The Dragon of Despair (52 page)

“Well,” he said, astonishing her by his perspicacity, “I’m glad you’re down here with me.”

“Do you read minds now, hunter?” she asked, almost believing this must be so.

The wolf snorted dry laughter.

“Not a bit,” he said, “but I know my Firekeeper and I know her sighs and how she has watched that comet, first with fear, later with longing.”

Firekeeper hugged him.

“I want to
do
something,” she admitted.

“I know.”

The wolf sat straighter, his blue eyes twinkling merrily.

“I don’t like the idea of those dogs being killed by the humans.”

“You pity dogs?” Firekeeper was astonished.

“No.” The wolf rose and gave a lazy stretch. “I don’t like the idea of the humans getting target practice. Let’s go free the dogs. You can slip down there easily enough.”

Firekeeper nodded agreement.

“And then? Judge Ulia was right. They are a danger to humans and beasts alike.”

“Then,” the wolf said, barring his teeth, “we will hunt them down.”

The wolf-woman laughed, liking her pack mate’s idea of a joke.

“Away then, sweet hunter,” she said. “I’ll let the dogs out to run. Even if the humans hear barking, they will think nothing of it.”

When morning came and the men Brotius had delegated to shoot the fighting dogs went to the pen they found it empty. However, they soon learned that not one of the dogs had escaped their promised execution.

In the rocky hills surrounding the inn, Brotius’s men found the dogs’ stiffening bodies, the fattest of which showed signs of having been dined on by wolves.

ONLY AFTER
they had returned to the turnpike toward Dragon’s Breath with Mushroom Stanza Inn and its environs far behind them could Elise convince Peace to speak again of his former associate.

“Xarxius began his career as a Stargazer,” Peace began inconsequentially, as if feeling his way into the subject, “but his greatest talent is seeming less than he is. Whereas my role as Dragon’s Eye mostly involved internal affairs, as the Dragon’s Claw Xarxius works with foreigners. Therefore, I cannot overlook the possibility that he was present by deliberate design rather than chance.”

“Wait,” Elise interrupted, seeing a flaw in this division of duties, “you said this Xarxius was in charge of dealing with foreigners but, from what you’ve told us, you not he went to meet Lady Melina when she first arrived in New Kelvin with the artifacts.”

Peace’s smile was exquisitely dry.

“Yes, but then she was not arriving as a foreigner. She was a dissident seeking sanctuary. Moreover, there was the awkward problem of disposing of Baron Endbrook.”

Elise glanced around to check if Citrine was in earshot, and felt a certain degree of relief that the girl was riding ahead with Edlin. Hopefully, she hadn’t heard this painful reminder of how her mother had abandoned her.

“Very well,” Elise said quickly. “So you think Xarxius might have wanted to take a look at us?”

“That was my first thought when I realized who had entered the inn,” Peace admitted. “Remember, Lady Archer, you had sent a message to Hawk Haven’s ambassador in the capital. Word of such could have reached Xarxius. Indeed, if the service I established during my tenure as the Dragon’s Eye has not disintegrated into uselessness, it
would
have reached him.”

Elise looked thoughtfully at Peace.

“And so,” she said slowly, “hearing we were come again to New Kelvin, Xarxius raced from the city to make certain nothing happened to us. He just happened to arrive before the axe fell or Firekeeper did something that would get us all thrown out of the country. Nice. Then he says a few cordial words before going on with his business. What about that makes you so tense?”

At that moment, Edlin proved both that he wasn’t always slow on the uptake and that he and Citrine were within earshot of the conversation.

“I say,” he called back, “I wonder if this Xarxius recognized our guide? Is that’s what’s bothering you, Jalarios?”

Edlin enunciated the alias carefully, as if someone might be close enough to hear.

Peace nodded.

“I feel that Xarxius must have done so,” he said. “We were close associates and Xarxius is skilled at seeing through others’ masks.”

“You did stay in the background,” Derian reminded Peace, his tones offering comfort, “and you don’t look much like you did.”

“True,” Peace agreed with a quiet smile for the redhead, “and that may have been enough. However, let us consider for a moment that Xarxius did know me. Does it mean ill or good that he did not act against me? If he knew who I was, he could have had me arrested and even executed on the spot. It is within his rights. Why then did he not?”

“Perhaps,” Wendee offered, her voice thrilling with enthusiasm, “he’s on our side! He knows we’re not friends of Melina and he wants her out of there as much as we do.”

Peace nodded.

“That is possible. However, Xarxius is a subtle soul. It is equally possible that having now assured himself that I am indeed one of your number, he is going to let us ensnare ourselves before showing his strength. Even if Firekeeper might have acted in a fashion that would have been considered unfriendly if Blind Seer had been harmed…”

The wolf-woman snorted in a fashion that left no doubt on that matter. Peace ignored her.

“That would not have been sufficient reason for your entire party to be sent from the kingdom. Xarxius may have wanted to implicate all of us.”

“Or,” Doc said, surprising Elise by entering into the conversation, “a combination may be possible. Xarxius may be against Melina and may want to use us as the means of eliminating her. Then he can offer his regrets to her new husband and get rid of us—by one means or another.”

“Or,” Elise said, finally getting into the spirit of this particularly unsettling game, “Xarxius might want us to go after Melina so that—after she has some narrow escape—she will become more popular. Look how the risks Shad and Sapphire have taken in battle have made them heroes with people who were previously unhappy about the idea of them eventually inheriting from King Tedric.”

