Queen of Thorns

by Dave Gross

  A puff of green vapor came out of her nostrils, either one of which I might have squeezed into if I'd dared. Between them squatted a triangular horn the size of a ship's prow. There was a dent on either side where she'd scraped away the horn. When she turned her head, I saw it was the only way she could see past it to look straight forward.

  All at once I wished I'd had a piss before coming. I remembered she had that effect on me the first time we met.

  The words kept pouring out of my mouth. "I guess that's why you said his father's name when you caught us on the other side of the city. You smelled him, right? Desna smiles. I mean on us. It was lucky for us, not you. You don't need any luck, do you?"

  The dragon's eyes were like the elves'—all iris, no whites. But they were also like a cat's, with a big narrow pupil that tracked me as I paced back and forth. My head spun from feeling them locked on me. "I'm going to sit down a second, if you don't mind. You want to—? I guess you're already sitting."

  Now I'm babbling, I thought. Maybe she'd cast a spell to muddle my brain. Or maybe this is just how bugs feel when they look up to see Arni looking down at them. It was all I could do not to run away or throw myself behind a pile of coins and hope she forgot I was there.

  "The others explained their reasons for intruding on my demesne." Her voice surprised me. It flowed into my ears like a slow summer river. There wasn't a damned thing I could do if she decided to sweep me away. All I could do was let the current take me and hope I didn't drown. "What is your excuse?"

  "I'm just here with the boss—Count Jeggare. Varian Jeggare. Variel's son, that is. My boss." At that point I accepted the fact that, whether or not she'd cast a spell, I'd become a moron. She didn't say anything else, so I added, "I guess I came for the same reason he did."

  "What is that reason?"

  "To get his carriage fixed."

  The dragon lifted her head so fast I felt like I was falling off a cliff. "What?"

  "The Red Carriage. It was a gift from Variel something like eighty years ago. I don't know the details. My grandmother wasn't even born yet."

  "Variel knew he had a son?"

  "I guess so." The words were out before I realized they might cause the boss some trouble. "I don't know."

  The dragon leaned down close. I shrank into the throne, hoping she wouldn't want splinters in her mouth. Instead of gobbling me up, she sniffed. I felt my hair rise as all the air rushed into her nostrils. When she spoke, I smelled the swamp on her breath. "There is something wrong with you."

  "Lately, every woman I meet tells me that."

  "I am no woman."

  "I don't know. I got a pretty good look upstairs before you flew off. You could have fooled me."

  She huffed. It wasn't my best line, but you got to lead with your strength. Wisps of yellow vapor blew into my face. The stuff stung my eyes and made me weep. Then I heard a sound like distant thunder, so close it buzzed my teeth and bones. When I realized what it was, I knew I was going to be all right.

  I'd made her laugh.

  "Now," she said. "Tell me about the others in your group."

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  After I finally had that long, hard piss, I found the boss in the library. He sat at a table piled with stacks of books. I couldn't read the titles, but I would have bet a gold sail he'd sorted them by category before reading them in some clever sort of order. He had his nose stuck so deep in a book that I had to speak twice before he came up for air.

  "Where's your old man?"

  "He and Fimbulthicket are catching up."

  The way he said it made me think he and Variel hadn't hit it off that well. I changed the subject and told him about my chat with the dragon, especially what I'd said I thought about the others in our merry band of misfits. Nothing that should have gotten anybody eaten, but I guess that depended a lot on what they'd had to say when it was their turn.

  "It is better that you told the truth." He fed Arni a scrap of dried venison and wiped his fingers on a handkerchief. "She would have known had you attempted to dissemble."

  "You're going to like her," I said. "She uses words like 'demesne.'"

  He shot me the withering glare. After cracking wise with a dragon, I felt wither-proof. He did a double take and gave me a hard look. "How many of the words I have labored to teach you these past months have you already known?"

  I'd been wondering how long it would take for him to catch me out. "I don't know. Four or five, maybe?"

