She laughed suddenly. "Whiskers?"
I smiled. "If your nose were any smaller, it would be too small." Then I kissed her sharp, arrogant nose. "Will you marry me?"
I pulled away to look into her eyes, but she kept them closed.
She shook her head slowly. "No. You rescue people, Ward." She opened her eyes hoping, I think, to convince me of her earnestness. "You rescued me. It's natural for us to feel this connection—but it's not real. One day you'll look up and see me, and wonder where the woman who needed your protection went. Men don't marry women like me, Ward."
I started to open my mouth to argue with her, when several things occurred to me. The first was that words were not going to convince her that what I felt was real. Only time would do that. The second was that she felt something, too—both her words and her response to my kiss told me that much. Knowing she cared gave me the hope to be patient
So I smiled at her and started back for camp. Unless she told me to leave her alone, I would pursue her unto the ends of the earth.
Kellen's man Rosem had the look of a soldier about him. Something in the way that he stood spoke of long hours in ranks and parade rests. Stala wasn't big on fancy marching, but I knew what the results looked like. He was wary of me, and unhappy at having to trust someone else to rescue Kellen: very unhappy at how we were going about it.
"Why does he have to go off alone—why can't he work the magic here?"
I shrugged, not about to tell him that Oreg intended to fly to the Asylum under the cover of night and take a good look at what spells were put on Kellen's cell. "For," as he'd said to me, "Kellen is too rich a prize to leave out with the common discards. They'll have other safeguards about him even though he's not in the wizard's wing."
"Oreg knows what he's doing, Rosem," said Tisala patiently for the third or fourth time. "Trust him."
"Do I have a choice?" he said finally. The edge of desperation clung to his tones.
"No," said Duraugh. "But Hurogs pay their debts."
"The Hurogmeten got himself out," replied Rosem.
Duraugh shrugged. "Maybe so, but you risked a lot to help us—we can do no less."
The atmosphere of Menogue after dark didn't help, I thought. If we'd been back at camp with the men, the familiar noise and bustle would have drowned out Rosem's realization that he was standing on a place reputed to be haunted. No good Tallven would have been caught dead on Menogue after dark—unless he was awaiting the rescue of his liege lord by a pack of wild-eyed Northmen.
It affected everyone. Duraugh had been careful to lean up against a tree so that nothing could sneak up behind him. Tosten stared off into the darkness of the woods as if he expected to see something there. Tisala played with the hilt of her sword.
I closed my eyes and took up a more comfortable perch on the waist-high boulder I'd found to sit on. If something out there meant harm to us, the Tamerlain who was curled up, unseen, behind me would give warning.
A wind came suddenly out of nowhere, strong enough to make the aspen saplings clatter together. Tosten half drew his sword and turned to face the wind, but when I put my hand on his elbow, he slid the blade back into its sheath.
"It's Oreg," I said. If Rosem thought the wind was magic—well, dragon wings are magic, too.
The wind died abruptly and Oreg walked out of the trees in human form. "Ward, you have to come with me."
He could have meant a dozen different places, a meadow where he'd brought Kellen or drawn up a spell he needed me to help power, but my gorge rose in my throat because I knew. He wanted me to come to the Asylum.
After so long in his cell, Kellen was unlikely to trust strangers. He needed to see someone he knew.
Rosem would have done—but that would have meant trusting him with Hurog's secret. And I wasn't ready for the world to realize that there were dragons still.
Tisala could do it, but I needed to face my fears.
"Very well," I said, hoping my voice didn't tremble.
"Where are you going?" asked Rosem, sharp distrust raising his voice half an octave.
"To help Oreg," I said, and strode after Oreg into the trees.
When we'd covered a sufficient distance to hide what we did, Oreg transformed himself into the dragon. The darkness hid him, but even in my fear I felt the familiar sense of awe that a creature so beautiful still walked the earth.
"Up," he whispered like the rustling of the yellow and red leaves of the autumn trees.
