"I sought to avoid unwise action on your part. You can be impulsive."
At this moment, Firekeeper felt anything but impulsive. Memories of her last failed venture were as sharp as the remaining pains in her leg. Only slightly less sharp were her recollections of her last meeting with Melinaùand how Melina had bested her.
"What do you want me to do now?" she asked, suspecting she knew perfectly well what the dragon wanted.
"Consider," the dragon replied, "whether you want Melina to bind meùfor she will succeed if she comes here unimpeded. Consider, too, who will be her first targets once I am hers to command."
The voice in Firekeeper's head fell silent and after a moment Firekeeper realized that she was no longer asleep. The night air was distinctly autumnal, with a bite in it that tasted of the north. Somehow she had missed the change. That made Firekeeper realize how wrapped up in herself and her own concerns she had been. Once she would have known without question. Now the seasons could change with her unaware.
But there was something else she realized. The dragon had good cause for leaving her to reason out what she must do on her own. Certainly it dreaded she would be frightened away beyond its ability to convince her otherwise.
How best to stop Melina? How best to prevent her from binding the dragon?
Simple. Finish the hunt before her. Claim Melina's prize before she could. The only other answer was to kill her, and though Firekeeper would much prefer that option, it had its dangers. Melina alive was Melina who could claim the dragon. Claim the dragon first and Melina could still be killed after.
Firekeeper swung herself upright on the grass lest the mere thinking of what she must do freeze her into inaction. Blind Seer was awake almost before she had steadied herself on her feet.
"Where are you going?" the wolf asked, blue eyes narrowing in suspicion even as he stretched.
"The dragon woke me," Firekeeper answered bluntly. "Melina is coming for it. I go to stop her."
The wolf growled softly, low in his throat.
"How will you do that? Surely you don't think Melina would be foolish enough to come alone?"
"She might," Firekeeper replied evasively. "What she does will not be even as these New Kelvinese wish. We know that from both Peace and the Healed One."
Blind Seer growled again.
"You don't believe she will come alone, no matter how bravely you speak."
"No," Firekeeper admitted. "I don't, but still I must try to stop her."
"Alone? Haven't you learned to keep a pack strong around you if you are to be strong?"
"I have," Firekeeper admitted, "but I think that for what I must do more hands and feet are not needed."
"What do you think to do?" Blind Seer asked sharply, but something in his bearing told Firekeeper that he had guessed.
"If I bind the dragon to me, then Melina cannot bind it to her."
"But it will eat your life!"
Oddly, Firekeeper found herself remembering her curiosity some moons past regarding how long the Royal Wolves lived compared with humans. Was she trying to hasten her living to match what she dreaded was their shorter span? She knew Blind Seer would be the last one to approve of such behavior, so sealed her lips and mind against the thought.
"One way or another," Firekeeper said aloud, "act or not, I think the dragon will have our lives. Now, do you come with me or do I go alone?"
"Rabid as a summer skunk!" the wolf protested. "Do you even know how to reach this dragon?"
"I do," Firekeeper said. "I watched today when Derian and Peace poked at the rocks and listened carefully to what they said. There is a door in the center of the fountain. We go through that."
She had been readying herself as they argued, checking the sharpness of her Fang, straightening the fit of her clothing where it had twisted while she slept. When she caught herself combing her hair with her finger ends she realized she was delaying and that made her angry with herself.
"Do you come with me?" she asked again.
Blind Seer snapped, gripping the heavy leather of her vest in his teeth.
"Not alone," he growled, and his insistence made the horses in the nearby stable restless. Bee Biter awoke, swooping down with the awkwardness of a day bird managing at night, but not liking it at all.
Firekeeper struggled against Blind Seer's hold, thinking to slip out of the vest, but he knew her too well and simply knocked her down and pressed her to the ground.
The kestrel perched on a section offence and looked down at them.
"I take it this is not one of your usual games," he said. "I scent real fury here. What is it?"
