(Get up, son!) the blue-tip added his urging to the jackdaw. (You have only a few hours to get out of the valley!)
“Who comes?” Jack shook his head to clear it. “Why must I run?” How could he run, as exhausted as he was?
(The agents of Simeon ride this way in haste. They will enslave you again if they find you.)
Lanciar, the spy from the mine, had found reinforcements!
“I can’t desert Shayla. They’ll hurt her. I have to try to heal her again, so she can escape.” Jack rose to his knees. A wave of nausea overtook him. He dropped his head into the cradle of his arms as black spots swam before his eyes. “There is no one else left to do it.”
(You cannot heal me while we are within the realm of The Simeon,) Shayla said. Her mental voice was weak with weariness and pain. (There is not enough magic to support your spell and you do not know how to gather the magic we provide.)
“I can’t leave you here,” Jack protested. “If only you could fly to Coronnan. With one strong ley line beneath my feet I could draw enough magic to work the spell.”
(You have helped the pain a little. Not enough to allow me to fly.)
“What you need is a patch,” Fraank offered.
“A patch?” Hope brightened within Jack. His stomach settled and his vision cleared. “A patch. Something light, but dense so it will float on the air like a kite, but strong enough to support the wing. What can we use?” Mentally he sorted through the contents of the packs they had stolen from the mine storeroom. An extra shirt apiece for himself and Fraank. A rectangle of rough canvas for a tent in rainy weather. Some food and cooking oddments.
“We don’t have anything like that with us, Jack,” Fraank told him needlessly.
“In the villages we passed through, the women were weaving. If we coat the fabric with a spell to resemble candle wax?” Jack tried picturing the looms and cloth. “Too coarse and loosely woven,” he dismissed that idea.
“What you need is a piece of lace,” Frank suggested. “Lace made from Tambrin!”
“Tambrin?” Jack’s mind sped faster than he heard and comprehended.
“Thread spun from the inner bark of Tambootie seedlings. It’s very rare and expensive, but it makes the best lace in the world.”
“Tambootie seedlings,” Jack groaned. Memories of his triumph at stopping a smuggler’s ship full of immature trees weighed heavily on him. He remembered a long conversation with Fraank about the investment syndicate and the seedlings. If the ship had won through to SeLenicca three years ago, then the precious thread, with magic potential imbued in its fibers, would be plentiful now.
But if the ship had won through, Fraank probably wouldn’t have gotten into trouble with King Simeon and wound up in the mines beside Jack to give him that precious information now.
(You must travel to Queen’s City, Jack,) Shayla ordered. (There you will find what you need. You will find your destiny. Find it before The Simeon comes again at the Solstice.)
(She is correct, son. Today the servants of The Simeon come for you, not for Shayla.) The dictatorial tones of the blue-tipped male brooked no argument.
“That’s barely two moons from now!” Jack protested anyway. “Fraank and I will need nearly a full moon to get to the city.”
“Then you must leave me behind.” Fraank straightened his shoulders with pride. His throat convulsed with a suppressed cough. “You’ll make the journey in a week or less without me holding you back.”
“I can’t leave you for Simeon’s men to find and enslave again.” Jack stumbled to his friend’s side.
(We will protect your friend as one of our own.)
“I won’t live to see my home again, Jack. We both know I’m dying. You must seek out my daughter, Katrina, when you reach the city. She will help you find the right piece of lace.”
“Will she be able to get this Tambrin thread?”
(You must take gold to buy the thread,) Shayla advised.
“ ’Twould be easier to transport the trees to Queen’s City for spinning than to find gold,” Jack muttered.
(Not a bad idea, son,) the blue-tip added with a draconic chuckle. (But dragons have gold. We treasure it nearly as much as humans do. I will fetch you some from our secret hoard.)
“I have a name, Master Dragon!” Jack nearly stamped his foot in frustration.