  He looked dubious, but I stood firm on my bluff. "Sometimes when I was waiting in the library, I'd pick up a book. You saw me do that plenty of times."

  "I assumed you were admiring the illustrations."

  "I like the pictures, especially the ones in the books you keep locked in the low cabinet."

  He cleared his throat, and we were done clowning. "Were you able to bend your subtle intellect to discerning the dragon's true intentions?"

  "Not even a little bit. She's what you'd call inscrutable."

  "Perhaps I overestimated your facility for engaging the fair sex."

  "You haven't seen her up close. She ain't all that fair anymore. But she likes me all right. I mean, I got no reason to think I'm on the menu. But I'll tell you one thing, she wants to put some fear in you. After that, she eases up. Use her name a couple times. She likes to hear it."

  "Zuldanavox."

  "I said 'Zuldana,' since that's what your old man called her."

  He stared at me again like he was amazed I was still there. "That was rash. Variel warned me that contracting a dragon's name even by a syllable can cause irreparable offense."

  "Maybe my good looks covered for me." I looked him over. "You'd better use the whole name."

  Again with the withering, but he couldn't keep it up and cracked a smile. That was a good sign.

  "Things went all right with your old man?"

  "Better than expected. I still have many questions. Foremost among them is whether Zuldanavox will allow him to depart with us. From what he told me, I suspect her sense of territoriality extends to his person as well as to this city."

  "Maybe you can work out a deal. You used to be a diplomat, didn't you?"

  "A special envoy, yes, but only when my expertise provided an advantage to suit the occasion. My experience with elves is only slightly greater than my knowledge of dragons, which is to say 'insufficient.'"

  "She likes magic. She'll get a kick out of your riffle scrolls."

  "That could be useful. What else?"

  "She wanted me to guess what the others wanted from her."

  "What did you say?"

  "I figure Caladrel wants a military alliance. Oparal, I got nothing except she serves the queen. Her being a paladin, you figure what you see is what you get. Kemeili's the tricky one. Maybe she really does represent the queen, maybe the temple. She's been slippery whenever I've tried to get some read on her."

  "Slippery, you say?"

  "Hey, you're the one who said I had to keep her happy. Anyway, Zuldanavox didn't seem too surprised."

  "Perhaps you will have better luck now that they have revealed themselves to the dragon. See what you can learn from Caladrel or Kemeili. I shall do what I can to lure the dragon into revealing something to me."

  "Good luck with that, but don't push it, all right? I don't want to go back without you, boss."

  "You know," he said, putting aside his book, "after all we have gone through these past few years, you can call me Varian."

  "Yeah, I know."

  He nodded, looked like he was going to say something else, but just nodded again.

  "I'll go charm the elves." I tipped him a wink. "You go outwit the dragon."

  He headed over to the amphitheater, Arnisant at his heel. I turned to walk down the hill, where I'd seen Kemeili heading after her chat with Zuldanavox a couple hours back. Something itched inside me. I turned to look at the boss, catching him just as he turned back to look at me. For a second I felt like maybe I should go with him, even t
hough no bodyguard could protect him from that dragon.

  "You keep him out of trouble, Arni." I touched my chin, the way we do down on Eel Street. The boss surprised me by doing the same before we turned and went our separate ways.

  About a street away, I found Oparal sitting on the base of a statue of an elf reaching up to cradle the sun or moon in her arms. The paladin didn't notice me at first. I thought about coughing so I didn't surprise her and get my nose re-broken, but her posture told me something was wrong. She'd left her sword and shield leaning against the statue. Her head hung low.

  I crept up for a better look. Her eyelashes glistened in the morning sun. I'd never noticed how long they were. "You all right?"

  She barely turned at the sound of my voice. Maybe she'd known I was there the whole time. She opened her eyes wide to keep the tears from her cheeks. "I'm fine."

  I moved around to her other side and leaned on the statue, careful not to get too close. "Did the dragon do something to you?"

