Rafiq made short work of the last armchair, springing lightly and silently into the alcove, and hurried after Kako. Now that he had been human for a few days his native lightness of foot was growing, just as Kako’s she-dragon aura faded further with each day that she didn’t turn dragon.
The hall made an abrupt end in heavy curtains that were just barely parted. Rafiq had already felt the fiery magic that formed it, and if he had a guess, he would have said that Kako had joined the Keep to a room quite far away from it by the simple expedient of matching drapes.
Carefully twitching the curtains back a little more, he took a cautious look around the room. It wasn’t a small one, but it looked distinctly crowded. Part of that impression was created by the sheer amount of books that had been crammed into the bookcases, corners, spare chairs and tables; but the fact that every chair not occupied by piles of books was occupied by a human of varying size, age, and sex didn’t help the room to look any less crowded. There was a boy sitting solemnly on a footstool with a book that was bigger than he was lying open on his crossed legs. On the top shelf of one of the bookcases was a very tiny girl alternately turning pages and tucking strands of hair behind her ear, from whence they immediately escaped again; and the fattest two-seater couch that Rafiq had ever seen was occupied by an older girl who evidently had no idea of the way that couches worked. She was sprawled on the seat with a book resting on her stomach, her hair hanging over the side and her legs resting comfortably against the back of it, crossed at the ankles. She was showing off a good deal more light brown skin than even Shinpoans would consider to be suitable.
Across from her, as if in direct reproof, sat an elegant young woman with a gracefully straight back and correctly covered legs, reading something decorative and most likely poetical.
When Kako walked into the room, each one of them looked up, smiles—and in the case of the tiny girl in the bookcase, squealing excitement—immediately in evidence. Even the girl sitting upside down on the couch, with her clever, sarcastic face, grinned briefly.
“I see you’ve all sneaked out of bed again,” said Kako, in a congratulatory kind of way.
“Did you make it to the third Circle?” asked the boy, his eyes bright and interested. “We’ve been tracking your progress on the map Dai’s drawing.”
“We did,” Kako said. “Where’s mum?”
“Probably restocking the pantry after you raided it last night,” said the boy. He looked vaguely reproachful. “Why didn’t you wake us?”
“I wanted to speak to mum,” said Kako. “Besides, I saw you all two nights ago. And mum was the one who gave me the sandwiches, so there.”
“You’ve tracked something nasty in,” suddenly said the girl with her legs propped against the back of the couch. She nodded toward Rafiq, who had thought that he was sufficiently well hidden, and he found himself under the gaze of five pairs of eyes. “How unfortunate. It’ll probably get stuck in the carpet, too.”
Kako said: “Bother! What are you doing here?”
“I followed you.”
“Well, yes; that’s pretty obvious. I suppose you’d better come in. It’s not a good idea to spend too much time in the corridor: it doesn’t really exist.”
“Dai!” hissed the older, elegant girl. “Cover your legs!”
The girl called Dai looked Rafiq over once boredly and said: “It doesn’t matter. He’s only a human-form thing. What does he care about legs?”
“Legs are full of flavour and wonderfully chewy,” said Rafiq. “Also humans can’t run away if you bite them off.”
There was a soft plop as Dai’s legs hit the couch and a slight scuffle as they folded beneath her. Rafiq took a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact that her eyes were now very wide and suddenly no longer bored.
“This is Rafiq,” Kako said, her eyes dancing. “He’s the Contender’s um...servant. He’s a dragon-human construct.”
“Sort of the opposite of you,” said the boy. His eyes weren’t quite as obviously Shinpoan as the others’: not only were they bright blue, there was only a slight suggestion of slanting to them. “Do you eat, construct?”
Rafiq’s eyes met Kako’s briefly. He said: “Yes. Not as much as a human-born, but I do require some sustenance.”
“Now that’s interesting!” the boy said excitedly. “Kako doesn’t, you see. Where do you keep your dragon form?”
“Keep it?”
