The Rite (33 page)

He held out his hand and Dorn clasped it.

Wineskin in hand Taegan sauntered through the tailor shop, inspecting the bales of cloth on their wooden spindles, passing judgment on each in turn.

“Hideous,” he declared. “Boring. Repulsive. Though admittedly, if I wanted garments the exact color of phlegm, it would do admirably. Garish enough to burn out a mole’s eyes. But wait!” He fingered the edge of an azure taffeta. “Is this from Sembia?”

“Yes, Maestro,” the tailor said. A tall, thin woman with long brown hair, she appeared more amused than vexed by Taegan’s disparagement of her stock. “You won’t find finer silk anywhere along the Moonsea.”

“I suspect that, unfortunately, you’re right,” Taegan said. “Do you think you could cut and stitch it into a proper doublet for me, as opposed to one of those shapeless tunics that, for some inexplicable reason, people seem to favor hereabouts?”

“I expect I could manage.”

“Then show me what you propose to line it with, and what you have in the way of fasteners.”

The tailor bustled away to fetch the desired items, leaving Taegan with Jivex and Rilitar. Neither was particularly appealing company at the moment. The normally garrulous faerie dragon had grown quiet, almost sullen, of late, perhaps from the strain of resisting frenzy. The elf wizard wore a frown.

“Your expression,” Taegan told him, “bespeaks a lamentable sobriety. Happily, the cure is at hand.”

He proffered the wineskin.

“No, thank you,” Rilitar said. “My friend, your… frivolity troubles me.”

Taegan hitched his shoulders and wings in a shrug. “I realize my concerns may seem eccentric here on the fringe of civilization. But I’m a gentleman of Lyrabar, and in that queen of cities, we prize stylish clothes, exquisite wines, and the pleasures of the table.”

“You didn’t seem to care about them so much when you first arrived.”

For a second, a vague anxiety stirred in Taegan’s mind, for it seemed to him that Rilitar’s statement was correct. Then he recognized it for the nonsense it truly was.

“I’ve always relished the finer things. If I didn’t seem to, it must have been because I fell into slovenly habits while traveling, cruelly separated from the amenities of urban life.”

“But should you let such trivialities preoccupy you when we have vital work in hand?”

“Do Jivex and I still patrol the town, seeking some sign of the chasme or its master?”

“Yes,” the elf said grudgingly.

Are we doing all else that can be done?”

“I suppose.”

“Then please, permit me my petty amusements.”

“If I must.” Rilitar glanced down at Taegan’s feet. “I suppose a visit to the boot maker is next on the agenda.”

Once again, the avariel felt uneasy. “In fact, no. Like this pair.”

Was that actually the case, though? The boots were cracked, scuffed, a bit too loose, and a drab shade of brown, altogether wretched accessories to any rake’s ensemble.

Still, he thought, I have to keep them, precisely because they aren’t right. Because they aren’t even really mine. Then he realized that notion was another absurdity, and thrust it out of his mind.

Kara soared high above the bleak, snow-capped Galena Mountains. Seated astride her back, Dorn was cold despite the bright summer sun that made her blue scales sparkle like diamonds. He ignored the chill as best he could while scrutinizing the peaks below, even though it was unlikely that his merely human eyes would spot anything that her draconic sight, sharpened still further by enchantment, overlooked.

“Anything?” he called. He couldn’t quite break the habit of raising his voice when riding on her shoulders, with her head extended yards ahead of him, even though he’d learned her ears were keen enough to catch it even if he whispered.

“No,” Kara said, twisting her neck to glance back at him. “Perhaps I should have expected as much. Nexus is the greatest wizard among the golds. If he cast the spell to hide the sanctuary, it makes sense that we can’t find it. But I’d hoped he’d erect his barriers in such a way that dragons of goodly nature would have little trouble finding their way through. Alas, that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

“Because of Lareth’s spite, I imagine. You and the other rogues wouldn’t grovel to him, so he made sure you couldn’t change your minds and shelter in the refuge later on.”

“I pray that isn’t so. I’d rather believe Nexus had to cast the spells the way he did for some other reason.”

“Either way, what do we do now?”

“Keep searching. I don’t know what else we can do.”

So they glided back and forth, through the morning and into the afternoon, with the same lack of success, while frustration gnawed at Dorn and did its best to make him frantic.