(You chose a name out of legend, the name of a man who saved Coronnan more than once. To use the name ‘Yaakke, son of Yaacob the Usurper’ you must earn it. Bring back a suitable piece of lace made of Tambrin before midsummer.)
That was why he hadn’t dredged his name out of his memory upon first awakening in the mine, nor used it since: he hadn’t earned it yet.
Curses on Darville and his queen. They have named my sister’s oldest son heir to Coronnan. A proclamation of legitimacy has been dispatched throughout the land. Curiously, the boy is to be left with his mother because of his young age. I wonder if Brevelan and Jaylor are unwilling to give up the child.
The rift in their friendship continues. They cannot join forces against me.
I am next in line to the throne. I must be heir, me or my child. I know the babe I carry is male. If I return to Coronnan and my hideous husband before the birth, Coronnan will be reminded of the true heirs. The people will support me and a child they will come to know over the distant bastard who is rumored to have great magic. Danger lies in the journey so close to my time. If only I had the transport spell!
Simeon has become useless to me. He is obsessed with the little lacemaker. Night and day he plots and schemes for her death, neglecting his royal duties and his place in the coven. If he is not careful, Queen Miranda will awaken from her coma and denounce him.
I have not the time to puzzle over this.
“You cannot forbid me my right to worship in the temple!” Katrina screamed at Owner Brunix. “Even slaves have the right to worship in the temple.”
“ ’Tis not I who forbids, but King Simeon,” Brunix replied. “I have had this day a letter from him. If you leave the confines of this building for any reason, you will be arrested for treason.”
“Treason? What am I supposed to have done? All day, every day, I am here, working.” She paced a circle around her pillow stand in the center of the owner’s private sitting room. Sunlight spilled through the real glass in the skylight. More precious light filtered into the room from the thin slices of mica that covered the windows. “From dawn to sunset, I sit here, making lace. I sit here until my back refuses to straighten and my eyes are full of sand. I work until my hands cramp from holding the bobbins hour after hour. I work here in silence without even a time-honored song to relieve the strain.”
“I have not been privileged with the exact charges against you.” Brunix’s eyes strayed to the nearly finished shawl on Katrina’s pillow. “Perhaps your treason has something to do with this?” He lifted the free end of gossamer lace made from silk spun almost as fine as the best linen.
“King Simeon rejected the original shawl as unworthy.” Katrina wandered to one of the windows, unconsciously putting distance between herself and the owner. Her owner.
“Yet he offered to forgive your treason and eliminate the restrictions placed upon me in your articles of enslavement if I will give him the original shawl, the pattern, and any copies we have made. I have also had an anonymous offer to purchase the shawl for a vast amount of money.”
“What?” Katrina’s mind whirled.
The runes! Each symbol told an entire story. Tattia must have woven information into the design, information damaging to the king. She had to find out how to read the ancient language.
How? She couldn’t even go to the temple anymore to seek out a priest who could read the strange symbols.
“What is in the shawl, Katrina? I can tell by your eyes that you know something.” Brunix closed the distance between them. His tall frame loomed over her. An implied menace rested in his clenched fists.
“I do not know.”
&n
bsp; “Do not lie to me, Katrina Kaantille.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her to the corner window. “Look down there, Katrina. Look at the palace guard who stands watch on my doorstep. His companion stands at the river entrance ready to arrest you on sight. What does Simeon fear from you and the shawl?”
“I . . . do not know.” She shrank back from the window lest the guard see her.
“You need not fear him yet. I have summoned a band of my relatives and warded the building with Rover symbols. Enemies know better than to violate tribal sanctuary.”
“The three yellow feathers tied with black string!” She had noticed the strange adornment hanging over every door on the ground floor yesterday on her way to the temple.
“Tell me what you do know before I summon those guards inside.”
“You would lose your best lacemaker and all the designs that are still in my head.” She couldn’t trust Brunix. His ambitions and resentments ran too deep and complicated. Katrina had no idea if he would use the knowledge of a secret code woven into the original shawl—but not into her new pattern—to help or harm her.
