Steal the Dragon

by Patricia Briggs

  Tris kept talking, but she didn't really hear the words. Gradually, she was able to sense the water before it touched her. There was something odd about that, but she was in no state to decide what that was. Once she thought that Tris warned her, but that was ridiculous—she could tell that he was somewhere in the upper levels of the hold.

  When they finally pulled her off, she was too dizzy to stand up, and the guards carried her back to her cell. She didn't stop Tris's steady voice in her mind, drawing strength from his presence. There was a towel and dry clothes waiting for her on the straw. Shaking with cold, she rubbed herself with thick cotton material until only her hair was damp, then put on the dry tunic.

  … acids that the flowering coralis uses to digest its prey can also be used to dissolve warts and…

  Tris? Rialla interrupted wearily as she stumbled to the pile of straw. Thanks. You can stop now. I'm back in the cell.

  To her surprise he didn't ask anything, just said, I'm coming.

  Rialla drew up her legs and wrapped her arms around them, resting her cheek against her knee. She couldn't seem to get warm. She didn't watch this time when Tris came through the wall—once was enough.

  "Are you all right? Is this the end of it?" Tris's voice sounded soft and dangerous, but when he touched her shoulders, warmth flowed from his hands.

  Rialla turned her head to give him a tired smile and said hoarsely, "I think so. There's no reason for anything more. Thanks for the help."

  "Good," he said, ignoring her thanks.

  As she quit shivering, he pulled away and began pacing restlessly. Rialla could feel his agitation, but only distantly through the curtain of her exhaustion. She lowered her head to her knees and closed her eyes. Somehow it wasn't worth the effort to open them again. She fell asleep and woke up alone early in the morning.

  Sweat gathered in the small of Rialla's back as she worked with fourteen other slaves to perform the combinations called out by the dancemaster. This man was new to her, although he seemed experienced. When the slaves were through with his workout, they would be warmed up and limber, but not overly tired.

  Deliberately taking deep, even breaths through her nose, Rialla pulled her good leg behind her, until the heel touched the back of her head, and counted the drumbeats silently, trying to ignore the burning in her bad thigh as it supported her weight.

  She switched legs, but couldn't make her bad leg stretch the few extra inches to touch. The burning increased and she was afraid that she would tear the wound open, so she let it relax a little further, aware that the dancemaster stood near her. When the combination was finished, the master called for a rest and the slaves dropped to the mats.

  He examined the narrow red line that marked her leg where the swamp beast had slashed her.

  "Bend it." he said shortly.

  At his command, she flexed her leg as far as she could and released it.

  He grunted, "Winterseine says that you are already a fine dancer. That being the case, I would keep you off that leg for another month, but he has decided that you are to dance with the advanced group. I want you to take it easy, but if Winterseine is watching you'd better not be favoring it. He doesn't believe in giving wounds time to heal; says that it makes for easy excuses."

  Startled that the dancemaster would criticize Winterseine to a slave, Rialla merely nodded. She watched him walk to the center of the wooden floor and clap his hands once, and the workout resumed. Minding the dancemaster's words, she babied her left leg and kept a sharp eye out for Winterseine.

  The other girls were wary of her and made no move to greet her on the rest breaks. Rialla sat quietly a little apart from the others, but close enough to listen to the other slaves gossip softly together.

  Most of what they said was unimportant; they were too conscious of Rialla to talk about Lord Winterseine or anything else interesting enough to get them into trouble should the Master hear about it. If she continued being unobtrusive, they would forget her, but it was going to take time.

  With a sigh, Rialla relaxed and closed her eyes. Carefully she lowered her defenses and reached out lightly. As she did so, she heard one of the slaves giggle. She focused on that one and caught a picture of Terran, altered by the slave's perception of him—Rialla knew he wasn't that good-looking.

  The slave had seen him recently in intimate circumstances and enjoyed every minute. Rialla withdrew hastily before she received a touch by touch outline of the slave's experiences at the hands of Winterseine's son. Just before she pulled back completely, she caught something, an image… of a cat, a blue cat.

