the Black Spire. I believe there are a few things we'll want to talk about there.”

“Of course,” Arlian said, as he disentangled himself from Sweet's grasp. “Midmorning tomorrow.”

“Don't bring her,” Rime said. “Keep her safe here, and maybe we'll all come talk to her.”

Arlian bowed an acknowledgment.

“And I'd suggest,” Rime said, as she hobbled toward the door, “that
all
of you get some rest. I'm sure you're going to need it.”

49

The Calling of the Hearing

The morning was foggy, but the sun's light could be dimly seen overhead, and Arlian was fairly sure the mist would burn off in time—and of course, the outside world always seemed irrelevant once he was inside the Hall of the Dragon Society.

He arrived at midmorning, as instructed, and found several members present, including Rime. He recognized Flute, and Shatter, and several others, and of course Door was guarding the entrance.

Wither was not there, nor was Enziet, nor Drisheen, nor Toribor, nor Nail. Arlian frowned at that. The absence of all four of his surviving foes among the dragonhearts worried him; what if they were conspiring to kill Sweet, to destroy the evidence of their perfidy?

Of course, that assumed that all of them had known of Enziet's unique ability—whether it was prophecy or communing with dragons—and that might not be the case.

“There you are,” Rime said, looking up. She was seated at a table near the center of the main room. “Come and sit, and let me explain a few things I couldn't say openly outside these walls.”

Arlian took a chair beside her and leaned over to listen.

“The Dragon Society does not have very many rules,” Rime told him, “but it does have some, as you know. One of those is that knowledge of the dragons must be shared—that was in the oath you swore. Another, not quite so basic, is that knowledge of any new sorcerous technique must be shared. Enziet has apparently broken at least one of these rules. Nobody here will care that he tortured the girl and killed half a dozen others, but breaking his member's oath—
that
we take very seriously. At least in theory, it means that we must hold a hearing, wherein all interested members shall have the opportunity to interrogate him, as we do at initiations—and just as at an initiation, he must answer truthfully every question put to him. If he fails to do so, we have a choice—expulsion, exile, or death. In the eight hundred years the Dragon Society has existed there has never been such a hearing, so far as I know, but these are the rules as they stand. Given that it's Lord Enziet, I can't imagine we'd vote for his death, but either of the other choices would leave you free to attempt to kill him yourself.”