“No surprise,” Tanis said wryly. “Nobody would be foolish enough to go near a dragon nesting ground.”
“No one who didn’t have to pass that way regardless,” Rhadaman agreed. “No one who might agree to fetch a fresh bit of eggshell in exchange for the Book of Whispering Serpents.” He fell silent.
Jael looked at the map and scowled.
“You said the Singing Forest is south of the foothills,” she said slowly. “What’s north?”
“Mountains,” Rhadaman said simply. “They’re believed to be impassable by everyone I’ve spoken to. And no one knows how far south the Singing Forest extends, because it’s avoided so completely. Those who have ventured into it have never returned.”
Jael frowned at the map. The Kresh could have passed the foothills easily. Dragons couldn’t kill what they couldn’t see or catch. There was no such advantage for herself or Tanis.
“I’ve learned enough from the trappers that I could create a Gate to take you near the foothills,” Rhadaman told them. “That would take days from your journey. Dragons have poor vision at night; perhaps you might choose to approach the nest then. There may well be no dragons there now; it’s late enough in the spring that this year’s hatchlings may have already flown, and they may have moved back to the mountains. I think it’s likely, though, that a few nests are still occupied. You might prefer to make the attempt during the day, when the mother dragons are hunting food for their young.”
Rhadaman shrugged.
“Or you may decide my price is too high and choose not to do it at all. Nevertheless, I’ll Gate you north and west as I’ve said, whether you decide to get the eggshell for me or not. I’ll give the two of you translation spells, as well, in case you should find yourself in a difficult situation such as this again. That much I’ll do as a courtesy to my mage friends in Allanmere, who would expect me to do all I could to help you.”
“What’s to stop us from saying yes, we’ll do it, and then just keeping the book?” Tanis challenged.
Jael winced. There was no chance, of course, that a mage of Rhadaman’s experience would simply give them the book and trust that they’d bring the eggshell back ... someday. But she’d hoped that the mage would secure their promise with some kind of magical spell or binding—a geas, perhaps, which Jael could then break. She had no desire to cheat the mage, but she could just as easily come back to the nests on their journey back to Allanmere, when the nests would be long abandoned, and then have the eggshell sent down the Brightwater to Rhadaman. Maybe the eggshell wouldn’t be as fresh as Rhadaman would like, but that was better than Jael and Tanis facing down an angry dragon themselves.
Rhadaman only smiled at Tanis’s angry words.
“I’ll give you a box for the eggshell,” he said. “When you place the eggshell in the box, it will be replaced by the Book of Whispering Serpents.”
“And we’re to trust you to give us the book?” Tanis asked derisively.
Rhadaman shrugged again.
“There’s no mage in Zaravelle who could verify the exchange spell when I cast it on the box,” he said apologetically. “But I’d be doing myself no good by cheating the daughter of the High Lord and Lady of Allanmere.”
Unless, of course, he wanted her dead, and the eggshell was only an excuse. Almost immediately, however, Jael rejected that idea. There was little enough reason for anyone to kill her now, not after Markus had been declared Heir. Besides, if Rhadaman had wanted her dead, there were certainly far less elaborate ways of doing it, and he’d certainly had the opportunity when she was inside his house.
“All right,” Tanis said suddenly, before Jael could answer. “It’s a bargain.”
Jael stared at Tanis in amazement, but Rhadaman only smiled.
“I’m glad,” he said. “When will you be ready to leave? I believe I can open the Gate as soon as sunset tomorrow.”
“We can be ready by then,” Tanis told him. “We still have to buy horses and the rest of our supplies. Where do you want to do the Gate?”
Rhadaman sighed.
“I have a large workroom at the back of my shop,” he said. “I’ll have to clear it and work there, and tomorrow you can come around to the back door. People will wonder if they see strangers leading horses into my house.”
He made as if to rise, but Jael said, “Wait!”
Rhadaman raised his eyebrows, but sat back down, sayingnothing.
“The formula for that liquid,” Jael said hesitantly. “Can you tell what that stuff actually is, what it does? Is it dangerous?”