  It was dark when she was returned in a clean tunic to the holding cell. Although practice was done in a one-piece garment that left most of the body bare, it was too cold to wear all the time, so a clean tunic was also supplied daily. Her hair was freshly washed and braided neatly, brushing the top of her shoulders.

  As soon as the guard left, Rialla lay face down on the cool stone floor.

  "Tired?" asked Tris in a voice that didn't carry beyond the room.

  She didn't bother lifting her head, just slid it back and forth against the floor. "I'm too old for this. The other girls are just babies, and they're in much better shape than I am. Let's go back to Sianim and I'll sit in a rocking chair and embroider tablecloths."

  Two hands touched her back and caressed the sore muscles there. She moaned weakly and folded her arms to cushion her face as the stiffness eased with magical swiftness.

  "Do you embroider?" Tris asked with interest.

  "No," she replied, "and maybe, just maybe, if you keep that up I won't have to learn."

  He laughed, started on her lower back and said in conversational tones, "I found out some interesting information today." He stopped kneading and began thumping her with the sides of hands instead.

  "From what I've overheard." he continued, "Lord Winterseine has indeed been traveling to the other side of the Swamp. He keeps a ship at a small harbor near the Southern Sea that he uses to sail to the East. For the past six years he has spent at least four months a year there, except last year, when his son made the journey alone. What was that?"

  "Mmpft," she said obscurely, then managed, "Tri… hiss… sstop… it!"

  He quit pounding on her and sat on his heels.

  She gave him a narrow-eyed look, twisting her head so she could see over her shoulder, and said with mock affront, "Thanks. Maybe we should have sent you here on your own. All that I've managed to learn today is that I'm out of shape."

  "Touchy aren't you?" he protested with a hint of laughter. "I thought a hold of this size might have some work for a journeyman woodcrafter." Abruptly his features sharpened, and his beard disappeared; his clothing changed, becoming heavier to keep out sawdust. Tris never paused in his speech, but his accent vanished. "It seems that the old one died last season and his apprentice left for the city. I spent the day repairing cabinets in the kitchens. The cook likes to gossip, especially with a near equal."

  Rialla eyed him with some respect. If she hadn't seen it herself, she would have sworn that she was talking to a middle-class Darranian craftsman.

  "How did you explain your lack of tools?" she asked.

  He looked sad. "I was stopped by bandits on my travels. They took everything I owned. Isn't it miraculous that the old woodcraftsman died without heirs, so his tools were left here?"

  He dropped the illusion and continued, "I also accidently hit my thumb with my hammer; even the best craftsman does so occasionally. I swore, using a certain god's name, and was hushed by a number of horrified people, including the spit boy."

  Rialla stilled. "I thought I was insane when it first occurred to me that there might be a connection. But I can't imagine another household in Darran that would be worried if a stranger used Altis's name as a curse." She looked at Tris. "Don't look so smug, it doesn't suit you."

  He laughed and went to work on her legs.

  "Tris?" she asked.

  "Hmm?" he grunted absently, worki
ng on the back of her bad leg.

  "Did you say something about there being a lot of cats here?"

  "Hmm," he said again. "Yes, not just in the lower floors, but all over the castle. Why do you ask?"

  She shook her head and closed her eyes. "I don't know… but one of the slaves was thinking about cats today. It was in an odd context…" She shrugged. "It was probably nothing, but it seemed strange."

  The next day was more of the same. When Rialla returned from the long day of workouts, Tris told her what he had learned as he loosened her muscles. He was much better than the masseuse that had a turn at all the slaves before they bathed. Part of that was because, although he never commented on the various bruises acquired from the dancemaster's staff, he healed them partially, so they were much less painful.

  Tris had spent most of the day listening to servants' gossip. He'd found that, though Lord Winterseine had earned a great deal of money from training slaves, he brought back even more from his trips east. The exotic dark-skinned slaves were in demand, and in Darran they brought in two or three times more gold than other slaves.

