I’m not so sure about that. Sardelle eyed the drab building as Tolemek led her around another corner. How is Ridge?
Pining in your absence.
Sardelle snorted. I meant how is the camp? No trouble since they moved the fliers?
Your virile lover has woken his troops to perform physical exercises. When you return, his chest will be as hard and muscular as ever. You would be a fool not to come back to him.
So in summary, your answer is, no, there’s no trouble at camp.
Correct. In my spare time, I have been reading your pilfered library book.
That book was borrowed. Sardelle followed Tolemek around yet another tower, and he pointed at what must be the kitchen door he had mentioned. She had better end this conversation so she could concentrate.
Yes, much like Lieutenant Duck’s horses. Strange how the definitions of words have changed over the centuries. I believe I’ve selected three possible organizations that might be troubling you.
Oh?
The Alabaster Motherhood has been watching out for soldiers for several hundred years. Perhaps some wizened mother or grandmother is irritated by your influence on Ridge.
Sardelle thought of the officer next door and his nosy grandmother. It was hard to imagine that woman as more than an innocent gossip. And the other two?
Tolemek stopped in front of the door and slipped a vial out of his bag, unfastening an eye-dropper lid.
The Heartwood Sisterhood was founded over a millennium ago to protect innocent young men from the nefarious advances of female dragons.
Oh, please. As if that was ever a big problem.
Tolemek dabbed something into the door lock. Smoke wafted out. Sardelle could have simply opened the lock, but Jaxi had her distracted. Always better to empower men than make them feel unneeded anyway, right?
Apparently a lot of men went on quests, hoping to find dragon lovers and leaving suitable young women back in their villages. A lot of those men found dragons who liked to toast humans like skewers of meat on the fire. This left a lot of eligible women who couldn’t find men to marry. It also left a shortage of men to plant and harvest the crops. Those dragons, such rabble-rousers.
Jaxi, are you teasing me about this group?
Not at all. They’re the seventh entry in the book. I’m just summarizing what’s there.
You mean the part about toasting humans like skewers of meat isn’t actually in the text?
That’s part of my summary.
Tolemek turned the knob and eased the door open. He listened, then stepped inside, holding it for Sardelle. Clanks and thuds came from the front of the kitchen, but nothing except counters, oversized stew pots, and iceboxes was visible. He and Sardelle weaved past crates of potatoes, apples, and onions, as Tolemek headed away from the noise and voices up front. He found another door and escaped into the hallway without being noticed—until he turned and smacked into someone who had been about to enter the kitchen.
“Who—” the man got out before Tolemek rammed his palm into his nose.
The person flew backward, his shoulder slamming into the wall. Tolemek followed him, producing a rag from somewhere and pressing it to the man’s nose. He flailed, trying to punch Tolemek, but the blows soon grew weak and ineffective. A few seconds later, the man’s eyes rolled back into his head, and he slumped down like a rag doll. Tolemek caught him and removed a key ring Sardelle hadn’t noticed from the man’s waist—there were also a pistol and handcuffs there. Tolemek dragged the inert man down the hall, past three doors, then opened a fourth. A broom closet.
“I get the feeling you’ve broken into a lot of places in your life,” Sardelle whispered.
“A few. I’ve also broken in here before.”
Tolemek handcuffed the guard’s wrist and looked around the closet for something secure to attach him to. Unfortunately, there weren’t any pipes or rods or the like. He settled for chaining the poor fellow to the mop bucket. He waved to acknowledge the uselessness of the choice and said, “He sucked in enough of my inhalant that he should be unconscious for the next half hour.”
Sardelle jammed the locking mechanism after they shut the door and walked away. It might buy them a little more time. Just in case collecting the sister wasn’t a matter of a simple in-and-out. “You haven’t told me your sister’s name,” she realized as they climbed stairs to the second level.
“Tylie.” He stopped on the landing to listen and look in both directions. The slender windows on either end did not let in much light. A few oil lamps guttered on the walls, soot staining the old stone above each one. Only every third was lit. The rooms were close together up here, with unadorned solid oak doors every few feet. Each had a number hanging on it, but nothing else to identify the occupants.
By now, people ought to be up and about, doing morning ablutions and lining up for breakfast. Aside from the guard, they hadn’t seen anyone in the halls. Maybe they served breakfast in bed here. Or breakfast locked behind one’s cell door, anyway.
Tolemek trod softly down the hall, his lock-melting vial of goo in hand. A long-suffering moan came from behind one door, and Sardelle paused and touched her fingers to the wood. With her senses, she could tell the person was a confused forlorn man sitting in a corner, his legs pulled to his chest as he rocked back and forth. His mind seemed disturbed by more than his condition, and she thought some drug or another might account for the hazy thoughts.
A notion of setting all of these people free strode through her mind. But what good would that do? They wouldn’t be able to escape or fend for themselves, not in this state, and she could scarcely set up a healer’s tent at the base of the hill.
You can’t help everyone.
I know. Still, Sardelle wondered if she might do some good in the half hour they had until that guard woke up.
You better help pirate boy, first. And you haven’t asked me about the third organization that might have been responsible for blowing up the archives basement. It’s even better than the last.
