The Rage (18 page)

“Really, I’m no more interested in his opinion than I am in yours”

“Curse it,” said Pavel, “you’re letting your hatred of dragons addle you. You want a full-scale Rage to happen, because it’ll give you the chance to fight wyrms by the dozen, and never mind that you won’t live through it.”

“Nonsense,” spat Dorn. “You and Will are the ones who are daft. You go soft in the head any time you see a pretty face, even after you know it’s just a mask, and he drools whenever

he catches a glimpse of gold. But think. Kara has no real reason to think the key to stopping a Rage is in Lyrabar, or that such a thing is possible at all. All she’s offered you are wild guesses and wishful thinking. You want to save lives, priest? Fine. Then let’s hurry back to Thentia and get the wizards busy outfitting us for the fight to come”

“We can do that afterward,” said Will. “Better. Because the mages will want coin, and thanks to the heedless blather of somebody I could name, we didn’t collect any pay in Ylraphon”

“Helping Kara is the right thing to do,” said Pavel. “Truly. I feel it.”

“Well, I feel differently,” said Dorn. “So you can follow my lead or go your own way.”

Raryn cleared his throat, and they all looked around at. him. “Dorn has a point,” he said.

Pavel frowned. “How can you say that?”

“Because it’s true,” the ranger said. He stretched, and his spine popped. “We can handle further outbreaks of the Rage the way we dealt with the drakes in Ylraphon, only better, because next time, with luck, we’ll have more time to prepare. We’ll arm ourselves with the proper gear, recruit and train helpers, make plans, and build traps and fortifications. If we do our job well enough, and there aren’t too many dragons, we’ll beat the creatures when they come. We’ll save Thentia, or wherever it is we choose to make our stand.

“The catch,” Raryn continued, “is that we’ll have protected one place—one town out of all the habitations in Faerűn. As you said, Dorn, other men-at-arms, sorcerers, and clerics will defend their own homelands. Still, the dragons will descend on countless folk who have no one to fight for them, no one who stands a chance, anyway. The nice thing about Kara’s scheme is that it offers us at least a slim hope of saving those lives as well”

Dorn glared’ down at him and asked, “So you’re against me, too?”

“No,” Raryn said. “It isn’t like that with Will, Pavel, or me. After all we’ve been through, you ought to know it isn’t. We’re friends, so let’s stick together. If the dragons Rage, we’ll need each other more than ever.”

The big man took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“All right,” he said. “We’ll help the wyrm finish her errand. We’ll look for this Heider person and take Kara to Brimstone, who or whatever he is. But that’s the end of it.”

Dorn turned and stalked away, the deck groaning and bouncing beneath the stamp of his iron foot. It woke a sailor, who muttered a drowsy curse.

2 Ches, the Year of Rogue Dragons

Taegan circulated through the soiree, gossiping, joking, paying compliments, flirting, drinking in moderation, dancing the occasional dance, and in general, playing to perfection the part of a sophisticated Impilturan blade. That was what he wanted to be, what he’d worked tirelessly to become, anti he thoroughly enjoyed the performance. That night, though, he couldn’t quite shake the feeling that it was a performance, an impersonation, and that if he slipped for even a moment, everyone would see him as the interloper he truly was, a barbarian with no proper place in the life of a splendid city.

Well, he wouldn’t slip. However he looked on the outside, and whatever esoteric elven disciplines he’d mastered, he was human in his heart. So he told himself, and as if in affirmation of his conviction, a lackey approached, murmured his name, and

discreetly proffered a folded pink slip of paper scented with rosewater.

Written with extravagant flourishes in a feminine hand the brief note invited Taegan to meet its author in the gazebo in the east garden. It was unsigned, perhaps for fear it would fall into the hands of a disapproving father, husband fiancée, or chaperone, or maybe simply to lend a piquant air of mystery.

Taegan decided that whoever had written it, a dalliance might be just the thing to fend off the sour mood that was creeping up on him. He took his leave of his current companions, who, having spotted the missive, offered ribald, good-natured gibes, and exited the gleaming marble ballroom with its orchestra and buffet.