"Grip this idiot by his tail," Firekeeper said by way of answer, "and when I am free I will tell you."
The kestrel stayed on his perch.
"I think Blind Seer would not knock you down without reason."
"She means to go after Melina herself," the wolf managed, his communication less hindered than a human's would be for he spoke with ears and tail as well as sound. "Or if she cannot stop Melina, to bind the dragon to herself."
To Firekeeper's relief and Blind Seer's evident astonishment, the kestrel didn't immediately think that Firekeeper was being foolhardy.
"There is some wisdom in this, but why go alone?"
"Because I don't need the others to do this!" Firekeeper said, her words thin from Blind Seer's weight on her chest. "That's what the dragon couldn'tùor wouldn'tùquite tell me. I don't need a ritual to talk to it as Melina does. Nor do I need to bind it to my will. It would gladly accept me as an alternative to her."
"But the cost!" Blind Seer insisted.
"The dragon is death, free or bound," Firekeeper replied. "Would you stop me if I was hunting?"
"If your prey was something too big for you," he said.
Firekeeper changed tactics.
"Time is flowing even as we argue," she reminded him. "Melina will not wait. I can hear the dragon's awareness of her pounding at my mind even though I am awake."
This was no evasion. Indeed, Firekeeper realized that some of her own eagerness to be moving was not her own but the dragon's. That made her pause, unwilling to be so suggestible.
"Will you let me go," she asked Blind Seer, "if I agree to tell the others where I go and why?"
The wolf trembled, torn between his desire to keep her safe and his awareness that none of them would be safe if Melina achieved her end.
"I would," he choked out.
"Then I will tell them," Firekeeper said, "but I will not stay to argue as humans will."
The wolf raised his weight from her.
"Done."
Bee Biter ruffled out his feathers, making himself twice his usual size, then shrunk down again.
"And I will scout around Aswatano. The area should be deserted at this time of night, but somehow I fear that this is not a usual night."
Firekeeper trotted over to the back door of the house. To her relief, Derian had drawn this particular watch. His mildly sleepy smile of greeting turned into one of concern when he saw the mauled edge of her vest.
"What happened to…"
Firekeeper cut him off.
"The dragon woke me. Melina is active this night. She comes to bind it. If we are stopping her, it is now."
Derian's drowsiness vanished.
"Where? How does it know?"
Firekeeper was already turning away.
"I don't know how, but I can feel the dragon in my head. It feels like a coal licking tinder. It does not want Melina, but it want less to be bound. When she comes, it will not fight her."
"Aswatano?" Derian asked.
"As you thought," Firekeeper said. "I go ahead and clear the way."
Derian nodded, but his expression was unhappy. Perhaps he had guessed why her vest was torn and perhaps he knew he had even less hope of holding her back than had the wolf.
Firekeeper did not let herself think about Derian or his unhappiness. The dragon's thoughts were washing against her own, making i
t very hard for her to think about anything other than what she must do at this very moment.
Bee Biter swept out of the darkness when Firekeeper and Blind Seer had covered half the distance to Aswatano. He landed on Firekeeper's shoulder, his claws biting even through the leather.
"The Fountain Court is even emptier than it usually is by night," the kestrel reported, "but the few who are there are not the type I have learned to expect. There are men there, armed and trying to stay hidden while keeping near the fountain."
"City watch?" Firekeeper asked, slowing to a trot so she would not charge in unwarned.
"I don't think so," Bee Biter replied. "These don't share their bearing, nor do they carry their lights openly."
"Do they carry bows?" Firekeeper asked.
"I will check."
The kestrel was away and back again almost before Firekeeper knew he was gone.
"No."
"Good. We will not bother with them then unless they bother with us."
"If they leave us alone," Blind Seer said, "I will never again eat bone marrow."
"Is that a promise?" Firekeeper teased him, suddenly very glad that the blue-eyed wolf was beside her.