I had only ridden dragon-back twice before. It seemed a highly personal thing, so I never asked, only went when he offered. With the adrenaline of the knowledge of where we were going adding to the excitement of such a ride, I was afraid I was going to be sick.
I set my hand against Oreg's cool and surprisingly soft neck scales and swarmed up his shoulder, carefully avoiding the delicate skin of his wings. After I'd settled into the narrow grove between neck and wing, Oreg gathered himself and launched into the air.
I'd never flown at night, and the yawning darkness below worried me more than seeing tiny dots of buildings and patchworked fields had. There was something unsettling about darkness, and I was glad when we reached the city.
The first time Oreg'd taken me flying, I'd asked him about someone seeing us. He'd said that no one sees a dragon unless the dragon wants to be seen. The guards at the city gates didn't look up as we flew above them.
Estian glowed with a thousand torches as we approached. Seen from above, the confusing twists of the main streets spiraling away from the palace took on a pattern. I could see where streets had been closed off in ages past or new ones opened, but the original layout of the streets had circled a place not far from the current castle where there was an open market now.
I could see the low stone walls of the market, where children perched to eat their meat pies or baked apples in the daytime. From above the pattern of the walls looked like a three-towered keep, and I wondered how long ago it had been brought down.
Oreg swooped suddenly and brought us to ground just behind the Asylum in a small park that belonged to a wealthy merchant's house. I slipped off his back and he regained his own form.
"I'll have to transport us in," he said.
I nodded. He stepped behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. Hurog magic, dragon magic flooded me and blocked my senses from everything but its presence. When I could see again, we were in a cell in the Asylum. The smell of the place raised the hair on the back of my neck, so I concentrated on other things.
A cold crystal magelight hung suspended from the ceiling, too far away for the cell's occupant to reach it and cover the light to give himself some privacy. Guards could look through the slit in the door at any time and see the whole small cell. Abruptly I recalled that the laboratory had been lit the same way.
"Ward?" said Kellen, seated on the bench.
I turned away from the door and dropped to my knee. Oreg, I noticed, remained standing. "My lord."
Kellen came to his feet and strode over to me. I bit my lip to keep from voicing my dismay—I've seen healthier people die from starvation.
"So they did get you out."
I could hear nothing in his voice, but I wondered how it would feel to be caged for a decade and then released. A man who'd been a prisoner for so long would know how to hide fear very well, but that didn't mean he didn't feel it.
"Yes, my lord. And we have come here to free you as we should have a long time ago."
He waved away my apologies and began to pace, muttering to himself. Each moment brought the chances of drawing the attention of the guard, but I said nothing.
Finally he turned to Oreg and said, "From what Rosem told me, you must be the wizard Oreg. Can you destroy this board?" He waved his hand to the board that served him as a bench—and a gameboard. "I don't want to leave it behind."
Oreg nodded and walked over to the bench. With his knife he cut a sliver of wood and held it in his hand. He closed his fist and then wiped the dust out of hi
s palm while the bench crumbled into a dark gray mulch.
Kellen stared at the mess as if the crude board had meant a lot to him. His breathing was heavy and I could see the pulse pounded in his throat. "I'm ready."
"I can't take you the way we came in," said Oreg. "Transporting people is nigh impossible if the person I'm carrying doesn't trust me."
"So what do you suggest?" I asked, rising to my feet since Kellen wasn't paying attention to me anymore.
"Flying." Oreg waved an arm at the stone wall between us and the outside. I could feel him draw on the fear that the Asylum's captives had impregnated in the walls. Oreg took the wordless desire of every prisoner and gave it form as the wall popped and the great stones fell to the ground below.
It was a good thing Kellen's cell was on the highest floor, I thought, looking over the edge to the ground below, otherwise Oreg might have collapsed the whole building.
The hole in the wall was more than large enough for a dragon, though Oreg had had to take out the wall next to us as well. Either the other cell was empty or its occupant had been crushed by falling stone. I gave it a closer look and felt relieved that there was no straw on the floor.