He nodded expectantly. “Yes, while you’re in a Constructed human body. Kako hides in wardrobes and under beds.”
Rafiq looked from one to the other, frowning. “I don’t...I change. There’s no other body. First I’m dragon, then I’m man.”
There was an immediate explosion of excited interest all over the room.
“But Kako says–”
“Kako has–”
“How do you–”
Kako, above the general hubbub, said sharply: “Enough! Rafiq isn’t interested in how I change from human to dragon–”
“I am,” objected Rafiq, but she ignored him.
“–he’s interested in eating. Zen, why don’t you get him something to eat?”
“All right, but Akira’s used all of the preserves for that–”
“–for our cousin?” said Kako swiftly.
There was a brief pause while Zen pushed up his glasses and Dai chuckled.
“Yes. Our cousin ate all the preserves. I hope they give him stomach cramps. But there’s a nice pie in the cooler if Rafiq would like that.”
“Pie!” said a small voice immediately. Rafiq looked up and found that the diminutive girl in the bookcase was watching him intently. She’d gone back to her book when the conversation had turned to Rafiq, but the mention of pie had once more awoken her interest in the conversation.
“Pie for me!” she crowed.
“Pie for Rafiq,” corrected Zen, obediently closing his book and leaving the room.
“Pie for me!” insisted the child irritably. She abandoned her book to climb out of the bookcase backwards, and Rafiq, who instinctively moved closer when her tiny legs flailed for the next shelf, was just in time to catch her before she fell.
“It’s all right, she bounces,” said Dai languidly.
“Dragon!” said the child happily, wrapping her arms around Rafiq’s neck. “Dragon for me!”
Kako grinned. “I thought you wanted pie?”
“Pie for me, too!”
“This is Miyoko,” Kako said, by way of introduction. “Oh, and that’s Suki. Akira isn’t here at the moment. Zen is the one fetching the pie, and Dai is the one on the couch.”
A pair of big brown eyes lit with excitement. “Fire!”
“No fire!” said Kako immediately. “Dai, did you give Mee matches again?”
“Suki took them off her days ago and I’ve been locking the door to my workroom.”
“Don’t need matches,” Miyoko explained. “Dragons go whoof!”
She puffed her cheeks out and huffed a short, slightly damp breath into Rafiq’s face, by which he understood that she wished him to breathe fire. An interesting idea—could he transform enough to be able to breathe fire without needing to change all the way?—but since Zen was just staggering into the room with a tray piled high with food while Kako peeled Miyoko’s arms from his neck, he didn’t attempt it.
“Help yourself,” Kako told him, nodding at the tray. “And quickly, too, or there’ll be none left for you.”
Rafiq did so hungrily; but he wasn’t so eager for food that he didn’t notice her pulling Dai aside to murmur in her ear. He accepted the pie Zen offered him before Miyoko could snatch it away with her tiny, grubby fingers, and watched them both out of the corner of his eye. Did something change hands? He thought so. So Kako wasn’t here merely to see her family: she’d come with a purpose. Was that purpose behind why she still wandered the Enchanted Keep with himself and the prince?
It was useless to attempt to hear what Kako and Dai were saying: Zen was determined to kn
ow about Rafiq’s dragon form and how he changed, and Miyoko was just as determined to have Rafiq’s attention all to herself. Suki tried to keep them both in some semblance of politeness, and in so doing added another layer of noise to the babble. By the time both children had been more or less quieted by their elder sister, Kako and Dai were descending upon the supper tray to snatch up the remaining crumbs that hadn’t already been consumed with great dispatch by the younger two and even the lady-like Suki.
Rafiq continued to watch them thoughtfully as he ate, prompting Dai to wink at him salaciously.
Kako didn’t react to his steady regard, but when he’d finished eating she said: “We’d best be going back now, Rafiq.”
There was a general chorus of protest.
“But you just got here!”
“Pies and fruit nectar, that’s all we are to you!”
“Kakooooo!”
“But Akira will be here soon, Kako!”
