Dragon Stones (24 page)

The explanation rang true; her fury was directed toward Gelt and the others she believed had harmed her hatchlings.  She had no real reason to have injured Parillon deliberately.  "All right," he said.  "I believe you."

"Imagine my relief."  She nudged Parillon with her foot; Ponn noted with some astonishment that her rear talons had molded themselves into the form of greenish-black shoes.  Amazing.  "This one will attract dogs or other scavengers if we do not dispose of the body."

A disturbing thought.  "Yes, I suppose he will."

"I will take care it."  She looked at him with those faintly luminous eyes.  "Turn aside, if you do not wish to see."

"No.  I'll watch."

"Very well.  But you must move away."  She waited until he had backed off some distance, then turned to Parillon's body.  Her chest swelled, as if she were drawing a deep, deep breath; then she opened her mouth in what looked like a yawn.  A stream of orange fire flashed out, engulfing the corpse and the surrounding grass, consuming them in an instant.  Still breathing fire, she moved in a circle, creating a sort of fiery whirlwind that somehow contained the blaze she had created.  When she was finished, the fire had burned itself out, leaving a large circle of ash and blackened sand.

T'Sian looked at Ponn.  "Was that a suitable disposition of your friend's body?" she asked, little wisps of smoke escaping from her mouth as she spoke.

"It will do," Ponn said.

From the cover of the trees, Adaran assessed the situation.  First off, the voice; even though it was dressed up with thunder, he recognized it.  Adaran had suspected all along that Orioke had escaped Dosen's treachery; but what was he doing here, now, demanding Adaran's surrender?  Had the attack on the wizard's tent been staged?  He didn't think so.  Orioke must have found his way back to Dunshandrin and come to some new arrangement with the lord and the princes.  Now they had sent him out as their agent, to deal with Dosen's failure.

Adaran doubted that Orioke had the power to level the college's sturdy structures, but the headmistress and Diasa would not know that.  Faced with this display, Adaran thought, they would certainly hand him over to spare themselves the risk of destruction.  He would have to escape from these walls, before
—

Suddenly the light changed, intensified, and he found himself standing in a glaring column of it, scarcely filtered by the foliage overhead.  Orioke was illuminating him for all to see.  He bolted, running toward the central avenue where he had walked with Diasa earlier in the day.  The spotlight moved with him, blinding him; he crashed into someone and they both went down in a tangle of limbs.  He rolled away and sprang to his feet, but couldn't see who he had knocked down, or where the he was, or even what direction he was now facing.  "Who's there?" he cried.

A voice, dark and scratchy like the surface of a well-worn bar, said:  "You knocked down an old woman.  She looks angry."

"Barbarian!"  That voice belonged, unquestionably, to the headmistress.  "This is not how you come to Flaurent to claim a fugitive!"

Suddenly the harsh column of light around Adaran faded, and the original glare returned; what had seemed intolerably bright before was now a welcome relief.  The headmistress was getting to her feet, adjusting her besmirched robes; a man with a sword stood nearby, watching this with a smile, as if he found them both to be amusing clowns.  Adaran realized he had met this fellow before, in Dunshandrin's castle, when they had first been dispatched on their errand.  "Gelt?" he said.

"The very same."

"You're supposed to be in Enshenneah."

"My job there is long since finished.  I've a new task now."

Realization dawned.  "
You
took the little girl."

Gelt laughed.  "Here I am, come to kill you, and
that
is your concern?  But you are correct.  One of my men delivered her to Dosen for safekeeping.  I hear he succeeded in that no better than he did in dealing with you lot."

Diasa was coming, running toward them with a group of guards at her back.  They seemed to have adapted to the light, or perhaps they found its reduced intensity less troubling.  Gelt appeared not to have noticed them yet.

"Dosen was unsuccessful in many things," Adaran said.

