Dragon Blood h-2 Page 10

  She stepped behind the wall and stared at the scorched timbers that were all that was left of her home and the people who'd lived there. She'd sent a message to tell Haverness she was alive, but he wouldn't get it for a few weeks yet.

  Death hung over the blackened ruin.

  She'd lived with nine other people here, mostly actors and whores. They had shared cooking and cleaning—the small chores of living together. Tisala's nose burned and she rubbed it furiously: She would not cry for them. Their deaths would not be a small deed—little remembered—but another crack in the wall that held Jakoven on his throne. Her determination gave her little comfort.

  Cold and depressed, Tisala walked back to Rosem's home, a basement apartment below a chandlery. She opened the door without knocking and found him in front of the tiny fireplace stirring the contents of a pot hanging over the fire.

  "Find your man?" he asked without looking up from his task.

  "No, but he said he'd get me into the mage's section tomorrow." They didn't use Kellen's name outside the Asylum.

  Rosem nodded. "He enjoys your visits." He stopped stirring and set his spoon aside. "Do you really think that this mage of yours can get the Hurogmeten out?"

  "He seems to think so," she said.

  "Would he agree to get someone else out, too?"

  Her heart picked up, but she said, "Is this the right time? I thought that we needed to wait until things were properly supported. Wouldn't want the whole structure to fall for want of underpinnings." Like Kellen's name, the rebellion was only referred to indirectly. Scrying spells could be set to activate at key words—like «Alizon» or "Kellen" — if there were a wizard who wanted to waste so much effort on a poor man who worked as a cleaner at the Asylum.

  "We are supposed to get word when the time is right," she said. Alizon swore he'd tell Rosem as soon as there was any kind of hope for a rebellion against Jakoven.

  "I don't think he'll last much longer in there," said Rosem heavily.

  In all the time she'd known Kellen's man, she had never seen him nervous before, but the blunt-nailed hands that used toweling and pulled the hob out of the fire were shaking. "Until last season I used to get him to wrestle with me, but he won't do that anymore. I don't think he believes he'll ever get out. I think he's just humoring me because he can't bear to hurt me. He's lost more weight, did you notice?"

  She nodded her head. "Ward's man would do it, I think. But he'll need to know what he's getting into. I won't have him unaware of the magnitude of what we want."

  "Let me meet your wizard," Rosem said.

  "After I get out of the Asylum tomorrow," agreed Tisala. "I'll talk to him."

  "Just ask him to meet me. Don't say anything else. I want a look at him before I trust him with this."

  Tisala frowned as she walked. Bringing Oreg into this made her feel uneasy and she thought until she pinned down the cause.

  Oreg liked to bait people. She'd seen him do it with Tosten in particular, because Tosten rose to the occasion. Ward mostly enjoyed it. But if Oreg tried it with Rosem, as uptight as Rosem was now, he would try to kill Oreg.

  Rosem was good with any weapon at hand, but Oreg was a wizard—a dragon.

  Tisala sighed and rubbed her forehead.

  Oreg was waiting by the oak tree in the park when she got there. His face was peaceful in the moonlight, all the signs of stress she'd seen in the tavern were gone as if he'd donned a blank mask.

  "Oreg," she said when she was close enough. She'd decided to approach him here, rather than in Duraugh's house. "My contact at the Asylum wants to meet you tomorrow."

  "Why does he want to see me?" The wizard's eyes were hidden in the shadows. For a moment she felt a shiver of fear. Around Ward and the other Hurogs, Oreg went out of his way to appear boyish—but she was too skilled a hunter to believe his camouflage.

  "I can't tell you," she said. "But you are free to refuse what he asks. Just don't play games with him."

  "Play games?" He smiled at her, showing his teeth. "Why would I do something like that."

  No, she thought wryly, she was not imagining the menace he projected. He wanted her to be afraid. "I care for him and I don't want to lose friends. Rosem doesn't have much of a sense of humor. If he believes you'll betray us, he'll try to do something about it."

  "You think I'd deliberately mislead him?" His hand came out and touched the rapid pulse on her neck.

