Dragon Weather (66 page)

“Lord Lanair. That's not your real name.”

“Lord Obsidian. Which is as much my name as yours is Shamble. I haven't called myself Lanair since I fled Westguard more than two years ago, and even there it was merely a temporary ruse.”

“Lord Dragon calls you Lanair.”

“He finds it convenient to do so,” Arlian agreed. “He knows my real name, I believe, but chooses not to use it.”

Shamble had no answer to that.

Arlian gestured at the women. “They knew me as Triv,” he said. “It's short for ‘trivial,' because I said my name was unimportant. They don't recognize me because I've used sorcery to change my face temporarily, but they know me.”

“We do?” Brook asked.

“Triv?” Cricket said, staring. “It's you?”

“So,” Arlian said, not looking at them, “now that we've established who I am, shall we establish who
you
are, and use that to determine whether you live or die?”

Shamble stared angrily back, but did not reply.

“Now,” Arlian said, “you helped loot my village when dragons destroyed it. You stood by without protest while I, a freeborn child and heir to much of that ruined village, was sold into slavery. Do those crimes deserve death?”

“No!” Shamble protested. “I didn't hurt anyone.”

“You let me be sold.”

“It's not the same!”

“Cricket? Brook?”

The women looked at one another.

“I still don't know,” Brook said.

Arlian nodded. “I
do
intend to kill Lord Enziet,” he said, “as I've killed Kuruvan, Horim, and Drisheen. That's because they were all participants in the ownership of the House of Carnal Society, responsible for maiming the sixteen women who lived there and for the deaths of most of them. Your Lord Dragon ordered the deaths of Rose and three others when that establishment was put to the torch, and later he tortured Dove to death, forcing Sweet to watch.” Brook gasped. “He poisoned Sweet, as well—she died in my arms. And he ordered the murder of Seek, who you'd known as Hide. Now, were you involved in any of that? I didn't think to ask Sweet before she perished.”

“I did as he told me!” Shamble protested.

“Why?” Arlian demanded.

“Because he paid me!” Shamble said.

“And because you enjoyed it?” He had to struggle not to raise his voice to where it would be heard in the corridor.

“Sometimes,” Shamble admitted. “But I wouldn't have hurt Hide if he hadn't betrayed Lord Dragon!”

Arlian gritted his teeth. “But Lord Dragon wanted him dead, so you killed him?”

“I had to!”

“Did it ever occur to you to leave Lord Dragon's employ, as Cover and Hide did?”

“No. He paid well.”

“You
never once
considered it?”

“No!”

That was enough; Arlian thrust forward, then slashed. Shamble's hands flew to his ruined throat as he collapsed against the wall and slowly slid to the floor, but he could not cry out.

He fell back and went limp, the light fading from his eyes, hands still clutching his throat as blood poured freely down his chest.

Arlian yanked his sword free.

“You
should
have,” he growled.

55

Out the Window

Brook gasped shudderingly at the sight of Shamble's death; Cricket just nodded, as if she had expected it and was satisfied with what she had seen. “Now what?” she asked, as Arlian wiped his sword clean.

“Now we need a way out of here,” Arlian said. He didn't look at the women as he headed for the room's single window; he slid his sword into its sheath as he went.

“But we can't walk,” Brook said.

“I know that,” Arlian said. “I have a wagon—though getting you to it, and getting it out of here in one piece, won't be easy.” He reached for the shutters, then hesitated.

He could see light through the crack between the two shutters—red light. He frowned; it was much too early for dawn, and he had thought this window faced north. Was something burning, perhaps?

He wouldn't find out staring at closed shutters. He lifted the latch.

Red light poured into the room as the shutters swung in—a baleful colored glow like nothing Arlian remembered seeing before. He peered out through the glass cautiously, staying far enough back that he would not be readily visible to an observer on the street.

Something was swirling in the air before him, not down on the ground nor high above, but directly before him, level with the second floor—something red and glowing. For a moment Arlian glimpsed a hideous, inhuman face, and there were definitely claws in the rotating mass. Without conscious decision he found he had drawn his sword again; that
thing
out there resembled a demon—an oddly familiar one.

