The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  Melina nodded muted approval, her mind racing. Truly there was no time for delay. The full dark of the moon wouldn't be for another four days, but she did not think she could afford to wait for that most propitious time.

  Kiero was standing, his posture that of perfect servile waiting but his eyes alive with interest. Melina made up her mind quickly.

  "Keep the watch as before. If any of them attempt to do more than show interest in the fountain, find a way to stop them. Stop short of violence if you can, but do not hesitate if that is the only way you can stop them. Do you have someone under you who is skilled in research, especially research into the work done in the time of the Restorer?"

  Kiero looked surprised, but nodded.

  "I have one who is well acquainted with the city archives. I am certain she could find what you seek."

  "Very well, have her find any and all plans for the area surrounding Aswatano, including the Fountain Court itself. I want maps of the street layouts and of any sewers or tunnels beneath the area. Inspect these maps yourself before bringing information to me. If there is any other way that the Fountain Court could be reached, set impediments at those points."

  "Impediments? Could your gracious self clarify?"

  Melina nodded a trifle impatiently.

  "I don't want the foreigners to have access to Aswatano from either above or below ground. Be subtle. If locks and alarms will do the job, then use them. If they won't, use guards, but have them remain out of sight. Set a roving patrol to check each point on a regular basis."

  Now Kiero looked alarmed.

  "I am not certain that I have enough agents to do all of this."

  Melina frowned, then made up her mind.

  "I will send you reinforcements. Whoever brings them to you will have a password so that you will know they are from me."

  Kiero looked as much interested as relieved at this information and Melina knew he was wondering just how much she had at her command that he had not managed to learn about.

  You would be surprised, she thought. But take comfort. You would be less surprised than most.

  Kiero departed, promising that he would regularly leave messages regarding his location with the clerks at the Petitioner's Gate.

  "Report on your progress," Melina said, "only in person and only to me. If you cannot locate me, act according to your best judgment. Under no conditions should you create a fuss if Tipi cannot locate me for you. I may have business about with which I do not entrust her."

  Or you, she thought, seeing Kiero trying to mask his curiosity.

  "Have no concern," Melina said to him by way of reassurance. "You will know more than any other as soon as I have confirmed that certain arrangements are in place."

  This soothed the spy, reaffirming the sense of self-importance that had been growing since he had ingratiated himself into her service.

  After Kiero left, Melina dealt with a long line of petitioners. Most of these were concerned with the outcome of Xarxius's trial and its possible implications for Apheros's government. She dealt with these as swiftly as possible, reminding them that the house of the Healed One did not meddle in matters of the Primes.

  This satisfied those who were looking for reassurance that Xarxius's preservation was not meant to sustain Apheros's government and puzzled those who had noticed her interest in the Primes. Melina did not care as long as they left her alone.

  Some hours into this process, a packet arrived from Kiero. It included the maps she had requested and a note that for all its businesslike tone couldn't quite hide the writer's pleasure in his own cleverness and efficiency:

  Consolor Melina,

  My researcher was as excellent as I expected her to be. At my behest, she produced the maps you requested. She also used her connections at the Sodality of Illuminators to inspect their archive of city maps.

  Aswatano proves to be approachable from numerous points above ground, a thing unsurprising as it is the major market square for that district. However, the Fountain Court is only reachable underground from three channels, two of which are really sections of the same thing. The enclosed maps will assist you, but as they were rather quickly drawn, let me offer some clarification.

  Beneath the Fountain Court the maps show a series of interconnected chambers, doubtless associated with maintenance of the fountain itself.

  Melina looked at the map, which showed an extensive network of subterranean chambers. She recalled her earlier discussion with Kiero and smiled dryly.

  Doubtless, she thought.

  These are accessible from an opening located within the body of the sculpture that is central to the fountain. The other entry points appear to

  be portions of natural conduits for carrying away excess water. The roughly northern segment originates beneath the Earth Spires. The southern segment is a continuation of this, picking up where the waters leave the Aswatano chambers and, carrying them to join up with the conduits that eventually end in the river.

  The segment that originates beneath the Earth Spires does not connect above ground at any point until Aswatano. The southern segment, however, could be entered at numerous points. I will be using the bulk of the additional agents you will be entrusting to me to guard these entrances.

  I have not entered the chambers beneath Aswatano and will not without your express command.

  And how you want that command, Melina thought with cynical amusement, but I do not think I will give itùat least not yet.

  Kiero's note intensified Melina's feeling of urgency. When early evening brought an end to her stream of callers, she fled to her private suite. Tipi was there, trying to look busy.

  "I must go out," Melina told the slave, "alone. Tell those who seek me that I am meditating. Give them to believe that I am within my chambers. If any press, tell them I went for a walk among the spires and you have no idea where."

  Tipi looked interested, but Melina's tone told her this was not the time to pry.

  "Shall I tell the same to the Healed One and little Citrine?"

  "Tell the same to the Healed One," Melina replied. "If Citrine comes looking for me reassure her that I will be back, though perhaps not until late. Tell her to eat her supper and get her rest. I will come to her."