“I know,” said Kako, answering the most comprehensible of the wails. “But I got to see Akira last night. And why else would I come to see you all but for the food and drink?”
To Rafiq’s surprise, her siblings seemed to take this in good part. Zen and Miyoko crowded close to hug her around the waist and the leg respectively, and Suki sighingly kissed her cheek. Dai gave her a sideways smile and threw herself onto a couch, blowing Kako a kiss.
“Will you be back tomorrow?”
“I think so,” said Kako. She and Dai exchanged a glance, and she added: “I’ll want to see how you and Zen are going with that project.”
Zen looked startled. “We’ve got a project?”
Dai roused herself enough to clip his ear with one hand. “Of course we do, you stupid squib!”
“Oh, that project,” Zen said, his eyes sliding away from Rafiq. “All right: ‘night Kako.”
Kako ushered Rafiq on ahead of her, stopping only to detach Miyoko from her leg, and they walked the passage that wasn’t really there in silence, all the way back to the Enchanted Keep.
The next morning the colour was still gone from the tiles. Rafiq, who woke with a smile on his lips and many questions bubbling in his mind, cast his eye over the tiles and snuffed a small laugh.
“Oh, are the tiles still white?” said Kako sympathetically, from her wardrobe.
“Plague take it!” Akish said angrily. “Why aren’t the colours back?”
“I expect the Keep is trying a bit of negative reinforcement,” Kako said, her eyes bright. She uncurled from the wardrobe with the unconscious grace of a she-dragon and stretched on the tips of her toes. “It really doesn’t like having to repeat itself. I wouldn’t use any more magic while you’re here, if I were you.”
That was moderately interesting, thought Rafiq, edging slightly sideways to make room for Kako to sit down beside him. He could have sat up, but it looked like Akish was settling to have a temper tantrum, and Rafiq didn’t feel that a tantrum merited his full attention when he could recline comfortably for the duration.
“There’s always the Door Out,” said Kako, with the sighing weariness of one who knows she will not be attended to. Rafiq smiled up at the ceiling.
“We will not abandon the quest!” Prince Akish said immediately. “Rafiq, what do you see?”
The Burden of his Thrall fell immediately, suffocatingly vicelike.
Rafiq said, as casually as he could manage: “I see the silver ceiling and the reflected patterns from the floor.”
“The patterns?” Prince Akish stared at him, then up at the ceiling with fierce exultation. “Rafiq, find me a mirror!”
Rafiq rolled languidly to his feet, conscious of a galling annoyance at himself. He had hoped to be able to keep his own counsel better.
He brought back one of the side mirrors from the dressing-table a few tiles away and passed it to Akish, meeting Kako’s eyes as he did so. She did her one-shouldered shrug and smiled slightly, which made him feel better.
“Now we progress!” said Prince Akish exultantly, and led the way across the tiles. It was astonishingly quick once they knew the way: a bare twenty yards, and straight as an arrow to that one window. The prince hauled at the window himself, for once too eager to order Rafiq to do it, and leaned out into the open air to scout out the next Circle.
“It’s a garden,” he said. “Not much to be seen from here, I’m afraid. Proceed, lizard.”
***
Somewhere far away from the Enchanted Keep, Dai, sister of Kako, turned a shard of sword between her fingers.
“What is it?” asked Zen. He was gazing at it with intense attention, as if he could force it to give up its secrets by the force of his will alone.
“It’s part of a sword.”
“I know that. I meant, what’s it for?”
“Then you should have asked that,” said Dai. “I don’t know what it’s for. Neither does Kako, but she must be trying to find out, because she wants a passable copy to replace the original. Can you do it?”
“Probably,” said Zen. “Think it belongs to the prince, or Rafiq?”
“Weeeeeeell–”
“What, Kako didn’t tell you?”
“Oh, she told me. Says she picked the prince’s pocket. But this magic– it’s good magic. I mean, really good: lovely, benevolent stuff, and is it ever strong! What’s Akish of Illisr doing with something this nice?”