Though not given to introspection, he recognized that lied changed. Freak though he was, a woman had given him her love, and while the fact that she was also a dragon was a profound irony, in the end, it didn’t matter. Kara had made him happier than he’d believed possible, and in so doing, had taught him what it truly meant to be afraid.

For he dreaded losing her to the Rage as he’d never feared anything since the hour the red wyrm slaughtered his parents. The only hope of preventing it lay in finding Lareth’s refuge. It was too late to turn around and fly to Thentia. Raryn and the monks would never hold out that long.

So think’ he told himself. There must be a way of find the sanctuary. If Pavel were here, he could puzzle it out. Try to use logic the way he would.

Start by admitting the haven was imperceptible to human eyes, and Kara’s senses, too. They hadn’t spotted it by direct observation, and weren’t going to.

But when they flew near it, what did they see instead? The semblance of an empty piece of ground, probably, but could the phantasm be perfect in every detail? Perhaps in the manner of a masterful painting or sculpture, but unlike a work of art, a part of Nature, even the most desolate, was never static. It was infinitely complex and constantly changing.

“Fly lower,” Dorn said.

That will slow our search,” Kara replied. “We won’t be able to see as far.”

“It’s necessary. We need to look more closely at the ground.”

“If you think it will help.…”

She furled her crystal-blue wings and swooped. The breeze fluttered his cloak and sleeves and ruffled his hair.

“I hope it will,” he said. “We’re not going to bother to spy for dragons or their tracks anymore, or the glow of enchantment.”

He imagined it to be a glow, anyway. He had no way of knowing what she actually saw when she perceived the presence of magic.

“Then what will we look for?” she asked.

“Pine needles that don’t smell right. A rill that sounds funny as it splashes over rocks. Brush that takes a second too long to rustle when a breeze kicks up, or shadows that don’t Line up correctly with the sun. Anything wrong.”

“Tiny anomalies in the illusory landscape. It’s a good thought, and we’ll try it.”

And they attempted it for hours, while the sun sank in the west. Dorn began to despise himself for a fool, capable of conceiving only foolish, useless notions.

But then Kara said, “Look! Ahead and to the right . .” He leaned forward to obtain a clearer view past her shoulder, then said, “I don’t see anything.”

“Those crags yonder come together in a most peculiar fashion, too crowded and jumbled, the angles too acute. Look around, and you won’t see anything comparable among the neighboring peaks. I understand now. Nexus’s magic didn’t cover over the refuge with an illusion, not precisely. Instead, it blinds us to the sanctuary, and so we won’t wonder at the gap in our vision, tricks our minds into pulling the edges of the hole together.”

Dorn very much wanted to believe her, but feared she was making too much of a mass of rock. He’d seen stone shaped into many odd formations in the course of his wanderings.

Be asked, “Are you sure?”

“I hope we both will be in a second. Now that I know where to target my own magic, perhaps I can strip away our blinders.”

She sang words of power, and the incantation echoed from the mountainsides. Loose stones clattered down the escarpments, and the vista before them seemed to split apart, making room for a new stretch of earth to ripple into existence. It was almost as if the mountains were giving birth. To a valley nestled between steep, rocky slopes, where dozens of metallic wyrms, their scales reflecting the sunlight like mirrors, lay motionless.

“You did it!” said Dorn.

“I accomplished the first part of it. Nexus has a second ward in place to defend the haven, though I can’t determine exactly what it does.”

“Can you dissolve it?”

She sang another spell, then said, “No. Not until it manifests, anyway.”

“Then how do we proceed?”

“We trigger it, and cope with the result. Hang on tight.”

Wheeling, she descended toward the depression among the peaks. Mouth dry, heart pounding, Dorn waited for something to strike at them. After a moment, he spotted what appeared to be an old man with a bald pate and a white beard standing on the high ground at the eastern edge of the refuge. Probably it was a dragon sentry who’d altered his form, the better to stave off frenzy. Whatever he truly was, he was waving his arms over his head, warning the newcomers away. He seemed to be shouting, too, but distance and the snapping of Kara’s wings covered up the sound.

The wind shrieked, and smashed into the flyers like a battering ram. It whirled Kara end over end, and tried to rip Dorn from her back. He caught hold of the dragon’s hide with his iron hand, plunging the talons into her scales. Even in that moment of terror, he hated the necessity, but had no choice except to cut her. Only the strength of his artificial arm could anchor him.

