Her mind raced at the implications. The white hawk could talk; it must have been the one who told her to drop. It was also becoming increasingly clear that the bird really was a guardian of some kind—but what was it? A spirit? Another shapeshifted animal? And why would a guardian bother to protect her?
The answer lay only with the bird, and he soared quickly away from her.
The men who stood behind Ian divided themselves between watching the sky and nervously eyeing the guards who surrounded Ember with glowing swords.
Ian wiped at the blood dripping into his eyes and put a hand on the hilt of his sword. The men behind him looked at the guard and to a man standing just behind Ian. The man chewed his lip for a moment, then gestured a retreat with his chin. The group disappeared into the dark.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” the guard to Ember’s right said in a deathly quiet voice.
When Ian still didn’t remove his hand from the sword, the guard spoke again. “Look behind you, man.”
Ember’s kidnapper scowled, refusing to move until the captain sheathed his own weapon. Ian sneaked a glance over his shoulder, then surprise and frustration flashed across his face, only to be replaced with cold fury. He faced the scarred captain and glared, first at the guards, then at Ember as she lay in the dirt. “This isn’t over yet,” he said, then stormed to his horse. He threw himself across its back and galloped toward the council chambers.
The pockmarked guard reached down and took Ember by the elbow, pulling her to her feet once more. “You certainly are the popular one tonight, aren’t you, boy?”
“Why are you doing this to me?” Nobody answered. She kicked herself for not escaping while the guard was distracted, but there was nothing to be done about it now.
Ember did everything she could to slow the guard down, hoping Uncle Shad would come to her rescue, or that she’d see Aldarin, or Ezeker, or even Tiva along the way. She dug her toes and heels at the dirt, tried to squirm her way loose, kicked, bit, and spit at the guards, but it was no use. They held her fast.
In the end she had to be satisfied with being dead weight and letting herself be carried and dragged all the way through town and into the building she had tested in that very evening. If they were going to take her without cause, she wasn’t going to help them.
Instead of going left into the auditorium, the guards turned to the right and, pulling aside a curtain, dragged Ember up a hidden stairway. As the passage narrowed, two more guards stepped forward and lifted Ember to their shoulders. She traveled feet first, staring at the ceiling as if being borne to her own funeral.
Why, oh why, did she ever think she could be anything different than what she was? Why had she resisted her mother’s attempts to keep her safe? Riding atop these guards’ shoulders while clapped in irons, she would have given anything to be sitting at home with her mother. Drinking spiced cider and debating over the crops or the care of the newest foal would have been plenty of excitement. She would rather be anywhere but here, and that feeling only intensified when the guards stopped and lowered her to her feet in front of the grand double-paneled doors.
The four tall men brought themselves to attention as the doors swung wide with apparently no hand to open them. Ian strolled from the room and tipped his hat to her. Somehow in the short time since she’d last seen him, he’d found a bandage for his head and retrieved his hat. Ember had the feeling he’d just made her situation much, much worse. Two of the guards took her elbows once more and pulled her forward. The fight left her as she saw the silent crowd waiting, some glowering and others with fearful expressions.
The room was huge. Ember felt like an insect under a looking glass. The ceiling domed high above with triangular windows. Magelights bobbed around the walls, their odd blue glow casting shadows that seemed strange and twisted. She shivered.
The men and women of the council sat on tiered bench-style seats forming a half-circle around the room, rising from ground level up twelve or more layers. The seats were nearly full, and the hush that settled over the group at Ember’s entrance was loud to her overwrought nerves.
The center of the room was beautiful. A star of inlaid stone sat in the middle, a circle surrounding the points. The guards led Ember to the circle, then backed away to take positions on four of the points of the stars, a fifth guard appearing to take his place on the remaining corner. A streak of lightning arced between the five of them and quickly disappeared. Ember wasn’t sure what that was about, but the sinking feeling in her stomach told her it was nothing good. She stood quietly, though her eyes flashed at the silent crowd facing her.
One man stood. He was wider than any man she had ever seen, and his clashing robes billowed about him like silken sails on a ship. It almost hurt Ember’s eyes to look at him, but look at him she did. She was not going to let them beat her down, not even when she stood helpless in chains before them. She was sure it was a misunderstanding that could be cleared up quickly.
Unfortunately she never had a chance to talk. Their minds had already been decided, no matter what logic might tell them.
“Brothers and Sisters of the Council, I give to you Ember Shandae,” the large man said, throwing his arm toward her and spinning slowly toward the council like a great thespian. He then turned back and met Ember’s eyes. She was surprised by the intelligence and hate there. What had she done?
“Ember.“ He said her name like it was a joke of some kind. “Do you know why you are here?”
“No.” She tried to hide her emotion, but her voice quavered. “The guard said you wanted to talk to me about my test results, but that’s all I know.”
“Ah, yes. Your test,” he said, smirking at her with angry eyes once again. “Did you know that no one has perfectly passed this test for three thousand years? Did you know that it is next to impossible to get every single answer right?”
Ember shook her head.