Does “better” mean more ridiculous sounding?
You know me well.
Tolemek stopped at the last door on the right and bent over the lock. Jaxi continued on as Sardelle walked toward him.
The Davaran Trinity, founded by three witches, swore to keep magic a secret through the centuries, knowing outsiders would fear them. They might be targeting you because you’re openly striding around the city on a soldier’s arm instead of hunkering in a thatched hut in the woods and tossing frog eyes and leeches into cauldrons.
The Davaran Trinity? Sardelle joined Tolemek in front of the door, where smoke was wafting from the lock. That name sounds familiar.
Yes, because none of the so-called witches in it had an iota of dragon blood in their veins. They thought they did and made all sorts of potions to inflict evils on people. Crazies like them are part of the reason there are so many unflattering images of sorcerers in people’s minds.
Are you sure these were the most likely organizations in the book and not the least likely?
They were the only organizations started and made up of women. Only the Davaran Trinity is still rumored to be in existence today, or at least when that book was published. Fifty years ago, according to the creation date.
Just because we’ve only seen women doesn’t mean they’re not part of an organization that recruits both sexes, Sardelle pointed out.
Most of the other entities mentioned were brotherhoods or otherwise male-only orders. It seems men and women can’t create secret organizations for clandestine purposes in unison.
We’ll figure it out later.
Sardelle touched the door in front of them. “Are you sure this is the right room?”
“No,” Tolemek said. “This is where she was last time, but it’s been years since my visit—they forbade me to return after the last time, when I broke her out and stole her away to cure her… only to realize that wasn’t within my powers.” He scowled at the door, his fingers curling in
to a fist.
“I don’t sense anyone inside.”
Tolemek nodded, as if he had expected as much. “We’ll have to sneak into the file room and look up her room number.”
Sardelle wasn’t aware that she made a strange face, but she must have, because he asked, “What?”
“I have a recent and awkward history with file rooms.” She had been thinking about her attempt to convince Ridge, then Fort Commander Zirkander, that she was a legitimate prisoner in that awful mine, but Tolemek gave her a grave nod.
“I heard about the explosion in the archives building. If you need research done at a further point, you can ask me, and I’ll do it for you.” His expression grew wry. “My reputation may fade with time, but for now, it’s quite effective at convincing people to leave me alone.”
The offer surprised Sardelle, but she managed a, “Thank you,” before he pushed open the door.
It revealed a dark room that smelled of paint, fresh paint. Odd. Had they moved the occupant, then painted the walls for some reason?
“You’re right. There’s nobody here.” Tolemek sighed. The tiny arrow-slit window faced north, and it was too dim inside the room to see much.
A clatter sounded back in the direction of the stairs. “Careful, Moshi, you’ll spill eggs all over me.”
“Because you were in my way. Mind your own platter, you big oaf.”
“Inside,” Tolemek whispered, stepping through the doorway.
Sardelle entered after him. Something clanked, tipping onto the floor, and Tolemek grunted. Sardelle rushed to close the door, afraid the sound would have traveled down the hallway. She hoped the guards would think it had come from one of the other rooms.
“What are these?” Tolemek grumbled. “Paint cans?”
Sardelle created a soft orange ball of light that shouldn’t shine too brightly to be seen from the hallway. She gasped in surprise at what it revealed. When she had been imagining a freshly painted room, she had assumed it would be of the same boring milky gray that adorned the stone walls in the hallway. But this…
Mouth agape, she turned slow circles, taking in the colorful fields, skies, lakes, mountains, and dragons painted all over the walls, ceiling, and even the floor. There must have been twenty dragons flying, striding, or swimming in the various scenes, all silver, all similar in features: the long tail, powerful torso, four legs with clawed reptilian feet, and wings familiar from cave paintings and illustrations of old, the figures magnificent even in the two dimensional form.
As beautiful as they were, something about seeing them here, now when Ridge had this mission to search for dragon blood, made an uneasy chill run up Sardelle’s spine. The two quests were unrelated—the king shouldn’t even know about Tolemek’s sister—so they couldn’t have anything in common, but it struck her as strange, nonetheless.
People have been painting dragons for centuries.
I know.
At least we can be sure the girl isn’t a member of the Heartwood Sisterhood. All the dragons would have spears through their hearts.
Thank you, Jaxi. You’re very helpful. Sardelle touched one of the paintings, where the great dragon seemed to be gazing out of the landscape and into her soul. “This is incredible. I wouldn’t have expected her—anyone in this privy hole—to have access to paints.” She looked at Tolemek, wondering if he had known this artwork was here or not.
He was scowling down at the paint cans. “My father isn’t a complete bear. He sent her paints and books. She always liked art.”
“Was she always this—” the word that came to mind was obsessed, but Sardelle changed it mid-sentence, “interested in dragons?”
“Not as a little girl, but in her teenage years, yes. She had painted a couple of these the last time I was here.”
Sardelle tore her gaze from that of the dragon. Tolemek was still staring at the paint cans. She sniffed, wondering if they were the source of the fresh paint she had smelled, but they didn’t appear to have been opened yet.