“Most of the ingredients are highly intoxicating and possibly somewhat aphrodisiac, but harmless enough,” Rhadaman said, sitting back. “Two of the ingredients, however, are very powerful. One is powdered poison sacs of silverspines, which, as I said before, is rarely available here, although I understand it’s common enough in the north. I’ve never made an effort to procure it, as it’s used primarily in slow poisons. In and of itself, however, it isn’t terribly dangerous in very small doses.”
Jael grimaced. Rhadaman’s tone was hardly reassuring.
“The other ingredient is distilled juice of dragonberries, so called because eating the berries produces a fiery burning sensation in the stomach,” Rhadaman told them. “The berries aren’t poisonous, but are used in magical potions and rituals to produce powerful visions. I use it with great caution because of its soul-affecting properties. It’s mentioned extensively in the Book of Whispering Serpents, if that interests you. In short, your liquor, if you wish to call it that, is a very potent mixture. I would hardly dare to guess at what the eventual effects of much-repeated usage over a long period might be.”
Jael and Tanis exchanged troubled glances, and this time, when Rhadaman rose, they voiced no objections. They had no appetite for the remainder of their supper now, however, and merely returned to the inn.
As they walked back, however, Jael finally asked Tanis the question that had been burning in her mind.
“I thought you didn’t want to deal with Rhadaman at all,” she said. “Why did you agree so quickly to get this piece of eggshell for him, even though you thought he might cheat us?”
Now Tanis grinned.
“You haven’t thought, Jaellyn,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if he cheats us, does it? We’ve tried, done the best we can do, haven’t we?”
“Oh!” Jael hadn’t thought of that. It was true, though; they’d bargained for the book, and if the mage promised it to them, Gated them leagues to the north and west, and then cheated them, Blade could hardly blame Jael for that, could she? And if Rhadaman cheated them, Jael would feel a little easier in her conscience about telling Blade the whereabouts of the book and the likely consequences of that telling.
“But how are we going to get the eggshell?” Jael asked Tanis.
“Well, I had an idea for that,” Tanis said hesitantly. “But you may not want to do it now.”
“What’s that?” Jael asked.
“I thought we could have a look around the hills and find out which nests were still being used,” Tanis said slowly. “Then I thought you could use the Bluebright and make your own entrance through the rock. That way we could make our way to an empty nest without going anywhere near the dragons themselves. We could wait until dark to leave; as Rhadaman said, dragons are day creatures.”
“That’s a good idea,” Jael said, nodding. “You know, Tanis, I can’t ask Rhadaman to cast a sleep spell on me before I go through the Gate, or he’d have to go through with us to lift it, and he’d hardly be sending us after his eggshell if he was willing to go there himself. I’m going to have to take some of the Bluebright anyway before we go through the Gate, and hope that’ll keep me from fouling up the Gate spell. We can test it going to Rhadaman’s house through the market tomorrow. Besides, there’s the box with the exchange spell and the translation spells he promised, too. If I don’t use the Bluebright, you’ll have to keep them far away from me, and even that may not be enough.”
Tanis shook his head.
“Now I don’t much like the thought of you using that stuff,” he said unhappily. “Not after what he told us about it.”
“He warned us about using it often and for a long time,” Jael reminded him, although Rhadaman’s words had also troubled her deeply. “Since we left Allanmere we’ve only used it twice. That’s hardly frequent. I haven’t felt any strange effects afterward. It’s no different, really, then the warning my father gave me,” Jael added optimistically, “that he didn’t want me to be careless with something we really knew very little about. So we won’t be careless.”
She paused.
“But, you know, that means we shouldn’t use it for—well, are you certain you don’t want to find a brothel while we’re here in town?” she asked slowly.
“No. No brothels.” Tanis’s smile was resigned, but his voice was firm. “Besides, we have too much to do tomorrow, and I don’t want to waste our money, either, not when we have to buy the more expensive horses here.”