“It’s true. The test has been designed so you can see only the colors you can use with your power. Three thousand years full of one-, two- and three-color tests. A four-color every now and then, but six? Rarely. Seven? Never. Not in three thousand years. And yet you have managed to do exactly that this evening, Ember Shandae. Would you mind telling me how it is possible that you could do this thing that no one has done in all this time?”
“Because I could see all the colors,” she said, anger chasing away her fear for the moment. Her heart beat fast in her chest.
“Liar!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. His face reddened with the intensity of his emotion. “You cheated!”
“I didn’t cheat!” she yelled back at him. “I’ve never cheated at a thing in my life. I saw all those colors, whether you want to believe it or not. I don’t cheat, and I don’t lie.”
The room stirred with voices. Sleeves fluttered as the council members turned and whispered to each other.
“Silence!” the lead councilman demanded. The room immediately quieted. “You do not cheat and you do not lie, you say? Perhaps then you can explain to us the discrepancy we find with your name.” He gave Ember a gloating type of smile. The man had some kind of plan, one she wasn’t going to like, Ember was sure of it, but she didn’t know what to do. She just stood and watched as he beckoned to a sixth guard who had previously gone unnoticed. The man nodded to the councilman, leaned inside a curtained alcove, and muttered to someone there. They waited for a moment, and when he pulled aside the curtain, a woman stepped forward. Ember’s heart surged at the familiar face, and then fell with sickening dread. She knew where this was heading and could kick herself for her stupidity. The flamboyant councilman was watching and smiled at her discomfort.
“Someone you know then, I see. Let’s hear from her, shall we? Mistress Rikash, do you know this boy?” he asked the woman Ember had met at the baths that afternoon, the woman from Ketahe who had been so interested in Ember’s tattooes. The woman she had spoken to while she had been a girl.
Rikash shook her head. “I do not
know this boy, no.”
“And yet the girl you spoke with today was one Ember Shandae?” he asked, watching Ember squirm from the corner of his eye.
“Yes, I signed her in to the baths this afternoon.”
“Could you describe her to us, please?”
“Yes, sir. She was small—slender and short, with shoulder-length brown hair and green eyes. She had tattooed wolves and fine chains on her hands, and a wolf pendant embedded in her breastbone. It was quite fascinating.”
“Tattoos like these?” he asked, reaching for Ember’s hand. He pulled off the bracelet Shad made for her, exposing the embedded chain and pendants that had been absorbed into her skin. “A pendant like this?” He pulled a small knife from his belt and ripped the shirt DeMunth had given her from neck to mid-chest, exposing the pendant. He jabbed it with his finger, the wolf ’s eyes flashing at the intrusion.
Ember gasped and tried to yell for the man to leave her alone, but her mouth was frozen. She could not move, could not speak—could only watch in horror as the pendant her mother had told her never to remove, the pendant she had been told was a protection to her, slowly rose through her flesh, transformed back into solid metal, and fell whole—chain attached—into his hands. She felt as if a piece of her very soul had been torn away. How had the man overcome her father’s magical transformation to take it off?
Anger, fear, and something else surged up inside of her—something that battled with the constraints that kept her from speaking or moving, that kept her bound to this spot of earth. Heat rose and blinded her for a long moment, so that she missed part of what was said.
When she came back to herself a few eternal seconds later, her pendant was in the woman’s hand. She examined it very closely.
“. . . very much like the one I saw this afternoon, yes. If it is not the original, it is a very good copy, though it feels much the same as the other did. Yes, I would say it is the same pendant.”
“So how would you explain the difference here, Rikash? You very clearly saw a young woman going by the name of Ember Shandae with these tattoos and this pendant in the bathing room, and now standing before us, having taken the test, getting one hundred percent of the questions correct, is a boy with the same tattoos and pendant. Girl in one, boy in the other. So who is the real Ember Shandae?”
The woman shook her head. “I cannot say, sir. I only know that which I saw this afternoon. The two of them do not look much alike, so I cannot even guess that one is disguised as the other.”
Ember wanted to shout at them, I am the real Ember Shandae! I am both! but she could not get her mouth to work. She stood frozen, a living, breathing piece of marble that could not speak or move. She fought it with all she had, even tried calling on the magic within her, but she was bound tighter than with chains and rope. She was completely within their power.
The only person who had seen her as both boy and girl was Uncle Shad, and he hadn’t heard her calls earlier. She realized there had to be a certain level of physical proximity for mindspeech to work, but she called to him anyway. He still didn’t answer. If she could have cried, she would have. It seemed hopeless.
“I’ll tell you what happened, Mistress Rikash, council members. It has come to my attention that C’Tan herself has taken an interest in our academy. I have it on good authority that she has been trying to infiltrate by placing an agent amongst our apprentices—an agent who very much fits the description of this young man here. I believe she prepared this boy and somehow has found a leak in the system, providing him with the answers that would make him seem too good to be true . . . a new white mage. Here is a sketch of the agent, provided me by one of our own spies.”