I turned back to say something to Kellen, but he was crouched in a corner as far from the broken wall as he could get. I looked at Oreg, but he shook his head and gestured for me.
My old stable master had never liked keeping horses in stalls for longer than a day or two. He told me once of a horse he'd seen who'd been kept in its stall from the moment it was born until it was ready to be trained for riding. It had taken four men to drag the horse out of its stall.
The rockfall had been loud; someone was bound to come here soon to check on Kellen.
There wasn't time to coax Kellen out. I remembered how unsettling I'd found the darkness below Oreg's wings, and I used my knife to rip a strip from the bottom of my shirt.
"Shh," I said, wrapping my makeshift blindfold around Kellen's eyes. "It's just the shock of it. Let my dragon and me get you out of here to safety and you'll be fine."
Oreg took his cue and shifted into dragon form. I heard the noises of guards in the hallways, doubtless drawn there by the sound of falling stones.
As it did with horses, the blindfold steadied Kellen. He didn't say anything when I told him of the dragon. I think he was concentrating too hard on surviving his rescue to be concerned about legendary creatures.
With my guidance, Kellen scrambled onto Oreg's back. I sat behind him to hold him on. Oreg shuffled awkwardly to the edge of the room and launched.
I thought we were going to have to land, but three quick wing-strokes had us aloft.
As we neared Menogue, I said, "Oreg, can you take us somewhere for Kellen to recover a bit before we meet with the others?"
Oreg dipped his wings in answer. He took us to the far side of Menogue and landed in a small clearing where long-ago people had encased a small pond in stone. The clearing was surrounded by trees and lit by the full moon.
I took the blindfold off Kellen and slid down Oreg's shoulder to the ground. After a brief hesitation, Kellen followed. When we were safely dismounted, Oreg curled up and laid his great head on the ground, looking as harmless as he could.
"So Hurog has dragons," Kellen said. He was stiff with stress, but was clinging with his fingertips to sanity—I knew how that felt.
"One," I agreed.
"Where is your mage?"
I gestured to the dragon. "He is not full-blooded dragon. He tells me he's equally comfortable in either guise."
Kellen nodded slowly and gestured to the pond. "Is it safe to wash in this?"
"Yes," said the Tamerlain from the opposite side of the pool. "Welcome to Menogue, Kellen Tallven."
Kellen looked at her, then at the dragon, and abruptly laughed.
"I'm no dream," she said, catching the edge of hysteria in his merriment. "I have been here serving the kings of Tallven for a long time. The world has changed since you were bound in stone, Tallven, though most people don't know it yet. Dragons fly, the old gods stir, and mages grow in power because an old wrong has been righted."
The expression on Kellen's face was oddly blank, despite his earlier laughter.
"Go away, Tamerlain," I said, staring worriedly at Kellen. "Time enough for this later." The Tamerlain shot me an amused look and disappeared with a needlessly theatrical crack of sound. "Let's wash the stink of that place off our skins and eat before we start thinking further ahead. Oreg?"
The dragon head lifted and Oreg looked at me mildly.
"Go tell the others Kellen is safe and bring his man here—only his man—with clean clothes, please. Take enough time for us to bathe." If Kellen felt like I had, it would take a while before he felt clean. I'd only been in the building for a few minutes this time, but I felt as though the smell of that place clung to me.
Oreg stood up, yawned, and shook himself before resuming his human form. "Sounds like a good idea." He bowed his head to Kellen once, a gesture of respect he didn't make often, and retired into the trees.
Kellen made no move to go into the water, just stood staring at me as if he didn't know what to do. Or as if he didn't trust me. I don't suppose being locked in a cell by my own brother would have made me very trusting, either.
"Rosem's coming soon," I said. "You can wait for him if you want—but I'm not." I pulled off my clothes and walked into the pool.
It was not cold, as the water in such a pool should have been, but lukewarm. I felt no particular welling of magic here, so it must have been fed by underground hot springs. In the dark it was hard to tell how deep it was going to be, but I needn't have worried, for the drop-off was gentle when it came. I swam away from Kellen, letting him decide to follow or not. After a few minutes there was a splash from that end of the pool, so I supposed he had.
