On my way to collect reinforcements, I tucked the map safely beneath a flower pot next to the door into the building, and detoured to relocate my sack full of incriminating work gear and the letters. The room across the hall from ours was unoccupied.
The brothers listened to Kem’s side of the story, of course, and he took the opportunity to cast all sorts of suspicion on us. A contrary breezed fluttered around us and when I listened intently, I made out a few words, but they made little sense to me. The judicious brothers searched our things. Girl cried. I kept her and Tanris company in the hall. He wore a tight, unreadable expression, certain we were about to be exposed. I crouched on the floor, hugging my abused middle and taking quiet pleasure in Tanris’s suffering, but I’d already hidden the things that might give us away and made sure they found the plentiful coin they’d expect a nobleman of my alleged stature to carry. In the end, the brothers apologized again and expressed their outrage that guests had nearly been the victims of robbery on the very grounds of the temple. They were wonderfully horrified that the incident might have culminated in murder. And so the hulking guards took Kem Bohadri away somewhere until he could be turned over to the authorities—perhaps for a reward—and they made no objection when I requested that we might continue our sojourn at Hasiq jum’a Sahefal for a few days. I had been badly ill-treated by my attacker before I was rescued by the vigilant Tanris, and I had the bruises to prove it.
They gave me tea.
They gave me a poultice that didn’t smell too badly.
They even gave me a room of my own so I could rest undisturbed.
The situation could not have worked out more perfectly if I had planned it myself. The gods had remembered me once more, and I thanked them. Profusely.
The temple’s healer wrapped my ribs in a stiff fabric and hoped anxiously that I had not broken anything. I’d had practice feigning broken ribs before—had, in fact, actually suffered broken ribs and knew exactly how they felt—and the healer was not as difficult to deceive as I had feared. Wonderfully sympathetic, he shared his concern with his peers, and after he checked on me in the morning I had visits from the cook, the captain of the guard, and Magister Melly (again)—all of whom departed my company a little lighter for their charity. From the healer I purloined a jar of salve. The cook donated a handful of sweets from a bulging pocket. The captain of the guard was a veritable walking treasure. He had keys. “Had” being the operative word. Melly also had a key, but it took some toying with to figure out, as the key itself—which must be important to be hidden so cleverly—was part of an interlocking puzzle hidden behind a lacquered face. Coincidentally, it depicted a dragon.
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Alone at last, I fetched the map and then my hidden pack so that I could make use of my tools to create a decent copy of the important part before Melly missed it, and then I sought him out myself. By then I’d smudged a little dirt on the pendant so it could support my story of having found it in the garden where I had seen Melly walking earlier. He was nearly speechless with relief and I convinced him to tell me its history. A symbol of his office, it had been handed down from Magister to Magister for hundreds of years. The dragon symbolized his position as a protector—of the astonishing treasure hiding in the Vault, of course.
Just as I was about to take my leave, something caught my eye and gave me pause: a tiny ivory figurine exactly matching the one I had taken from Duzayan’s secret office. I am far too practically minded for such a thing to strike me as coincidence. “This is an exquisite piece of ivory,” I said, reaching for the figurine slowly, so as not to alarm him. It was just as well, for my fingers tingled wildly, and green light limned them. Striving to mask my own alarm, I turned the reach into a waving gesture and tucked my hands safely behind my back. “What is it?”
Melly came to stand beside me and peer nearsightedly past my shoulder. “I have no idea if it was ever meant to represent anything special. I ran across it during my travels and it appealed to me, so there it is.”
There it was, indeed, right along with Melly’s bald-faced lie, and him a pious devotee of some remote, completely obscure god. And right there my thoughts began to spin into some truly dreadful patterns. Behind my back, I wriggled my fingers to make sure they were still in good working order. “Isn’t it interesting how some little trinket can catch an individual’s eye and become one of their favorite things, and other people completely miss the appeal in it?”
“Oh, indeed. I appear to have a taste for the peculiar, or so I’ve been told.”
My imagination was likely working overtime, but his smile reminded me horribly of Duzayan’s, and it was all I could do not to bolt then and there. Into what disastrous trap had the wretched baron sent me? Was Melly forewarned? “We don’t know each other, do we?” I asked, feigning a conspiratorial little chuckle and trying to brace myself for what I must do.
“No.” He peered at me, and when he did, he had to lean very close. “No, I don’t believe we do…” he murmured.
Thank the gods of happy circumstance, he was telling the truth about that. Stepping away from him provided me with just the opportunity I needed. I patted his arm in a friendly manner. “If you should ever travel to Naziridath,” I named a good-sized city as far off the beaten path as I could recall, “you must search me out and we can compare peculiar—augh!” I stumbled wildly, and as I teetered and fell, I grabbed onto him.
He was, of course, not prepared for such a clever display of apparent clumsiness, and he toppled over with me, squeaking in dismay. I flung a desperate arm around his neck and caught hold of the chain he wore tucked beneath his robes. It—and the heavy silver medallion it bore—came free and banged me sharply in the nose.