“I say!” Edlin exclaimed. “It is a pretty tangle, isn’t it?”

“It is indeed, young lord,” Peace agreed. “Though I fear I would not call it pretty at all.”

A DAY AND A HALF
after his initial meeting with Columi, Toriovico received a note that—beneath a barrage of flowery apologies and humble declarations that being of service to the honored ruler was the sole desire of the writer—boiled down to being a request that the Healed One call upon the emeritus Prime at the museum.

The hour Columi suggested meant that Toriovico had to cut one of his practices short, but he brushed away his Choreographer’s protests and went. Melina had disappeared twice more in just the short interval that had passed. When she was available, he almost always found her surrounded by books. When he once commanded her into his presence—ostensibly to review a new dance—she toted an enormous tome along with her, “for something to read in case you couldn’t see me right away, dear.”

He’d even caught her sneaking a look at the magical book that held the First Healed One’s history and the commentaries of his successors. That at least had disappointed her, and Torio evaded her coy efforts to get him to read to her from it.

What terrified Toriovico was that he had nearly betrayed this most secret and vital trust. He’d found himself thinking that it would be nice to have someone with whom to share the burden of his knowledge, that being foreign-born Melina wouldn’t be shocked, that surely the other Healed Ones had told
someone
else. Why shouldn’t he?

But ingrained conditioning to respect the office of the Healed One—a conditioning that might perhaps be even deeper in Torio than in most who had inherited the office, because some part of him still thought of the office as he had before he knew it would be his—enabled him to remain true to his responsibilities.

Melina sulked, though, and refused to sleep in his bed that night. Her rejection more than any enforced sexual abstinence hurt Toriovico deeply.

So he hastened to Columi’s summons, hoping that the Lapidary would have an answer for Melina’s curious behavior.

The museum was deserted when Toriovico arrived, and the round-bodied Lapidary wide awake and eager. Columi even seemed to bounce more easily through his obeisances, though he did pant upon rising.

“I have the information you requested,” Columi said once greetings were concluded, “waiting in my office. If you would deign attend upon my humble hospitality…”

Toriovico nodded. Once settled into a chair, he eagerly accepted the tray of nut bread and sweet drinks Columi had prepared. He had come directly from his postpractice bath and was voracious.

Columi looked at him seriously as the Healed One wolfed down a third slice of the sweet, dense bread.

“You should take more care, Honored One,” he said.

“That I don’t get indigestion?” Toriovico laughed. “I never do. It makes my Choreographer crazy.”

“I was thinking more about the risk of poison,” Columi said, and went in on response to Toriovico’s shocked look, “No, I am not taunting you, Honored One. That food is as safe as I could make it and I have eaten from the same loaf and drunk from the same pitcher. It just strikes me that your dancer’s appetite makes you vulnerable—and that you do not yet have an heir.”

Torio felt his appetite vanish, but he forced himself to eat a few bites more, just to prove that he didn’t distrust his host.

“I have a food taster,” he said, “but you are right. It is a custom I do not like and I tend to avoid calling on him.”

“Yet these are unsettled times,” Columi said, “and you would be wise to take precautions.”

“Unsettled?” Toriovico asked. “Are the Defeatists agitating for a vote against Apheros? Has some new faction arisen?”

“No,” Columi replied, “and yes. Or rather, to most the answers would be no and no. Apheros is more secure than he has been for years—this even with the defection of his Dragon’s Eye. Yet to me—watching from the outside as it were—there does seem to be a new faction.”

“Who?”

“First,” the Lapidary said, maddeningly evasive, “let me supply the answer to the task you put to me a few days ago.”

That was the only thing that could distract Toriovico from Columi’s hints about a new faction and he felt an irritable certainty that the Lapidary knew this perfectly well.

“Yes,” he said. “Have you located the origin of that dirt?”

“Within limits, yes, I have.”

Columi steepled his fingers, consulted a page of notes to one side of his chair, and went on:

“I narrowed my search to the immediate vicinity for two reasons. First, in portions where it was thickest, the dirt remained slightly damp. Even in our current rather humid weather, this would not be the case if the garment had been transported a great distance. Secondly, to the best of my knowledge, you had not been away from Thendulla Lypella for at least a moonspan. True, the garment could have been brought to you from elsewhere, but I had the impression you had acquired it yourself.”

“That is so,” Toriovico said curtly.

“Very well. That confirmation does help. I made a precipitant from some of the dirt. This revealed trace organic material. Interestingly, there was no fresh grass or seeds such as there might be if the wearer of the garment had been out-of-doors. Rather what was present was dry and old. Much of it was, well, slightly fecal.”

“Sewer dirt?” Toriovico prompted.

“Yes,” Columi agreed, “and that predisposed me to think that the wearer had been roaming the tunnels beneath Dragon’s Breath. I then set out to try to narrow the range.

“One thing that interested me was the amount of sulphur and certain other minerals in the samples I took. Although hot springs are not uncommon in New Kelvin—our sericulture could not survive without them, nor could our more exotic horticulture—within Dragon’s Breath they are largely limited to the vicinity of Thendulla Lypella.

“Moreover, the places where underground tunnels and geothermic activity coexist are again mostly within—or rather beneath—Thendulla Lypella. The hot springs and baths in the city, the specialized greenhouses maintained by a few sodalities, are all separate from tunnels, both as a safety measure and as a means of channeling the waters more efficiently.