Outside the mansion, the night was cold enough to make him reconsider his amorous inclinations. But perhaps the lady didn’t intend to conduct their entire tryst outdoors, or conceivably she possessed some petty magic to warm her immediate vicinity. He strolled on down a paved walk with banks of shoveled snow heaped to either side, past bare trees, inactive fountains, and statuary. Above the wall encircling the grounds, stars burned in the black sky.

The gazebo proved to be an octagonal structure with a conical roof, its facade shrouded in dead-looking vines that would presumably resurrect themselves in the spring. It had benches inside, but no one was sitting on them, or loitering anywhere in sight, for that matter.

Taegan smiled wryly. Either his correspondent was having difficulty getting away, or else she was one of those females who believed it enhanced her allure to make a male wait. Whatever the reason for the delay, he hoped he wouldn’t freeze to death before she deigned to appear and decided to saunter about in an effort to keep warm. Really, more vigorous exercise would serve him better, but a rake should never look uncomfortable, put out, or inconvenienced.

At first, he was merely impatient, but as the minutes passed, gradually he became uneasy. In the days following

the battle in the street, he’d walked warily, but when nothing happened and other matters demanded his attention, he abandoned his precautions. Taegan had come to wonder if he’d lowered his guard too soon. What if Gorstag’s cultists had finally made their move? What if they’d lured him out in the dark to attack him?

Ridiculous. He had no reason to suspect such a thing. Yet the idea nagged at him until he had to do something to appease it. He drew his rapier, murmured an incantation, and dusted the sword with powdered lime and carbon. Power groaned through the air, a line of icicles hanging from the gazebo’s eaves shattered, and for a moment, rainbows rippled along the blade. Satisfied that, until morning, it would be about as deadly a weapon as he could make it, he slid it back into the scabbard.

“Interesting,” said a husky feminine voice.

Taegan turned. A woman sat inside the shadowy gazebo. He couldn’t tell much about her. She’d bundled up in a voluminous cloak, pulled up the cowl, and covered her face with a layer of black veil.

He did know one thing. He’d been waiting right in front of the doorway. She couldn’t simply have sneaked past him to appear in her present position. Somehow, magic was involved.

“I can cast that spell, too,” the stranger continued, “but my master taught me to make the passes differently. Evidently avariels have a cruder style of conjuring. But then, everyone’s magic is crude compared to his.”

Taegan wondered if she was talking about Sammaster, or at any rate, the person Gorstag had believed to be the legendary madman, but instinct warned him not to let on he’d ever heard the name.

Instead, he bowed and said, “It’s a delight to make your acquaintance, my lady. May your servant request the privilege of knowing your name?”

“I’m sorry,” she said, “you may not. Not yet, anyway. I will tell you I’m Lyrabar’s Wearer of Purple” She paused as if to

judge his reaction, but Taegan didn’t have to feign ignorance. The peculiar title meant nothing to him. “You may address me as High Lady.”

As one would address a duchess, he thought. She thinks well of herself.

“High Lady it is, then,” he said. “I assume I needn’t introduce myself, since you asked me here”

“Indeed not, Maestro. Come and sit.”

Why not? If she tried to cast a spell on him, it would be helpful to have her within arm’s reach.

“Nothing could give me greater pleasure,” Taegan said. He entered the gazebo, bowed again, and seated himself on the bench across from her.

Up close, she smelled of the same floral perfume as the note, but that and her voice were the only details to suggest she was a relatively young, well-educated woman or even alive. Otherwise, her shapeless mantle, hood, and mask of dark lace made her look like a specter lurking in the gloom.

“Did it alarm you,” she asked, “when I appeared out of nowhere?”

“To the contrary,” he said. “It was the fulfillment of my fondest yearnings.”

“I did it to show you how easily we can take you unawares. In which case, your skill with a sword won’t save you”

“It almost sounds as if you’re threatening me, High Lady, and that truly does surprise me. Ordinarily, I enjoy amiable relations with the fairer sex. It’s specimens of my own gender who more often conceive a desire to poke holes in me. How, pray tell, have I offended’?”

“Surely you see such evasions are a waste of time,” the woman said. “A couple of my brothers survived their encounter with you to report your meddling, and you’re the only avariel in Lyrabar. You can’t possibly hope to convince me it was some other winged elf who flew to Gorstag’s aid.”