  For her part, Rialla had learned nothing new. Working slaves might be a good source of information, but dancers in training had limited exposure to the world outside. The dancemaster might have known something, but his emotions were spared for his obsession with dance, and his unemotional thoughts on other matters were his own.

  When Tris finished with her massage, Rialla felt like a boneless mass of relaxed muscles resting facedown on the straw. Tris seated himself against one of the walls and snatched an apple, biting into it with obvious enjoyment. At the sound, Rialla sat up and took a hard roll from the basket out of which Tris had gotten his apple.

  They ate in companionable silence for a while. Tris finished the apple and threw it down the corner grate.

  He slanted Rialla an oddly solemn look and then said, "I haven't spent much time among the nobility in Darran, much less around slaves. You have an expression that you use when you are impersonating a slave, but it is different from the expression that the slaves in the keep use."

  The bread in Rialla's mouth was fresh and sweet, but she had to force it down to talk. She bowed her head and knew that the slave's mask that he'd asked her about was frozen on her face. Finally she said, "Winterseine would tell you that there are two kinds of slaves in Darran. The first is a pleasure slave, a bedmate. Most men prefer to have their longtime bedpartners compliant and smiling, acting as if their duties are pleasurable. Force is fine occasionally, but it takes energy. Pleasure slaves are punished if they do not at least feign enjoyment of their duties."

  She swallowed, feeling Tris's focused attention. "Dancers, like me, are usually not owned by an individual for his personal use; the term that slave trainers use for them is 'exotics.' Dancers are expensive because they take time to train and require a certain amount of ability. They are owned by taverns, clubs and brothels."

  Rialla looked at her half-eaten roll without interest and continued to speak. "Slave trainers believe that a slave that has been turned into a pleasure slave has no spirit, no individuality. A dancer requires a certain amount of independence and arrogance."

  "You said that slave trainers believe that. What about you?"

  Rialla shrugged. "A slave has no spirit, no individuality. It doesn't matter if she is a dancer or a pleasure slave. A slave feels what she is told she feels, and does what she is told to do. Dancers follow the pattern established for them just as the pleasure slaves do. The pattern is no better or worse, just different."

  "I'm sorry," said Tris softly.

  Rialla tossed him a lopsided smile, and took another bite of the bread. "Don't be. It's hardly your fault."

  After a couple of days of working out, Rialla found that she wasn't quite so worn out at night, but Tris continued to act as masseur. Under his ministration, the stiffness was leaving her bad leg, until she could stretch it out almost as far as her good leg. They had been discussing what he found while he kneaded and pulled until she was as limp as a lump of bread dough left to rise, but this night he was quiet.

  "What's wrong?" she asked finally, keeping her face in her arms. She could feel his distress at the edge of her awareness, but didn't want to pry without permission.

  "Nothing," he said. "This place oppresses me. The cold stone keeps out the sun's warmth and light." He paused. "I thought about what you told me last night."

  "Do your people own slaves?"

  "No," he said. "But we knew about it. A slave came to the enclave once, seeking sanctuary. I understand that some of the religious communes offer a hiding place for slaves. Mine did not. The slave was held until the owners could collect her."

  "Was that your decision?" questioned Rialla, trying to get at what bothered him. She could sense his guilt, that he'd violated his sense of right and wrong, but she didn't know how to help.

  "No. I opposed the decision—for the wrong reasons." Straw rustled as he moved away. "I felt that the commune had come to its decision from fear of discovery rather than out of any reasoned discussion. I was right, but too young to understand that there was never any other motivation for what the enclave did. The elders had offended my belief in them. I was more concerned with that than with the poor girl who rode off in chains."

  That bothered him, she could tell, but it wasn't the cause of his disquiet.

  "You're doing something about it now," she said, finally sitting up so she could see him. "Even if slavery continues for another five centuries, you are doing something about it."

  He stood with his back to her, in the faint area of fading light.

  "Am I?" he said in an odd tone. "Yes, I suppose I am."

  He swung around and approached her, gesturing for her to take her former prone position. "I'll loosen that muscle in your back and tell you about what I learned today. Do you know the ideograph that belongs to Altis?"

