The Dragon of Despair (81 page)

“I did not refer to you, Honored One, but rather to another upon whom Melina laid her will and then let him slip.”

“Who is this other?” Toriovico asked sharply. “Perhaps we can add him to those who share our secrets.”

“I fear he is not among us,” Xarxius said. “The man I refer to is Grateful Peace, the former Dragon’s Eye. Unlike you Grateful Peace did not break Melina’s hold through his own art. Rather she let her attention to him lapse. It seems she mistook the self-effacement he practiced as an indication that he was unimportant, a mere messenger for greater rulers.”

“And later Grateful Peace attempted to defeat her aims,” Toriovico said, understanding. “Well, wherever he is he may someday feel satisfaction for I plan to take a page from his book.”

“Peace was an Illuminator before he took to other arts,” Xarxius said, friend speaking of friend now. “I think he would like your choice of metaphor—almost as much as knowing that in the end you understood and approved his actions.”

“Perhaps when all of this is over and the truth out,” Toriovico said, “we can bring Grateful Peace home again, but such hopes must wait until we have succeeded in ousting this foreigner who has made herself my wife and has tried to take my rulership from me.”

He was fierce then, remembering the wrongs done to himself as well as to others, and in that fierceness he spelled out the details of his plan.

“I have told you,” he said, nodding to Xarxius, “how Columi and I have tried to discover where it is that Melina goes on these nocturnal ventures and how despite our best efforts we have failed. For very good reasons, I cannot recruit anyone from the watchers already among us. With their Eye gone, it is impossible to know who might have been subverted and my own watchers would have been among the first Melina took care to place her own advocates among.

“Indeed, after careful thought I would prefer not to recruit any from Thendulla Lypella. Consolor Melina’s powers seem limited to those she has met and fascinated. Therefore, those whose enmity of her is without doubt remain our best allies.”

Xarxius was nodding now, but Columi looked uncertain—though Toriovico’s comment about taking a page from Grateful Peace’s book might have offered the Dragon’s Claw a hint. Toriovico hastened to clarify, not wishing this faithful adherent to feel slighted.

“When Xarxius told me about Lady Archer’s request to regain Citrine Shield, he also told me who had accompanied Lady Archer to Dragon’s Breath.”

Columi raised a hand.

“Slowly, Honored One. I think it would be best if you clarified even more. Who is this Lady Archer? How did she come to Dragon’s Breath at all?”

Between them, Xarxius and Toriovico explained the intricacies, then Toriovico resumed:

“It seems peculiar to me that this group, who left New Kelvin in such haste and under such unhappy circumstances, should return to Dragon’s Breath with, of all things, Melina’s birth daughter in their keeping. The child is said to be deeply troubled emotionally—I have seen evidence of her pain myself. Perhaps they hoped for something from Melina and the girl’s running away was something they had not anticipated.”

Toriovico made a sweeping gesture that wiped the past away in one decisive blow.

“What is most important are three factors. First, they are here and have no love for Melina, so little that it is doubtful that they are her allies. Second, they have in their number one whose assets are said to include skill at tracking and the companionship of a large wolf. This creature might track by scent what its mistress misses by sight. Third, we have something they want—the child Citrine. My plan is to offer them Citrine in return for their help in finding where Melina goes and what she is doing.”

There was silence then, but not shocked silence, rather the careful pondering of the two older men weighing Toriovico’s plan, testing it, and, judging from the approval that crept into both of their features, finding it sound.

“Interesting,” Xarxius said at last, “and possibly quite valid. Where do we begin?”

Toriovico spread his hands on the table, feeling tension flow from him as water from a burst dam. He knew it would return as they worked through the details, but for now all he felt was considerable relief.

“Xarxius, you have been contacted by Lady Archer. I suggest that you meet with her—perhaps in the Hawk Haven embassy. It would be beneath your dignity to go to this boardinghouse where they are staying, yet I would not have Consolor Melina hear of her enemies coming into the Earth Spires.”

Xarxius nodded.

“I have a good relationship with Ambassador Redbriar. I even think I can assure use of a parlor where eavesdropping would be quite difficult.”

Torio turned to Columi.

“Your task, old friend, will be even more difficult.”

Columi paled, then straightened in his seat.

“Whatever the Honored One wishes.”

“You must keep silence,” Torio said, “all the while acting the garrulous old man overwhelmed by honors, busy selecting stones and metals for a truly elaborate piece of jewelry.”

PEACE AND EDLIN
were drafting a map section when Consolor Melina burst into their cave unannounced and obviously in a foul temper.

“I want to know,” she hissed, motioning the guards back out of hearing range, “about this map.”

She dropped a map segment onto the work table between them. The map showed a section of the artificial tunnels beneath Thendulla Lypella, focusing on a route that permitted subterranean travel from the Cloud Touching Spire to the Dragon Speaker’s residence.

“I followed your directions,” Melina continued, “and came up in the kitchen of the next building over. Happily, the hour was late and no one was present.”

Peace studied the map.

“I assure you,” he said. “This map is drawn as I requested and according to the best of my memory.”

“The best of your memory,” Melina taunted. “I had heard you were infallible. This is failure!”