If the zombies’ living allies were her “brothers,” then that ended any faint hope Taegan had entertained that she might

represent the Harpers. Rather, she must belong to the Cult of the Dragon.

He gave her a grin and said, “Fair enough, High Lady, it was I. In my defense, I can only say that if I’d realized that Helder had trespassed against a maiden as captivating as you, I would have left him to his fate. But I didn’t, and he owed me coin—coin I’d never collect in the event of his demise.”

“I’ve thought a good deal about you,” the veiled woman said. “You defended a traitor to the brotherhood and slew our wyvern. The creature wasn’t a true Sacred One, but spilling its blood was a heinous sin nonetheless, and you deserve to die for it.”

“That seems harsh for a first offense.”

“I wouldn’t be flippant if I were you,” the woman threatened. “Your life balances on the edge of a knife. We would have killed you already, except that we want the answers to some questions. What did Gorstag tell you before he died?”

“Nothing,” the avariel lied. “When I returned to him after the fight, he was already dead.”

“What about when you first made contact with him?”

“I had to confront his pursuers,” Taegan replied. “We didn’t have time for conversation.”

“And in the tendays prior to that?”

“Nothing. I had no idea he was in trouble until I chanced to spot him staggering along with your minions on his tail.?

“I ordered him to try to recruit you to our cause,” said the woman. “He claimed he had”

‘But he didn’t. Truly, I know nothing about your necromancers’ coven or whatever it is, except that it seems to take a lot of you just to kill one undernourished novice fencer, and that you yourself are far too charming to squander your nights on such gauche companions”

“Who did Gorstag work for?” she asked, ignoring his flattery.

“You should have asked him.”

“I would have, if the fool who first suspected him of being

a spy had communicated his suspicions instead of trying to deal with the matter by himself”

“It’s hard to find good help.”

“I already warned you to spare me your japes,” the woman hissed. “Where is the tome?”

That would be the purple book. Didn’t she realize Gorstag had stolen the folio as well? If not, Taegan had no intention of alerting her.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he lied.

“Yes, you do. Gorstag gave you a book written in cipher, or else you found it on his body.”

“No,” he replied. “Either he never took it in the first place, or he disposed of it somewhere before I found him.”

“You’re lying”

“A gentleman never lies to a lady about anything except his marital status or the depth of his devotion.”

“We want the tome back, and your silence. We’re even willing to buy them”

It was tempting. Gold always was. But even if he decided he was willing to betray Gorstag, he doubted the cultists would leave him alone once they recovered their text. Still, he might as well play along and see where it led.

“Alas, as I said, I don’t have the volume in question. But just for curiosity’s sake, suppose I could lay my hands on it. How much are you offering?”

“Ten thousand in gold,” she said.

The sum was almost enough to blind him to loyalty and caution alike. Almost.

“Make it twenty,” Taegan said, “and I’ll see what I can do”

She sat quietly for a moment, then said, “You’re lying.” He wondered how she knew. More magic, conceivably, or maybe she simply had good instincts.

“That’s the second time you’ve accused me of that,” Taegan retorted. “Let us thank Lady Firehair you’re a woman. Otherwise, a gentleman might feel obliged to call you out.”

“If I can’t appeal to your greed, Maestro, what of your desire to go on breathing? I told you, my comrades and I are quite prepared to kill you”

“I beg you to forgive me if I don’t blubber in terror, but have you any idea how often I fought when I first came to Lyrabar, simply to build a reputation?”

“I guarantee, you can’t defend yourself against us”

“Oh, I trust I can make do. I slew your overgrown lizard, you’re walking dead men, and your live cutthroats, and I know how to suddenly pop up out of nowhere myself. It really isn’t all that awesome a tri—”

Clutching a curve-bladed dagger, a black-gloved hand shot from a vent in the cultist’s mantle. She leaped up and slashed at his throat.

Taegan hadn’t seen her tense, lean forward, or make any other preparatory movement that would have given away her intention to attack. Still, he was on his guard and reacted instantly. He swayed backward, the cut fell short, and he punched her in the stomach. She floundered backward, banging the backs of her calves against the seat she’d just vacated, giving him space to spring to his feet.