He held up a piece of parchment for the council members to see, then set it on a small table and placed a clear pink stone on its face. The rest of the council picked up papers that had been replicated just like her test that afternoon. They glanced at the sheet and at Ember, then stared harder. Surprised and angry mutterings came from the crowd. The head mage picked up the paper again and turned around to Ember, holding it before her.
“Look familiar, boy? It should. It’s the face you see in the mirror each and every morning. Thought you could get away with it, did you? Well, you’re about to see that the council of magi is much smarter than your mistress gives us credit for. She will pay for her treachery, and so will you, boy. Oh, so will you.”
Ember would have screamed if she could have, for the image staring back at her was indeed her own, the male face she had created beneath the giant willow, a face pulled from her own imagination and brought to life at Shad’s urging.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
C’Tan screamed as the girl fell from her grasp. She’d had her in the palm of her hand, and because of a little pain, the dragon had let her go.
“Stupid beast!” she yelled at the winged dragon beneath her. She pounded on his armored back, though she knew it would not even faze him. “Get her! Get her now!” she howled as the dragon gathered itself and shook. C’Tan clung tight to the mount and cursed him silently. Too moody, too sensitive, these dragons. Too soft for her taste, but all she had to work with, all her master would allow. He was too partial to these beasts, she felt, but could not, would not ever say it.
“Get her!” she shrieked again when the dragon had calmed. C’Tan was pleased to see the girl had landed awkwardly when she hit the water. The pain must have been pretty awful, and might even slow her down a bit. She wished Kardon was nearby. She would have loved to throw the useless old man in after the girl and watch him flounder. She was certainly not going in to retrieve her. The water was too hard on her riding leathers, let alone the dampening effect it had on her magic.
The dragon still had not moved, so C’Tan kicked him in the sides with her spiked heels. The beast bellowed with pain and turned a long, sinewy neck to glare at her with one baleful eye. He hissed, and she snarled back, wearied of the battle for power she went through with him every day. Why couldn’t S’Kotos have selected a more obedient animal when he chose his totem? She glared at the dragon, and finally he turned his head back with a last hiss.
C’Tan was determined to capture the girl before she escaped, and then realization hit her. She laughed. Where could the girl go? It’s not like she could breathe in the water. All C’Tan had to do was persuade her dragon to move, and she could pick Kayla up. The flute would be hers and hers alone! No half-evahn runt was going to take the blue keystone from her; she’d worked too hard to find it.
“Toast them or pick her up, but move, you stupid beast!” she yelled at the dragon, who listened to her at last, tucked his wings, and dove. He belched several balls of fire, but missed the runt, of course. C’Tan had better aim with a rock than this beast had with his fire. She tried to wait patiently, but patience was not one of her virtues and never had been. It disappeared completely when the tattooed Ketahean swam toward the girl. She didn’t know what he was capable of, but something told her that only trouble came with this trio—trouble for her.
“Go and get her, beast!” The dragon dove and got hold of the girl’s satchel, which was strung across her back. He started to lift her from the water. It was slow-going with the added weight and nearness of the water, and the drake had to struggle for every inch of height he gained.
He sagged again when the Ketahean grabbed the girl and climbed up her body high enough to reach the dragon. C’Tan watched in satisfied horror as the tattooed man pulled a great knife from his belt and stabbed the dragon between the toes, then sawed at the straps. They parted, giving way strand by strand, until the last few broke all at once, severing the bag’s strap. She felt no pity for the beast, but lost her treasure once again as the girl was freed and fell to the water once more. She did not resurface. C’Tan waited, growing more agitated with every passing second.
It didn’t take long for her to realize the girl was not coming back up. C’Tan howled at the loss. Furious, she sent spikes of lightning flame surging into the water. Sh
e sent wave after wave, hoping she would hit the half-evahn called Kayla and could retrieve her body from the flotsam dotting the surface, but the girl did not come. C’Tan realized her defeat.
“No!” she screamed at the dragons that now huddled around her, waiting for orders. It would be easy to end it now, to give in to the failure, go home, and await her next chance, but she could not stand the bitter taste of defeat in her mouth, nor would her master be pleased that she had come so close. He would not blame his dragon for the error. No, he would hold her responsible, and the last thing she wanted was more of her master’s unwanted attention. She shivered at the thought and made up her mind.
She must have that flute! There had to be a way she could enter the water without losing her flame.
And then it hit her.
The tunnels.
She yanked on the reins of the midnight dragon and turned him south, despite his pain-filled howling.
“Shut up, Drake. We’ll take care of you later. Right now we’ve got an entrance to find.”
He quieted, though tremors still shivered through his body.
“What do you mean, mistress?”
C’Tan spurred him forward. “We’re going after them, Drake, and you’re going to help me.”
“But I cannot enter the water—” he started, but she cut him off.
“I know that, fool. We’re not going in the water. We’re going to go through it—if we can find the entrance to the waterways. Now move it, before I remove your wings with my teeth.”
The dragon snorted at her useless threat, but flew south. He flew fast, for he knew of what she spoke. The waterways that ran beneath the oceans of Rasann were made long ago, and few still knew of their existence. Drake knew. He knew them well.
The Sapphire Flute Page 27