  She tried to sneer but failed.

  "I was pretty scared at first, too."

  "I was not scared."

  "No, 'course you weren't." I raised my palms to mime worshiping at her feet. "'Fearless paladin!'"

  "You know nothing about it," she said. "You've no responsibility except to your master."

  "He's not—"

  "Spare me. I lived in Cheliax long enough to know that all hellspawn are either criminals or slaves."

  That crack should have got a rise out of me, but it didn't. Maybe it's because it was basically true. "I know we haven't gotten along all that great, but if there's anything you need—"

  "Don't you ever give up?" she said. "Your advances are no less repugnant now than they were when we met."

  "I'm not advancing anything. You just looked sad. I didn't— You know, forget it. Whatever problems you got, you can keep 'em. Which way did Kemeili go?"

  Oparal looked as if she was about to say something. Instead, she pointed south at the Temple of Calistria.

  "Thanks." I headed down the hill at a trot, resisting the urge to look back as I heard Oparal mutter something about dragons, queens, and liars.

  I kept my attention on the street. The last thing I wanted was for some of those giant bugs or wandering plants to sneak up on me.

  Variel hadn't kept the temple district as tidy as the streets near his manor, but the area wasn't as overgrown as the west side. It looked like the place had been hit by an earthquake, too. There were lots of places where Variel's magic vines held a wall together or replaced a fallen roof. I relaxed a little, figuring I'd see or hear anything nasty coming my way. Still, I didn't call out Kemeili's name. Even though Zuldanavox had put the fear into them, there were more leucrottas running around the city somewhere.

  That thought made me think we were stupid to split up again. I couldn't think of why the others would do that, unless it was because of something the dragon told them. Caladrel disappeared after telling Kemeili it was her turn, and she vanished after passing it off to Oparal. At least the paladin hadn't gone far, and I was guessing Fimbulthicket had gone back to the manor with Variel.

  The drone of wasps grew loud as I got close to the temple. I hoped that was because the onion-shaped roof magnified the sound. Otherwise, there were lots of bugs in there. Or big ones. Most likely lots of big ones.

  Balconies and ornaments from the upper levels had fallen into piles at the base of the temple. Most of its columns were still standing, but the entrance had collapsed a long time ago.

  In another spot, someone had hacked away the vines hanging over a clear pool. It had overflowed its fountain to fill a gulley beside the temple wall. I peeked inside but saw nobody. Then I heard the singing.

  Kemeili had never sung for me before—not like that, anyway—but I recognized her voice. My Elven wasn't good enough for me to follow all the lyrics, but I picked up enough words to know it was a prayer. I understood the phrases the Lady in the Room and the Unquenchable Fire, two more names for Calistria. From what I could piece together, the rest of the song seemed equal parts worshipful and really, really dirty.

  I moved in, careful not to kick around the debris littering the halls.

  Following the sound of the song, I went down a long ramp to a grotto beneath the main floor. Kemeili had set candles floating on ceramic dishes, but almost as much light shone down from fist-sized grubs crawling on the ceiling. Their fat yellow bodies caught the candle light and cast it across the ceiling. I got a shudder trying to imagine what they were going to grow up to be.

  The light reflected off three wedge-shaped pools of green water and onto a statue of Calistria. She had just dropped a gown to dip a toe into one of the pools. Kemeili stood there in the water, naked as the goddess. She stroked the foot of the statue as she sang, her supple hands applying pressure as if massaging flesh.

  Kemeili's head turned, and I knew she was trying to get a glimpse of me out of the corner of her eye. She pretended not to see me, but she let go of Calistria's foot and cupped water in her hands. Turning just enough to give me a better view, she poured water over her face and let it trickle down over her small breasts and the gentle curve of her belly.

  "All right, all right," I said. "I didn't come here to peep."

  She shot me an exasperated look. "Why not? That would have been a fun way to start."

  "Good point." I went over to crouch on the floor between the baths. "But it's time to talk."