"Yes, well, perhaps Dunshandrin will thank you for ridding him of one of his less competent servants.  I warned them not to entrust Dosen with that operation, but they were damned impatient."  He pointed his sword at Adaran.  "Where would you like it?  I've nothing against you, so I am willing to make this quick."

"Why kill me?" Adaran said.  "I'm no threat."

"Because they told me to."

"Can we make a deal?"

Gelt cackled.  "What have you got to barter with?  A crone and an Enshennean toddler?"

Diasa and her soldiers were closing, a hundred yards away, maybe less.  Gelt glanced their way, turned to meet them.  Suddenly the ground began to shake, throwing Gelt and the headmistress off balance; Adaran managed to keep his footing, adjusting to the heaving earth.  A chasm opened in front of Gelt, spreading, widening, dirt and sand falling down into darkness.  Diasa skidded to a halt just shy of the edge, then urged her creatures back as the lips began to crumble.  More than one of them was lost, vanishing silently into the crevice.

Then something emerged from the abyss, a column made of shifting earth and stone, bearing a lopsided figure that a child might have assembled of rocks and mud.

"Deliban!" the headmistress cried.  "I did not summon you!"

The golem raised its arms and spread them wide; a roar filled the night as the crevice spread east and west, splitting the college in two.  Smaller cracks appeared, branching off from the large one.  Trees toppled over; water gushed from broken pipes; grey fingers of dust scratched at the air.  The ground itself swelled beneath Adaran, bulging, pushing him upward.  Now he did fall, toppling over backwards, but talons clamped onto his shoulders, cutting through his clothing and digging into his flesh.  Moments later he felt the earth fall away as beating wings lifted him into the sky.  He reached up and felt the scaly legs of a great bird.

"Hello again, Adaran," Orioke called from his saddle on the beast's back.  "I've come to take you back to Dunshandrin's castle.  The journey will go by faster if you sleep through it, don't you agree?"  The wizard muttered a few Words in a nonsensical tongue; Adaran found himself growing weary, even though the pain in his shoulders was fresh and raw, and his feet were kicking over empty space, and the air was full of screams as the creature called Deliban tore Flaurent to pieces.

Moments later, Adaran was fast asleep.

CHAPTER NINE

Ponn awoke next to the blotch of scorched earth that marked Parillon's pyre.  The heavy, greasy stink of burning flesh hung in the air like a lingering spirit.  He stood and moved away from the spot where his friend had died, but the smell followed him; the smoke of the burning had touched him, contaminated him, clinging to his clothes and skin.  He needed to wash it off.

He followed the downward slope of the ground to a creek that flowed through the area.  He had heard its quiet waters last night while searching for wood, but hadn't actually come upon it.  The stream was narrow and shallow, but would have to do.  He tested the water with his toe.  Frigid.  Was this really necessary?  He lifted up his tunic and sniffed it.  Yes, it stank.  He'd had guests who smelled worse, but even so, he didn't want to go around carrying the odor of Parillon's cremation with him.

Ponn stripped off his clothes and climbed down the bank into the rill.  His skin puckered into gooseflesh and he felt his balls creep up his thighs.  He quickly splashed water over his body, wiping himself down as best he could; then he dragged his garments in and repeatedly submerged them, wringing them dry each time.  Lacking soap, he could do no better.

Naked, he climbed out of the stream and spread his clothes on the tall, spiky grass, hoping they would dry quickly.  From behind him, T'Sian's voice said:  "What were you doing down there?"  He whirled, startled, then remembered that he had no clothes on and tried to cover himself.  

T'Sian smirked in a very human-like manner.  "Do not trouble yourself with modesty on my account," she said.  "Your body holds no charms for me."

"Likewise, I'm sure," Ponn said.  Then:  "If you must know, I was trying to wash.  The stink of last night's fire was upon me."

"Stink?"

"From when you burned Parillon."

She came up close and flicked out her long, serpentine tongue, tickling his throat and collarbone.  Its touch was light, soft, and quite warm.  "I still taste smoke," she said.