“But if I arrange your death, or turn you over to the king, the ghost of your mother will cease to haunt my factory. The ghost of a suicide always follows blood kin to their death. Without Tattia Kaantille floating through my workroom, I could hire better lacemakers and designers. Her presence frightens off all but the most desperate. I have tolerated the ghost for three years in hopes of possessing you, body and soul.” Still holding her arm he captured her mouth in a savage kiss. The heat of his body, the moisture of his mouth and the fierceness of his grasp brought shudders of revulsion to her knees and shoulders.
She wrenched free and turned her back to him. Hastily she wiped her mouth dry. The taste of him lingered.
“Why is it that everyone in your factory has seen the ghost of my mother but me? I have heard she might have been murdered by the palace guard and not committed suicide.” Katrina refused to look at him. “Tattia is supposed to haunt me, not your workroom. And yet I am the only person who has not seen or felt her presence. Perhaps she haunts those who enslave me?”
“That, my dear Katrina, is a question only your mother can answer. And perhaps King Simeon. Would you like to ask him about it? Tell me the secret of the shawl!”
Jack stopped off a transport barge cloaked in a delusion of sandy blond hair and watery blue eyes. The few people he’d met on his journey south to Queen’s City had taught him early that dark-eyed strangers were not trusted in SeLenicca.
Men who talked to birds weren’t trusted either. Corby had instructions to keep his distance on this trek.
Jack had made good time, once he found the River Lenicc. People and goods moved down the river on a daily basis. Hardly anything or anyone moved upriver. Almost as if the waters drained the interior of life along with its soil as it roared to the sea.
No timber remained to hold the soil in place. Without the timber to cut and float down to the capital for sale, the people had no livelihood. They hadn’t the knowledge to nurture the cleared land and turn it into crops or pasture land. Only a few had the courage to try.
So Jack joined the flood of people pouring into the capital looking for work, for food, for hope.
The streets and pathways nearest the docks were crowded with swarms of hungry people. Ragged children held up pitifully thin arms, entreating a bit of bread or a coin. Skinny young girls with eyes too large for their faces exposed their breasts in the age-old invitation to sell their bodies in hope of earning enough to keep them alive one more day.
None of them wore lace, wove it, or spun thread. He hadn’t time to help all those who tugged at his heart with their pleas.
Swiftly he moved away from the river district and the grasping poor. Two streets inland brought an entirely different scene. Steed-drawn litters moved up and down broad thoroughfares. Elegantly dressed ladies with servants strolled along clean wooden sidewalks. Shops displayed the wealth of the world for sale to the few wealthy nobles.
Jack observed from the shadows. Lace abounded in this district. On clothing, decorating windows, as coin in the shops. All of it was attached to something or someone and none of the pieces was large enough to patch Shayla’s wing.
When he looked closely, he realized that large numbers of the people were trading well-used pieces of lace for food. Few others bought or sold any of the bright trinkets or furnishings on display.
He headed uphill toward the palace. Fraank had said the best lace was made in the palace—supervised by the noble ladies of Queen Miranda’s court.
Two men wearing the black uniforms of the city watch fell into step behind Jack. His spell of delusion covered only his hair and eyes. He didn’t want to waste energy cloaking the rest of his body. What had seemed decent quality clothing in the country was too rough and simple for this wealthy neighborhood.
Too late to change the spell. The guards increased their pace to overtake him.
Jack stopped and turned to face the men. “Good sirs,” he greeted them politely. “I’ve been sent with a message for one of the palace lacemakers. Perhaps you could direct me?” He refrained from tugging his forelock. That subservience seemed out of place.
The black-garbed men halted in confusion.
“Country folk aren’t allowed in the palace,” the taller of the two guards informed Jack.
“Give us the message and we’ll pass it on to the palace guards. They’ll see the lady receives your words,” the other man added as he eased behind Jack, fingering iron manacles that hung from his belt.