He heard both women draw in their breath; they did not have the straight line of sight he enjoyed, but both could obviously see something of the monstrosity outside.

Whatever it was came no closer—it was not advancing to attack. Arlian stepped up to the glass, the better to study what he could see.

The window looked out over the stableyard; below the glowing, whirling cloud-thing he could make out the stalls, the mangers and troughs, the tack shed, and his own wagon—and oxen; his draft animals were out of their pen and in front of the wagon.

And standing on the driver's seat of the wagon was a robed figure, waving one hand in the air—Thirif. A lantern hung above the driver's seat, and Arlian could see the magician's face clearly; the glamour was gone and his own features revealed.

Arlian looked at the way the hand moved, and the way the demonic images above it moved, and grinned. He knew now why the “demon” resembled one of the nightmares he had had repeatedly in the Dreaming Mountains on the way north from Arithei. He hoped that none of his enemies down there knew that Aritheian magic could not truly summon demons, but only create illusions.

Arlian had not known that Thirif had brought an illusion like this, but he was very glad to see it. It ought to put a good scare into their enemies.

The rest of the stableyard was almost deserted—almost; it was hard to see clearly, what with the darkness around and below and that seething red vapor in the way, but he was fairly certain he could see Black, still wearing his magical disguise, yoking the oxen. The wagon would be ready to roll in a few minutes, and Thirif's illusion appeared to have frightened away all opposition.

Drisheen wouldn't have been fooled for a moment—but Drisheen was dead.

Arlian frowned. Lord Toribor ought to be enough of a sorcerer to know that the thing was a harmless illusion; where was he?

Well, wherever he was, he didn't appear to be in the yard below. Arlian swung the shutters wide, then unlatched the casement and opened that, as well. He eyed the resulting space critically.

Shamble would never have fit through it, and Arlian wasn't entirely sure he could squeeze himself out that way, but Brook and Cricket were small enough. If he could lower them down …

He turned and began stripping the linens from Cricket's bed. It had worked getting Sweet out of Enziet's house; it ought to work just as well here.

“What are you doing?” Cricket asked. “Can we help?”

“I'm making a rope,” Arlian explained. “I have friends down there with a wagon, and I plan to lower you down to them.”

Cricket stretched up and tried to peer out the window.

“But … but there's that
monster!
” she said.

“It's just an illusion,” Arlian said. “Two of my friends are magicians.”

Cricket hesitated—but then she saw that Brook was already pulling the sheets from her bed and knotting them together.

A moment later the rope was ready; Brook went first.

“I don't want to call from up here and let everyone hear me,” Arlian told her, as he looped a sheet around her back and under her arms, “so when you're near the ground, call out for Black. That's the man in charge down there.”

Brook nodded, and looked back over her shoulder. “The man on the wagon?” she asked.

“No, that's Thirif the magician—don't disturb him! Black's on foot, by the oxen.”

“I see him,” Brook said. Then she pushed herself over the sill and slid out the window as smoothly as an eel.

Arlian leaned out, watching and listening as he let the rope down, hand over hand; Brook was almost out of sight below him when she called. Arlian could barely hear her, but Black looked up, startled. He spotted the half-clad woman and hurried over to her.

Arlian heard none of their whispered conversation, but he saw Black untie Brook and carry her to the wagon. By the time Arlian had pulled the line of bedclothes back up and hoisted Cricket onto the windowsill Black was waiting at the foot of the wall.

After Cricket was safely down it was his own turn; with the line securely tied in place he turned and began squirming, feet-first, through the window.

He didn't fit as neatly as the women had; the casement slammed back against the dormer, cracking the glass, as he tried to wiggle past it. He had to twist his shoulders up at a steep diagonal to squeeze through.

At last, though, his head emerged from the warm, stuffy air of the inn into the cool crispness of the night, and he half climbed, half slid to the ground.

