The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  Citrine wasn't left alone very often, though. A maid of her very own was assigned to her. This was a complete novelty. At home only Mother had had her own maid, and the women Sapphire had sent to care for Citrine had been more nurses.

  Rillon was a young woman with long black hair and eyes almost as dark. She was very serious about her new duties, and used the dolls to show Citrine the refinements of New Kelvinese attire. Sometimes she'd play tea parties, but not with much imagination or enthusiasm, and so playmates were found for Citrine among the children of the court. Many of these were the Healed One's nieces and nephews.

  It turned out that he had six sisters. They were all away performing official duties, but each one had left at least one child at court. Having been such herself, Citrine knew hostages when she saw them, but that didn't make the New Kelvinese children any less fun to play withùeven if they did talk too fast, sometimes.

  The Healed One had a name, it turned out, not just a title, and that name was Toriovico. Toriovico was quite a long name for a Pellish-trained tongue. Had she not practiced her New Kelvinese with Grateful Peace, Citrine would have found it quite difficult to say. The Healed One told her she could use the short form of his name, which was Torio, but Citrine preferred the longer version. It made her feel quite exotic and entirely New Kelvinese.

  Toriovico seemed like a nice man, even if he did have green hair and things tattooed onto his face. He was a dancer when he wasn't being a king, and invited Citrine to come and watch him practice. She did and then he asked her if she wanted to dance with him. Afterward, he said thoughtfully:

  "You are light on your feet, little Citrine. Would you like to learn to dance as I do? With your coloringùespecially your lovely hairùyou would make a fine autumn leaf."

  Citrine was quite excited by this. New Kelvinese dancing was very different from the measured court dances that she had been learning in Hawk Haven. It told stories. To be a leaf she had to learn to be light on her feetùto skitter in tiny motions like a leaf before the wind. She had to learn to sway and to drift softly to the ground.

  It wasn't easy and the practices were harder work than anything else she had ever done before. However, she threw herself into them. They let her forget the thing she couldn't bear.

  Her mother still had no time for her.

  Every day Citrine would see Melina at least once, sometimes at breakfast, sometimes at lunch, sometimes looking in at her when the assistant Choreographer gave his little charges a rest. One of her proudest times came when she heard the Choreographer telling her mother:

  "She is light on her feet, this little gem, and very strong for her age."

  Citrine knew that learning she possessed strength would surprise Consolor Melina. Before the journey from Hawk Haven Citrine hadn't been very strong at all, but posing as Jalarios's son had meant that she must lead horses and carry bundles and haul waterùany number of undignified things that a young lady of an almost noble household wouldn't ever do.

  Melina hadn't shown any surprise at all, just haughty satisfaction. She'd smiled at Citrine, though, and it was all the girl could do not to run over and hug her tight.

  But this was one of the many things she had been told she must never do.

  "Public displays of affection between us must be eliminated," Melina had explained that first night, "unless my husband is with us. I will not have anyone thinking that I am less than loyal to my new alliances. It would not do."

  So Citrine didn't, and felt all the lonelier for having her mother so near but still unapproachable. The hostage children were fun and Toriovico was very nice to her, but she had run away from Elise and Derian and Firekeeper because she wanted to be with her mother. Now it seemed that even here she could not be.

  Citrine took to stealing out of her room at night and going to where her mother's suite was. Many nights, Mother wasn't there. At first Citrine thought that she was sleeping with Toriovico, but then, overcome with loneliness and something like jealousy she crept from shadow to shadow until she came to the conjugal suite.

  No one was awake because the Cloud Touching Spire was guarded from downstairs and outside. Anyhow, everyone inside was trusted. Citrine slipped from room to room, until she came to the royal bedchamber.

  Knowing what she was doing was forbidden, Citrine pushed open the door. A small lantern, its wick turned down very low, burned on one of the bedside tables. It didn't give much light, but it was enough for her to see that Toriovico slept alone.