It hurt astonishingly badly when it touched my skin, tingling so sharply it made my eyes water, which was rather counter productive to the entire exercise. As Melly struggled to free himself from my clutches, I blinked madly to clear my vision. I wondered, if I lit up like a witchlight torch, would he run screaming out of the room or stuff me in a jar of some sort for investigation and experimentation? The silver medallion swung into view, revealing the shape of a triangle puzzle.
Melly was a wizard.
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The healer could discern no obvious aggravation of my allegedly broken ribs, which relieved him considerably. It pleased Melly as well, for worse damage might have required me to stay much longer than the two or three days unenthusiastically recommended. A social, charitable lot they were not. As it happened, I did not particularly wish to socialize with them, and when I was released from the healer’s care, I beat a cautiously hasty retreat back to my room, only to run into—figuratively this time—Tanris.
“What happened?” he asked, brows furrowed and eyes narrowing. Suspicious as always.
“He’s a wizard.”
“Who?”
“Melly.” Inside my room, I abandoned the injured act and went straight to my bags to retrieve the letters I’d removed from Duzayan’s establishment. Sitting down on the bed, I riffled through them while Tanris hovered in the doorway.
“How did you find out?”
“Come in and close the door, you fool,” I ordered shortly.
The door shut with a decisive thump. When I glanced at him, Tanris sported one of those expressions that ought to kill instantly. Of course I ignored it. “I borrowed his secret key to make a copy, and not only did he lie about the figurine, but he—”
“Stop.” He held both hands up and patted the air between us oh-so-gently. Such a strange man. “You stole a key from the magister. And he’s a mage.”
He caught on so quickly! “Yes.”
“By yourself.”
I looked from side to side. “Yes…”
His hands curled into fists. “And you are aware that he and Duzayan are not on good terms which, as far as we’re concerned, makes us the magister’s enemy.”
“We
still have to find the egg and steal it from him,” I pointed out.
“Which we cannot do if you are dead, Crow!” he barked, catching himself and remembering to lower his voice. He growled and punched the air. “Do not ever go off on your own to do something so dangerous! You could have been hurt or imprisoned. Worse, you might have got yourself killed.”
“That would have complicated things for you, no doubt.”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?”
“What, you care about what happens to me?” I laughed and shook my head in disbelief.
“Yes,” he snarled this time. He’d make a good bear.
I knew he wasn’t lying, felt it in the energy around him, but I still had a hard time believing it. “Huh. Well, thank you. I’m fine. Everything is fine.” I went back to my search. He folded his arms, pressed his lips together, and steamed. To his credit, he didn’t ask what we were going to do now, but maintained his silence while I searched through the papers. “Ah, here it is. This is from Melly to Duzayan. There’s all this rubbish about plants and rivers and stars, ascendancies and descendancies, then a quote from some Corunni mage about smoke from a fire rising against the wind. Then Melly gets blunt:
“Your misguided attempt to use Brother Gedikcan did not go unnoticed. He has been dealt with. I would return your most recent squad to you, but they fell apart. You will never have what is rightfully mine, and the Blessing will be mine to use, mine to control. You will never be allowed, under any circumstance, to assume the power we have awaited for decades. Never.”
Tanris sat on the end of the bed. “So the magister has in his possession—or will have—something so powerful that Duzayan will do anything to get it.”
“There are far more guards here than there ought to be. Granted, the temple itself could provide plenty of material to scavenge and sell, but transportation is such a problem it’s hardly worth the effort. The collection in the vault is barely suitable for rustics.”
“You haven’t seen many rustic temples, have you?”
I ignored the criticism. “Why is Duzayan so eager to get his grimy little hands on this egg thing? And Melly so determined to keep it that he—a priest of the gods—will do violence to keep it?”
“We’re talking about mages. I think they trump priests.” He made a face. “With so much of his writing in code or in gibberish, we can’t tell what else Duzayan has sent against him. He hasn’t used an army yet, though he could afford one. Why?”
“Fear of destroying the egg?” I shrugged. “How about the difficulty of getting the army into this place?”
“Maybe fear of reprisal or even unwanted attention. Employing an army is not just expensive, it has political consequences.”
“So he’s secretly maintaining an identity as a wizard, utilizing the leverage of a noble title, gathering an army and allies, and secretly trying to obtain a magical item that will tip the scales in his favor when he sets his armies in place.” Tanris had also mentioned that Duzayan was responsible for the deaths of several figures in Emperor Gaziah’s government. “And we’re helping. I’m so happy to be adding treason to my list of skills.”
“I am not a traitor!” He stood abruptly, pacing to the door and back. “To the Dark with him. I will not help him. Not ever.”
“What about your wife? You made a deal with Duzayan—the egg for her life.”
“We’ll figure that out when we know what the egg is and we have it in our possession.”
I was glad I did not suffer the nobility required to save lives. I went to the little fireplace to stir the flames to life. “Where is Girl?”
“In her room, resting. Do we need her?”
I shook my head and held the letter out to the fire. The corner of the paper curled with heat then caught flame. I watched as it ate the possibly incriminating evidence, then dropped the remaining corner into the coals. I watched until it had disappeared completely, then stirred the ashes and considered what to do next. What did one do when caught in a wizards’ game? Under the threat of poison, I couldn’t very well run off and take up life in a foreign country; nor was I willing to let the poison run its course—or take my own life to avoid the painful death that had been promised.
