“You can tell it yourself, if you like,” said Kako, but she nevertheless called out: “The prince says he’ll kill me if you don’t co-operate.”
There was the kind of awkward silence that suggested everybody knew somebody had been made a fool of, but nobody quite liked to say so.
Prince Akish clicked his tongue impatiently. “Ho there! Open the third Circle to us or your serving maid dies!”
Rafiq felt Kako sigh slightly. “It’s not a person, your highness. It doesn’t understand death. The Circles can’t be cheated: threatening me will only waste time we could be using to find the way ourselves.”
“Let her feel the point of the dagger,” said Akish softly.
Rafiq didn’t try to resist the order: his hands were less controlled when he was resisting, and he would much rather prick Kako’s neck on purpose than cut her throat by accident. He heard a small, sudden intake of breath from Kako, then something liquid and hot burned his thumb and forefinger. Rafiq stiffened and looked down to find that the blade of his knife was gone. No, not gone: melted, the steel of it dripping on his fingers and burning the flesh. He took in a silent breath through his teeth and quickly wiped the burning liquid away on the shoulder of Kako’s bodice, prompting the scent of scorched silk to rise faintly in the air. Her head turned as he looked down, and her eyes met his, faintly challenging.
Fortunately, Prince Akish hadn’t noticed the melted blade. He was glaring around the room as if expecting attackers to leap from behind the curtains and under the books, and by the time his gaze fell on Rafiq and Kako again, Rafiq had angled the handle of the dagger so that the prince wouldn’t have been able to see the blade if it was there.
“There’s no one to save me,” Kako said. Once again, her words had the ring of universally known truth.
Was that, Rafiq wondered privately, because she really had no one to look after her, or because she didn’t need anyone to look after her?
“Enough of this foolery,” said Prince Akish impatiently, interrupting his thoughts. “Let the wench go, Rafiq. We’ve wasted enough time on this trial.”
Rafiq released Kako in relief. It was bad enough that he’d killed a she-dragon. To kill a human female as well would have been a hard thing to live with, as impossible as it would have been for him to do anything about it.
Kako adjusted her neck scarf with a great dignity that was only slightly ruined by the tiny, still-smoking holes Rafiq’s melted blade made in the light fabric and the smell of burnt silk that still permeated the air.
“What are your instructions?” Rafiq asked the prince. In general he made it a rule not to ask for Commands: he far preferred misinterpreting those orders given him and dodging the ones that he could conveniently not hear. In this case, however, it seemed safer to direct Prince Akish’s thoughts toward anything but threatening the female servants of the Keep.
“We shall search for secret passages,” said Prince Akish. “A keep as big as this one must surely be bristling with hidden nooks and crannies. I’ll search in the main hall: you can have the library. Don’t leave any corner of the room unsearched.”
As far as it went, thought Rafiq as the prince removed himself to the hall; the command was both comfortable and easy to follow.
He very precisely searched the corners of the room first, while Kako watched with narrowed eyes, then investigated the corners where book-cases met walls for good measure. That did away with his Burden and left him to search in comfort and with just as much vigour as he chose to exert.
He was carelessly tipping books on their spines with the rather nebulous idea that any secret passage in the Keep would likely be activated by a bookish lever when it occurred to him to ask: “Why a library?”
“Why not?” said Kako, with her elegant half-shrug.
“I’m a dragon.”
“Yes, we established that.”
“Libraries don’t adjoin grand halls. Or foyers.”
“I see. You’re saying that on your authority as a dragon.”
Her voice was so reasonable. Rafiq was certain she was laughing at him.
By way of explanation, he said: “If even a dragon knows it, everybody must. Why a library?”
“Well, the foyer out there isn’t always the foyer, if you know what I mean. Sometimes the Keep likes to put another hall or foyer there instead.”
“Mm,” murmured Rafiq, to give himself time to think. She was only telling half of the truth. “What’s written on the lintel?”
“That? It’s Shinpoan. Books are the door, but Knowledge is the key. It’s an old saying that means a well-informed mind will learn more from a book than an ignorant one.”
