by R. D. Henham
Torentine was a crafter—he probably knew when a gnome was in town, and he might have talked to Kadastrofee enough to get a picture of what she was doing. He would want to find the constructs to prove what they had done. Or, Sandon thought, he might be trying to find the gold dragon. Torentine was the only person Sandon knew who was still dedicated to the idea of the dragon’s return. He wouldn’t give up, even when everyone told him the gold dragon was gone forever, even when the horn was sounded and nothing came. Then again, Torentine might know exactly what the constructs were, but not where to find them. He might have murdered the baroness out of professional jealousy, and his loyalty to the dragon’s memory might be nothing more than an act.
Then again, Yattak had been acting suspiciously too, always skulking about, showing up where he wasn’t wanted. He was the one who had heard Kine and Sandon in his mother’s room. Why had he been lurking around in that particular hallway? Umar could make an invisible servant. Could such a person slip inside the baroness’s room, perhaps knock over a table? How smart were those servants anyway? Could one of them have been ordered to get something so specific that he or she tore out a single page and left the rest of the journal behind?
Sandon put his head in his hands. None of it mattered. He was avoiding the truth. His mother knew the others, but she suspected only one person of working against her—his father. Sandon had to start there—where his mother had left off her investigation.
Could he really accuse his father? The picture of his father as a young man, jealous and controlling, was too compelling to ignore. Camiel was a ferocious fighter and a good politician, ambitious enough to woo a baroness and intelligent enough to beat out all the others who wanted her hand. He’d stop at nothing to get what he wanted. The question, of course, was: What was his goal? To get the money and run? To rule the barony alone? He’d certainly managed that, until the blue dragon came along.
His father could have had the poison because it was evidence in his mother’s death. He might have been genuinely worried about his wife, with the war going on, and he might have been in her room for some other reason. This whole thing was getting out of control, and Sandon had only eight or so hours to figure everything out before his father blew the ancestral horn and invited Lazuli into the valley. If that happened, they’d never get the blue dragon to leave, and the barony would fall into Lazuli’s claws forever.
All right. Sandon slammed the book down on the bed. I have to stop being overdramatic. This is a puzzle, and puzzles can be solved.
His father wouldn’t answer his questions. His mother was dead. Vilfrand … well, there was no helping Vilfrand. He’d probably just lock Sandon in his room again. Sandon had done everything he could think of. He was completely out of options. With nobody to talk to and no one in the palace he could trust, he was well and truly stuck. He had to bend a little bit and go down to the prisons. After all, Kine had been right about the baron, even if Sandon hadn’t wanted to admit it. He was smart enough to hide the doorway and trustworthy enough to keep it hidden even when Vilfrand was arresting him. Kine might not be a Knight of Solamnia, but he’d saved Sandon from that stone guardian, and he sure knew a lot about dragons. Most of all, though, Sandon was sure Kine wasn’t involved because the soldier hadn’t been anywhere near the palace when his mother was killed. He was Sandon’s only option.
The boy slipped out the bedroom door, closing it tight behind him. He couldn’t lock it without the key, but so long as no one tested it …
“Sandon!”
He nearly jumped out of his skin, spinning to place his back against the door. Coming around the corner was Yattak, followed by his shadow, Umar. The wizard’s red robes fluttered unevenly around his feet as his stubby legs churned to an awkward halt. Umar nearly plowed into him.
“Good morning, Yattak.” Sandon had the presence of mind to greet him. Swords afire, he cursed himself. I made sure to check that the guards were outside, but I never thought to look for the wizards!
“What are you …” The wizard took in the scene, recognizing the door behind Sandon. “Ah. My poor, poor lad.” Without being asked, Yattak strode forward, his chubby arms spread wide. He engulfed Sandon in an awkward hug. Sandon was suddenly overcome with the thick smell of wine and the heaviness of Yattak’s elbows on his shoulders. The red robe didn’t hide the wine stains, nor could he stop the obvious slurring of his speech. Tears trickled down the wizard’s cheeks onto Sandon’s forehead. “I know what it’s like to miss a loved one,” Yattak whispered huskily.
