The Dragons of Argonath (50 page)

"Heh, heh, yeah. Look, you wait here, and I'll go see what I can find for you. Why don't you give these rabbits to the dragon as a start."

"Many thanks, Garrel."

The boy slipped away up the lane to the house. Relkin and Bazil waited, tense and hungry, in the poplars. Could Garrel be trusted? Relkin prayed so. They didn't dare go any closer, for fear of arousing the dogs that guarded those tempting chicken coops.

Bazil hissed slowly through his teeth. He was beyond hungry, close to that uncomfortable frame of mind when he would start regarding everything as a potential meal, including youths, and even dragonboys. Relkin cleaned the rabbits and handed them to Bazil, who ate them in a couple of bites. They weren't much, but they were something.

They waited, wracked by their different demons. In the evening air they heard the comfortable sounds of the farm. A cow was calling from another field. A voice called out something, and there was a distant slam of a door. Relkin chewed his lip and listened very carefully.

Someone had started a fire; he smelled smoke. Must be getting ready to cook an evening meal. He imagined the farm family sitting down to a fine big dinner. Piles of pancakes, sausages, and roast chicken, washed down with kalut or thin beer. Relkin was salivating, just at the thought of it.

Out of the gathering dusk came Garrel, pushing a barrow loaded down with a pailful of oats stirred into boiling water. There was a jug filled with molasses.

"Here's a start," said the youth.

"Hey, this is great," said Relkin, scooping some hot oats up in his hand. They were barely cooked, but they were chewable, and the molasses was sweet and strong. Bazil gave a vast grunt, then went to work on the oats, leaving aside a small portion for Relkin.

It was only a few mouthfuls, but it was solid food, and the molasses spiked it well with sugar. Bazil chewed the stuff as well as dragons could with their predator dentition, a perennial problem for wyverns living within civilization.

Garrel reappeared ten minutes later with an armful of long, fresh loaves of bread, six in all.

"Some of these are a bit stale, I'm afraid."

Bazil ate them in a couple of minutes. Relkin grabbed half of one of the fresher loaves and enjoyed it enormously.

Garrel came back a third time, with some apples, some hard biscuits, and a shoulder of smoked pork.

"Thanks, Garrel. You've really done us a great service. I'll be back to pay you soon as I can, once this fighting is done."

"When you can, and be careful down there in the Running Deer. Folks down there are all hot keen on the rebellion. They'll surely turn you in."

Outside Deer Lodge, in the rhododendron glade at the bottom of the long lawn stood the implacable, silent figure of Mirk. About fifty feet to his left was Wespern. Behind him, just a few feet, the Lady made magic.

Mirk, normally so impassive he seemed to lack emotions, was distinctly unhappy. It was the birds again. She had dozens of them back there, all with this weird look in their eyes. There were starlings, sparrows, thrushes, and even a shrike, all perched around her, watching and listening carefully. She was talking to a thrush in a language that sounded as if it belonged in the mouths of cats.

Mirk knew you had to expect this kind of thing from witches, but this was weirder than anything he'd been through before. The bird on her wrist was actually answering, chirping back in a decidedly conversational manner. The assassin shivered a little.

The sky was lightening from the east. The pall of clouds that had covered them for weeks was lifting. Mirk felt a sudden release from the sense of oppression that had hung over him almost as tangibly as the clouds above. Something had gone away, some strange force of nature that had lowered their spirits with every step they'd taken.

Wespern appeared out of the dark.

"Yes?" said the Lady.

"He has gone."

"Yes. But where?"

"I do not know."

The fact remained that he was gone, perhaps to some other realm. He was the Lord of Twelve Worlds, after all. Perhaps to sleep. Whatever it was, Lessis knew there would be no better opportunity to find the girls and get them out of this place.

She selected another bird, this time a wood thrush that had been hunting for snails along a nearby ditch. Thrushes were smart birds with considerable agility. She held the thrush gently in her hand and stroked its head while the bright eyes gazed helplessly back.

