The Dragon's Flame (The Chronicles of Terah # 2)

by Morgan, Mackenzie

  The next door he came to on the left was open and a large man was seated at a desk. At first King Merdin thought it must be Rolan’s assistant, but the man looked like he was wearing a guard uniform. Maybe Rolan’s assistant shared his office, or maybe he didn’t have one. King Merdin shrugged and kept on going.

  Finally, near the end of the hall, he came to a door on the right-hand side. It wasn’t really shut, so he carefully pushed it open a little more, just enough to slip through. He found himself in a large room, even by human standards, with a big table in the middle and a second door on the other side. King Merdin walked over to the side wall so that he could get a better look.

  The table had to be some kind of dining table. There was a huge chair at one end, with a high back, wide arms, and sculpted woodwork around the top. The seat and back had been padded with big fluffy cushions covered in an intricately woven cloth. King Merdin stepped a little closer to the chair to get a better look at the cushion. The cloth had little gold threads running through it and there were gemstone studs around the edge, anchoring it to the chair. All in all, it looked rather gaudy. The rest of the chairs around the table were just plain wooden chairs with solid wood backs, no arm rests, and no cushions.

  King Merdin crossed the room and went through the other door. It led into the kitchen.

  Although it was getting late, there were several people working in there. He managed to skirt his way around to a corner without getting in anyone’s way. From his vantage point, he looked around the room, getting a feel for what was where. The wall behind him held the door to the dining room and had cabinets on both sides of the door, probably for dishes. There was another door in the wall to his left, but it was shut at the moment. The stoves and sinks were against the far wall, and tables were scattered around the room. The wall to his right had a large arched doorway in the middle.

  King Merdin scooted along the wall to the arched doorway, and then slipped through it. The room beyond the arch was dark, but even in the dark, he could make out rows and rows of tables. There were three windows, one that looked out over the front courtyard, and two that looked out towards the stable, all covered with dark heavy drapes. Between the two side windows, there was a dais with a large table and one chair, which was almost identical to the large chair in the other dining room. All of the other chairs in the room were straight back wooden chairs similar to the ones in the other dining room, but at least these had small arm rests. King Merdin figured the room could probably seat several hundred guests, but it looked cold and unused.

  He made his way back to the kitchen. The door that had been shut earlier was now open so he edged his way around the room towards it. He ducked through the doorway and found himself in a small room with several long, narrow tables bunched together. Tucked away under each of the tables were a dozen stools. There was an open cabinet just inside the door that held plates and mugs and a few spoons, but no forks or knives.

  On the other side of the room, there was another doorway, but no door. King Merdin walked around the edge of the room and peeked out the door. Across the hall was a small office of some kind. The door was open and there was a desk inside, but no one was seated at it.

  When he stepped out into the hall, he found himself near the entrance to the right wing. There was a doorway, but again, no door, and a guard was stationed in the doorway. Down the hall, there was a series of doors, all shut and dark. The only light came from a glowstone lamp at the other end of the hall. It didn’t give off that much light, but it was enough that anyone who stepped out into the hall would be immediately silhouetted. King Merdin stood in front of the doorway for a few minutes, trying to decide what he had found. Then it hit him: slave quarters.

  He turned around to go the other way and quickly found himself at the back of the main entrance hall. Rather than go all the way down to the front door and stand there waiting for someone to open it, he took out his key and used it to get to the little garden outside.

  Meanwhile, Jaron and Dani had been exploring the left-hand side of the castle. They had also come to the conclusion that the first office was Rolan’s, but they waited around to see if anyone would open the door. After a few minutes, the door opened and Rolan handed a message to one of his pages. He was dressed in his traditional dark brown tunic and black leggings, with his sorcerer’s pendant around his neck and the red sash of his office around his waist.

  While Rolan was giving instructions to his page, Jaron slipped inside for a quick look. The room was massive, but the only furniture in it was a huge desk on the far side of the room with a throne-like chair behind it, and two long tables, one on each side of the entrance. Papers and maps were scattered over the tables, along with a couple of glowstone lamps. Other glowstone lamps were anchored to the walls around the room, creating the illusion of daylight. Although there were three large windows in the room, one looking out the front and two framing the desk, they were all covered with heavy drapes.

  When Jaron heard Rolan say, “That will be all,” he quickly ducked back out the door, barely making it before Rolan slammed it shut.

  “Whee,” Jaron said mentally. “That was close!”

  “Too close,” Dani hissed. “Be careful! And don’t go inside any of the rooms unless I go with you.”

  “All right, all right. Let’s move on.”

  When they reached the second office door, it was standing open, so Jaron peeked inside. The room was relatively barren, but at least whoever worked in this office had a couple of chairs for his visitors. The man seated at the desk appeared to be deep in thought, and although Jaron had no idea who he was, he did recognize that the man was wearing a guard uniform.

  There were a couple more closed doors along the left-hand side, but Jaron figured they were just more offices and kept on going. When they reached the end of the main entrance hall, he and Dani started down the left-hand wing. There were rooms on each side of the hallway but the only person they saw was a guard who was standing in front of a closed door at the end of the hall.

