John went on, "Is he hoping the dragon will fall on the
Citadel and spare him the trouble of the siege?"
Gareth shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm told
Polycarp has catapults for slinging naphtha set up on the
highest turrets. The dragon keeps his distance." In spite
of the Master's treason. Jenny could hear in the Prince's
voice a trace of pride in his former friend.
Unlike John, who had rented a Court costume from a
shop outside the palace gates which specialized in such
things for petitioners to the King, Gareth owned at least
a dozen of them—like all Court costumes, criminally
expensive. The one he wore today was parakeet green
and primrose and, in the uncertain light of the afternoon,
it turned his rather sallow complexion yellow.
John pushed his specs a little further up on the bridge
of his nose. "Well, I tell you, I'm not exactly ettling to
go on kicking my heels here like a rat catcher waiting for
the King to decide he wants my services. I came here to
protect my lands and my people, and right now they're
getting nothing from the King who's supposed to guard
them, nor from me."
Gareth had been gazing down into the garden at the
little group around the leaf-stained marble statue of the
god Kantirith absently, as if not aware of where he looked;
now he turned his head quickly. "You can't go," he said,
worry and fear in his voice.
"And why not?"
The boy bit his lip and did not answer, but his glance
darted nervously back down to the garden. As if she felt
Dragonsbane 149
the touch of it, Zyeme turned and blew him a playful kiss,
and Gareth looked away. He looked tired and hagridden,
and Jenny suddenly wondered if he still dreamed of Zyeme.
The uncomfortable silence was broken, not by him,
but by the high voice of Dromar.
"My lord Aversin..." The gnome stepped out onto the
terrace and blinked painfully in the wan, overcast light.
His words came haltingly, as if they were unfamiliar in
his mouth. "Please—do not go."
John glanced down at him sharply. "You haven't pre-
cisely extended your all in welcome and help, either, have
you?"
The old ambassador's gaze challenged him. "I drew
thee the maps of the Deep. By the Stone, what more canst
thou want?"
"Maps that don't lie," John said coolly. "You know as
well as I do the maps you drew have sections of 'em left
blank. And when I put them together, the maps of the
various levels and the up-and-down map, damned if it
wasn't the same place on all of them. I'm not interested
in the secrets of your bloody Deep, but I can't know
what's going to happen, nor where I may end up playing
catch-me in the dark with the dragon, and I'd just as soon
have an accurate map to do it with."
There was an edge of anger on his level voice, and an
edge of fear. Dromar must have heard both, for the
answering blaze died out of his own countenance, and he
looked down at his hands, clasped over the knots of his
sash. "This is a matter that has nothing to do with the
dragon, nothing to do with thee," he said quietly. "The
maps are accurate—I swear it by the Stone in the heart
of the Deep. What is left off is the affair of the gnomes,
and the gnomes only—the very secret of the heart of the
Deep. Once, one of the children of men spied out that
heart, and since then we have had cause to regret it bit-
terly."
150 Barbara Hambly
He lifted his head again, pale eyes somber under the
long shelf of snowy brow. "I beg that thou trust me, Drag-
onsbane. It goes against our ways to ask the aid of the
children of men. But thou must help us. We are miners
and traders; we are not warriors, and it is a warrior that
we need. Day by day, more of our folk are forced to leave
this city. If the Citadel falls, many of the people of the
Deep will be slaughtered with the rebels who have given
them not only the shelter of their walls, but the very bread
of their rations. The King's troops will not let them leave
the Citadel, even if they would—and believe me, many
have tried. Here in Bel, the cost of bread rises, and soon
we shall be starved out, if we are not murdered by the
mobs from the taverns. In a short time we shall be too
few to hold the Deep, even should we be able to pass its
gates."
He held out his hands, small as a child's and gro-
tesquely knotted with age, pallidly white against the soft
black layerings of his strangely cut sleeves. "If thou dost
not help us, who among the children of men will?"
"Oh, run along, Dromar, do." Clean and sweet as a
silver knife, Zyeme's voice cut across his last words. She
came mounting the steps from the garden, light as an
almond blossom floating on the breeze, her pink-edged
veils blown back over the dark and intricate cascades of
her hair. "Isn't it enough that you try to foist your way
into the King's presence day after day, without troubling
these poor people with politics out of season? Gnomes
may be vulgar enough to talk business and buttonhole
their betters in the evening, but here we feel that once
the day is done, it should be a time for enjoyment." She
made shooing gestures with her well-kept hands and pouted
in impatience. "Now run along," she added in a teasing
tone, "or I shall call the guards."
