Dragonstar

by Barbara Hambly

  John bolted through into the bedroom, Gareth at his heels; nipped through the concealed door into the servants' passage again. “Tonight,” he breathed. “Moonrise. At least bring Millença to me.”

  Gareth opened his mouth, shut it again, helpless uncertainty in his eyes.

  “And when you've a minute,” John added grimly, leaning around the panel, “search about the palace for the special room Trey asked for, the ‘secret boudoir’ or ‘meditation chapel’ or whatever it was.…”

  “How do you know she asked for a meditation room?” The young man stared at him, amazed.

  John tapped the side of his nose, an ironic twist to his lips. “It's what demons do,” he said. “Search for it and have a look inside—if you can do it without her knowin' of it.”

  “My son?” The King's voice raised in jovial cry, and one of the terrace doors opened in the next room. “Don't worry, Badegamus,” he added, “I should think I know my son's rooms.…”

  “My darling?” A woman's voice, lilting and sweet. “Lord Goffyer is here, sent by King Balgub of the Deep.…”

  Amayon.

  John's blood turned cold and he closed the door, barely breathing, wondering if the pair of demons could hear the pounding of his heart, or the smell of his blood or the fearsweat that poured down his face. But Gareth's feet retreated from the wall and John heard the former Regent's light voice, “I'm here, Father.” If John had ever doubted Gareth's courage he had proof of it now, for there wasn't a trace of fear in his speech. “Badegamus tells me you've made festival in the streets.”

  John moved away from the door, trembling a little with panic and fright. Dear God, did I remember to take away the old specs…?

  He groped in his doublet pocket, then found them, exhaled.

  And the dragonbone box, and the silver bottle, and the sword belted at his waist.

  Voices in the other room, the King's and the lovely trained mellifluousness of Badegamus, interrupted now and then by the cautious gruff alto of a gnome. Though his hands were shaking so he could barely fumble the door-catch, John pushed the door far enough to glimpse the King through the connecting archway of the anteroom. Uriens had clearly just come from the pulpit above the market square, still clothed in the somber hues of half-mourning, his body framed in an aureole of wired and stiffened Court mantlings that set their wearer off as if against a private backdrop of color and movement.

  Trey had gone to clasp Gareth's hand, dainty as a roe deer in blue velvet and garnets—how could anyone not see Amayon in the way she titled her head, in the ironic smile? Badegamus, stouter than ever with his enormous, waxed, and wired golden mustache, kept glancing at her as if he'd heard some rumor about her that he didn't wish to believe.

  Beside him—and only a little shorter than the tubby Chamberlain—was a gnome John vaguely recognized. Barrelchested and harsh-featured, Goffyer wore the usual gnomish profusion of jewelry, his long hair of faded pink wound up in silver pins and the familiar demon glitter in his eyes.

  So they're in the Deep as well, John thought, and drew the door closed again. Where have I seen that one? Goffyer … He couldn't recall a gnome named Goffyer among those his gnome friends had introduced to him in Ylferdun Deep. Not that Goffyer was his actual name, of course, any more than Miss Mab's real name was Miss Mab: Taseldwyn, she was called among her own people, and by those humans not too lazy to deal with gnomish names.

  He moved off a few yards, then halted, listening. Trying to get his bearings, to locate if he could the woman who had cried out in despair and pain. With the King and Trey back, not to speak of a hundred servants who'd recognize him from his amiable habit of talking with anyone he met, he knew the danger of remaining, but he couldn't leave her without searching.

  The door at the far end of the corridor was locked, barred from the other side. It butted, he knew, onto the old palace, a logical place for Trey to have her “meditation chapel”: There were courtyards, and gardens, and pavilions in that rambling stone warren that hadn't been entered or used in years.