Jack shuddered at the small clinking sounds the chain made with each movement the guard made. He’d had enough of manacles to last two lifetimes.
“I must speak to Mistress Kaantille myself, good sirs.” Jack sidestepped to keep both guards and their hideous manacles in view.
“Kaantille!” the tall guard hissed in angry alarm.
“No daughter of a suicide would be allowed in the palace. Her father’s a traitor, enslaved for his crimes.” The manacles clanked as the shorter guard pulled them free of his belt.
“What kind of criminal are you that you need to speak to her?” The tall man tried to capture Jack’s wrists.
Jack turned and ran, revulsion deep in his throat. He’d never submit to chains again.
“Stop him!” the short guard yelled brandishing the manacles. “Bring him to the gaol. King Simeon wants to know about anyone who has any connection at all to the Kaantilles.”
Chapter 27
No magic sprang to Jack’s hands for defense. Without ley lines to augment his natural reserves, his mild delusion took most of his talent. But he couldn’t allow himself to be captured and dragged before King Simeon. His quest was too important.
He dropped the delusion that masked his staff. Instinct brought the tool up against the guard’s chin with a resounding crack. The stout man staggered backward, fighting for balance and consciousness. Before the staff completed its upward arc, Jack swung it down and around into the tall man’s chest.
The guard ducked back from the blow so the staff merely brushed the buttons of his uniform. In return he lashed out with a foot to Jack’s groin. Jack deflected the kick into his thigh. Bone-numbing pain sent him staggering backward. His delusion slipped.
The black-clad man gasped and stared at Jack’s dark hair and eyes.
“You want street fighting?” Jack ground out between clenched teeth. “I grew up fighting for scraps in alleys!” Almost recovered, Jack took advantage of the man’s momentary distraction. He stood from his crouch, bringing the staff upright with him.
Right, left, right, and down he struck the guard. Step by step, Jack pushed the tallest man into a narrow passage between two houses. In the shadowed privacy of a hedge he let his fists fly to jaw and gut. He caught his opponent behind the knee with a foot in a blow meant to damage the hamstring.
In moments the fight was over and Jack was running back the way he had come. Running toward the
river district, where he could blend into the crowd and disappear.
As he rounded a corner, he heard the shorter guard gasp, “A magician! He changed his hair and eye color. A dark-eyed magician. He’s the one with the price on his head. After him!”
Jack increased his pace. He elbowed merchants and shoppers aside in his headlong run. His foot caught the support pole of a market booth. Wooden poles and canvas awnings collapsed in the road behind him.
Guards stumbled. Ladies screamed. Men cursed.
Shadows from tall buildings invited Jack. He wrapped the growing darkness around him while he caught his breath. A cough born of mine dust threatened to choke him. He held his breath and melted against a brick wall.
The guards called for other men in black to assist them. A troop of seven stomped down the alley where Jack hid. He willed himself into silent immobility, knowing that color and movement caught the eye. His pursuers passed him by without a glance.
When the city watch turned a corner, Jack drifted away in a new direction. He had three more broad streets to cross before he reached the crowded industrial area. He tried a new delusion. Silver hair, stooped shoulders, a fine green cloak. His staff became a cane to assist his shuffling steps.
None of the agitated citizens looked at him twice. He crossed the first street. Large shops gave way to smaller stores with dwellings atop.
He crossed the second street and caught a glimpse of the marching troop of the city watch, now grown to twelve. He paused to cement the delusion in place.
The dozen men in black turned back onto the same route Jack followed. One man in the lead sniffed right and left, his right arm straight out before him. His nose wrinkled and he tested the air again. “There!” the witch-sniffer cried and pointed. “That old man, he’s a magician.”
“King Simeon has offered a year’s pay for his head. Two years’ pay for each of us if we catch him alive!”
Dragon Novels: Volume I, The Page 91