  "Yes." The touch made her lose her temper. "I think you'd enjoy it. You may have everyone else fooled, but I know what you are."

  "You do," he agreed.

  She waved her hand in dismissal. "Not the dragon part. Ward treats you as if he needs to protect you—just like he treats everyone else. Stala thinks you a bumbling wizard, powerful but shy. And Tosten … " She considered a moment. "Tosten's worried you're going to hurt Ward."

  He'd been watching her complacently until her last statement. "Hurt Ward?"

  She nodded. "He knows that Ward sees you as one of his strays—like me, that young girl with the birthmark across her face, and the little boy with the crippled foot whose father is in the Blue Guard. But he thinks that means that Ward doesn't know what you are, what you're capable of doing."

  "I'd never hurt Ward," Oreg said, his voice low.

  "I know that," she said. "Tosten does, too now, I think. No one could miss how you felt about Ward when you came to tell us you'd lost him."

  Oreg took several strides away from her. After a moment he came back, his face and body relaxed once more.

  "So you know me better than anyone?" The threat was back in his voice.

  She raised her chin and smiled coldly at him. "You are a predator—like me. I think you would give your life for those at Hurog—but you care little or nothing for anyone else." She could feel the menace gathering around her. A chill wind cut through the trees, rustling the old leaves that waited for spring budding to fall. "It worries me to take you to Rosem," she said. "You are too careless with other people. But I want what he wants enough to risk exposing him."

  He laughed suddenly, sinking bonelessly against the oak tree. "I'll make a deal with you. You find Ward and I'll listen to what this friend of yours has to say. I'll be a sincere, innocent half-mad wizard for you. If" — he held up one finger, "if you don't subject me to any more speeches."

  She considered him warily. Probably, she thought, there had never been any danger at all. "What if I promise to try not to subject you to speeches? I have a weakness for them, which I'll try to curb in your presence."

  He grinned at her, showing his teeth. "Let us in to the dragon's lair, then, and let Lord Duraugh know what we know, hmm? He'll be expecting us."

  She half thought he would work some wizardry that would transport them into the house, but he merely extended his elbow in invitation. When she tucked her arm in his, he patted her hand and let out another snort of laughter.

  "If you think I am so dangerous, why are you so easy with me?"

  She smiled. "Because I am no threat to Ward and you know it."

  They walked into the alleyway that ran behind the house and through the garden gate. The back door was unlocked, which Oreg corrected as soon as they were through.

  The house was sparsely furnished with good pieces. Tisala let her hand trail over a small table. The house had an impersonal look, as if it hadn't been a home in a very long time.

  Oreg led her silently up the back stairway and down a dimly lit hall. There were several doors, but only one with light shining under it. Oreg stopped there and knocked.

  "Come in," said Ward's uncle, and they did.

  The room had been meant for a library, but books were expensive and the shelves that lined one wall were empty. A few modest but tasteful vases and a smallish carving or two tried to make the room less empty.

  Lord Duraugh and his son, Beckram, were seated before a long table. Beckram looked distinctly relieved to see Oreg and Tisala.

  The warrior who'd traveled from Hurog was gone: Duraugh
wore the elegant court clothes like a second skin, and it made him look almost effeminate. Beckram, though even more elaborately arrayed in court fashion, wore a leashed purposefulness like a cloak around his shoulders. No one would mistake him for a simple court dandy.

  "Did you find Ward?" asked Duraugh.

  Tisala shook her head. "No. But I found out for certain that he's not in the regular part of the Asylum. Tomorrow my friend will get me into the section built to hold mages. If he's there, I can find him. It's not very big, just a few cells and a laboratory."

  "They wouldn't need it to be very big," said Beckram. "How many mad sorcerers could there be?"

  "Too many," replied Tisala somberly. "And they all work for the king."

  "Where's Tosten?" asked Oreg.

  Beckram answered. "He was restless and decided to do some exploring. Since he took his harp with him, I imagine that means he's going tavern hopping."