  If he recalled correctly, he thought, backtracking through the service passage toward the main laundry and scullery, he could get to the old palace through a small courtyard that had once served the Queen's Wing. A small gate opened onto a minor street called the Cooksway at the foot of the palace hill, which would serve for a quick getaway if necessary. The gate was bolted from the inside, without a more modern key, and the courtyard was used to store fuel these days. Nobody went there.…

  But as he descended the enclosed stair to that small court, the stone walls around him picked up voices. Ahead of him, and, a moment later, behind as well. The voices behind him were accompanied by the ominous creak of sword belts and the clank of weapons. John removed his spectacles, shifted the wicker basket into both hands, assumed the rather haughty mein of a servant going about the business of his betters, and strode down the stair, praying nobody was going to ask him what business he had transporting laundry around an area of the palace generally given over to baskets of charcoal and cords of wood.

  Nobody asked, for very good reason. When John stepped through the arch at the bottom of the stair he found half a dozen men just coming into the wood-court through the little Cooksway gate, men who wore the sable robes and black mail of the scholar-soldiers of the Master of Halnath. One of them he was almost certain—by the way he stood, and his height, though a hood covered his head—was in fact Polycarp of Halnath, but John didn't dare stop for a closer look. He knew Polycarp quite well, and the Master knew him, and had been one of the votes cast in favor of his execution: Given what John knew about demons, he didn't blame him one bit for it. It was a struggle not to break into a run, but he only passed across the corner of the court, and not a man of them turned to observe him.…

  Mostly because a squad of guards emerged from the stairway a few paces behind him, coming into the court as John barely made it through a gateway at the other side.

  “Lord Polycarp?” demanded a harsh voice—Guessed right, thought John, and sneaked his spectacles back on as he turned and flattened himself behind the nearest buttress. “You and your companions are to come with me.”

  Polycarp turned with truly commendable presence of mind and pulled open the postern-door that led back out into the Cooksway. He stopped and fell back as several more armed men came through it wearing, like the first group, the crimson leather cuirasses and gold plumes of the House of Uwanë. Their halberds were leveled within inches of his breast. Polycarp turned back to the original guards, asked, “By whose authority, Captain Leodograce?” His voice was light, like Gareth's; husky and rather high. “I came here to speak with the Prince.…”

  “You came here to murder the Prince,” retorted the commander of the guards, and though John was too far away—and at the wrong angle—to see the man's eyes, he heard something in the tone of his voice that made him think, He's one of 'em. “Having sent him messages to lure him here.…”

  “That's ridiculous.” It was, too: Polycarp, Master of Halnath, had been Gareth's friend and counselor for years.

  “Then why send him a note to meet you in this place, far from help? Take them!”

  Polycarp drew his sword, but the conclusion was foregone. He and his companions were outnumbered, their swords outreached by the longer weapons of the guards. Watching the brief struggle among the stacked cords of wood, John was almost confirmed in his guess that Captain Leodograce was possessed—he didn't fight like a man who had the slightest concern about either wounds or death, not even taking elementary precautions—and probably three others among the guards were demons as well. Two of Polycarp's men were killed outright, the rest, and the Master himself, disarmed and bound, and dragged back up the covered stair by which John and later the guards had originally come. Polycarp said, “I demand to speak to the Prince,” and Leodograce struck him across the face with the back of his hand, knocking him against the wall.

  John stood for a few moments in the concealment of the little
inner gateway, watching them go and wondering what he should do now. Try to return to Gareth and let him know of Polycarp's arrest? If he could make it back that far, the Prince would almost certainly be with the King—or with Trey. Leave a message in his rooms via the service corridor?

  Would Amayon be able to sense John's presence in Bel by touching the paper? Quite possibly. In any case, he'd speak to Gareth tonight, on the edge of the woods, if Gareth brought his daughter.…

  If he brought his daughter.

  And if he didn't …

  “Lord Aversin?”

  John turned—and cursed himself as he turned—to find himself looking at the tattooed southern merchant who'd stared at him in the square.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Cords of wood heaped the first ten feet of the little walkway in which John stood and he didn't hesitate for so much as a second. He caught up a billet from the top of the nearest one, flung it straight and hard at the southerner's head, and bolted back across the wood-court without even waiting to see whether it reached its target. The incoming guards who'd stopped Polycarp in the outer gate hadn't closed it behind them. John shot through like a startled hare, fled down the Cooksway, dodged into the first turning he saw.