“Mm.”
Kako’s almond eyes flicked over to him and away again. “You’re unusually talkative today.”
Rafiq only grunted at her this time. He wasn’t exactly talkative at the best of times, but he distinctly disliked being lied to, and he was certain that Kako’s entire conversation with him had consisted of half-truths and misdirections. As little as Prince Akish liked being made a fool of did Rafiq like it.
Prince Akish called for a halt when the natural light faded. Neither he nor Rafiq had found a single secret passage or hidden door: just the same grand flight of stairs and the same two rooms, hall and library. Rafiq, supposedly searching the library with Kako, heard the enraged stomping of feet on the stairs as Akish’s temper got the best of him and he sought determinedly to climb through as many iterations of the hall and stairs as it took for the scenery to change. It hadn’t changed, of course, and the prince had eventually tired himself out enough to declare an end to the day’s struggles. None of them were in a particularly good mood by then: Akish was tired and hungry, Rafiq was hungry and puzzled, and Kako’s pinched face said that she was hungry too. It was rather a relief when they each turned to their own favoured sleeping spots and ignored the others in favour of sleep.
Rafiq woke in the sable dark, unsure of what it was that had roused him. He could hear the prince’s heavy breathing, and to his left was the soft in and out of Kako’s breath. There was nothing irregular or threatening about it. The rest of the room was silent: a heavy silence from the book-lined walls and five cold points of empty silence where the windows and connecting door made a hole in the books. Then, while Kako’s breath remained soft and steady, Rafiq heard the slither as she uncurled from her settee and set her bare feet silently on the marble floor. Not asleep, then.
Rafiq cracked his eyelids open just enough to see a blurred slit of the room as Kako looked, listened, and stole away softly across the swiftly cooling tiles. Where was she going? It came to his mind that she had slept late yesterday morning: had she been wandering last night as well? And if so, where? Two rooms and a staircase didn’t leave a lot of leeway.
He briefly considered following her, but by the time he sat up Kako’s almost indiscernible footsteps had died away altogether and Rafiq had the distinct impression that she was no longer in the two-room paradigm with himself and Akish. Besides, if he knew where she’d gone and Prince Akish asked about it later, Rafiq would have to tell him. Rafiq preferred to tell the prince as little as possible, and if he didn’t know anything he couldn’t tell anything.
By the time Kako returned, waking him, the pre-dawn cool was already seeping across the marble floor, causing Rafiq to burrow deeper into his rug in an attempt to escape its lingering touch. Through his eyelashes he could see that Kako was weary but well content, a glow of satisfaction about her. She fell asleep almost immediately and this time Rafiq could hear the difference in her breathing. She must have stayed awake for hours waiting for himself and Akish to fall asleep.
What exactly did she want with himself and Akish? She certainly had no need to stay with them. And when Prince Akish had declared his intention of taking her with them yesterday, Rafiq was certain that Kako had been pleased. Was she a part of the Keep’s enchantments? Was she only there to obfuscate the path and hamper them in the Circles of Challenge?
> It wasn’t until quite late in the day that Prince Akish sent a bellow of triumph echoing through the two-room paradigm. Rafiq, who had been prowling the great hall—ostensibly in search of a way forward but actually in search of some form of food—betook himself to the next room slowly enough to please himself while not being slow enough to force Akish to call him in.
Kako was already there, reclining on a settee with a book and not looking very interested. Akish was standing in front of one of the emptier bookcases, his face alight with triumph, and when he drew nearer Rafiq understood why. It was curious that he and Kako hadn’t seen it: those two stacks of books supporting the old shelving made a doorway.
“The writing,” he said, nodding.
Prince Akish’s eyes flamed. “Books are the door!”
“And knowledge is the key,” agreed Kako. “It’s a Shinpoan saying.”
“It’s a sign,” Akish said impatiently. “You wouldn’t understand. Those piles of books are the doorway to the next Circle.”
Kako’s eyes became particularly flat. “How interesting. How does that work?”
“I suppose one simply walks through it.”
“I see. You don’t seem to be getting very far.”