  Rialla rolled facedown again. She could feel his pain, guilt and remorse churning strong enough to make butter; but she didn't know what to do about it. She wasn't sure that he knew how easily she read him—it wasn't deliberate on her part. She didn't want him to think that she was impinging on his privacy, so she allowed him to change the subject.

  "I don't know anything about Altis, except that he was one of the old gods."

  "Shame on you," he reprimanded in his best healer voice. "Altis was the lord of the night. It's in his shadows that the hunted escapes the hunter's dinner table. He was one of the benevolent gods. Not only did he refrain from tormenting humans when he was bored, as a fair number of them did, but he actually was known to interfere with other gods at their sport."

  "What of the folk that weren't human—the shape-shifters, the selkies, and the… the silfs."

  "Sylvans," corrected Tris dryly, as he started to put pressure on the muscle in her lower back. "We were the children of the gods themselves, and better able to defend ourselves. We could call more readily on our parent god. Naslen, the lord of the forest, fathered the sylvans; Torrec, the huntress, bore the shapeshifters; Kirsa, goddess of the waves, bore the selkies. All of them minor powers, but strong enough to keep the others from lightly playing their games with us. Now, where was I…"

  "Altis," said Rialla. in a voice that was more of a moan as he caught just the right place.

  "Yes, Altis. His ideograph is that of a stylized cat sitting on its haunches with its body in profile, and its head full face and lowered—"

  "With a five-pointed star in the middle of its forehead, and in the center of the star a large emerald," interrupted Rialla.

  "I don't know about the emerald," said Tris, "but there is a five-pointed star. Where did you see it?"

  "One of the slaves," said Rialla. "She was thinking about it."

  "One of the slaves you dance with?" asked Tris.

  "Yes" replied Rialla, smiling at the floor. "It was easy to pick up since she remembered it with some… er… fervor."

  "The slave was a follower of Altis
?"

  Rialla laughed despite herself. "No, actually I'm not sure how the cat came into it; she was remembering a glorious night of passion. I can assure you that it had nothing in common with religious devotion."

  Tris snorted. "You obviously haven't met the same sorts of religious zealots that I have."

  "You did have something in mind when you brought up this cat?" asked Rialla.

  "Yes, though it has lost what little import it had. I was asked to evaluate the chances of saving a wooden screen in one of the rooms on the upper floor of the castle. Once past the public rooms, there isn't a room in the castle that is free of that cat."

  Rialla thought, then said, "To convince the servants? As with Tamas's broken arm?"

  "Then why would they be only on the private floors?"

  "I can answer that," said Rialla. "As a slave trader, Winterseine deals frequently with Southerners, merchants who would sleep in the guest quarters on the first floor. There is a new religion in the South; it was beginning to evolve when I traveled there with my clan. They worship someone they call the All-Mother. I don't know much more about them, except that they would certainly not do business with a heathen who worshipped dead gods."

  A peaceful silence descended, and Rialla relaxed into the rhythm of Tris's movements as he loosened her tight legs. "Tell me something about your people, Tris."

  She could feel him hesitate. "It is forbidden for one of us to tell an outsider about… Ah, well now, I suppose that I no longer have to listen to the dictates of the elders." He thought for a moment.

  "Long time past, humans were only a minor part of a world ruled by green magic." His voice took on a classic story-telling rhythm, though a bit hesitant, as if he were translating as he spoke. "There were the little folk: the butterfly-winged people who played over the winds, and the stone workers who preferred the shadows of evening to the light of day. The forest people, sylvans, dryads, shapeshifters, haunted the woods and fought for territory. They all spoke to the spirits of the trees and the animals.

  "The green folk, though, like the gods whose children they are, do not propagate well, and humans began to overrun their part of the world. As they spread into our territories, the dryads welcomed them as they did all things, while the other folk retreated and watched. First came the traders, then the wizards who sought to learn the secrets of our magic, but it was the farmers who spelled the end of the reign of green magic.