The Dragon of Despair (91 page)

“Nonsense,” Tipi retorted, her words more confident than her bearing. “Consolor Melina sent me to check on you and check I shall. You’ll need another bath or you’ll rub off paint on your sheets.”

Citrine surrendered, even to the extent of another bath, though she knew from experience that she could remove the paint quite well with just a small amount of the cream on her dressing table and a damp cloth.

The next morning Citrine heard, along with everyone else in Thendulla Lypella, about Xarxius’s disgrace and the treason hearing. That morning at breakfast, even beneath her skillfully applied face paint, Melina looked tired and worried.

“Can I help you, Mother?” Citrine asked.

Melina’s reply had been uncharacteristically gentle.

“Only if you could find a way for me to be three or four places at once, chick. I have to attend Xarxius’s hearing all day and I don’t know how I can possibly do that and still attend to everything else that demands my attention.”

“Maybe I could stand in for you,” Citrine offered hesitantly.

Melina’s expression balanced between a scowl and a smile, but the smile won.

“That’s very sweet of you, dear, but you can’t take my place. Now don’t trouble me any further. Off to dance practice with you.”

Citrine had been about to offer to take a message to Idalia, but Melina’s command effectively sealed her lips.

DESPITE CITRINE’S FEAR
that Tipi would check on her, the girl slipped out of her room at the usual hour the next night.

Although Xarxius’s hearing was sequestered, enough rumors were circulating that Citrine’s rational mind knew that Mother wouldn’t be venturing into the tunnels tonight. But her rational mind was nearly smothered beneath clamoring howls of fear, for over supper, Tipi had told Citrine that the Healed One had excused himself from Xarxius’s hearing to entertain emissaries from Hawk Haven.

“Five people and a great, huge wolf,” Tipi had said with malicious relish. “I can guess who they are. I bet you can, too. I wonder what their business could be?”

Citrine had no doubt. They were going to take her away, away from Mother. Elise and the others. They would mean well, but they didn’t understand how Citrine needed to see Mother, needed to be reassured that Mother still loved her and took some pleasure in having her littlest girl near.

The fear that filled her mind with noise came not from the fact that the others wanted her back, but from a growing certainty that Mother wouldn’t fight to keep her. Mother was having a lot of trouble now. Citrine didn’t understand all the government talk, but she understood enough to know that Apheros, one of Mother’s greatest friends in Thendulla Lypella, was in trouble, that he might lose his place as Dragon Speaker.

Citrine had also gathered—mostly from sly looks and chopped-off sentences whenever she came in hearing—that Xarxius had gotten himself and Apheros into trouble over her. Citrine didn’t need to be as clever as Mother or Grateful Peace about government workings to guess that the easiest way to solve all of this trouble was to give Citrine back.

No Citrine. No trouble.

But Citrine didn’t want to be given back, so she crouched on the cold stone floor, hoping Mother would come and that they could be together just like always. Citrine would explain to Mother how much she wanted to stay, how helpful she could be. She’d show her how well she knew the tunnels. That she knew about Idalia and the underground town. Then Mother could make Citrine her go-between.

Citrine hugged herself, almost giggling at the thought of their sharing that cozy secret. She determinedly didn’t think about how Mother might be angry at her for sneaking around, nosing into her business. Instead she thought about how proud Mother would be that Citrine had some backbone, not like Ruby or Opal or even Jet, though Mother seemed to think so highly of him.

Cold seeped up through the soles of Citrine’s slippers. It was this more than conscious planning that caused Citrine to creep from her hiding place and raise the trapdoor. The tunnels weren’t any warmer than the storeroom, but she could move around there and keep herself warm.

Once Citrine was down below, it seemed quite natural to light a lantern. Almost as if struck to life by the same flint and steel, a brilliant idea lit the girl’s mind.

Hadn’t Mother said just that morning how she was worried about all the things she couldn’t keep up with because she needed to be at Xarxius’s hearing? Well, Citrine could mind this bit of business for her. Citrine had a pretty good idea of where Idalia might be checking for whatever it was that Mother wanted. Idalia and Mother had discussed their search pattern the last time Citrine and Mother had been down here.