Prince Akish, who had tried to walk through one rather sturdy wall, pounded his fist on the blocks that showed between book stacks. “Why isn’t it working?”
“Maybe the door’s shut,” said Kako helpfully.
“There must be a key phrase to unlock it.” Prince Akish crossed his arms tightly across his chest, scowling. “Knowledge is the key! Books are the door!”
“It’s not working,” Rafiq said, when it was obvious that it wasn’t.
“It must work!” Prince Akish said furiously. “The words are a sign! My conclusions are correct!”
He made a violent gesture at the wall, spewing potent magic from his fingers, and both piles of books exploded in a fluttering of leaves and covers, knocking several other books from the shelves and starting a domino effect of several massive tomes that had been leaning against the back of one of the settees. The last of these, a monstrously large and improbably thin atlas with biscuit-coloured borders that was nearly as tall as Kako, tilted ponderously and slapped against the marble floor with a soft, dusty paf!
All three of them stared at it speechlessly, aware of Prince Akish’s magic reacting with something distinctly magical in the book before it fizzled away.
“It’s certainly big enough,” Kako said.
Prince Akish, recovering both his temper and his breath, ordered: “Open the book, lizard.”
This time it was obvious that they’d chosen the right way. When Rafiq propped the atlas back up against a bookshelf and opened it, the internal magics lit the dusty twilight of the room. He opened it to the page that it most naturally opened at, and instead of a map they found themselves looking at a highly detailed rendering of what seemed to be another room in the Keep. It was about the size of a large ballroom, the marble tiles on the floor of myriad colours, and was rather incongruously dotted with a series of articles that looked distinctly out of place. Even to Rafiq the profusion of chairs, desks, random ottomans, and chaise lounges seemed unusual. If he wasn’t mistaken, there was also the odd wardrobe or two about the room, and that was certainly a massively canopied bed over in one corner.
Prince Akish gazed at the room in mingled triumph and dissatisfaction. “Why are there articles of furniture strewn through your ballroom?”
“It’s only one ballroom of many,” Kako said. “I suppose it needed to keep the spare furniture somewhere.”
Rafiq, certain that Kako was again only telling half of the truth and rather annoyed with her in consequence, said abruptly: “Who goes first?”
“The serving girl,” said Akish at once, as Rafiq had been certain he would. “I will follow her and you will immediately follow me. Do you understand?”
“I hear and obey.”
“Very well. Lead the way, wench.”
Kako’s one-shouldered shrug as she turned away from the prince was as eloquent as an eyeroll. In turning, she slipped sideways and into the room in one unconsciously familiar movement that had Rafiq wondering just how well she knew the magic of the Keep.
The prince waited only until a rather flat representation of Kako appeared on the page before he followed her through without a ripple of the sorcerous page, leaving Rafiq to bring up the rear with the rather grim question of what the third Circle would present in the way of challenge.
***
The book glowed briefly as the last of the challengers stepped through, and when the glow faded a certain swirling of unformed words remained. Slowly, slowly, word by word, two lines formed in soft sepia on the creamy page.
Herein is entry to the Perilous Room
Seek the Changeable Path or find here your Doom.
The Second Circle is ended.
The Third Circle
The first thing Rafiq heard after a fuzz of soft edges and round, fluffy noises was the sound of Prince Akish swearing. That was neither soft nor fluffy. At first Rafiq thought that the tiles beneath his feet were soft and fluffy too, but once his consciousness adjusted to the abrupt fact that he was now in the ballroom he’d seen from the book, he came to the rather unpleasant realisation that the tiles were in fact some sort of quicksand, and that he had sunk in it to his knees. Prince Akish had also sunk into the floor some way ahead of him and was making all possible speed to clamber onto a nearby table that was squat, long, and above all unsinking.
“Chair,” said Kako significantly. She alone was standing on a tile that seemed to be solid, and if Rafiq read her aright, she was very much amused. Still, there was a chair in easy reach, and when he carefully levered himself out of the miry tiles and onto it, he found that quite a decent area around the chair seemed to be quite solid as well. It was hard to be annoyed with Kako when the floor beneath him was so blessedly normal.