Lessis sang the quiet, but deadly, little magic of the language of cats, which was the key tongue for the capture of birds—though it was useful in many other areas as well. Perched here and there all around her were her gathering flock of spies-to-be. They watched the Queen of Birds with rapt attention.

Wespern and Mirk exchanged a look. Wespern was sensitive, but he knew no more of witchcraft than did Mirk.

"You tell me what you think she's up to," he muttered to the assassin.

Mirk shrugged.

Mirk wished he could move farther away himself. The little yowling noises had odd, but powerful, effects on one. Your skin crawled one moment, and then you felt this cold chill run through you as the hair rose on your neck. Mirk, however, would not move any farther away. He was her protection. He would stay within a knife throw of her at all times.

The cisterns were searched on the second pass over the roof, and the unconscious body of Bilgus was found. Faltus Wexenne questioned Bilgus himself when he'd been brought around. The search was intensified on the roof of the house and in the high floors. Still, no sign of the missing women had been found, and the hours were ticking by remorselessly.

There was an interruption when a group of black-uniformed riders thundered into the main yard. They brought Salva Gann, his face bloodied and his arms bound to his saddle pommel. Wexenne watched helplessly as a terrified Salva Gann was handed over to four of the huge bewkmen who marched him away into the house.

Dreadful screams had echoed hauntingly up from the catacombs for a while after that. Eventually silence fell. Wexenne and his servants returned to the task of finding those girls. They scrambled through every nook and cranny on the roofs and the upper floors.

There were sixty-four rooms in the main house, set up on three floors. Below that were three more levels: a basement, a subbasement, and cellars. The search moved down through the house methodically. Meanwhile trackers were working the grounds around the house, looking for any sign of flight.

And then quite suddenly they felt the presence lifted. That great oppressive power that had loomed over them was turned off. The air itself seemed lightened and refreshed.

Wexenne hurried down to the parlor to see what was left of Salva Gann. He found his erstwhile friend trussed up like a chicken, hanging upside down in a cage. The marks of the whip were all over him. Salva could not speak, his eyes were vacant, unseeing. Faltus Wexenne was left to tremble in his shoes. He'd been considering escape, just taking a string of good horses and riding out for freedom. He could reach Kadein in a week if he kept a good pace. Now he felt his heart flutter at the mere thought. Salva had tried to run, and they'd brought him back. For all Wexenne knew, poor Salva was destined to be dinner for the bewks.

And there were the paintings to consider. If Wexenne fled, there would be no one here to protect them. The monster might destroy them all, an irreparable desecration of art.

That threat to burn the
Gates of Cunfshon
, the masterpiece of masterpieces, had almost unhinged him. Such a threat was a blow to the wellspring of civilization itself, and something that could not be borne!

But then Wexenne's cup of bitterness already overflowed. Such galling humiliation, such pain and horror had been inflicted on him, Faltus Wexenne, Magnate of Champery, that it was almost beyond imagination! Things like being whipped like a dog were not supposed to happen to Faltus Wexenne, Magnate of Champery and leader of Aubinas!

He remembered the ignominy of those three terrible strokes of the whip. Never had he suffered pain like that. Never had anyone dared strike Faltus Wexenne since he'd left school, long ago. He shivered. He had been utterly helpless. Those brutes had simply torn his clothes off and beaten him. Lapsor had made him see his true position.

This knowledge was bad enough, then came the threat to the
Gates of Cunfshon
. Wexenne tottered on the precipice above insanity now. He could never allow the works of Aupose to be burned. He would have to do everything he possibly could to preserve them.

The girls must be found, for the painting had to be saved from destruction. But the house was huge, and the gardens extensive. The search would take time—and there wasn't much time. If those two young devils weren't captured soon, the monster would burn the
Gates of Cunfshon
. Wexenne felt his head close to bursting.

He glanced out the window. A thrush went bouncing by down the balcony. It looked back at him. It came back, sat up on the balustrade, and looked in the window at him. Then it hopped away again.