“Something nasty, belike,” said Zen. “Oh! Dai! Why’s your necklace doing that?”
“What? Oh!”
“That’s your fae necklace, isn’t it? What’s it doing, trying to get away from the shard?”
“I think so,” said Dai, feeling for the pendant doubtfully. It had pulled itself as far away from the shard as it could get, and now it tugged at the chain around her neck from somewhere over her shoulder. “Do you know, I’m almost certain we have a book about this. Wait here. Don’t touch it.”
Zen waited after she left the room, his hands shoved into his pockets and jiggling on his feet. It looked as though he was physically restraining himself from touching the shard. Dai returned moments later and shot him a suspicious look, but his impatience convincing her that he’d done as he was told, she wiggled the book at him.
“I was right. We do have a book about it. Here, hold the shard.”
“All right!”
He held it while Dai grew a spiky, tight-knit spell in the palm of one hand, and stood without flinching as she hurled it at the shard between his fingers. Magic hit shard, and the room lit with a flash of searing white light as the spell exploded into extinction.
“Oooooh,” said Zen, his eyes bright and dazzled.
Dai grinned: a brilliant, triumphant grin. “Ah,” she said. “So that’s what it does! I think Kako is going to like this.”
The Third Circle is ended.
The Fourth Circle
Rafiq dropped into the courtyard below. There were flagstones beneath his feet, cracked and ancient with weeds, and the garden in the centre of the courtyard was encroaching upon the stone border. Where once there must have been a full three yards between garden and courtyard wall, the trees now brushed against the wall. Rafiq turned to help Kako through the window and set her down gently on the flagstones, considerably puzzled. The view from the other windows had shown them to be several stories high in the Keep, and there had certainly been no sign of a courtyard garden from any of them.
Prince Akish dropped from the window behind them and looked around critically. “At least we can see the sky again! I began to fear we’d never get out of that accursed place.”
Kako, looking very wary, lightly touched the courtyard wall. “I wouldn’t relax just yet, your highness. This feels more perilous than the proper inside of the Keep.”
“That’s because it’s Faery,” said Prince Akish dismissively.
Kako’s eyebrows twitched together. “You’ve been in Faery before?”
“Of course. We’re allied with Faery.”
“You allied with them? Why would you a
lly yourself with them?”
“Watch your impertinent mouth, wench,” said Prince Akish. “The Fae are providing us with arms and spells in return for temporary land grants and safe passage for their exiles through our lands.”
Kako muttered something that sounded like “Exiles!” with a bitter kind of mockery. “Yes, the Fae approached Shinpo about accepting some of their exiles as well. We began to allow a few through a tear between here and there because it seemed they were under attack by another group of Fae known as the Guardians. Unfortunately, those exiles turned out to be High Fae who took control of the towns in which they were settled and subjugated the local population into slaves. We still haven’t managed to rescue all of our people, and I hear that Llassar is almost entirely over-run with Fae. A human there is no more than a dog.”
“Shinpo, like Llassar, is weakly and prone to invasion,” said the prince. “Illisr has not agreed to house exiles out of the goodness of its heart, it has accepted exchange for exchange. We’ve not weakened ourselves, we’ve taken advantage of the situation. Faery is indebted to us.”
Rafiq, who knew something of how Faery paid its debts, exchanged a look with Kako. She was breathing fast and short, her eyes dark, and it occurred to him that this was the most openly genuine feeling he’d ever seen from her except when in the presence of her family. Almost every other word, smile or response had been carefully calculated to draw the desired reaction from Prince Akish or Rafiq himself. To what end, Rafiq still hadn’t determined.
“Take to the air, Rafiq,” said Prince Akish. “I’d like to know what we’re working with.”
“Coming?” Rafiq asked Kako. He had the distinct pleasure of seeing her completely taken aback, her eyes fearful of what he was about to say, before he added: “I can take passengers if you’re not afraid to fall off.”
Fire In The Blood (Shards Of A Broken Sword Book 2) Page 5