"One easily made," he replied, "for I don't believe they will leave us alone."
"Still, this time we must allow them first strike. We must take care not to harm those who could be allies sent by the Healed One. Even if these prove to be enemies, try not to kill them. I think that these New Kelvinese would make trouble over that."
Blind Seer's snort of laughter indicated both his agreement and his exasperation.
The near moonless night was dark but slightly overcast so not even starlight lit their path. The streetlamps set widely spaced along the main streets were more hindrance than help, for Firekeeper would not risk diminishing her night vision by staying too close to them.
More such lamps were spaced around the fringe of Aswatano, and Firekeeper and Blind Seer tried to keep to the dark spaces. Bee Biter had told them where the guards lurked, and they chose their route to put the statue between them.
Aswatano by night was a place very different from Aswatano by day. As Bee Biter had noted, it was almost deserted of human life. The busy stalls where the merchants sold their wares were empty, stripped even of the brightly striped fabrics that provided shade from the sun. The timber frames were revealed as mere skeleton structures, providing not even enough shelter to invite a stray cat to linger.
The fountain, with its larger-than-life-sized tableau of the sorcerers battling something that might be a dragon, was at the center of the court, a wide apron of space left around it.
Earlier that day Peace and Derian had located the doorway hidden in the statue, concealed within the lines of the Star Wizard's outspread cloak.
Peace had guessed that the door would be locked, but that they need not worry that the mechanisms would have frozen from disuse.
"The fountain itself," he had said, "will need regular cleaning within as well as without, since the minerals in the water will adhere to the pipes."
Now, huddled in the shadows next to what was by day a butcher's stand, Firekeeper and Blind Seer inspected their goal.
"What do you intend to do about the lock?" the wolf asked.
"Ignore it" Firekeeper replied. "I thought we could break the door. If we are lucky, we will be in and gone before those not dreadfully alert watchers even see us."
Blind Seer made a wuffling grunt that might have been agreement, might have been resignation, but didn't argueùthough Firekeeper had the distinct impression he wanted to.
"Ready?" she asked.
Blind Seer crouched. With Firekeeper's first footfall they left the shadows for the marginally better lit area surrounding the statue. Unfortunately for the success of the wolf-woman's plan the guards must also have known where the door wasùand were watching it. Firekeeper had hardly touched foot to the wet stone of the statue's base when a cry went up. Blind Seer turned to cover her back, standing chest-deep in the fountain basin to do so.
When an experimental thump of her shoulder against the door didn't budge it, Firekeeper wheeled, drew her Fang, and leapt down on the pavement around the fountain. Blind Seer, soaking wet but no less impressive for that, leapt to join her.
The four men rushing at them seemed at least as interested as Firekeeper was in keeping the city watch out of the action, for other than the initial shout of alarm, their attack had been in relative silence.
Firekeeper feinted at one man with her Fang and when he drew back rushed at him. He jerked away, slipped on the wet stone, and fell. Pausing only to grab his sword and throw it clattering across the pavement, Firekeeper leapt onto the back of a man who was threatening Blind Seer.
The pressure of her knife on his throat made him suddenly tractable.
"Drop sword," she suggested in a husky whisper, "and go on your face."
The man did, and Firekeeper turned to find that Blind Seer had knocked the other two down.
"They ran," he explained, shaking a great shower of warm water over them all. "I just had to chase."
Firekeeper laughed and quickly took the guards' weapons. Then she bound their hands behind their backs, bound their ankles together, and for good measure gagged them. Blind Seer's glowering presence was enough to ensure that they didn't make a sound.
"I like" Firekeeper said to Blind Seer, "that these New Kelvinese wear so much cloth."
"And aren't very brave," the wolf agreed.
Firekeeper had just finished dragging her captives to the side of one of the market stalls, where she propped them as Citrine might a line of dolls, when Derian and Edlin arrived.
"What happened?" Derian asked, looking from side to side, his weighted stick held ready to challenge any comers.