  "Varian sent you to find out what I said to the dragon, I imagine."

  "Something like that."

  "What's in it for me?"

  "Like the kids say, you show me yours, I'll show you mine."

  She grabbed the toe of my boot and tugged me toward the water. "That sounds more like it."

  "I was being metaphorical," I said. "Besides, there's plenty of time for the other thing later."

  "Are you sure?" she said. "How do you know Zuldanavox doesn't plan to hunt us like the leucrottas?"

  "I got a feeling somebody might've made her a better offer by now. You and Caladrel sure were eager to talk with her. It's almost like you knew about the dragon before we saw her."

  "Are you asking me?"

  "Yeah."

  "And what do you offer in return for my answer?"

  "I don't—"

  "The jacket."

  "No way. I love this jacket. Besides, it wouldn't fit you."

  "I meant for you to take it off."

  "Oh, well, that's all right then." I shrugged it off and set it on a little stone bench.

  "I knew we might find a dragon."

  "That's it? That's all you've got?" I reached for the jacket.

  "An ancient and powerful dragon," she added. "There have been rumors ever since the Return."

  "Go on."

  "Pants."

  "I can't take them off over my boots."

  "Your boots, then."

  "One boot."

  "I thought you enjoyed playing with me."

  "I'm just playing by your rules."

  "Ah." She frowned, then brightened. "Good. One boot, then."

  I grabbed the boot by toe and heel, but as soon I was standing on one foot, she pulled me into the pool. I came up sputtering mad. "Girl, I told you I didn't want my leathers wet."

  "Now you have no choice but to take them all off."

  "Why would I want to—oh." She started in on the laces and showed me a good reason. It was good enough that I lost track of my original point. For a while we didn't talk as much as I'd planned, but I managed to slip in a few questions along the way. After the second time we came up for air, she admitted she'd come along to keep an eye on us for the temple.

  "So, who are you really working for?" I said.

  "No matter what Oparal or Caladrel might have told you, the temple serves the queen, not its own interests."

  I took that for what it was worth, which wasn't much. She asked me more about the boss, and I told her the truth. As far as I knew, he had no idea hi
s old man was even alive before Fimbulthicket told him different. He really had come to Kyonin to get his carriage repaired.

  She stayed slippery in more ways than one, never really telling me what she'd said to the dragon. She hinted that whatever she'd said was in the interest of the queen, even if it wasn't on her orders. The more I asked, the more she did things to prevent me from talking. She was pretty persuasive, and after a while we lay beside the pool to dry off.

  "That was nice," she said after catching her breath.

  "Nice?"

  "Well, our first night was more exciting, after you broke out of the cuffs so quickly. And of course even that couldn't compare to being interrupted by a unicorn. That was ..." She shuddered with pleasure at the thought.

  "You can have the unicorn. I'd rather—" I realized she could take that two ways.

  "You can't stop thinking about Oparal, can you?"

  All right, so she could take it three ways. "That's not what I—"

  "I must admit, I've thought about her, too."

  "You have?"

  "Imagine that thick black hair spilling onto your face. And those long fingers of hers, so strong and sure."

  I didn't even try not to imagine it, but I couldn't stop picturing how sad she'd looked sitting by the statue. Thinking of all the times she'd appeared mad at me, the boss, or the others, I wondered whether her bad attitude wasn't just another shield.

  "You know," Kemeili purred, "the unicorn would not have submitted to her unless she was chaste. How often have you had the pleasure of a woman's first embrace?"

  That was the wrong thing to say to me. For most of my life I'd been owned, just like the girls bought by Trick Alley brothels who made back their price by auctioning their virginity.

  Kemeili saw it on my face and changed tactics.

  "It's not as if she doesn't already desire you," she said. "You said it yourself, she can't keep her hands off you."

  I felt my broken nose. "Yeah, that's done wonders for me so far."

  "You know there's more to it than that. I think the reason you've avoided me lately is that you'd rather be with her."