Dragon Stones (39 page)

"What castle? Who are you talking about?  Diasa and me?"

"Diasa and you, and the others.  To the castle."  Wert leaned forward, his eyes growing even larger.  "
His
castle."

He meant Dunshandrin, of course.  "And what then?"

"I don't know," he said, sounding rather annoyed that this information was denied him.  "I can't see past what's coming."

"What's coming?"

"My death."

"Oh.  I'm, ah, I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be," he said.  "It's already beyond my time to go."

"You're sure about this?  You've seen it?"

He shook his head.  "I've
planned
it."

"Oh."  Tolaria couldn't think of anything else to say.  She looked over at Prehn.  The top of her head barely reached the tabletop; all that showed was a mop of black hair, a crescent of bronze forehead, and two huge brown eyes that regarded Tolaria with grave suspicion.  "So Diasa and I will be going to the castle … and who else?"

"The dragon.  The savage."

"The savage?"

"Enshennean."

"They're in Astilan," she said.

"Not anymore."

"How do you see all these things?" she said.  "Do they just come into your head?"

"Not mine
," Wert said.  "Yours.  You just don't know it."

"
What
?"

"Whispers."  The old man tugged his ear.  "Whispers.  I heard you whispering, after they gave you the vapors.  I heard it when you escaped, when you drew the good merchant to yourself, when you brought everyone together in your dreams."

"Did
I
do that, or was it you?"

"You.  Me."  Wert shrugged, as if to suggest there was little difference between the two.  Then he pointed into the air and hissed:  "I can hear
him
, too, sometimes."

Trying not to sound exasperated, she said:  "Who?"

Wert leaned forward.  His eyes, unblinking, reminded her of a frog's.  "The wizard."

"Orioke?"

Wert nodded, looking smug.  "When he opened his mind to yours, it formed a connection, never properly closed, because he doesn't know it's there.  I can hear him through you."

"If you're listening to him," Tolaria said, "how do you know he's not listening to you?"

"Oh, he is.  But he only hears what I want him to hear, only sees what I want him to see."

"Are you sure?"

Wert frowned.  "No.  But what else can I do?  I must know what he's up to.  The wizard is the most unpredictable piece on the board."

"You can control this … gift of yours?  You can stop listening if you want to?"

"I don't know."

"Try.  Before he realizes you're there."

But Wert just gave her another of his infuriating grins.  He tapped the side of his head, perhaps to indicate that he was smarter than Orioke, perhaps just that he was mad.  He closed his eyes.  After a moment he began to speak, his voice scarcely above a whisper.  "We are in complete control of Astilan now; there is no organized resistance left.  Varmot is dead, Laquin is in our custody, and his soldiers cannot surrender fast enough.  But we have not yet found the dragon.  Some of the men claim to have seen it during the march to the castle, but I am not convinced.  If they saw it, where did it go?"  He opened his eyes again; for a moment they seemed unfocused, as if looking at something invisible or far away.  Then he said:  "I touch his mind, but he does not know it.  I misguide his senses, but he believes what I tell him."

"You must stop doing this, Wert," Tolaria said.  "You are meddling with a dangerous and powerful sorcerer."

The old man shrugged.  "What have I got to lose?" he said.

T'Sian landed in the dry, barren plains southeast of Achengate, raising a huge cloud of dust that hung in the still air, motionless as fog.  She set Ponn down, then reared up and flapped her wings, driving the cloud away, toward the city.

"Salty," Ponn said.

She swiveled her head to look down at him.  "
What?
"

"The dust you kicked up," he said.  "It tastes salty."

"
We are near the Salt Flats
," she said.  "
The earth is contaminated.  That is why so little grows here.
"

"The Salt Flats."  Ponn gazed off into the darkness of the wasteland to the south and west.  "I've heard of this place.  I never thought to be here myself."

"
I avoid it.  The dust works into my scales, and itches.
"  

He favored her with a sidelong glance.  "Really?  I thought your hide was impenetrable."

"
My scales will turn aside the sharpest weaponry, but the grit is so fine that it finds its way through.
"

"So we see how the smallest thing may vex the mightiest," a voice said from behind her.  T'Sian snapped her head around, looking for the speaker.  There he was, not far away, a small figure barely warmer than the surrounding night.  She leaned forward, to see him more clearly, talons ready to rip him to shreds if need be.  
It was a man, shrunken and ancient; his hair was long and white, his skin a loose collection of wrinkles.  T
he heat of life burned low in this one; h
e smelled of age and impending death.

"T'Sian, who's there?" Ponn said.

"
A little old man
," she said.

The intruder giggled, as if she had said something amusing.  "A little old man, that's me."

"
Who are you?
" she hissed.  "
Tell me quickly, before I swallow you whole.
"

"You may call me Wert the Wart," he said.  "I knew you were coming.  I foresaw it.  I will bring you to the others."

"What others?" Ponn said.

"You know who," Wert said, with a touch of petulance, as if Ponn were wasting his time.  "Diasa and Tolaria."

"And Prehn," Ponn breathed.  "You know where Prehn is?"

"Of course."

T'Sian backed off.  Whoever this was, he did not seem to present any immediate danger.  "
Watch him, Pyodor Ponn
," she said.  "
I must change, and I will not be able to see him when I do.
"

"Yes, Pyodor Ponn," Wert said.  "Watch me.  I may perform tricks."

Ponn moved to stand near the old man, though he did not appear to be quite sure what he would do if Wert turned into a snarling beast or produced a weapon.  T'Sian moved away, hiding herself in the darkness.  She would have preferred to find shelter behind a hill or a copse of trees, so as not to be observed by the stranger as she transformed herself, but there was no such cover to be had in this flat, dry terrain.  When she rejoined them, having returned to her guise as a human, Wert looked at her and said, "Are you ready to go now?"