  One of the room doors wasn’t completely shut, so Jaron pushed it open a little more and slipped inside. It was a bedroom, but not one that appeared to be in use. There were fresh flowers on one of the small tables and a fire was laid in the fireplace, but there were no boots on the shoe rack and no cloak on the wall peg. He walked around the edge of the room towards the chest of drawers. The bed blocked the bottom drawer from sight, so Jaron quietly pulled it out to see if there was anything in it. Empty. The room had to be a guest bedroom. He made his way back to the door, looked around, saw that the coast was clear, and slipped back out into the hall.

  “Dani?”

  “Right beside you.”

  “I think these are guest bedrooms.”

  “I think you’re right, but the one at the end of the hall is Rolan’s”

  “How do you know?”

  “The guard. He’s thinking that it’s about time for one of the maids to come turn down the bed,” Dani said.

  “Let’s wait for her and peek inside when she goes in.”

  “No way,” Dani said adamantly. “We know where it is. That’s enough for now.”

  “All right,” Jaron said, disappointed. “Well, let’s at least check out that little hall. Then we’ll go back outside and wait for father.”

  He walked a little ways towards Rolan’s room and turned down a small hall that led to the left, back towards the front of the castle. At the end of the hall, there was another door, and although it was closed, it wasn’t guarded.

  “No one’s inside. You watch the hall and make sure no one sees us while I open the door,” Dani said as he stood up on his hind legs to work with the doorknob. The door wasn’t locked, just shut, so he had it open in a couple of seconds. The room looked like it had been a bedroom at one time, but now it was a storage room. There were tables, chairs, beds, chest of drawers, and trunks stacked against the walls on all sides. There was a space in the wall that looked like it used to be a wind
ow, but it was boarded up.

  After a few minutes, Jaron said, “I guess we’ve seen enough. Let’s get out of here and find father.”

  When they left the room, Dani used his claws to grip the door and pull it shut until he heard a faint click. Then the two of them headed back towards the main entrance to the castle. Just as they reached the door to Rolan’s office, he opened it and sent one of his pages to the kitchen for a snack. When the next page stepped up, Rolan handed him a letter and told him to take it out to the aviary. “That’s the last letter I’ll be sending out tonight, so tell them they can shut the aviary down.”

  Dani and Jaron walked to the front door with the page and slipped through with him. When they reached the garden between the steps, King Merdin was already there.

  “Let’s get out of here. We need to go some place where we can talk,” King Merdin said mentally.

  When King Merdin felt Jaron’s hand on one of his arms and Dani’s paw on the other, he turned the key, and a few seconds later, they were all three standing in the woods on the other side of Trendon.

  “Anyone around?” King Merdin asked Dani.

  “No, not that I can sense.”

  “Good. Let’s drop the invisibility,” King Merdin said out loud.

  When all three were visible again, King Merdin sat down on the ground and motioned for the other two to sit. “So, what did you find out?”

  “We found offices, a storeroom, guest bedrooms, and Rolan’s bedroom,” Jaron answered.

  “Good. I found dining rooms, the kitchen, and the slave quarters. Now, any suggestions about how we get into Rolan’s room?”

  “Well, Dani read the guard’s thoughts while we were there and he was thinking that it was about time for the maid to come turn down the bed.”

  King Merdin nodded. “I guess we’d better get back there then. Where do you think we should pop in?”

  “We found a short hall near Rolan’s room that might work. The only room down there is a storage room, and there aren’t even any glowstones along the wall.”

  “Good. Here. You know where it is. You use the key. Just be sure you hand it back to me as soon as we get inside,” King Merdin said, taking the key chain off his neck and handing it to Jaron. “I’ll keep my hand on your arm until you put the key back in my hand, and don’t drop it either. Be sure I have it before you let it go. Remember to be invisible when we materialize, and don’t talk. Use Dani. And if we get inside Rolan’s room, be really careful. Don’t forget he’s a sorcerer.”

  Jaron nodded.

  When King Merdin and Dani touched Jaron’s arm, he turned the key, and in a few seconds they were back inside the castle, at the door to the storage room. Jaron handed the key back to his father and waited to see what King Merdin wanted to do next.

  “Dani, tell Jaron that we’re going down to Rolan’s bedroom and stand beside the door to wait for it to open. If all three of us are going to slip in, we’ll have to be quick. And be careful. We don’t want to touch the guard, the maid, the door, or anything else,” King Merdin said.

  “Who leads?”

  “Maybe you should. You can get out of the way faster than I can. Tell Jaron he’s second through the door, right behind you, and I’ll follow him. Just be sure to tell him to move when he gets through the door, not to stop to look around.”

  “Got it.”

  A few minutes later, all three were poised beside Rolan’s door, waiting.

  “The maid hasn’t come yet,” Dani said to both Jaron and King Merdin. “The guard’s getting worried. Rolan will be upset if his room isn’t ready by the time he gets here.”

  They didn’t have to wait long. About five minutes later, the maid came down the hall heading for Rolan’s room.

  “It’s about time you got here,” the guard grumbled as he opened the door for her. “You know what he’s like if his room isn’t ready.”