“Master, please.” His face as red as Yattak’s robe, Umar gripped the wizard’s wide waist and pulled him off Sandon.
“Look at him, Umar. Standing by his mother’s door like a puppy waiting for its master to come home. She won’t come! She’s gone, gone forever …”
Umar desperately tried to shove Yattak’s wineskin into his hands, shooting Sandon an apologetic look. Sandon put his hands under the wizard’s arms and pushed up, gasping in a breath when the wizard’s weight lifted at last. “I’m fine, Wizard Yattak, really.”
Yattak stumbled back against the door, shifting his weight unevenly. The door, barely closed from Sandon’s exit, popped open again. “Oh!” Yattak’s beady eyes flashed to the inner chamber. “Well, just a bit of a rest then. I suppose that couldn’t hurt.” Before either Umar or Sandon could stop him, Yattak fumbled inside and thumped down onto the stuffed chair near the cold fireplace.
“Died from the drink, your sainted mother did. Poor thing,” he said, “poor thing.”
“She was poisoned, actually.” Sandon shared a beleaguered look with Umar.
“That’s what I said.” Yattak flapped one meaty palm against the arm of the chair. “The drink!”
Sandon rolled his eyes, feeling increasingly uncomfortable. He whispered to Umar, “We’ve got to get him out of here. The baron doesn’t allow anyone in this room.”
“You tell him that. He never listens to me,” Umar groused.
“Sweet lady. Dear lady. Sweet as sugar. Just give me a moment to catch my breath.” Yattak’s eyes flickered over the room, investigating every surface with a canny glint. “How I miss … uhm …”—he paused, as if his train of thought had been swallowed by the wine—“ … Her.”
Yeah, right. More like you were hoping she’d had a bottle of wine or brandy locked in this room. Sandon rolled his eyes at the indulgent mage. Logic wasn’t going to work. Begging wasn’t going to work. Obviously, he’d have to use something more straightforward. Sandon moved to the front of the chair, taking the wizard’s hands in his own. “Hey, Yattak! Gallia told me she found another keg of wine in the pantry! We should hurry down there and see if she’s opened it yet.”
“Gallia?” Yattak leaned into Sandon’s pull, shifting forward in the chair. “Dear lady. Good lady. I’ve even forgiven her for having that foul temper. Wine, you say?”
“That’s right, Yattak.” Umar jumped in to help, pushing the pudgy mage from behind.
They got the wizard up and steered him toward the door. There, Yattak paused to look behind him, craning his wide neck to peer over his shoulder. He scanned the room one more time, a faint desperation in the twist of his full mouth. Yattak murmured softly to himself, “I thought it would be here. I really did.”
Almost meekly, the red wizard allowed his apprentice and Sandon to shepherd him out of the room.
unning down the hallway at full speed, the stone walls of the castle flying past him and the echo of ringing bells filling the air, Sandon privately reconsidered the wisdom of his plan. Tying rocks to the ropes of the fire bells would keep them ringing for some time after he left the area, panicking the guards and causing the village to turn out in a vain attempt to find the location of the fire. With only a few guards in attendance in the castle, they’d need all of them to search because a fire in the fields at this time of year could destroy what little harvest Lazuli allowed them, threatening the entire valley with starvation.
He hated causing so m
uch trouble, but it was the only way to make sure that the guards posted in the lower area of the keep, where the cells were, would leave their posts. Fire bells were a priority. Guarding someone who was already safely locked into a cell was less important.
Sandon saw two guards in chain mail running down the corridor from the barred door to the dungeons. They had their hands clamped over their helms, calling to one another as they rushed toward the kitchens. Sandon ducked back against the wall, hiding behind an empty suit of armor. They didn’t see him, and raced past. Sandon looked after them until they rounded the corner and went out of sight.