"Yes."

"Where are you taking us?" Ponn asked.

"To a place by the water," Wert said.

"An inn?"

"Yes."

"And what then?" Pyodor Ponn said.

"Sit, eat, talk, learn," Wert said.  "Plan."

"Plan?" T'Sian said.

"Can't go on without a plan," Wert said.  "The wizard's got one.  Do you?"

Rather than concede that she did not, T'Sian said, "My plans are no concern of yours.  Take us to this inn."  Wert chuckled as if he found her transparent and laughable, and, turning, began to walk away, moving more quickly than she would have expected given his age and apparent infirmity.  They followed him to a nearby river, then along the bank to an old stone footbridge with wooden planking.  The city hugged it closely on the other side.  T'Sian watched Ponn, noted his eagerness, his excitement.  He was going to be reunited with his child.  Her hatchlings had been butchered, all of them, hacked to pieces and dismembered; his daughter had been kidnapped, but kept safe.  He would have the warmth of a reunion.  All she would have was the icy satisfaction of revenge.

After the bridge, they followed Wert through a bewildering array of back alleys and side streets.  More than once T'Sian thought they had gotten lost, but Wert never hesitated; he marched on through as if he had built the entire city himself and had committed its layout to memory. Ponn seemed nervous about the route they took, sticking close to her side, knowing that she would protect him. They were accosted twice, first by a group of young ruffians, then by a single man with a long sword.  Both times, she enjoyed making the villains regret it.

At length they emerged from a reeking alleyway onto the shore of the vast, dark lake.  Wert turned left and they went along a wooden sidewalk, stopping at a narrow two-story building with a sharply peaked roof.  The old man hopped up the front step and went inside; Ponn and T'Sian followed, entering a dim room pungent with woodsmoke and the smell of unwashed men.  Wert had already started up a stairway on the other side of the room; they found him waiting in the hallway at the top.  He went to a door at the very end, knocked, and said:  "Diasa?"

No answer.

"Sleeping," he said.  "She was wounded by an assassin this morning."  He produced a tarnished key, inserted it into the lock, and swung the door inward.  Ponn pushed past him, into the room.  T'Sian stopped in the doorway.  It was an extremely small chamber, with a peaked ceiling and walls that seemed about to squeeze like a fist, crushing everything inside.  There was scarcely room for a bed and a rickety chair.  Stretched out on the pallet was a sleeping woman, pale as fresh snow, black curls cascading around her shoulders.  A small, copper-skinned girl lay curled up next to her.

Ponn went straight to the child, knelt, and touched her thin shoulder.  "Prehn," he said.

She opened her eyes, looked at him without comprehension.  Then she brightened, and reached up with chubby hands, and cried:  "Da!"  Ponn swept her off the bed and enfolded her in his arms.

T'Sian turned away.

"I will be downstairs," she said, and left.

Tolaria went out on the lake with Talbrett's remaining crew, to watch them sink the merchant's body in the cold, dark water.  They took his flatboat, which would not be bearing the
Pride
's cargo to its intended destination; the men, angry over the murder of their companions, had decided to sell it off to the highest bidder rather than shipping it to Dunshandrin's mines.  Rennald had already arranged and executed a surreptitious auction of the goods, leaving everyone somewhat richer than they had been before the voyage began; he had even pressed a few coins into Tolaria's hand, ignoring her protests.

Talbrett's body lay in the shallow hold, wrapped in a watertight shroud and weighted with heavy stones so that he would sink.  The men poled away from the dock, then rowed out onto the lake.  Silence hung in the air, thick as the fog that issued from the cold water.  A torch, set into the prow of the vessel, lit their way, making Tolaria think of Talbrett's spirit traveling to the netherworld.  Her gaze kept straying to his body, wrapped like a caterpillar in its cocoon, although no moth or butterfly would emerge from this chrysalis.

They traveled a long way out, into the deeps, until the city had become little more than a collection of lights on the horizon.  Then Rennald stood—a bit unsteadily, having spent a good portion of his auction money in a tavern with the others, getting drunker and angrier by the hour—and announced, with the utter seriousness of the inebriated, that this was the spot where Talbrett would be laid to rest.  The rowers laid down their oars, and the boat slowly coasted to a drift.

"Men," Rennald said, "we're here tonight to say goodbye to Talbrett, our friend and captain, who was murdered—"

"Most foully!"

"Aye, most foully, struck down from cover by a cowardly assassin!  But he died to save our lovely companion, Tolaria, and wherever he is, he is happy, knowing she is safe."

"Aye!" the others shouted.

"Lovely Tolaria," someone said, groping at her in the darkness.  Whoever it was, she had to swat his hands away three times before he gave up.

"Now we prepare to commit Talbrett's body to the lake he plied for so many years," Rennald said, "but before we do, I would like to hear a few words from each of you, who knew him so long and so well—"

Before Rennald could finish his request for eulogies, the men began shouting praise and comments and bawdy asides.  Tolaria could hardly pick out any coherent words from the babble, but she heard enough to gather that Talbrett had been free with both his money and his affections.  He may have been concerned about the paternity of his son, but it sounded like he had hardly been a model of monogamy himself.  Was that why he had helped her?  Because she was young, because she was attractive?  If she had been a man or a crone, would Talbrett have taken her aboard so readily?  Tolaria looked at the sky, feeling small and ungrateful for even entertaining the thought, after Talbrett had died to save her life; still, she had known since adolescence that men would do things for a pretty face.  Perhaps that was why the treatment she'd received at the Crosswaters had shocked her so.