“Yes, but we’ll save the passage up the Willow River to Tilwich, and the food we’d eat between Tilwich and the foothills,” Jael reminded him.
“And a good thing, too,” Tanis agreed. “We still don’t know how much farther we may have to travel west of the foothills. If we manage to get that far at all.”
“We’ll do it,” Jael said adamantly. “It’s not like we’re setting out to kill a dragon by ourselves, only steal from one—or better yet, steal from an empty nest. Dragons are clever, but they’re not as clever as we are, and I’d much rather try to trick one of them than a mage of Rhadaman’s power.”
“Well, there’s that,” Tanis admitted. He grinned and put his arm around Jael’s waist, squeezing her warmly. “And it takes days—maybe weeks—from our journey. That alone is worth something.”
At the inn, they spent the extra coins for baths, washing their clothes as well. It might be some time before they’d have hot water again. They curled up comfortably together in the bed, but Jael was too worried to sleep; judging from Tanis’s breathing, he, too, was lying awake, although they did not speak. The night seemed endless, but Jael dozed only fitfully, and when the first light of dawn could be seen through the shutters, they rose, still without a word.
Before they did anything else, Jael wanted to test whether the Bluebright could keep her from ruining Rhadaman’s Gate, and although Tanis would have preferred to take the chance—he didn’t like the idea of Jael using the Bluebright twice in one day—he reluctantly agreed. They searched the market for a likely test and found that Tanis was right—the hapless light-globe vendor had indeed restocked his stall, although his few customers appeared wary of buying.
Jael took a tiny sip of Bluebright from the bottle stashed in her tunic, barely wetting her tongue-tip, and waited a few moments to be sure it had taken effect. This time she planned to take no chances on destroying the merchant’s entire stock; Tanis, grumbling, bought a light globe and carried it into an alley where they had a least a little privacy and where passersby would not be harmed. To Jael’s delight, however, stare and concentrate as she might, the globe remained intact. Even when she boldly held it in both hands, the globe was unharmed, although Jael could still feel the tingling awareness of the magic. Unfortunately, the Bluebright would eventually wear off, and then the light globe would become a danger, so they simply left it there in the alley, Tanis still grumbling about the two Moons wasted.
Tanis claimed his new sword, and Jael knew enough about swords to be impressed with the workmanship and the quality of the southern steel, as Tanis had said. Jael was glad to see he’d chosen a plain leather-wrapped hilt and a scabbard bare of any ornamentation; as Tanis had told her, they’d have to pass through cities again on their return, and it would be best not to tempt other thieves with expensive-looking gear.
They bought a few meat pies to munch while they walked from horse merchant to horse merchant. At last, to Jael’s surprise, Tanis bought four study northern ponies from the very merchant Jael had helped the first day she was in the market. After a little thought, however, Jael appreciated Tanis’s wisdom. The merchant, upon spying Jael, rambled on enthusiastically for some time about how effectively Jael’s treatment of his ponies had solved his problem, and gave Tanis a nice price on the ponies once he realized that Tanis was her companion. The ponies were calm and sturdy, better suited to the rough and rocky terrain if they had to journey through mountains, and they could live on rougher forage and less grain than the horses. An additional benefit, as Tanis told Jael later, was that the ponies were excellent beasts but by no means attractive or expensive-looking, and therefore less likely to be stolen.
“They’re good-tempered creatures,” Tanis said approvingly as he and Jael led the ponies back through the confusion of the market to the inn, where they could be loaded. “But they’d have to be, to be boated to Zaravelle and then sold in this noise and scramble. Their hooves are tough and their teeth are good, too. We’d have paid less in Tilwich, no doubt, but I’m satisfied. With four ponies, we can load them more lightly, and that’s to the good when there aren’t any more roads.”
Jael said nothing, but she felt a pang of regret when she thought of their three beautiful horses. Still, the ponies were more practical for this part of their journey, and Jael admitted to herself that she’d far rather have sold their horses than take them into rough country where rock and harsh living might harm them.