He went to the dungeon and unlocked the bolt, then twisted the handle back and tugged the heavy oak door open. Old stone stairs led down into darkness, with a flicker of torchlight illuminating a chamber far below. Sandon looked back over his shoulder. The ruse would gain him perhaps as long as twenty minutes. He’d have to hurry—and hope that the captive soldier was willing to talk.
Sandon hurried down the stairs to the bottom. Near the stairs was a thin table covered with a plate of crackers and a pile of hastily dropped playing cards. Beyond that were two iron-barred cells. One was empty, the door standing dusty and open. The other was closed, locked, and held a sorry-looking figure. Kine lay on a metal cot hanging from the rear wall of his cell, arms crossed beyond his head and legs propped up in the corner of the wall. He muttered something when Sandon tromped down the stairs. Turning his head a bit, he called out, “Back so soon?”
Sandon bit his lip and stepped into the room so that the soldier could see him. “Hi, Kine.”
Kine started, jerking up on the cot. “Sandon!” he said, staring. “What are you doing here?” The soldier’s voice was sharp.
Sandon felt the blood rushing to his face. “I wanted to show you this.” He held out his mother’s journal, the pages inside the leather cover smoothed down gently. “It belonged to my mother.”
The soldier stared at it. “What do you expect me to do with that?”
Sandon’s hand fell. “I got it out of her room.”
“You broke into your mother’s chamber again? Sandon, kid, you just don’t learn.” He counted on his fingers arrogantly. “You break in there again, find a way to get my guards to leave so you can sneak down here, and then you trust me enough to tell me this kind of thing.” Kine chuckled. “Are you sure you want to grow up to be a baron? You’re pretty good at the shady stuff.”
Sandon ignored his taunts. “The journal. It said”—Sandon swallowed a lump in his throat—“bad things.”
“Huh. I can imagine.” Kine considered, narrowing his eyes. The soldier raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the stone wall. “Your father’s involved?”
“Maybe.” Sandon sighed. “I’m sorry I yelled at you, Kine, and called you names.”
Kine waved that off. “You had a right to be angry, kid. You thought I was something that I’m not, and I didn’t correct you. Water under the bridge.” He frowned. “I need to apologize too, and explain a few things if you’ll let me. Like the reason I stole your mother’s locket.” The soldier shifted around uncomfortably on the metal cot and ran a hand through his hair. “This isn’t my first time in your valley. I think I mentioned that. I was here before the war, before I went to the front lines, and I remember that your mother was kind to me. She was a generous and sweet woman, good to everyone, especially travelers. Many of us wished we were nobles so that we could marry her. Of course, she married a non-noble—your father—after the war began. That’s irony for you.” Kine shrugged and looked at the stone floor of the prison cell. “I just wanted something to remember her by.”
“I know how you feel.” The admission was small, but the look that Kine shared warmed Sandon’s heart. Haltingly, Sandon began to tell Kine what he’d found in the journal, paraphrasing in order to tell as much as he could in a short time. When he was done, he shook his head. “I don’t know what to think anymore, Kine. I love my dad. He can’t be behind this … can he?”
“I’m sorry that I accused your father, Sandon. I should have had more respect for him—and his son—than to bad-mouth him in front of you. I’ll be even more sorry if I turn out to be right. But look at it from my perspective. When I last came through this valley, it was protected by a gold dragon. Your mother’s family was strong and respected. Your father was just one of many suitors for your mother’s hand, and not a particularly important or well-known one. Now I return to find that your mother—a woman I respected a great deal—was murdered, a blue dragon’s living here, and your father’s paying tribute to him as bold as brass.” Kine sighed. “I didn’t know anything about the gold dragon construct. It looked to me like the blue dragon had killed or run off the Gold—and your father had done the same with your mother.”
Before, the words would have made Sandon angry, but right now, they only made him sad. “I saw my father with poison. The same poison that was used to …” Words failed him. He gulped and straightened. “Even if he didn’t do it, he knows something he’s not telling me. I need to find out what’s going on.”