Citrine would go and check on Idalia’s progress. If there was nothing substantial—as there had been thus far—she would keep silent. But if Idalia had found something wonderful!

Soft-shod feet ghosted silently down the tunnels as Citrine dwelt on this wonderful vision. Idalia sent Mother messages through special couriers, but these messages didn’t come very promptly—and Citrine knew that if one came while Mother was attending the hearing Mother wouldn’t be given it until there was a break in the proceeding.

That would mean that Mother wouldn’t learn of the wonderful discovery until late—maybe even a day late. But Citrine could learn everything and this very night go to Mother’s room and tell her everything about…

The fantasy wavered somewhat as Citrine came up against the obstacle that she had no idea what Mother wanted to find down here. Treasure of some sort, that was certain.

Well then…

Citrine would tell Mother about the treasure and Mother would be proud and happy and announce to all the Primes: “This is my daughter and she is worth all her sisters and even her brother and all of you, too. She’s staying with me and so there!”

Versions of this happy vision swept the fears from Citrine’s mind and kept her fancy occupied while her feet concentrated on being as quiet as possible and her eyes checked the walls for the markers that showed the way and her ears stayed alert for sound that would tell her where Idalia was attending to her mistress’s business that night.

Citrine located the searchers in the second section of tunnels she checked. They had paused in a small cavern where steam rose from a vent in the wall and the air smelled foul. Peace was there and Edlin, sketchbook in hand. Idalia was there, too, along with a young man Citrine had gathered from earlier encounters was her son, Varcasiol.

As if the shackles they wore were not enough to hold the prisoners, four guards flanked the group. The guards doubled as lantern bearers so the immediate vicinity was brilliantly lit, bordered in a dancing aura of stark black shadow in which Citrine hid as among the trees of a dense forest.

Reassured by the sour expression on Idalia’s face that she had not missed witnessing the finding of the treasure hoard, Citrine turned her lantern down as low as the flame could go and made sure the shutters were tightly closed. Then she settled behind a heap of rocks to watch.

The first thing Citrine noticed was that Grateful Peace looked as if he’d had a terrible fall. There were cuts and bruises on his face and he moved as if every bone in his body ached. Whenever he could, Peace braced his one remaining arm against the wall, as if he couldn’t stand on his own. When he must move without that support, he wrapped his arm across his front to hold his side.

Edlin also showed signs of battering. His lower lip was swollen so that his normally cheerful features were set in a permanent grotesque pout. He had a black eye and a welt across one side of his face. Edlin hovered as near to Grateful Peace as he could and that protectiveness told Citrine more than she wanted to know.

Confused as her thoughts could sometimes be, Citrine was not a fool. She had seen various guards strike Peace, even when Idalia was not present. She had seen the hatred Idalia bore her brother. She was also no stranger to the rivalries and resentments that can grow between those who—by an accident of birth—are supposed to be natural allies.

Citrine did not need to make a great leap of imagination or memory to know why in less than two full days Grateful Peace had gone from being a bruised cripple to a physical wreck who could hardly move without assistance. Nor did it take any tremendous reasoning power to realize how Edlin had received his own disfiguring injuries.

As this unhappy information flooded Citrine’s brain the voices began their clamoring.

“Idalia’s killing him!”

“What of it? When Mother was here she didn’t stop the guards from beating him.”

“She stopped them from hurting him too badly.”

“Did she really? She started talking to him, sure, but she didn’t really tell them to stop.”

“But Mother has a use for him. That’s obvious to the dimmest eye. If Idalia keeps this up, Peace won’t last much longer.”

A new voice, gentler, more wistful, entered the debate.

“And Peace was very kind to me when he was Jalarios and I was Rios. Doesn’t it make you even a little sad to see what’s happening?”

“No! What’s important is that Mother needs him.”

“But that doesn’t mean Idalia can kill him, right? I mean, if Peace dies, Mother won’t be happy.”

“No wonder Mother feels she needs to be everywhere at once. Idalia doesn’t realize what’s really important. She hates Peace too much. She’ll kill him and then Mother will be very angry.”