Tanis, in turn, was puzzled when Jael stopped at the elves’ herbal shop to purchase a pot of rather pungent-smelling liniment. Jael did not explain, only tucked the pot into their bags.
The inn’s stable boy helped them load their packs onto the ponies. It was still a goodly time till sunset, but Jael didn’t mind; she wanted a last look at the marvelous, wide sea before they left, and Tanis eagerly agreed. They found an unused dock and tied the ponies to a post, sitting and staring out at the seemingly endless expanse of water, dangling their feet down.
“I wonder if anybody’s ever taken a ship and just sailed off in one direction or another,” Jael mused. “Not along the coast, just straight out to see what’s there.”
“That would be foolish,” Tanis said, shrugging. “Ships are expensive, and so are the crews to sail them. You don’t just take one and light out in a direction as we’re doing, not knowing what’s at the end. How would you know how much food to take, or what trade goods you might want even if you found someone to trade with?”
“I’d go anyway,” Jael said wistfully. “Just to see what’s there. Just to go someplace where nobody’s ever been.”
Tanis laughed.
“I believe you would,” he said ruefully. “And, by Baaros, I believe you’d find a way to make me want to go with you, too.”
“But you like this better, don’t you?” Jael asked, turning to look at him. “Strange cities with busy markets, people selling things we’ve never seen and speaking languages we don’t understand.”
Tanis grinned and shrugged.
“From a Mercantile House to a Mercantile Temple to the Guild of Thieves,” he said. “We all want the same things, more or less, and those things come with cities and people. But I’ve enjoyed traveling, too, when we have food to eat and aren’t being rained on or in danger of our lives every moment. Still, even the uncomfort able parts, they’re things we won’t forget. They’re the makings of stories, you know, to tell Markus and Mera when you get back— Jael’s adventures in the great, wide, unknown world.”
“Adventures,” Jael repeated, savoring the word. “That’s true, although I’d never thought of it—we’re making stories, stories that people may tell in the market or in taverns in Allanmere, like the story of Mother and the daggertooth.”
“Well, now we’re in the makings of another story,” Tanis said, laughing. “The story of how Tanis and Jaellyn tried to rob a mage and ended up robbing a dragon instead. And hopefully this story ends happily, or nobody may ever hear it to tell it in the tav
erns. Come along, Jaellyn Dragon-Robber, and let’s find out how this story ends.”
The sun was sinking toward the ocean, and Rhadaman was waiting at the back door to his shop when they arrived.
“I thought you’d be here sooner,” he said, rather impatiently. “Hurry, please. I don’t want to keep this Gate open too long considering where the other end is. Magic tends to twist about in that part of the world.”
Judging from the shelves and tables in the large workroom, Jael suspected that the room had once been as full and perhaps as cluttered as Grandma Celene’s workshop in the palace in Allanmere, but everything had been carried out and the tables pushed back to make room for Rhadaman to work. Magical symbols and lit candles and lamps nearly covered the floor except for a small bare place near the door, and Jael, Tanis, and the ponies were crowded into that tiny space while Rhadaman finished his casting.
Hastily Jael pulled out the bottle of Bluebright and took another ginger sip of the potent liquid. This time the accompanying burst of heat and coolness was more immediate and much stronger, and Jael remembered again what Rhadaman had said about frequent and repeated usage. Well, there was nothing to be done, and she’d have to take another dose yet, more than likely, to deal with the dragons.
Despite the dizzy euphoria the Bluebright brought, Jael was vitally interested in Rhadaman’s ritual. She’d passed through Gates before—almost every year since she was very young, to foster in the Heartwood every summer—but she’d never seen one actually cast. To her disappointment, however, Rhadaman apparently had the spell already prepared, for after only a few words and gestures, the sparkling expanse of the Gate shimmered into life on one wall of the workroom.
“It’s ready,” Rhadaman said. His hollow-cheeked face was pale and drawn, and exhausted shadows pooled under his eyes. And no wonder, Jael thought—she’d never heard of a mage casting a Gate alone. Rhadaman must indeed be as powerful as his reputation hinted.
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