In the middle of my rumination the door burst open without warning and Girl stood there, wide-eyed and white as the proverbial ghost.
Standing right next to the door as he was, the startled Tanris instinctively grabbed her. “What?” he demanded harshly. “What’s wrong?”
She pulled on him, gesturing to me anxiously with her other hand. She did not need words to say “Come! Come!”
Out the door at the end of the building we ran, and I wondered what could possibly have her in such a state of agitation. At least she wasn’t crying. Rounding the corner didn’t reveal anything of catastrophic nature; no fire blazing, no army descending, no murder or mayhem in progress.
Then she pointed up at the sky.
There, gliding in lazy circles over the little sun-warmed valley, was what looked like a very real, living and breathing, flying dragon. Silhouetted against the bright sky it looked dark, but as it turned gently this way and that, I made out a glimmer of silver or white. I could not help but stare, helpless to express my utter astonishment. I briefly dragged my gaze away from the spectacle. Tanris gaped in open amazement, pale-faced. Did I look like that? I clapped my mouth shut.
The creature didn’t really look very big, but the breadth of the sky didn’t offer anything by way of perspective. It circled about several times before flapping its leathery wings and making a turn directly toward the mountain. Stepping out of the lee of the building, we watched its approach to the cliffside. Just when it seemed it must crash into the rock, it lifted its wings to brake gently and then disappeared from view. I looked fixedly at the place for a bit longer, and then I finally overcame my speechlessness. “Well.”
My companions remained silent, and while not particularly unusual for Girl, Tanris generally had something to say. Their gazes remained glued to the cliff. “I don’t think that was a bird,” I jested, and then looked over the gawking pair more critically. “Are you all right?”
“Mm,” Tanris said after a moment. “You?”
“Oh, certainly.” I gave a dismissive wave of my hand and moved off. Neither shock nor hysteria were going to be of any help. “Tell me, do you think we could get supplies of ink and paper here in this remote hamlet?”
Tanris fell into step beside me, giving me a sideways look very effectively portraying his belief that I’d finally lost my mind. Girl came so close behind us she practically trod on our heels. “Do we need ink and paper?” he asked.
“I thought I should perhaps get started on that book you told me to write. I am, after all, about to meet a genuine dragon and that is the stuff of legend. The involvement of a couple of wizards adds a certain spice to the tale, eh?” I paused to frame a scene with my hands. “Handsome, cursed hero—that’s me. A war between wizards. A fire-breathing dragon. A race to the death. All very dramatic and exciting.”
“Aren’t you forgetting something?”
“Am I?” I looked at him in surprise. “Oh, yes! The trusty sidekick.”
He rolled his eyes. “You have something of a deadline, and you have yet to figure out how you’re going to get up there—” he pointed, “much less how you’re going to steal an egg from a genuine fire-breathing dragon and then get away from him—her—and get back to Marketh in time.”
The gravel on the path crunched beneath our feet. A miasma of fear surrounded me, but it wasn’t mine. Girl’s was a quivering thing and Tanris’s all cold and hard-edged. How easy it would be to let myself be caught up in the tide and pulled away from my purpose. “Has anyone ever told you that you’re a really depressing man to be around?”
“Crow—” he started, and I waved a hand at him to hush, sizzling with irritation.
“I’ll find a way.” Me, not Tanris. We’d arrived at the point of crisis, and suddenly I was the on
e with the deadline and the entire weight of logistics and risk. Tanris’s emphasis on the “you” part of the equation left no doubt I was on my own. I couldn’t really say it surprised me. He may have got me from Marketh to Hasiq jum’a Sahefal, but stealing the blighted egg was the entire reason for my presence here. Angrily, I pushed aside the sensation of being hung to twist in the wind. I had no idea—yet—how I would deal with the dragon, and my sketchy memories of children’s tales generally had the dragon winning all the encounters. But I was Crow, beloved of the gods. I would find a way.
“How?” Tanris had to ask.
— 21 —
Which Way Do We Go?
I didn’t answer him, but pulled the map out of my jerkin and sat myself down on an ornate bench. Duzayan had bid us destroy the thing—a logical course of action to prevent anyone else finding his treasure, except that it was missing critical information. But, given what I had learned of Melly, I wasn’t so certain that destruction was the right course of action. This is a map to the dragon’s lair, Duzayan had said. Memorize and burn it. Not just a map to the village or a map to the temple, but to the dragon’s lair. Did that not mean it held more than met the eye? I unfolded the parchment to smooth over my legs, noticing for the first time a strange sort of fuzzy, prickly sensation. I turned it sideways, upside down, and then backwards. I looked at it through eyes squinted partially shut, then I held it up to the sunlight—and paused.
“What is it? Do you see something?” Tanris asked, crouching down next to me.
“No.” I got abruptly to my feet to hurry back to my room.
“Then what?”
“We haven’t followed all the instructions.”
As the Crow Flies: An Epic Fantasy Adventure Page 26