  Where then did Mother go at night when her own bed was empty?

  Wanting to know, but desperately afraid of what she would learn if she did know, Citrine forgot caution and fled to her own bed, terrified that she would find Melina standing by it, terrible anger burning in her eyes.

  Her bedroom was empty, but Citrine, plagued by fears she couldn't even focus, much less put a name to, slept no more that night.

  DERIAN WAS AWARE of Doc's relief when the knock on the door sounded. For several days now, business had been tapering off. First there had been fewer new patients. Now even those who should have returned for follow-up visits were not doing so.

  It didn't help that Ambassador Redbriar had sent word that Xarxius was away from Dragon's Breath, although the Dragon's Claw was expected to return shortly. She had offered to send a copy of their letter requesting Citrine's return to someone else in Apheros's organization, but they had decided against this. One letter might already be one too many.

  Ambassador Redbriar had also sent word that she had learned nothing at all about the whereabouts of either Edlin or their "New Kelvinese servant, Jalarios." This last, combined with the fact that although Bee Biter and his winged-folk allies had spotted Citrine a few times, nothing had been seen of either of the men, added to everyone's anxiety for them.

  And for Doc worse than for the rest of us, Derian thought, since Edlin's close kin. Now more than ever Doc could use the distraction of patients.

  Rather than waiting for Wendee to answer the door as would have been the case a few days earlier, Doc dropped his cards on the table and shoved his chair back.

  "I'll get it," he said, rather unnecessarily, for he was already out of the kitchen and heading toward the front door.

  Derian followed, more out of idleness than for any other reason. Their small company didn't require what Doc earned through his practice, but the activity had been a constant backdrop to their New Kelvinese residenceùits absence had accented the tension they all felt.

  "May I speak with Sir Jared?" asked an unfamiliar male voice.

  "I am he," Doc replied.

  Derian could hear the smile in his voice. The New Kelvinese were rarely prepared for Doc's informality. No wonder this caller didn't believe that the great healer himself had answered the door.

  Derian expected to hear a further exchange along this line. Instead, the caller said:

  "My mother is very ill. Could you come out to see her? Our home is not far."

  Derian frowned, biting his lower lip. Something wasn't quite right here. He struggled to place the incongruity even as Doc replied:

  "Certainly. Let me get my bag."

  As Doc, the abstracted air he always acquired when contemplating a new challenge not quite banishing his expression of pleasure, crossed from the front door to get his bag from the consulting room, Derian placed what was out of order.

  The caller had spoken Pellish. Moreover, he had said he didn't live far away. Hasamemorri's house was in a very working-class neighborhood, not at all the type where diplomats who might have learned Pellish would reside.

  "Doc," Derian said, keeping his voice low and rushing after the physician. "Something's not right here."

  Rapidly, he explained his conjectures. Doc nodded as he listened, but more of his attention seemed fixed on which herbal preparations he should place in his bag.

  "He didn't say what was wrong with his mother," Doc said, his tone half agreement. "Go ask him for me. Heart? Stomach? A recent injury? I wish Elise was h
ere. She could ask him in his own language. The fellow may not have the Pellish."

  Elise, however, had gone out with Firekeeper, partly in an effort to pick up rumors, partly to distract the still guilt-ridden and consequently less than even-tempered wolf-woman.

  Derian hid his frustration and headed for the door. At least this way he'd get a look at their caller.

  He reopened the door to find a hulking fellow on the doorstep. His first thought was that the man looked as if his mother had been a bear rather than someone delicate enough to need a healer. His second thought was that the man looked vaguely familiar.

  In the time they had been in New Kelvin, Derian had begun to learn to look beyond the omnipresent facial decorations to the features behind them. Indeed, he was coming to suspect that he saw more of the original face than might a New Kelvinese. Their caller's features were weathered; moreover, even the thick orange and yellows lines he'd drawn around eyes and mouth couldn't hide that recently he'd been exposed to great heat.