"These were trying to stop us," Firekeeper explained. "We stopped them. Where is Peace? I want him to open the door."
"He should be here in a moment. Edlin and I came first in case you needed help."
"First? Who else comes?"
Derian sighed slightly and Firekeeper could imagine the argument there must have been as each member of the household demanded the right to be part of tonight's venture.
"Everyone but Wendee. She's going to carry a message to Ambassador Redbriar telling her what we're doing. Then she's going to tell the Healed One."
"Alone?"
Derian looked pleased.
"No. Hasamemorri came down from above, announced that she didn't have any idea what we were up to but that she had divined that whatever we were up to must be dangerous, and offered her help. She will escort Wendee, who will be disguised as one of her maids."
Firekeeper shook her head, amazed by this new evidence of human insanity.
"Only I really need go," she said, returning to her real concern, but Derian was having no more of this than Blind Seer had.
"Tough."
Grateful Peace, Doc, and Elise hurried up at that moment.
"I try," Firekeeper said to Peace, hoping to stop any discussion, "to break the door, but it didn't want to break. Can you open it?"
Grateful Peace pulled out a small ring of keys.
"Idalia has my other set," he said, "but I did manage to acquire new ones. Someone come and hold a lantern for me."
Edlin hurried to obey and the rest waited near Firekeeper's captives.
"It looks," Elise said, looking at the four bound figures, "as if Melina does indeed have an idea where the dragon is."
Firekeeper stiffened and Elise reached out a soothing hand.
"I didn't think you were lying," she said, "but the dragon might have been."
Firekeeper blinked in astonishment.
"I never think of that," she admitted, but touching the dragon's waiting intensity in her mind she added, "I not think if you hear what I do you would think so either."
"Probably not," Elise agreed. "Look! Edlin's motioning us over."
Firekeeper could leap from the edge of the fountain basin to the is
land holding the statues, but the others needed to wade, pausing first to remove their footwear. Impatient, Firekeeper went ahead, Blind Seer sloshing behind her.
"Don't you dare shake all over me," she warned him.
The wolf ignored her, taking advantage of a wide space between two sculpted sorcerers to get rid of the excess water clinging to his coat.
Glowering, Firekeeper picked her way between the figures to where Edlin was motioning for her to hurry.
"Pretty good, what?" he whispered.
Firekeeper, noting that the door swung outward, and that therefore no amount of pounding would have opened it, agreed.
Having noted the same thing, Blind Seer was panting wolfish laughter behind her.
"Peace?" she asked Edlin, glaring at the wolf.
"Inside."
Firekeeper ducked through the low doorway and found herself in a small room. Those walls that were not a confusing array of pipes were lined with cabinets of tools. At the room's farther end a trapdoor had been opened, revealing a steep flight of curving stairs lit from belowùdoubtless by Peace's lantern.
"Can you make it down these?" she asked Blind Seer.
"The fit will be tight," he admitted, "but I believe I can manage."
Firekeeper took the lead and went down, gripping the railing tightly. Something about the twisting stairùor maybe the throbbing increase of the dragon's presence within her headùmade her own feet seem alien to her. She was glad when she was on level floor again, and sought to hide her disorientation by drawing her Fang and polishing it dry on a bit of her vest.
Grateful Peace stood barefoot near the base of the stair, holding his lantern up to better examine the larger room in which they found themselves. More pipes and various incomprehensible bits of machinery crowded along the walls.
"Mostly," Peace stated without preamble, "these are for working the fountain. The hot water emerges from a natural spring and is piped up. The cold is piped from somewhere belowùanother spring I would guess. However, I wouldn't be at all surprised if at least some of this intricate mess is a blind to cover another door."
Firekeeper nodded, though she had only understood part of what he said.
"What can I do?" she said, focusing on something concrete to keep the dragon's unspoken but intense anxiety from clouding her thoughts further.
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