  Melina spoke with such force that she knew her assurance would be communicated to Citrine. It was very important that the girl wait. Very.

  She paused only long enough to change from the ornamented robes she had worn to the conclusion of the trial and to gather certain essential items in a sturdy bag. Then, using back stairs and little-used corridors, she made her way to the storage room and from there to the tunnels beneath Thendulla Lypella.

  The bag was heavy, and Melina wasn't accustomed to using the tunnels when the business of daily life was still under way. Several times she was forced to damp her lantern, drop into a shadowed corner, and wait while some servant went by, but as her course took her farther from the more populated areas the only footsteps she heard were in her imagination.

  First Melina sought out Idalia. Idalia's mood was an odd mixture of defiance and groveling, from which Melina deduced that the other woman's husband and children had been trying to influence herùand were having an effect. That changed Melina's plans slightly. She had been about to order Idalia to choose a dozen or so of the most trustworthy slaves and put themùwith herself in commandùat Kiero's disposal.

  Now she saw a way not to risk her valuable property and to make Idalia's no-good family pay for their attempted treachery. Of course she didn't present it this way to Idalia.

  "I have seen portents that your brother, Grateful Peace, means to act against me," Melina began. "We must take precautions. I want you and Varcasiol to stay here and supervise the slaves. Your husband and other children can each take three trustworthy slaves and put themselves at the disposal of my surface agent, Kiero."

  For a moment, Idalia's conflicting loyalties were visible on her pinched features, but her allegiance to Melina and hatred of
Grateful Peace won out.

  Melina turned to Pichero, Idalia's husband.

  "The slaves are quite valuable to me," she said, acidly sweet, "and so I must request receipts for them. Do include their names and a brief description. If you return them all safely, I shall show my gratitude by gifting one of each group to you."

  This bit of largesse on her part would be expensive, but it would assure loyalty. Idalia's family was not wealthy or Idalia would never have had to turn to her brother's patronage for Kistlio's advancement. Melina's promised gift would also assure that the best slaves were chosen for the task at handùand that they were all returned. New Kelvinese law extracted rather stiff penalties for slave stealing.

  Idalia's older daughter, the one who had been least happy about relocating to these subterranean reaches, was quickest to realize both the benefits and problems of this arrangement.

  "Will the gracious lady tell us to what purpose this Kiero will be turning the slaves? So we might choose the most appropriate ones," she added hastily in reply to Melina's haughty glower.

  "As watchers and possibly guards," Melina replied. "Choose for physical well-being, intelligence, and initiativeùbut not too much initiative."

  The young woman nodded, drumming two fingers against her collarbone as she reviewed possibilities.

  Melina had Idalia dismiss her family members to their new duties, then drew the other woman aside.

  "You must remain alert," Melina said, looking deeply into Idalia's eyes and fixing her with her own will. "Grateful Peace now knows of this refuge and may invade it with the power of his allies behind him. I must go forth to battle his treachery, but I trust you to hold this place and my slaves for me."

  Idalia's eyes shone with fanatical determination when Melina broke the contact, and Melina felt sure that she would defend Melina's interests no matter what her husband or children might say.

  Leaving Idalia and the subterranean colony, Melina made her way to a cavern she had found during her searches for the Dragon of Despair. Although the final rituals must be done in the presence of the dragon, her researches suggested that the initial segments could be performed at a distance.

  The cavern Melina had chosen for these preparatory rituals was an elegant place, egg-shaped and honeycombed with millions of tiny bubbles frozen within the black rock. It was in just such a place she had thought to find the dragon and therefore very appropriate for shaping her mind for its binding.

  Steam rose from the crevice through which the cavern was entered, a momentary scorching immersion that made Melina feel cleansed each time she made the passage. The closeness of the cavernùit was hardly wider than Melina herself was when she was lying downùintensified the sensation of entering an earth womb. However, air entered along with the steam and the lot recirculated through a narrow slit at the apex of the egg, so the closeness never became smothering.

  Even better than the natural sculpture of the cavern were signs and sigils still partially readable where they had been painted on the rock long ago. Not enough remained for Melina to understand their former meaning, but knowing that she had located a place once selected by the Founders themselves made her tremble with proud ecstasy. She even hung her lantern from a hook one of the Founders had set within the apex of the cavern's ceiling, feeling a kinship with those long-ago sorcerers each time she did so.

  From her first interest in magic, when she had been hardly more than a child, Melina had always worked little rituals to intensify her personal powers. Dances in isolated moonlit groves or the deliberate shaping in beeswax of the forms of those she wished to control were two of her favorites. These personal rites helped Melina focus her abilities, to drown any uncertainty she might feel.

  She had continued these practices after her arrival in New Kelvin, gradually incorporating motions and incantations she learned from her readings and from the various ritual celebrations doting Toriovico had arranged for his new bride to observe. Tonight, however, was the first time Melina was going to attempt a wholly New Kelvinese ritual.