  One of Derian's more regular girlfriends had been a baker's daughter. He'd seen similar coloring on the baker's face near festival times when the demand for some special delicacy meant he spent more time than usual peering into the ovens.

  "Doc wants to know," Derian said, deliberately making his Pellish more colloquial than he usually would, "what's wrong with your mother. So he can pack the right things, you see."

  Their caller didn't hesitate.

  "It is her heart," he said. "She is not young and the summer has been difficult for her."

  Derian nodded. "We'll be just a moment."

  He returned to Doc.

  "The man says heart," he reported. "And he understands Pellish like a native, and I think I've seen him somewhere before. I'm going with you."

  "He could have worked on the river near Gateway or Zodara," Doc protested mildly, taking some items out of his bag and replacing them with others. "But come along if you'd like."

  Derian darted back into the kitchen to tell Wendee that he was escorting Doc on a call. On his way out the door, he snatched up his weighted walking stick from the stand, then hurried after Doc. Their caller was hurrying Sir Jared toward Aswatano. Again Derian frowned. That wasn't a residential section at allùand even if Doc had done so, Derian hadn't forgotten Ambassador Redbriar's warnings about unrest or the attacks on the embassy.

  Yet even though Derian was certain something was distinctly wrong, he didn't vocalize his thoughts. As long as there was a patient who might need his help, Doc would only find some excuse to continue. Now more than ever, Derian didn't want their unnamed caller to be aware of his concerns.

  As the two Hawk Havenese entered the marketplace, Derian was acutely aware of the angry looks and ugly gestures directed their way. Even Doc noticed them and gripped his bag more firmly. Indeed, the only person who didn't appear to notice was their guide.

  Instead, the guide slowed and turned toward the market, gesturing at the stalls. As he spoke, he began talking rather loudlyùand this time he spoke New Kelvinese.

  "Slaves?" he said, as if responding to a question Doc had asked. "This is not the market for slaves."

  Doc, of course, understood only a fraction of what had been said, and the key term "slave" had not been among the basic vocabulary Peace had thought necessary for his charges to learn.

  Doc's response didn't make matters any better.

  "What about your mother?" he said, in Pellish, only knowing that his guide had slowed and was waving his arm.

  Derian doubted that anyone understood what Jared had saidùand even if they had, his words were certain to be misunderstood. What the market-goers would have seen was the foreigner urgently questioning the man who had just told him this wasn't a slave market.

  Recalling the rumors that had reached New Kelvin about Melina's practicesùsay the one about feeding spiders on human bloodùDerian wondered for the first time what stories might be being told about the Consolor among her new subjects. The New Kelvinese might be magic crazy, but he'd never heard of them being particularly cruel. The same stories should be equally repulsive to them.

  "I tell you," their "guide" said in New Kelvinese, "I know nothing about where you can get these people."

  Doc turned away in disgust, obviously seeking Derian and finding instead an angry man holding a cleaver. He might even have been the same butcher with whom Derian and Wendee had tangled on an earlier visit to the market.

  "So you want slaves, Hawkus," the butcher said in New Kelvinese. "It is true then that your people are hypocrites who long to break your own rules."

  He might have said more, but Doc, understanding only the bastardized "Hawkus," interrupted eagerly:

  "Yes, I'm from Hawk Haven. This man told me his mother was ill and asked me to treat her. I'm a doctor."

  At this juncture an anonymous voice called out in New Kelvinese, "Don't believe him. He wants slaves to drain for his barbaric rituals. He's the man who claims he can heal with a touch."

  Some of the increasingly restive crowd looked at Doc with surprised respect, but the majority looked even more infuriated. Derian had learned enough of New Kelvinese theories of magic during their last venture to realize that Doc's talent would seem impossibly easy to these people. Their magic was vested in elaborate ritualsùnot in a simple internal gift.