The old gnome stood for a moment, his eyes upon hers,
his cloudy white hair drifting like cobwebs around his
Dragonsbane 151
wrinkled face in the stir of the sea winds. Zyeme wore
an expression of childlike pertness, like a well-loved little
girl demanding her own way. But Jenny, standing behind
her, saw the delighted arrogance of her triumph in every
line and muscle of her slim back. She had no doubt that
Zyerne would, in fact, call the guards.
Evidently Dromar hadn't, either. Ambassador from the
court of one monarch to another for thirty years, he turned
and departed at the behest of the King's leman. Jenny
watched him stump away down the gray and lavender
stonework of the path across the garden, with Bond Cler-
lock, pale and brittle-looking, imitating his walk behind
his back.
Ignoring Jenny as she generally did, Zyeme slid one
hand through Gareth's arm and smiled up at him. "Back-
biting old plotter," she remarked. "I must present myself
to your father at supper in an hour, but there's time for
a stroll along the sea wall, surely? The rains won't start
until then."
She could say it with surety, thought Jenny; at the
touch of her spells, the clouds would come and depart
like lapdogs waiting to be fed.
Still holding Gareth's arm and leaning her suppleness
against his height, she drew him toward the steps leading
down into the garden; the courtiers there were already
&nb
sp; dispersing, and its walks were empty under the wind-
driven scurry of fugitive leaves. Gareth cast a despairing
glance back at John and Jenny, standing together on the
terrace, she in the plaids and sheepskin jacket of the north,
and he in the ornate blue-and-cream satins of the Court,
his schoolboy spectacles balanced on his nose.
Jenny nudged John gently. "Go after them."
He looked down at her with a half-grin. "So from a
dancing bear I'm being promoted to a chaperon for our
hero's virtue?"
"No," Jenny said, her voice low. "A bodyguard for his
152 Barbara Hambly
safety. I don't know what it is about Zyeme, but he feels
it, too. Go after them."
John sighed and bent to kiss her lips. "The King had
better pay me extra for this." His hug was like being
embraced by a satin lion. Then he was off, trotting down
the steps and calling to them in horrible north-country
brogue, the wind billowing his mantlings and giving him
the appearance of a huge orchid in the gray garden.
In all, it was just over a week, before the King finally
sent for his son.
"He asked me where I'd been," Gareth said quietly.
"He asked me why I hadn't presented myself to him
before." Turning, he struck the side of his fist against the
bedpost, his teeth gritted to fight tears of rage and con-
fusion. "Jenny, in all these days he hasn't even seen me!"
He swung angrily around. The faded evening light,
falling through the diamond-shaped panes of the window
where Jenny sat, brushed softly across the citron-and-
white satins of his Court mantlings and flickered eerily in
the round, facetless old jewels on his hands. His hair had
been carefully curled for the audience with his father and,
as was the nature of fine hair, hung perfectly straight
around his face again, except for a stray lock or two. He'd
put on his spectacles after the audience, cracked and bent
and unlikely-looking with his finery; the lenses were
speckled with the fine blowing rain that chilled the win-
dowglass.
"I don't know what to do," he said in a strangulated
voice. "He said—he said we'd talk about the dragon the
next time he saw me. I don't understand what's going
on..."
"Was Zyeme there?" John inquired. He was sitting at
the spindly desk, which, like the rest of the upper floor
of his and Jenny's guest house, was heaped with books.
The whole room, after eight days, had the appearance of
Dragonsbane 153
a ransacked library; volumes were propped against one
another, places marked by pages of John's notes or odd
articles of clothing or other books—and in one case a
dagger—slipped between the leaves.
Gareth nodded miserably. "Half the time when I asked
him things, she'd answer. Jenny, could she be holding him
under some kind of spell?"
Jenny started to say, "Possibly..."
"Well, of course she is," John said, tipping back his
high stool to lean the small of his back against the desk.
"And if you hadn't been so bloody determined to do that
slick little baggage justice, Jen, you'd have seen it a week
ago. Come!" he added, as a soft tapping sounded at the
door.