  For a brief moment, as she bent to remove certain items from the bag she had carried with her, Melina felt afraid, all the fear of magical power and its abuses that had been ingrained into her from her infancy rising and clamoring their protests. This, her infant heart seemed to cry, is real magic, not the playing around you have attempted so far. This is the forbidden.

  Melina shook those protests from herself with a single angry gesture. Was the magic of New Kelvin more real than that which she had evolved for herself? She could notùwould notùbelieve that. From what she had observed, she was three times the sorceress of any of these New Kelvinese who claimed such grand traditions.

  Then why bother with their rituals at all? the doubt within her teased. Perhaps their sorcery is as much sham as are their sorcerers.

  "Because," Melina defiantly answered that inner debate, "it is I who will use their lore. I have the power that they do not."

  Moving swiftly but with every motion careful and calculated, Melina dropped her robe to bare her upper body to the waist, then removed the day's paints. Using a small hand mirror whose surface must be frequently wiped when steam clouded it, she adorned the empty canvas of her face and upper body with a series of potent symbols.

  Next Melina exchanged her day robe for one of tightly woven fiery red silk, embroidered in gold thread with signs for earth and fire. Matching slippers went onto her feet.

  Melina combed out the silver blond of her hair and rebraided it with a chain of gold strung with rubies. She then draped around each wrist bracelets from which hung dozens of charms, each promising its own protection or power. A thin girdle from which depended a pair of stylized but perfectly functional knivesùone with a ruby in the hilt, the other with a dragon's-eye opalùlooped loosely about her waist.

  A heavy, enameled breast pectoral shaped like a dragon with its wings outspread was her last adornment. This had belongedùso they saidùto the Star Wizard and usually resided in the Dragon Speaker's treasury. Melina had permitted Apheros to offer her a long-term loan.

  Melina wished she could see herself in all her finery but settled for remembering how the ensemble had looked when she had tried it on before the long mirror in her rooms. She knew she looked impressive, draped in wealth to attract the dragon's greed and wrapped in powerful charms to contain its ability to harm her.

  She didn't allow herself to wonder if the carefully constructed costume would work as planned, but set about placing on points carefully coordinated with the directions nine items she had collected in accordance with her research. Each was meant to distract and bribe the dragon, to focus its greed so that it would not resist the binding she would lay upon it. They were beautiful things, constructed in secrecy to her precise order.

  To the eye the Nine were vases and weapons, boxes shaped like strange creatures, and elegant jewelry. The hand, however, would find their weight wrong, their balance strange, for in reality they were facsimiles of the things they represented. Each was carved of scented wood impregnated with rare oils. The metal was a delicate tissue overlay, the "gems" cunning replicas made from resins and pastes.

  Nodding with almost housewifely approval as she reviewed the collection, Melina began her first recitation, the invocation to awaken the dragon. The invocation was long, but nothing in Melina's research had said that she could not read this piece, rather than recite it from memory as with so many of the others, so Melina read, paying particular attention to stress and cadence, giving the words their antique pronunciation wherever she could.

  Melina was about to move to the second part of the ritual, an incantation that reminded her of some of the things she said to those she wished to impose her will upon, when she heard the sound of rocks rattling against each other from the other side of the steamy barrier that cloaked the entrance to the egg-shaped cavern.

  Melina froze, for a moment as frightened as if she'd been caught doing something forbidden by the late duchess her mother. Then she
remembered where and who she was. She stiffened and snapped out:

  "Who is there? Come forth and show yourself!"

  Such perfect silence followed that Melina could almost believe she had been mistaken, but she knew she had not. Reaching up, she removed the lantern from its hook and stepped through the steaming veil.

  Immediately, her light fell upon the spy and for a long moment they frozeùone in fear, the other in purest astonishment.

  Chapter XXXVIII

  AWAKEN, WOLFLING! This is no time for sleep. Melina comes for me, even now."

  Firekeeper knew she was asleep but, resigned to the dragon's invasion of her dreams, replied as if she were not: "How do you know?" "I hear her will untwining the bars that hold me. Do you think I would not know?"

  Firekeeper really had no way to judge what the dragon would or would not know. However, in all the host of annoying dreams the dragon had thrust upon her, it had never told her anything like this. "Where are you?"

  "Where your friends have guessed, beneath Aswatano." Firekeeper had gone with Peace and Derian when they ventured out to investigate the statue that adorned the Fountain Court. Her task had been to keep watch for any indication that the merchants and their customers had seen through the disguises Peace had constructed for them. She had remained alert, but felt her alertness wasted, for not only did no one give the three of them even a passing glance, the dragon had given her no hint that they were near its prison.

  "Why didn't you tell me where you were before this? It would have been useful to know."

  "I only learned the name of the place today when you explored with the others and I sensed your closeness."

  "I have been to the Fountain Court before. Why did you never sense me then?"

  "Perhaps I did. Perhaps I did not. Perhaps your focusing so on me forged a connection that had not existed before."

  "Why didn't you say something to me this afternoon?" Firekeeper persisted, piqued.