  "Doc!" Derian called out. "It's a setup of some sort. Get back to the house."

  At almost the same moment their guide, perhaps trusting that Doc would not have understood what he had said in New Kelvinese, cried out in Pellish:

  "Sir Jared, this way! That butcher means you harm."

  "Doc, no!" Derian began, but quickly realized he had problems of his own. Perhaps his height and distinctively bright hair color had caused him to blend into the motley throng more easily than the obviously foreign Jared. Perhaps his silence had protected him, but now many of those nearest to him were raising threatening fists or fumbling for makeshift weapons.

  Various shouts of "Murderers!" or "Baby stealers" inflamed the crowd further. Rational thought had clearly gone by the wayside.

  Derian started backing, hoping to get a wall or something else solid behind him. He was glad that he had seized up his walking stick on the way out the door, very sorry that Firekeeper and Blind Seer were not with them. In the press he could no longer see Doc and he had to hope that the other man's soldier's training was coming to his aid.

  The world had become a muddle of brightly colored faces. The air reeked of sweat and grease and overwhelmingly of spices.

  Derian glanced quickly behind him. He had backed against a stall selling a variety of dried herbs, certainly the same one where he and Wendee had shopped. He wasn't carrying the powder Wendee had bought for them both that other day, but he thought he recognized it among the neat open bags set on display.

  Wildly, he grabbed a handful of the powder, feeling it burn against his skin on contact with his sweat. He flung the spice into the faces of those nearest to him, his own eyes burning as some blew back at him.

  The spice vendor was shrieking insults at those who threatened to overturn her livelihood, so violent in her imprecations that they stepped back as if her curses had real force.

  Derian took advantage of the distraction to duck around the edge of the spice vendor's booth and into some more open space. As he ran he glanced around for Doc, but the other man was nowhere to be seen.

  Knowing it was futile, Derian shouted, "Firekeeper! Elise! Doc! Wendee!"

  No welcome howlùor even human shoutùanswered his cry, only voices raised in New Kelvinese shouting things like: "There he goes!" "He was seeking a baby to butcher!" "He's a foreigner, just like the bride!"

  Melina sure has made herself popular, Derian thought wildly.

  A fist caught him in the ribs, missing his kidneys by a finger's width. Derian swung without aiming and felt his stick hit solidly. His flash of satisfaction ebbed as quickly as it had risen, for the man's yelp of pain seemed to signal the others to close
in. The only good thing was that they were getting in each other's way and so Derian was able to jam himself into the angle between two walls. These kept him from getting trampled, but also imprisoned him. Derian was big enough to make a pretty good target and blow after blow found its mark.

  The beating might not be systematic enough to do a lot of damage, but it hurt. Derian found himself concentrating on nothing more than hitting back and shielding himself from the worst of the blows. Escape no longer seemed an option. He only wondered if they'd be content to knock him unconscious or if they'd only be satisfied with killing him. A vague certainty that the latter was likely kept him from feigning unconsciousness.

  Unconsciousness was precariously close when Derian became aware of a brassy trumpet call followed by someone shouting commands from what seemed like a vast distance. Moments later, he realized that there were fewer people hitting himùand fewer close enough for him to hit. He sagged against the wall, stick held defensively, grateful that his parents had insisted he have arms training.

  There was blood on the cobbled ground and Derian felt pretty certain it wasn't all his own. His head throbbed when he turned to look for the source of the now dominant commands.

  A contingent of the city guard was quelling the riot, for once the brawl had begun several of the stall holders had entered the fray, seeking to protect their property. Derian recognized the spice vendor speaking in rapid fury to someone whoùif the number of feathers in his helmet was any indicationùwas probably in charge.

  I hope I don't go to prison for shoplifting, Derian thought, and in the sudden exhaustion that flooded him the idea seemed very funny.

  Laughter tortured his battered ribs so that he collapsed to his knees, still gasping and wheezing. A pair of strong hands raised him up.