  “I was busy,” the maid said. “You’d think getting his room ready is the only thing I have to do. If he wants me to get here earlier, maybe he should get me some help.”

  “Stop your complaining, woman. If what you just said gets back to him, you’ll be sorry.”

  “And who’s going to tell him? You’re the only one who heard me,” she said with a chuckle as she stepped into the room. Right before she closed the door, she leaned back out and whispered, “And you won’t say a word, not if you want your bed warmed tonight.”

  The guard grinned and pulled the door shut.

  The exchange had been just enough to let the three intruders sneak into the room. There was a couch to the left of the doorway, long enough for all three of them to hide behind it, and far enough from the wall for them to stand or sit comfortably. The small lamp tables on each end of the couch just made their little nook feel that much more secure.

  As the maid walked towards the bed, King Merdin peeked around the edge of the couch to see what he could see. The only other piece of furniture on that side of the room was the coffee table sitting in front of the couch, so he had a relatively unobscured view of the whole room.

  Rolan’s room was easily three times the size of Myron’s. The wall to the right of the doorway was vacant, but it had a second door in it, probably leading to a closet. Continuing around the room, there was a large dais with a huge canopied bed sitting on it. Two windows framed the bed, but again, the curtains were so dark and heavy that King Merdin felt sure no daylight could penetrate. On the far wall, a long chest of drawers took up over half the wall space. From the chest of drawers to the corner, there was another dais, this time with an oval tub sitting on it that looked like it was made for two people. The wall opposite the bed had a fireplace in it that was large enough for a person to stand in the middle, stretch his arms out, and not touch either side. Two armchairs, each of which was wide enough for two people, faced the fireplace. Several dark woven rugs covered the floor between the two chairs, under the coffee table and couch, in front of the tub, and on the side of the bed. King Merdin couldn’t see if there was one on the other side of the bed or not, but he figured there probably was.

  By the time King Merdin had familiarized himself with the room, the maid had finished turning down the bed and straightening the pillows. She opened one of the dresser drawers, took out a nightshirt, shook it out, and laid it on the bed. Then she walked over to the door, opened it, and asked, “Do you know if he’s expecting company tonight?”

  The guard shook his head.

  “Well, then, I guess I’m done. If he wants anything else, let me know.” Then she stepped back out into the hall.

  “I imagine you’ll hear about it if he does,” the guard said with a smirk as he pulled the door to.

  As soon as they heard the click of the latch, King Merdin stepped out from behind the couch and started wandering around the room. Jaron stepped out from the other side of the couch and Dani perched on top of it.

  “What do we do now?” Jaron whispered.

  “Shh,” King Merdin said. Then he said, “Dani, tell him to use you to talk to me. Tell him not to say anything in here. I don’t know what tricks Rolan might have up his sleeve.”

  A few minutes later, King Merdin saw the bed skirt lift off the floor. “What’s he doing now?” King Merdin asked Dani.

  “He says there’s plenty of room under the bed if we need to hide there,” Dani answered. “I told him to get away from there.”

  “Good,” King Merdin said as he walked over towards the tub. He wanted to get a good look at it and see if it really was as big as it had looked from across the room. It was.

  When he turned around and started back towards the couch, he saw a small hand lift a grape from the fruit bowl. A few seconds later, the grape disappeared. “Dani, tell Jaron not to eat the fruit, or anything else. That’s about the quickest way I know of to get caught! And remind him that there may be wards on things in here. Don’t touch anything!”

  When Dani relayed the message to Jaron, Jaron said, “On his fruit?! Surely no one wou
ld bother with a ward on food!”

  “From everything we’ve heard, this man is nuts. Don’t be surprised at anything he does, and don’t put anything past him,” Dani answered. “Now, unless you want your father to send you out of here, you better be careful.”

  “Did he say that?”

  “No, I did. But I know him better than you do, so listen to me.”

  A few minutes later, they heard the guard address someone as sir, so they all three made a mad dash for the couch and dove behind it. King Merdin cautiously peeked around the side of the couch to watch.

  The guard opened the door wide, and Rolan strolled in. He sat on the edge of the bed, pulled off his boots, and tossed them towards the wall. Then he got up, walked around the bed to the chest of drawers and started taking off his clothes. He took off his sash, folded it, opened one of the top drawers, put the sash in the drawer, and closed it. Then he pulled off his tunic and leggings and tossed them on the floor. When he stepped back towards his bed to grab his nightshirt, King Merdin saw two pendants hanging around his neck. One was the red opal pendant that all sorcerers wore, but the other was a black opal surrounded with turquoise, the pendant worn by the Sisters of Healing.

  As soon as Rolan had his nightshirt on, he went around the room closing the glowstone cases. Soon the only light in the room was from a small glowstone anchored above the bed. Rolan left that one open and stretched out on his bed.

  A few minutes later, King Merdin heard snores vibrate throughout the room. He considered using the key to leave, but he wanted to be there when Rolan got up the next morning. Although they now knew for certain that he had one of the pendants, they had not seen anything that would link him to the lamp or the extra pendant. Maybe if they waited until morning, they would find that link.