  This part of Bel, around behind the old palace, was a dilapidated neighborhood where the town houses of the nobility of a century ago had been largely abandoned for more spacious and showy quarters on the other side of the palace hill. Merchants had bought the town houses, and turned the great halls into warehouses and shops. Artisans rented the upper floors, and pigs and chickens dwelt in the stables and courtyards. The great Temple of the Purple Goddess of the Hearth had fallen into decay and lingerie sellers had set up barrows in its forecourt. It was a quarter of narrow streets and small squares that at one time had been private gardens. John dodged around as many corners as he could, ducked into a shop selling wool and leather and out by another door, took refuge in a carriageway leading back into a courtyard where laundry was being boiled in a cauldron long enough to drag his baggy, striped trousers and goatskin jacket from the wicker hamper and pull them on over the crimson tunic and hose.

  Not that that'll get me much, he thought. He's seen me in this as well.…

  “Here, what you doing?” the laundress demanded, coming down the carriageway with her stirring-paddle leveled like a lance. “You can't change clothes here.”

  John returned to the street, looked quickly around, and saw, at the next turning, the southerner talking to a man whose yellow cloak and extravagant plumed hat John recognized as belonging to the wizard Bliaud's younger son, Abellus. John turned, fast, and headed the other way, discarding the wicker basket down the first cellar he passed. The neighborhood with its back-looping streets was confusing, but it was small, and John worked his way out to the city wall, and along it to one of the cramped and squalid streets of the Dockmarket, where weavers and day laborers lived two families to a room, and where every corner boasted a tavern or an establishment that dealt in old clothes. He had little money—most of the gems in the red velvet robe Corvin had given him had turned out to be glass and paste—Of course no dragon would give away real gems, you nit, he'd reflected bitterly when the moneylender had broken this news to him—and couldn't spare any of it, but bought himself a thirdhand coat of green wool, anyway, and left the goatskins behind. Then he found a tavern, and settled himself in the darkest corner of its ordinary, to wait for the search to pass to other quarters.

  He wasn't sure whether Amayon would be able to locate him once the demon knew he was in Bel, but it was critical, now, that he get himself, and Gareth, and Gareth's daughter out of the city at once.

  And after that, he reflected, keeping as wary an eye on the tavern door as was possible without putting on his spectacles, the Old God's grandmother only knows how we're going to deal with the demons here, let alone what's going to happen if Folcalor breaks the Henge at Prokep.

  In time, the line of pale winter sunlight visible through the doors rose up the faces of the gray narrow buildings across the lane. It was time to get out of there and see if he couldn't get himself out the gate and back to the Silver Cricket Inn without being arrested. If Gareth was to meet him at moon-rise—some two hours after midnight—he had to make arrangements for horses and food with what little money he had.…

  He'd also pledged Gowla and Grobe, owners of the Silver Cricket, that he'd help serving ale in the ordinary tonight to pay for his lodging.

  Thus it was that John Aversin was crossing the fountain square by the Dockmarket gate just before sunset of a chill and cloudy afternoon. Wind rose cold again off the sea, and ravens quarreled with pigs over garbage in the lanes. The farmers who'd brought chickens and milk into the city were leaving now, and the lane before the eastern gate was a choke of jostling backs and baying asses. Torches were being lit around the gate, and the air was gritty with the smoke of suppers cooking. Despite the King's asseveration that all the city was in festival, there was little laughter or song. A few butts of wine had been broached before the Temple of Mallena, but the voices of those who came to dip into them were harsh and uneasy as the ravens. Men still in mourning shouted, now and then, standard praises of the King. Women haggard with hunger or grief carried water back to their rooms. Sometimes one would speak to John from a doorway, or give him a painted smile.

  Everyone seemed to be watching one another, or watching their own backs.