It opened wide enough for Trey Clerlock to put her
head around the doorframe. She hesitated a moment; then,
when John gestured, she came in, carrying a pearwood
hurdy-gurdy with ivory stars scattered at random over its
stubby neck box and playing pegs. John beamed with
delight as he took it, and Jenny groaned.
"You're not going to play that thing, are you? You'll
frighten the cattle for miles around, you know."
"I'll not," John retorted. "And besides, there's a trick
to making it louder or softer..."
"Do you know it?"
"I can leam. Thank you. Trey, love—some people just
haven't any appreciation for the sound of fine music."
"Some people haven't any appreciation for the sound
of a cat being run through a mangle," Jenny replied. She
turned back to Gareth. "Zyeme could be holding him
under a spell, yes—but from what you've told me of your
father's stubbornness and strength of will, I'm a little
surprised that her influence is that great."
Gareth shook his head. "It isn't only that," he said.
"I—I don't know how to put this, and I can't be sure,
because I wasn't wearing my spectacles during the inter-
154 Barbara Hambly
view, but it almost seems that he's faded since I've been
gone. That's a stupid idea," he recanted at once, seeing
Jenny's puzzled frown.
"No," said Trey unexpectedly. The other three looked
at her, and she blushed a little, like a flustered doll. "I
don't think it's stupid. I think it's true, and faded is a
good word for it. Because I—I think the same thing is
happening to Bond."
"Bond?" Jenny said, and the memory of the King's
face flashed across her mind; how hollow and brittle he
had looked, and how, like Bond, the paint on his face had
seemed to stand out from the waxiness beneath.
Trey appeared to concentrate for a moment on care-
fully straightening the lace on her left cuff. An opal flick-
ered softly in the particolored coils of her hair as she
looked up. "I thought it was just me," she said in a small
voice. "I know he's gotten heavier-handed, and less funny
about his jests, the way he is when his mind is on some-
thing else. Except that his mind doesn't seem to be on .
anything else; it just isn't on what he's doing, these days.
He's so absentminded, the way your father's gotten." Her
gaze went to Jenny's, imploring. "But why would Zyeme
put a spell on my brother? She's never needed to hold
him to her. He's always squired her around. He was one
of the first friends she had at Court. He—he loved her.
He used to dream about her..."
"Dream about her how?" Gareth demanded sharply.
Trey shook her head. "He wouldn't tell me."
"Did he sleepwalk?"
The surprise in the girl's eyes answered the question
before she spoke. "How did you know?"
The fitful rain outside had ceased; in the long silence,
the voices of the palace guards in the court below the
guest house windows could be heard clearly, telling a story
about a gnome and a whore in town. Even the hazy light
of the afternoon was failing, and the room was cold and
Dragonsbane 155
slate gray. Jenny asked, "Do you dream about her still,
Gareth?"
The boy turned red as if scalded. He stammered, shook
his head, and finally said, "I—I don't love her. I truly
don't. I try—I don't want to be alone with her. But..."
He gestured helplessly, unable to fight the traitor dreams.
Jenny said softly, "But she is calling you. She called
you that first night we were in her hunting lodge. Had
she done so before?"
"I—I don't know." He l
ooked shaken and in and very
frightened, as he had when Jenny had probed at his mind,
as if looking at things that he did not want to see. Trey,
who had gone to take a spill from the fire and was lighting
the small ivory lamps on the edge of John's desk, shook
out her taper, went quietly over to him, and got him to
sit down beside her on the edge of the curtained bed.
At length Gareth said, "She might have. A few months
ago she asked me to dine with her and my father in her
wing of the palace. I didn't go. I was afraid Father would
be angry at me for slighting her, but later on he said
something that made me wonder whether he'd even known
about it. I wondered then. I thought..." He blushed still
more hotly. "That was when I thought she might have
been in love with me."
"I've seen loves like that between wolves and sheep,
but the romance tends to be a bit one-sided," John
remarked, scratching his nose. "What prevented you from
going?"
"Polycarp." He toyed with the folds of his mantlings,
which caught a soft edge of brightness where the angle
of the lamplight came down past the curtains of the bed.
"He was always telling me to beware of her. He found
out about the dinner and talked me out of going."
"Well, I don't know much about magic and all that,
but just offhand, lad, I'd say he might have saved your
156 Barbara Hambly
life." John braced his back against the desk's edge and
fingered a silent run of melody up the hurdy-gurdy's keys.
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