Even if she’d noticed the pain, Kara had more urgent matters to concern her. The gigantic whirlwind constantly threatened to smash her into the side of the mountain.

Her wings hammered. She had no hope of escaping the vortex, but by exerting herself to the utmost, managed to maneuver to a limited extent within it. For the first few seconds, it kept her from crashing against a cliff. She started singing a spell.

Lashed this way and that on her back, pressing himself against her body to deny the wind a purchase on him, nearly torn from his perch even so, Dorn occasionally caught a glimpse of the sentinel. The old man stood without difficulty on the rim of the valley. His robe wasn’t even flapping. Evidently the gale wasn’t blowing there, a. circumstance that made Dorn hate him.

Kara finished her musical incantation. The vortex howled on, unaffected. She resumed her singing. Dorn’s heart sank, for though he couldn’t understand the lyrics, he recognized them as the same words, the same spell, as before. If it hadn’t worked the first time, it seemed unlikely to prevail ever, but evidently it was the only card she had to play.

For a second, Dorn saw the guard swelling into a winged and glittering shape, with a gold’s characteristic tendril “whiskers,” and a proud crest running almost the entire length of its body.

As Kara reached the end of her spell, thunder boomed, and the lightning that was a part of her nature blazed from the clear blue sky. But after the climactic note, the wind shrieked on, strong as before, and hurled her on through the air.

She began the counterspell once more. Lighting flashed and thunder roared in time with the melody. Dorn felt power accumulating around her, stinging his skin. Sparks danced and popped on his iron parts.

it’s going to work this time, he thought.

Then the great muscles heaved beneath her hide as she wrenched herself around in the air. A split second later, her ventral side smashed into a cliff face. As stones showered

down and battered them both, Dorn understood that she’d twisted as she had to spare him the impact.

He couldn’t believe it mattered. Surely the collision had stunned or crippled her, and they’d roll down the mountainside together, the long tumble bashing and grinding their lives away. But she pushed off from the escarpment, pounded her pinions, and took flight again. Even more miraculously, neither the impact nor the pain of her foreleg breaking and a shaft of splintered bone stabbing through her hide had disrupted the precise enunciation of her song.

During the final phrase, the lighting burned so bright that Dorn had to hold his eyes shut, and the thunder boomed so loud it spiked pain through his ears. But then the whirlwind died all at once, as if it had never been.

Dorn slipped his bloody claws from Kara’s hide, then, as best he was able, gave her huge reptilian body a quick and clumsy embrace.

“This Nexus is no better a warlock than you,” he gasped. “I love you for saying that,” Kara answered, “but we were very, very lucky.”

Below them, the gigantic gold spread its wings and leaped into the air.

“I guess now we need a little more luck,” said Dorn, readying his longbow. At least I can help with this part.”

“Don’t shoot!” Kara said. “Not unless you’re sure he means us harm. That’s Tamarand, first among Lareth’s lieutenant& He doesn’t like needless killing.”

“Unless the Rage has taken hold of him.”

“He tried to wave us off,” she said, “so the whirlwind wouldn’t seize us. He wouldn’t have, if he were eager to see us dead.”

“Maybe not.”

Still, Dorn put an arrow on the string. He’d spent his life hating dragons, and even though he’d come to care for one in particular, that didn’t incline him to abandon his mistrust of the species as a whole.

Kara and Tamarand circled one another.

“Go away,” said the gold. “After much meditation, His Resplendence decreed that you and your fellow rebels are forbidden to avail yourselves of the sanctuaries. I’m not sure of his reasoning, but it doesn’t matter. You must depart, and weather the Rage elsewhere as best you can.”

“I must speak with Lareth,” Kara said. “Afterward, if it’s his will, I’ll go and never return.”

“You don’t understand. It will mean your death, and your companion’s too. I’m already derelict in my duty for not attacking you as soon as you quelled the wind storm.”

“I must speak with Lareth,” Kara repeated. “If I pay for the privilege with my life, so be it. I was right, Lord Tamarand. The Rage has a cause, and a cure as well. My friends and I have discovered part of the remedy, and know how to obtain the rest. But I need the help of the dragons hibernating here.”