Wexenne shook his head. Everything was getting very strange. Now even the birds were looking at him like he'd gone mad. Maybe he had. Maybe this was just some terrible, terrible dream, and soon he'd wake up and be leading the glorious rebellion of Aubinas again. He would be in charge of his destiny, free, proud, and wealthy—a man destined for greatness. Anything but the terrified worm he had become.

Birds in the service of the Queen of Birds were usually quick. Within twenty minutes Lessis had received a general picture of the house and its occupants. There were parties of men doing something to the walls in some rooms. Birds couldn't describe what it was exactly. Birds could only go so far in deciphering the things they saw in the world of men. Other men were busy on the roof. Some were letting down a rope into a narrow shaft.

Then came a finch, wings scissoring the air. It flew straight to Lessis and perched on her shoulder. It sang of the courtyards and the rooftops, then it sang of young women crouched down in a room filled with vegetables.

Lessis was certain the girls had been seen finally. Her hopes rose at the descriptive note added by the finch. One young woman had hair the color of ripe wheat, the other much darker.

And, by the sound of it, they were hiding in a scullery behind the main kitchens.

In the rest of the house it seemed, there were roaming parties of men. Lanterns were lit everywhere, and the place was like a huge anthill disturbed by the plow.

Lessis wasted no time. She sank down into a lotus position and placed herself in deep trance. There she concocted a spell of invisibility that would cover herself, Mirk, and Wespern. Such a spell would deceive any but the most discerning eye. In such magic there was perhaps no person alive with the skill of Lessis of Valmes. She finished the work within an astonishing thirty minutes. The effort was enormous, but the spell was first-rate. She came out of the trance drenched in sweat, and she felt a little unsteady as she got to her feet.

She told the finch to lead her back to this scullery—at once. Then she signaled to the others and uttered a few swift volumes. They heard something like the song of the whales or the howls of distant coyotes, and felt a sudden, short gust of wind that left them with a shiver.

Lessis urged them forward. The evening light was fading into dusk, and lights were coming on in the house.

"Now, into the house and find these girls. Then let's get out of here. We don't know how long we'll have before the enemy awakes, and we don't want to be here when he does."

Under the umbrella of witch magic, they moved out across the lawn. Mirk led the way, walking crouched over, eyes scanning the lawn and house as they approached. The witch said no one would see them, but Mirk found he didn't trust witch magic that far. He kept a hand near his throwing knives as he went, trying to present as small a target as possible.

The shout of alarm Mirk half expected never came, and then they were in among some ornamental shrubs and an herb garden that were set close by the house.

Lights moved constantly in the windows of the big house. Men shouted down from the rooftops. Others were lowering a lamp on a line down the outer wall at a spot where several gutters came together and the pipes ran down to the ground.

Lessis paused a moment there to examine the scene. The main house had entrances on three sides, but the northern side was hidden by a screen of poplars. Here the main kitchens, storehouses, and a stable projected across the grounds. The finch was waiting by the trees.

They slid through the poplars and went on down a straight gravel path to the courtyard behind the main kitchens. The two men guarding the entrance to the courtyard were engaged in an animated conversation and never looked up as Mirk, Lessis, and Wespern slipped quietly past them.

Mirk's appreciation of witch magic slid up another notch.

Inside, windows overlooked them on all sides. Washing was hanging here to dry.

A maid walked out with a pail of slops, which she tossed onto a midden piled up on a cobbled floor. The maid never noticed Mirk, though he was just twenty feet away and visible in the light from the kitchen windows.

The assassin grew more comfortable with the witch magic. That girl had looked right at him and saw nothing.

An old black dog woke up and then struggled to his feet with a coughing bark.

Lessis went straight up to the dog, took his head in her hands, and silenced him with a spell that turned dogs back into puppies, at least in their thoughts.

The old dog began to chase its tail, in somewhat arthritic fashion, and had no further thought for the three of them. The finch had come to rest above a low roof, where the sculleries projected out of the back of the main kitchen.

Lessis pointed to a door that offered easy access to the house.

Mirk went through, knife drawn, and found no one around, although they could hear voices calling somewhere farther in. A moment later they found the sacks of beets and the pile of turnips. Unfortunately the girls weren't there any longer.