“Sandon, eventually you’re going to have to face facts,” Kine stressed. “Someone killed your mother. If it wasn’t your father, it doesn’t matter. Someone had a reason to kill her. They wanted her out of the way, or they were trying to get something from her.”
“But it doesn’t have to be my father, does it?”
Kine sighed. “Who else? Fine. Let’s look at the options, kid. Sure, that wizard Yattak’s been acting funny. You say he wanted to get into your mother’s room, and I’ll bet he had a reason. That door’s been locked since she died, so whatever it was, he’s been missing it for a long time.”
“Oh! Yeah, that’s right.” Sandon brightened.
“Then again”—the soldier raised his hand—“you said you heard Captain Vilfrand say that Guildmaster Torentine has been snooping around the keep …”
Nodding eagerly, the boy replied, “That’s right! He’s acting shady too. We can’t rule anyone out. What if it’s someone else who lives here—one of the guards? Maybe Malaise found a way—”
“Seriously. We can go on like this forever if you want. I’m not going anywhere.” Kine flicked a bit of cracked mortar through the bars. It hit Sandon in the chest and rolled down, dropping to the floor with a plink. “But you already know what I think: it’s your father. So tell me something. Are you trying to convince me, or are you trying to convince yourself?”
Sandon sighed. “You might be right. But I can’t give up on my dad until I’m sure.”
Kine nodded. “Then let’s change the subject a bit. Whoever killed your mother had to have a motive, right?”
“A motive.” Frowning, Sandon rubbed his chin. “The hoard. Anyone who knew there was a dragon in these lands would have guessed that it had a hoard. The Gold left it to my mother, which is something that a little poking around would probably have turned up.”
“Right.” Kine pondered. “But she spent it all on the constructs.”
“Nobody knew that except my mother and the gnome.” Sandon nodded slowly. “That makes sense. Mother’s journal said that a lot of people knew it’d left his hoard with her. They thought she’d hired the gnome in order to hide the money.”
“So when someone attacked her, they might have been trying to find it. She mentioned that they knew about ‘the construction,’ and they were looking for a password. But did they know what she had constructed? Unless they’d followed her to the cavern—which I seriously doubt, given they were using those gnome-made portals—as far as they knew, she could have been constructing anything.”
“True.” The boy pondered. “And if they didn’t know what it was, they didn’t know what was happening to the money, did they? The gold she used on the dragon construct’s scales, and the steel she put into its frame. They must think she still has it—that it’s still here in Hartfall.” Jerking, Sandon sat up straight. “Oh my gosh. That’s what Lazuli thinks too. Someone must have told him.�
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Kine’s eyes widened. “You think they’re working together? Lazuli and your mother’s killer? To find the hoard?” They sat in silence for a moment, staring at each another. At last, Kine said, “If they think that the hoard is protected by something the gnome Kadastrofee built, then they’d need to get her password. When you were reading the journal, did your mother mention it? Did she say what the password was?” Kine leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“No.” Sandon brightened. “But there was a page missing.”
“If whoever killed her also stole that page, they might have the password. Not that they’d know what to do with it even if they got it, assuming that they didn’t know about the dragon construct. I wonder what they thought the password was for?” Sandon ran his hand through his hair. “I’ve got another question: if they had the password, why kill her?”
“To know that, we need to know more about the killer. We might be able to tell more about who they are by studying what they did and how they did it. Your mother was poisoned, right? What kind of poison did the killer use?”
“Yellow lakrak.”
Kine blinked. “Wait, what? Lakrak? Sandon, that’s very rare. You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Huh. I know that root.” Kine leaned forward and motioned with his hands. “Yellow lakrak is a drug made from the root of an unusual plant. It’s chewed by a certain tribe of scouts in Queen Takhisis’s dragonarmies—people who serve the evil dragons. The scouts are used to the root, so they chew it a lot and it gives them benefits. They can stay awake longer or run faster, that sort of thing. But like I said, they’re used to it. Their bodies are accustomed to the root. On a normal person, it’s pretty poisonous.”