  It's turning into the Winterlands, thought John as he hurried through the wintry dusk.

  It's turning into the city in the Otherworld, where no one trusts, and everyone hurries and fears.

  It's turning into a world without law.

  A woman passed through the square in front of him, and the sight of her stopped John in his tracks. She was gone before he got a better look at her, but his impression was that she was far too well dressed for this disreputable neighborhood. His impression, too, was that none of the beggars, whores, and laborers in the square so much as looked at her, as if she did not really exist.

  But she existed. And he knew her: the tall, almost serpentine build, the melon-heavy breasts, the black hair coiled and glittering with jeweled chains. He hadn't seen her eyes and was glad they hadn't been turned his way. He knew—he was positive, as one is positive of things in dreams—that they would be yellow, with horizontal rectangular pupils, like a goat's.

  She's out from behind the mirror, he thought, almost queasy with shock.

  Walking the streets of the city in a woman's guise, she who was not a woman at all.

  The Demon Queen.

  The impact of cold, and of brittle afternoon light striking her eyes, was so sharp that Jenny staggered, catching herself against the rough-timbered wall of a house. The smell of privies, of wood smoke, of horses and mud dumped itself over her like water from a bucket, and someone said close by, “Narh, Marbel, I know what he says, but what's he actually done besides sit in the taverns talkin' to his friends and makin' you pay the rent?” Jenny blinked and saw a couple of marketwomen walk past her, their faded gaudy layers of skirts tucked into sashes and their head scarves and veils tied this way and that to give information about neighborhood and marital status.

  There was no mistake. She was in Bel.

  She looked down at her hands. She still held the catchbottle in one, the stopper in the other. At her feet lay the notched staff she'd carried underground. Her hip hurt her, as it hadn't, she realized, during the time—days? hours? weeks?—she'd been in the bottle. The gnomish trousers she wore were still damp at the knees, from kneeling in the snow at Ernine.

  She was definitely in Bel. In the Claekith district, near the river, the smell was unmistakable. Not far from the Dockmarket, in fact. She could see the roofs of Mallena's temple over the houses. Old snow heaped the sides of the lane, mingled with dirty straw and garbage. It was late afternoon—of what day?—and storekeepers were taking in their wares. A smell of garlic and stew from a nearby tavern puffed over her and reminded her that she wa
s ravenously hungry.

  Jenny knotted the neck of the catch-bottle back into her sash, and made sure that the hothwais of light, and of warmth, were still wrapped and in her pockets. Then she stooped and picked up her stick. In a poor neighborhood like this one there were enough women who'd had their heads shorn for one crime or another that she wouldn't be much stared at, but she drew up a fold of her plaid over her head, anyway.

  Trey is a demon, she thought. And John could be anywhere, alive or dead or in chains in Hell.… First things first, she told herself. As John always says. And though it wasn't likely the Regent's wife would be anywhere in this neighborhood, Morkeleb had told her that demons roved the streets, particularly at night. It would only take one recognizing her, to raise a hue and cry.

  So though her hip barely twinged her now, Jenny bowed her back and leaned exaggeratedly on her staff as she limped toward the wider street along the river that would lead her to the city walls. In the days she had been gone from Bel, the plague seemed to have abated, though she saw marks of its aftermath everywhere. A few yellow paper seals still clung half-scraped to the doors of some of the buildings she passed, and many people she saw wore mourning, their hair newly cropped.

  But the smoke that filled the air now bore on it the smell of nothing more sinister than cooking, and though this riverside neighborhood was a crowded one, she saw no doors that bore fresh seals. Vendors had returned to the narrow lanes, selling crullers or head scarves, or cups of steaming coffee dispensed from little stoves. A girl drove a donkey past, laden with baskets of last year's dried apples. A small dog barked in a fifthfloor window.

  The city was coming back to life.

  Jenny reached out with her thoughts. Someone asked a woman selling steamed buns if she was doing well. Yes, she said, she was getting over it, though her husband's death had near broken her heart.…