Prince Akish scowled around at the ballroom. “What enchantment have we walked into?”
“I think,” said Kako, with a laugh trembling in her voice; “I think the floor is quicksand.”
“Don’t be pert, girl. I could ascertain so much for myself.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Kako said. The laugh was gone from her voice but to Rafiq’s eyes she fairly irradiated laughter. “Look at all the furniture: it’s just close enough to clamber on or jump to. It’s a giant game of The Floor Is Quicksand. I used to play it with my brother and sisters.”
Prince Akish’s brows snapped together. “Is this accursed place making light of our quest?”
Rafiq cast his eyes up and began feeling carefully around the base of his chair with his feet. Once Prince Akish began to be annoyed about real or perceived slights, everything took lesser place to his ire. Still, when he finished being annoyed he was bound to tell Rafiq to find them a way forward, and since Rafiq was now hungry with the kind of dull, continuous ache that preyed upon the mind, it seemed sensible to begin finding a way through the quicksand.
“Not light, exactly,” Kako said, as Rafiq’s questing feet met slightly firmer tile where he was certain he had only met treacherous quicksand before. “It does seem to have a fascination with games, though.”
“Rafiq–” began Prince Akish.
“Never mind Rafiq; he’s stuck over there,” said Kako. “I’ll find a path for us.”
Was he stuck, though? wondered Rafiq. The tiles that he had mired through seemed to be solidifying quite quickly.
“Stay there,” Kako said warningly as Rafiq brought his feet beneath him to rise. “The quicksand is beginning to firm.”
“That’s a good reason to move,” he said.
“Yes, if it were going to stay like that. I’ve got a feeling that it’s only gone away to make room for something more nasty.”
“What about you?”
“I think I’ve found a pattern,” said Kako. “I’m sure I’ll be fine. Three to the left, then blue, then yell
ow. One step back, repeat. I tested it with the quicksand tiles before you both got here. There was a bit of a lag.”
And there, thought Rafiq. There it was again! The strange, absolute certainty that Kako was lying to them. Still, lying or no, when she made her way across the floor toward him in an inching, crab-like manner that followed her prescription, she didn’t sink so much as an inch through the tiles.
She was quite close to him when Rafiq heard the faint whirring of something magical stirring. It was deep in the floor, crawling along the underside of the tiles.
Rafiq was still trying to pinpoint the source of it when Kako said a frantic: “Aiee!” and leapt for his lap. He caught her by reflex, wincing very slightly: for all her diminutive size, Kako was surprisingly heavy. She was also surprisingly warm for a human. Where a bare section of her back touched the inside of his arm Rafiq felt the contact like a ray of the hottest summer sun. Without meaning to, he found himself tightening his arms around Kako, delighting in the sunlight warmth of her.
She wriggled indignantly, and when Rafiq remembered himself enough to release her, she immediately curled one foot up to examine it. There was blood seeping from the underside of it. Rafiq automatically reached for the foot to inspect the damage but Kako elbowed him and hunched away, swiping the trickle of blood away on the silken fabric that clothed her other leg.
“It’s fine. The wound will close by itself.”
“What is it?” called the prince.
“Spikes,” said Kako, observing the floor with disfavour. “Small and very sharp. Lucky I was mostly on the right path. They took me by surprise.”
Surprise? wondered Rafiq. No, that was annoyance he’d seen on her face. Annoyance at herself. At her own carelessness, perhaps?
And why could he smell burning silk once again? That was the important question, decided Rafiq. Another was the question of why Kako was so very warm? His eyes snapped to Kako’s face, which was at present looking decidedly wary, a light suffusion of dark orange permeating the air around her. It was very, very faint: had been faint from the first moment he’d seen her. Those tiny, tell-tale colours in aura around her had been so close to indiscernible that Rafiq hadn’t consciously seen them. He’d only reacted to them as he would have reacted to any other she-dragon.
Fire In The Blood (Shards Of A Broken Sword Book 2) Page 3