“She’s gone,” Tolemek said numbly.
“Yes, but we can check the file room, and find out where they moved her. As you said.”
He was shaking his head before she finished speaking. “She didn’t get moved to another room. She was taken away. Why else would they be up here, preparing to paint over the murals? They probably just took her.”
“You can’t know for sure that they didn’t move her to another room for some… administrative purpose.” That sounded pathetic even as she said it. Obviously, his sister had been in the same room, one chosen with their father’s approval, for years, for long enough to paint all of this. Why, indeed, would she be switched to another room after years in this one? “You believe they knew you were coming somehow?”
“Why else would she have been moved? Hidden?”
“I don’t know, but maybe we should check that file room before making assumptions.”
Tolemek stared at her for a moment, then nodded. “Yes.”
He stepped over the paint cans and strode for the door, but stopped before his hand reached the knob. As with the rest of the room, the oak was covered in vibrant color. Tolemek was staring at… an image of himself. In the picture, he was clad in the sleeveless hide vest, shark tooth necklace, and spiky bracers he’d worn the first time Sardelle saw him, and the black ropes of hair hung about his face as they did now. A landscape unique to the door lay behind him, a dense tangle of jungle foliage such as one might find in Southern Cofahre or on the islands around the equator, perhaps even on Daguboor, the big continent in the Southern Hemisphere.
“Your wardrobe hasn’t changed much over the years,” Sardelle noted.
She was teasing and didn’t expect the wide-eyed expression he turned over his shoulder. His bronze face had gone a few shades paler. “But it has,” he whispered. “My hair was shorter the last time she saw me, and I wasn’t wearing…” He looked thoughtfully toward the ceiling for a moment before deciding, “I had the shark tooth, but nothing else.”
“Ah. There are seers among those with the gift, people who can sense what’s happening, especially with close friends and loved ones, across hundreds or even thousands of miles.”
“What about this?” Tolemek stepped back, revealing a portion of the door his body had been blocking, and pointed.
At the bottom of the picture, red paint spelled out, “Help me. They are taking me here.”
• • • • •
Wan morning sunlight filtered through the camouflage netting the pilots had stretched over the fliers and onto the snow-dusted earth. Ridge watched the pattern of shadows and light on his gloved hand as he maintained a rigid single-armed push-up position.
“Seven,” he said and lowered himself until his chest was an inch above the ground, then rose again.
“Seven?” Duck complained. “That was at least seventeen.”
Duck, Ahn, and Apex were spread out in a circle, their bodies also in rigid push-up positions.
“We’re not counting the ones we did on the other side,” Ridge said. “Eight.” He hated one-armed push-ups as much as the next person, but they made the regular ones seem easier than swigging beer, and the squadron had its athletics tests coming up next month. He would be remiss in letting training slide when they had time for it. And they had too much time, in his opinion. He hated sitting on his hands and waiting. They had moved the camp the day before, set up camouflage to hide the fliers, and were now back to waiting. “Nine. Ten. Eleven.”
“Eleven?” Duck moaned. “Didn’t you say we were only doing ten?”
“I don’t remember announcing a number ahead of time. Twelve… you keeping up?” Ridge’s own arm was starting to quiver, but what was new? He always ended up doing more than his body considered wise in these group exercise sessions. A squadron leader couldn’t let himself look bad in front of the young pups.
“He’s too busy complaining to keep up, sir,” Apex said. “And it’s rather pathetic considering Ahn isn’t compl
aining.”
Lieutenant Ahn’s eyebrows were in danger of twitching, but she didn’t respond.
“Ahn weighs eighty pounds,” Duck said. “What’s she have to complain about? Try putting a couple of machine guns on her back and see if that little arm can still do a push-up.”
“Little?” This time her eyebrows did twitch.
“It’s slender. I’ve seen you with your sleeves rolled up.”
“It’s proportioned. And I weigh more than eighty pounds.”
Apex flexed his back. He might not complain, but his arm was quivering too. “Duck, did it ever occur to you to wonder why you have such a puny nickname, compared to Raptor?” He tilted his head toward Ahn.
“I assumed it was because of my swimming ability. I’m like a fish out there.”
“Something we never would have known if you hadn’t crashed your first flier into the harbor twice. And then complained about how poorly it handled.”
“How about we all stop talking so we can finish this set and don’t have to stay like this all day?” Ahn suggested.
Ridge smiled. Ever the practical one. “Thirteen,” he announced and led the team in a few more to bring it to twenty.
Duck collapsed.
Ridge felt like collapsing, too, but he pushed himself to his feet and walked out of their little camp, intending to check the steppe and the foothills behind them. He halted before he had taken more than a step out from under the camouflage. An airship floated in the air to the south, its dark wooden body and gray balloon standing out against the pale blue sky. He backed up a few steps and watched it from a hole in their netting rather than from outside of it.
“Problem, sir?” Ahn came up to stand beside him and answered her own question with an, “Oh.”
“They’re more than two miles away and shouldn’t be able to distinguish our camouflage hump from the surrounding foothills.”
“But?” she asked, correctly assuming he would say more.
The Dragon Blood Collection, Books 1-3 Page 64