“Ari!” Black said, slapping him on the back the instant his feet struck the hard-packed earth of the stableyard. “You're safe!”

“Not yet,” Arlian replied. “Not until we're out of this town and away from these people.”

“Oh, Thirif's put a scare into them,” Black said. “We were getting ready to go. They've promised us safe passage.” He grimaced, his expression visible even in the eerie red glow. “Only northward, though.”

“I'm not going north,” Arlian said, as they began walking toward the wagon.

“We could go a few miles, then double back, and go around the town,” Black said. “it's only a minor delay.”

“There's no decent
road
around Cork Tree,” Arlian pointed out. “An ox could break a leg trying to drag us all across underbrush or furrowed fields.”

“Well, Lord Belly thinks you're headed south, and he doesn't want us to rejoin you,” Black said, as he turned aside toward the stableyard gate. “He agreed to let us go north, but not south.”

“You spoke with him?” Arlian asked, following.

Black nodded. “He was commanding the party that went after that horse you stole,” he said. “After they found the horse, with you not on it, he sent one group on to the south, while he came back here. He went inside the inn for a little while, and then came out here. When most of them went galloping after you just four men stayed here, keeping an eye on us and blocking the gates so we couldn't get the wagon out; we held them off readily enough while Thirif summoned our friend up there.” He pointed at the glowing illusion overhead, then pushed the gate open; the street beyond was dark and mostly quiet, though Arlian could hear shouting somewhere in the distance. “Then Belly and his group got back, just about the time Lord Demon appeared, and he came to discuss matters with us. Some fool came running out of the inn shouting about a madman attacking Lord Drisheen, and Belly said we could go, and everyone went running inside. I hitched up the oxen, but I took my time about it, in hopes you'd be able to join us.” He turned back toward the wagon.

Arlian nodded. “Good,” he said.

“So you killed Drisheen?” Black asked, as he pulled himself up onto the wagon, forcing Thirif to step aside. Cricket and Brook were inside the boxy body of the wagon but leaning out the door, watching and listening.

“And Shamble,” Arlian said. “They'd left him guarding these two.” He gestured at the women.

Black glanced at them; Cricket smiled back at him.

“Ah, that's a good night's work, then,” he said. “At least, if we can get out of here alive!”

“It'll do,” Arlian agreed, “but Lord Toribor still lives, and I wouldn't mind a few words with old Stonehand.”

“Oh, you hot-blooded young idiots are never satis…”

“Your pardon,” Thirif interrupted, “but I cannot keep this illusion much longer.”

“I think it's done its job,” Arlian said. “Let it go.”

“Thank you,” Thirif said, lowering his arm. The demon-image dissipated into fading red smoke, and the lantern over the driver's bench seemed to brighten. Black seated himself comfortably and shook out the reins, signaling the oxen to move. Thirif leaned past him, ducked, and stepped inside the wagon, pushing past the two women, who squeezed aside to make room for him but did not relinquish their place in the door.

“You're heading north?” Arlian asked.

“At least at first,” Black said.

“That's fine,” Arlian said. “Take the women back to Manfort, where they'll be safe.” He jumped down from the seat as the wagon began to roll. “
I'm
going south,” he said. “Toribor won't expect me to be behind him.”

“Ari, you're mad!” Black said, tugging the reins to halt the oxen before they had gone more than a couple of yards.

“Quite probably,” Arlian agreed. “But mad or not, I've sworn to kill Lord Enziet, and he's to the south, not the north.”

“How will you
find
him, without the magicians?” Black demanded.

“I don't know,” Arlian admitted, “but I'll manage it somehow.”

Just then a loud crash sounded above them; Black, Arlian, and the others looked up, startled, as an angry, bearded face appeared in the open window of the inn whence Arlian had escaped.

“Obsidian!” Lord Toribor's voice bellowed. “By the dead gods!”

“Block the gate,” Arlian said to Black without looking back. Then he called, “Yes, Lord Toribor—I'm here.”