Ponn backed off, uncomfortable with the contact, and picked up his clothes.  They were still wet, but he began to put them on just the same.  "I washed as best I could.  I have no perfume to mask the odor."

"It is not unpleasant."

"To you, perhaps," he said.  "Men don't like to go around smelling of burned flesh."

"What do I smell like?"

"What?"

She stepped up close to him.  "I burned your friend.  I stood at the edge of the flames.  Tell me what I smell like."

"All right.  If I must."  He leaned into her, their bodies touching; it was like embracing a clay statue still hot from the kiln.  After his dip in the icy water of the stream, though, he welcomed the warmth.  He sniffed her shoulder; she smelled of smoke and ashes, of hot iron, of molten rock.  Ponn doubted this odor could be washed away by the water.  He stepped back.  "You smell like fire and volcanoes," he said.  "You smell like destruction."

T'Sian appeared to consider this; then she said:  "Good."

Of course she would be pleased to hear something like that.  "Some may wonder why a … person of your appearance smells like a blacksmith fresh from the forge."

"Let them wonder."

"Yes, of course.  And if any should dare to ask, a sharp glare will silence them."

She raised a red eyebrow at that.  "When it comes to odors, you men have little enough right to complain.  That inn of yours reeked of sweat and vomit, and I am quite sure more than one patron relieved himself in the corner."

"True enough, but in a certain kind of establishment, from a certain kind of customer, that is only to be expected."  This led him to another thought.  "As we have no money, our options for lodging are going to be limited.  We may have to work in exchange for a room, and that room will probably smell worse than the inn at Dyvversant."

"We have money."

Startled, he said:  "We do?"

"The men driving your wagon carried a trunk full of coins.  I took it."

"Did they?"  He rubbed his chin.  "It must have been tax revenue.  How much?"

"I have not counted it," she said.  "The trunk is too heavy for a single man to carry.  I buried it before I changed, not far from where we landed."

"Well, that improves our prospects.  We should take enough for rooms, food, and a few bribes, and leave the rest buried for now."

"Fine," she said.  "And when we have finished our business, you can have what is left."

"You don't want it for your hoard?"

"I have no hoard."  She shook her head.  "You men and your fairy tales about dragon loot."

She turned and began walking up the slope, back toward where they had spent the night, where she had burned Parillon, where she had buried the money.  Ponn had to hurry to catch up with her.  "So you don't sleep on a mound of treasure, then?"

"No," she said.  "I sleep on a mound of the bones of foolish men who came looking for a mound of treasure."

Ponn stopped, picturing the dragon curled up on such a macabre bed; but then he heard her making a strange noise, a cross between a hiss and a series of hiccups.

After a moment, he realized she was laughing at him.

An unfamiliar voice said:  "Wake up, little man."

Adaran heard the command, but he couldn't quite open his eyes.  He would much rather stay where he was, asleep, than awaken and learn what sort of predicament he was in.  Besides, he was having the grandest dream about little Redshen.

"Wake up," the voice said again.  "Wake up!"

"You cannot rouse him until I release the spell."  This was Orioke's voice.  Adaran stirred a bit at the sound; here was a speaker to whom he was required to listen.

"Release the spell, then.  Or did you bring me down here to stare at a sleeping thief?"

Orioke laughed and spoke a few Words.

Awakening at once, Adaran found himself chained to a wall, wrists and ankles manacled, the stone hard and cold against his back.  He blinked a few times, clearing a film that had formed over his eyes while he slept, allowing him to see the cell that held him.  It was almost the same size as the room he'd been given at Flaurent, but it was damp where the other had been bone-dry, cold rather than warm, musty, loud.  Moisture seeped down the walls, collecting in small puddles on the floor; he could hear water rushing nearby, a steady, dull roar, like rapids or a waterfall.  The walls thrummed with the vibration.