When I heard nothing more I swam back to Kellen.
He stood waist-deep in the warm water and trembled.
"Do you know," he said, watching his shaking fingers, "I hated Aethervon as much as ever I hated my brother for locking me away in the Asylum. If it hadn't been for the vision Aethervon gifted Jakoven's mage with, my brother would have just killed me."
He was ready to break, and maybe he needed to pour out what he was feeling to someone. But if he broke now, he might not be able to put himself back together again. Wait, I wanted to urge him, wait until a little time has made you something more than a boy who has no more past than a cell in the dark. I wished for Beckram's clever tongue, but had to make do with my own.
"I'm pretty ambivalent on Aethervon, myself," I said, ignoring the agitated state Kellen was in. "Last time I was here, he took over my sister without so much as a by-your-leave or 'excuse me, and used her to babble prophecy that was not even very helpful."
"If I had told you more, you wouldn't have done as you were needed to," said a soft, sexless voice.
I looked around and noticed the old woman who was one of Aethervon's people, sitting on a rock—but I had no doubt that the voice belonged to a god rather than an old woman.
"So why did you say anything at all?" I asked.
"Because my prophecy was not unsought." As before, the voice changed from moment to moment. "I am sworn, so long as mankind seek me here, to tell them somewhat of the future."
"Who sought prophecy and gave you a chance to meddle in my business?" I asked.
The old woman's mouth smiled, though her eyes remained blank. "Meddle? I suppose that is as good a word as any." The sound of the young girl's voice in the old woman's mouth made the hair on the back of my neck rise. "Your dragon worried that you were not as he believed. He asked for my wisdom and then flinched at the cost. I gave you the opportunity to break through the barriers that had been placed between you and your magic."
I was Shavigborn and served no gods but Siphern, He whose justice ruled the Northlands. Though Aethervon was being helpful now, I didn't like Him.
My lip curled. "You used Oreg's wishes to punish him. H
e asked for reassurance and you took my sister, whom he was sworn to protect, forcing him to endure the pain of his broken oath. Oreg had enough pain, you didn't need to give him more."
"It reminded him who he was—your slave and not your master."
"Oreg belongs to no one," I snapped. "And never should have."
The god's voice was a deep rumble, larger than the old woman. He sounded irritated. "Oreg is yours as much as Hurog is yours. If he had not been reminded of it, your will would have bowed before his as the sapling bows before an ancient wind, and the evil that twisted the world would yet remain."
"You play games with people's lives," I said, remembering my sister's eyes, blank like the old woman's, and Oreg writhing on the ground at the base of the stone wall she'd stood upon. "You forget that they are fragile."
The god laughed, soft as thistledown in the night, and answered me with the rich velvet of a whore's trained voice. "Fragile does not describe you, Guardian of the Dragon. Thrice forged in fire you are and the stronger for it—as is the king who shall be. As the boy he was, he had no chance of outfacing his brother. But with the strength of his forging at Jakoven's hands, he shall carve a path through the bodies of his foes—or shatter like a blade that has been hardened too much."
The woman got up and bowed shallowly, as Stala taught me to bow to my opponents. Then she turned and disappeared into the foliage.
I swore and then turned to Kellen. "Do you see what I mean? Siphern save me from the whims of Tallvenish gods."
Kellen gave me a wry smile touched with real amusement. "I don't feel strong," he said. "But, unlike you, I'm not in the habit of arguing with the gods. So I'll wash up and see if I feel better in the morning."
That's it, I thought. Give yourself time to reinvent yourself. And if that fails, do it again. Just like I had.
Just as I was.
Resolutely I pushed back the sick, formless fear that welled up from my time in the Asylum.
"My lord," I said. "I'd appreciate it if you would keep my dragon a secret for now. Hurog's already had one power-mad man attack us hoping to find dragon bones—no telling what they would do to find a real dragon."
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