  "Oreg told me the king refused to let you see Ward," said Tisala, taking a seat on an empty bench that spanned one wall of the room. She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. It had been a long day.

  "The king said he'd heard that Ward had recovered his wits and he wanted an expert opinion before he trusted such an important keep to a boy whose own father thought him to be addled," said Duraugh.

  Beckram snorted.

  The door opened and Tisala opened her eyes to see Ward's brother stroll in, his harp case slung over a shoulder.

  "The king knows Ward is fine," Tosten said, revealing he'd been listening for a while before entering. "Ward followed me to court the last two times I came, worried I was getting myself into trouble. I should never have told him that someone sounded me out—"

  "Sounded you out?" asked Duraugh.

  Tosten nodded and took a seat at the table, setting his case on the floor. "Someone told me Alizon had good things to say about me—it was before Jakoven moved against his brother, so the comment was safe enough. Then he asked me how my cousin was, wasn't it terrible how an assassin killed Erdrick in the king's garden and shouldn't the king be doing something to ensure the safety of his loyal subjects … things like that. I sent him away—gently."

  "Who was it?" asked Beckram.

  Tosten raised his eyebrows but didn't answer. "I sent him away so that I wouldn't have to know any more than I already did. When I told Ward about it, he worried that I was as likely to get attacked by one side as the other. When I wouldn't stay at Hurog, he followed me here." Tosten's voice tightened, though his expression didn't change. "He knew that flaunting himself in front of the court would force the king to either acknowledge him as Hurogmeten or move to fulfill the writ, and he used it to blackmail me into staying away from court."

  Duraugh nodded, but said, "Frankly, I'm surprised Jakoven didn't just leave him be. Ward's reputation since the Vorsag king died at Hurog should have made him politically invulnerable. Just how he managed to pull down Hurog around King Kariarn's ears has been a well-kept secret—but everyone knows Ward was responsible."

  "Maybe he's worried that Ward has already thrown himself in Alizon's camp," said Tisala slowly, sitting up straight. "Jakoven has many ears in court, he might have known that Tosten had been approached. Afterward Tosten goes to Hurog and brings back Ward. Twice. He might think the rebellion is closer to breaking out than it is, and that Ward is a part of it."

  Beckram shook his head. "Hurog's not that important. It's personal. Jakoven wasn't able to get to me, so he went after Ward instead."

  Tisala almost held her tongue, but she didn't want them going to court unprepared. "Alizon thinks that all of Shavig will follow Hurog's lead. The king was almost apoplectic when he received his due from last harvest. A number of the Shavig lords included veiled references to Hurog with their tribute. Colwick of Cornen went so far as to sign himself 'Hurog's liegeman. »

  Duraugh nodded. "I heard about that. They're trying to protect Ward, I think, by letting the king know Ward has their support. Shavig hasn't had a hero like Ward since old Seleg, and that was a couple of centuries ago. They don't intend to lose him."

  Tosten gripped the table with both hands. "So the king thinks Ward's opinion carries Shavig, which is true." He glared at Beckram. "But he also believes that Ward has already leaned into Alizon's camp—which is probably what will happen eventually. So he has to get Hurog out of Ward's hands."

  "So," breathed Tisala, terror robbing her of a stronger voice, "he investigates. For the safety of his subjects he calls the Hurogs to court."

  She looked at the men in the room blindly, as the pieces fell into place. "His wizards will examine Ward. Then he presents you with what his wizards have left. The court will only see that Ward's body is healthy, but you know him. You'll see what the king has done to him even if his body is untouched. Unprepared for Ward's condition, you give Jakoven an excuse to declare you all traitors—he doesn't need much, just a drawn sword or a misspoken word. Then he can set whomever he wishes over Hurog. It would antagonize Shavig—but not unpardonably. A king has the right to defend himself. Shavig loses Ward and Lord Duraugh in one blow and retreats to lick its wounds. Without Ward it is unlikely that the Shavig lords will fight against the king."

  The Hurog men were all staring at her with various degrees of horror, but it was Oreg who whispered, "What are they doing to Ward?"