Peace forgot himself, forgot the threat he had been living under during these long days of captivity. Immersed as he had been in knowledge acquired as the Dragon’s Eye, he had become that important personage once more.

He glowered at Melina, forgetting she was now the Consolor and his captor. She was only the rather annoying foreigner who had thought him a minor servant of a greater master.

“I am pleased,” he said with stiff arrogance, “that my reputation is such, but I assure you, I have never claimed infallibility. Indeed, if you would bother to recall, you would remember that I cautioned you that my memory of those passages was less than perfect. My Speaker never needed to skulk unseen to report to the Healed One, nor would the Healed One so lower himself.”

Melina went starkly white beneath her facial ornamentation, but only when Peace heard Edlin whisper, “I say, easy, my good man,” did he realize what he had done.

Frozen, one element in a tableau in which even the uncomprehending guards did not stir, Grateful Peace waited to hear his doom pronounced. Gradually, color flowed back into Melina’s face and she pursed her lips in thought.

“You did warn me,” she said. “I remember now.”

Something in her inflection told Peace that she had not only remembered his caution, she had remembered how she had pushed him to outline that particular section when he would have preferred to stay with areas he better knew. But Peace also knew that Melina would not forget how he had insulted her. Clearly, she had decided she still needed him, otherwise Idalia would have been given her reward.

His fear intensified as he faced off against an opponent who could calculate so carefully even when in the grip of fury.

“Have you,” Melina said stiffly, “any suggestions as to how such errors might be avoided in the future?”

“If I cannot be permitted to stay with those areas I know well,” Peace replied promptly, knowing nothing was to be gained from groveling or apologies, “then I would need to tour the appropriate regions. With that stimulus, I am certain I would remember more accurately.”

“And perhaps slip away?”

“I am certain that you could prevent that. You have taken great care thus far.”

He gestured around the cave as he spoke.

True to her promise to Edlin, Melina had made the cave more comfortable for its inhabitants, but they were permitted nothing that they could turn into a weapon. The table at which they now sat was a perfect example.

Rather than resting on four sturdy legs, this table was supported by thin pieces of flexible wood cross-jointed to each other in an elongated X. The individual legs might have remained unbroken for a blow or two, but as their guards always wore at least light armor and were never without helmets, those blows would have been useless. The tabletop itself was made from a slice of wood hardly thicker than a piece of paper. It served to steady Edlin’s drawing paper or the vessels that held their meals, but could be used for nothing else.

Their chairs were made along a model similar to the table, but with seats of stretched canvas rather than wood. Their beds were pallets stuffed with wool and rags, and were taken away each morning. The prisoners ate from translucent porcelain as fragile as eggshells. Even their simple clay cup had been replaced with a vessel so delicate that they almost feared to use it.

The chamber pot could not be made of such fragile stuff, so it was bolted to the stone wall, its lid attached by a short hank of chain. When Edlin wished to sharpen one of his drawing implements, he must ask a guard for assistance.

Moreover, Peace and Edlin had been assured that if every item in the cave was not intact for each of the frequent but erratic inspections Idalia conducted they would find themselves deprived of the item in question. Thus the lanterns, which with their reservoir of burning oil offered a logical temptation, were left untouched lest they find themselves sitting in the dark.

Melina glanced around at the precautions and smiled a slow smile of satisfaction.

“You are right,” she said. “I do believe your escape could be prevented. Let me put some thought to the matter. In the meantime, I desire that you review this flawed map and consider where your memory might have led you astray.”

Peace bowed his head in polite humility.

“As you wish,” his lips said, but his heart was singing at the prospect of getting even a few steps away from this cave. Surely once on his own ground again he could manage to win them their freedom.

XXXI

THE MESSENGER
from Ambassador Redbriar was clearly nervous, but he delivered his mistress’s words with perfect polish.

“Ambassador Redbriar is in possession of news that she does not wish to commit to writing,” he said. “If you would call on her in an hour’s time, she would be willing to receive you. An important guest will also be present.”

Elise nodded, feeling her breath come fast as she realized who that guest must be.

“Tell the ambassador that I will be there. May I bring one or more of my companions?”

“She advises that you do so. As your own company’s experiences have shown, the streets are not safe for foreigners traveling alone.”

Elise did not ask why Violet Redbriar had not sent an escort. The embassy had been the focus of much of the local unrest. Foreigners escorted by more foreigners might upset the precarious calm the local guard had managed to maintain.

Derian had answered the door when the messenger had arrived. Now he stood by just in case there was trouble when the messenger departed.

“He’s off safely,” he reported, closing the peephole they’d installed in the front door. “Had a couple of men waiting for him.”

Elise nodded, considering various options.

“Will you come with me, Derian?”

“Of course.”

“And see if Doc will come, too.”

Sir Jared appeared at that moment.

“If you can excuse me,” he said apologetically, “I should remain here. Firekeeper is restive and I don’t trust her to stay put without me to remind her of her duty. Besides, Wendee should not be left alone.”

Elise sighed her agreement, though privately she did not think that anyone left with Firekeeper and Blind Seer nearby—even if the wolf-woman
was
wounded—could be considered alone.