“Idalia’s crazy!”

“And what about what Idalia’s doing to Edlin? I tell you, she’s going too far there. She has no reason to hurt him. What did he ever do but protect a one-armed old man?”

The arguing continued in this fashion until Citrine pressed her hands to the sides of her head, certain that her head would split.

A thin, shrill keen of pain and frustration burst from her lips and echoed off the tunnel walls.

The guards jumped, stiffening to alertness. Idalia looked around wildly, then turned accusingly to Grateful Peace.

“What was that?” she demanded.

“I have no idea,” Peace replied in a voice so full of pain that Citrine hardly recognized it.

“Echo?” Edlin offered. “Someone’s sword scraping against the rock?”

Idalia looked as if she wanted to be convinced, but Varcasiol—a youth of about seventeen—was unconvinced.

“Is it true that the Founders still walk these tunnels?” he asked. “That’s what the storytellers say.”

“Nonsense,” Idalia said, but she sounded less than convinced.

One of the guards raised his lantern high so that the upper reaches were illuminated.

“Maybe bats?” he proposed. “Or rats?”

“That’s it,” Idalia replied with certainty. “Bats disturbed by our lights. Are you ready to move on, Grey Pee?”

Grateful Peace was studying some characters etched into the rock with such close attention that Idalia had to repeat herself before he looked up.

“Oh, yes. If you wish.”

“I do wish,” Idalia said, then paused. “What do you mean, ‘If I wish’?”

Grateful Peace looked as if he’d been about to shrug but winced instead.

“These writings,” he said, “are a warning against going any further down this tunnel. Quite reasonable.”

Peace stopped talking, caught in a fit of dry coughing. Edlin handed him a canteen, his defiant gaze daring anyone to prevent him.

“Can you talk now, old man?” Edlin asked kindly. “I think our fair hostess is interested in what you have to say.”

Peace looked back at the etched rock face. The finger he traced them with, Citrine noticed with a horrified acuteness of perception, looked as if it had been stepped on repeatedly.

“Really,” Peace said, with what was clearly meant to be a reassuringly urbane smile but which looked ghastly when the leaping lantern light reflected off a broken front tooth, “it’s nothing to be alarmed about. Just about what one would expect if treasure were hidden near here.”

He coughed and Edlin offered him more water.

“Beware of the dog, what?” Edlin said brightly. “Property guarded?”

“Rather like that,” Peace agreed.

Idalia looked so alarmed that Citrine couldn’t help giggling. The shrill sound caught against a rock and broke into myriad echoes. The guards jumped and several unsheathed their swords. Varcasiol looked about wildly.

“Give a complete translation,” Idalia insisted, frowning at her son.

Peace gave one of his wince-shrugs, and Edlin put his hand out for one of the lanterns so that he could hold it nearer to the inscription.

The nearest guard, eager to get a more solid grip on his sword, handed the lantern over without question.

Citrine waited eagerly for what Peace would say, certain she was the only person here who wasn’t afraid. After all, she knew where the noises were coming from. She smothered a giggle behind her hand and leaned a little closer.

“‘Pass not beyond this point,’” Peace read, “‘lest you wish your blood to boil even as does the water in the rocks.’”

He paused as if reluctant to continue. Idalia raised one hand as if to strike him and Peace quickly bent his head again to the task.

“‘Your eyes shall melt in their sockets, the very marrow in your bones turn to fire. Trespass at your peril.’”

Peace looked up, letting his hand drop to his side from where it had been tracing beneath the characters.

“Rather theatrical,” he said, almost apologetically.

Varcasiol had come forward to peer more closely at the inscription.

“I recognize the characters for boiling,” he said, his voice tight and anxious, “and there’s one that looks like eyes and another like a thighbone. Why couldn’t the First Healed One have had the old script taught more widely!”

Peace looked down his nose at the nervous young man.

“It is, Nephew, in the Illuminator’s college, and several others, but the old symbols are rather cumbersome for daily business.”

Citrine sensed a well-worn family argument in the glare Idalia turned on her brother, but before Idalia could put her indignation into words Edlin set the lantern down near his feet and straightened.