  "Until just now," she said, "I thought Jakoven would want to keep Ward in good condition for fear of you acting against him—but that is exactly what he wants. There are bodies carried out of the mage's wing wrapped in canvas and burned. I know the two that I, personally, had the opportunity to see were … changed. One man had no face, no skin, no … " She had to quit speaking, it was probably for the best anyway, because Oreg's eyes were beginning to glow in the shadows of the library. "And the other?" Tosten's voice was no louder than Oreg's had been.

  "She was dead," Tisala said. "But she still moved. We saw her because the cleaners who were supposed to take her to the crematorium dropped the bundle and ran. She was dead. There was no intelligence in her, but magic allowed her body to move."

  "I know that spell," said Oreg, who looked as if he wished he didn't. "I thought it had been lost when the last emperor was killed."

  Lord Duraugh turned to Tisala. "Find Ward tomorrow. Once you have him, we will get him out—one way or the other. If Hurog has to declare rebellion against the king, so be it."

  7—TISALA

  Confidence is as much a weapon as a sword. But, like a sword, it can shatter on an opponent's blade.

  The section of the asylum where mages were kept was not very large, and Tisala found Ward in the second cell she cleaned. He was huddled in the corner of the room, half covered with straw.

  She said his name tentatively because even with the skylight, it was dimmer in the cell than it was in the torch-lit corridor; and because, though it was hard to believe that there were two blond men of such stature in this particular section of the Asylum, it was harder to believe that Ward would ever cower from anything.

  She shut the door and he came instantly to his feet with the speed and grace that always surprised her in such a large man. The maneuver put his face in the light briefly and she couldn't deny it was he. He wore little more than a loincloth and in less than two weeks he'd lost a stone of weight.

  "Ward," she said a second time, realizing he must have been putting on an act. She'd never seen him act a part before, though she knew he was very good at it. The extreme weight loss worried her, but at least he was still whole. Her own recent experience in Jakoven's power sent her gaze to his hands, but she counted five fingers on each hand with one dirty nail apiece.

  But he still didn't say anything, just stared at her. Goose-flesh crept up her neck, and she knew he wasn't acting. The fear she read in his eyes was real.

  Ward was afraid of her. The realization stunned her into tears. Her Ward wasn't afraid of anything. Instinctively she stepped closer to him.

  He held up a hand that shook slightly,
but the palm-up gesture was universal.

  "Tis." He said, his voice a slow grumbling growl that held more than a touch of menace. "Stay back." Then in a soft voice, almost a whisper, he added, "Please?"

  For an instant she was hurt, but then reason took over. Whatever they had done to Ward, it had not made him slow of body. His rush to stand up had been quick. She'd been in too many fights to miss the heavy breathing and vibrating readiness. Whatever the cause, she'd frightened him. She had him cornered. She didn't really believe he would hurt her, but she backed away.

  She took her eyes off his face because eye contact could feel threatening. Some visceral part of her protested the move, recognizing the danger he presented. But, out of the corner of her eye, she saw him relax marginally.

  As she cleaned the cell, Ward slid back down the wall until he was crouched the way he had been when she'd come in. He drew the straw around him until it covered his legs and was scattered over most of the rest of him.

  Tisala was careful to wipe her eyes and blank her face when she left Ward's cell. The other inhabitants of the wizard's block were more recognizably hurt, showing cuts and missing pieces. In one of the cells, the guards held the prisoner, who alternatively laughed and cried, while she cleaned.

  There were many things that she despised about Jakoven, things that had authored the painful decision creating the distance between her father and her. But though his sins were legion, she had never hated him before today.

  Tisala strode through the darkness of the tavern toward the back corner where Oreg waited for her.

  She sat across from him and leaned forward. "You've got to get him out of there."

  Oreg lowered his eyelids so she couldn't read his reaction, but his voice was mild. "If you found him—I can get him out."

  Relief washed over her. Oreg would get him out. Of course he would.

  "I didn't think anyone could lose so much weight in such a short period of time," she said. "He's lost at least a stone."