Dragon Thief (20 page)

I led them to an oak door at the base of the keep. In a siege it could be barred and sealed against invasion, but now it was just overseen by a conveniently deceased guard. I paused by the body, wondering if I had known the guy. He was almost certainly one of Snake's loyalists. Snake wouldn't give guard duty to anyone questionable. But still, the corpse lay there wrapped in the colors of the Lendowyn crown, and everything felt deeply wrong.

Not that anything had been right for a long time.

From behind me I heard Weasel's voice. “What's the holdup, Frank?”

I didn't have much choice, did I?

I pushed the oak door open, revealing a dark stone corridor. I waved Weasel in.

“Here.”

The thieves filed in after me, and after the last of them slipped in, I led them through a maze of corridors and down to the treasury. No one questioned the absence of the guards and the fact that the doors hung open. The glint of gold and jewels in the dim torchlight was enough to capture their attention. Even Weasel, the practical one, stood in the doorway staring in at the piles of treasure that disappeared into the darkness out of the torches' reach.

That momentary distraction was enough for me to slip away. They'd notice me missing in a few moments, but I was betting that the unimaginable riches laid out before them would take priority. Weasel would probably be relieved that he didn't owe me a share.

I was just happy that the girls had been here and already gone with whatever they could carry. Good for them. I had other priorities.

I scrambled up the levels of the castle, up past the great hall and the royal chambers. The Tear of Nâtlac had to be here. I had already narrowed down the possible locations by a process of elimination. Snake would not have wanted to destroy the jewel, as it was the only way back into his own skin. It followed from that that it would be unlikely he would risk flying off with such a crucial element of his plans. For that matter he wouldn't hand it off to a subordinate, however trusted.

Of course, that left a limited number of places it could be, as the castle itself was not constructed to accommodate a dragon. It had to be in the upper reaches, close to where Princess Snake had handed Lucille his “gift.”

I slipped out of a door and into the night air. I shivered a little as I looked out over the shadowed towers of the castle, silhouetted by the faintest hint of dawn, still hours away. My breath came out in a fog, and I felt my heart thud in my throat.

It wasn't fear. I had been in more dangerous situations before.

It was memory.

I stood here, in the upper reaches of the castle where I had spent time talking to Lucille, my dragon husband, before her duties had taken her away, and before my own depression and self-pity had taken me.

Did I
miss
that?

What sense did that make? I didn't belong here. The old fishy wizard was right. I fit much better in the role of Snake the thief . . .

I faced the night sky and whispered, “If that's the case, I best get to some stealing.”

“Okay, let's see if this thing was worth it.”

I pulled the ugly iron talisman from around my neck and held it up so it dangled, slowly twisting on its chain. I didn't know exactly what I'd do if this didn't work. Even if my reasoning had been perfect and the artifact was up here somewhere, there were still innumerable hiding places, and without some further direction I could spend days searching buttresses and parapets for something not much larger than the talisman I held out in front of me.

I stared at the thing, wondering if there was some sort of invocation needed for it to work, or if I'd be able to tell if it
was
working.

I needed to stop thinking of ways this could go wrong.

Looking at the twisted knot of iron made my brain ache with a sense of wrongness—especially when I realized that I saw the thing quite clearly in near darkness. It didn't help that it appeared to be slowly twisting in on itself, despite hanging straight down from its chain.

A glow pulsed within it. Something about it made me sick to my stomach, but I couldn't help but stare deep into the pale emerald light. As I did, the twisted iron moved apart, like an eye opening, an eye that didn't belong in this universe.

The green glow faded until I was looking through the open iron framework at the silhouette of a parapet near the top of the tallest tower. As the otherworldly eye closed again, I saw a dim reflection of the sick green light wink at me from the top of the parapet.

I put the talisman away.

I can take a hint.

 • • • 

The unused tower was one of several places around the castle that, over the years, had been closed off due to lack of funds. It was easy enough to get inside from the roof and begin ascending. However, about halfway up, I ran out of stairs.

And floors.

I climbed out onto a pile of broken stone and timbers, looking up at the hollow interior.

It's never easy.

I pulled myself up on the pile of rubble near one of the walls. Then I pulled myself up and started to scale the inside wall toward the top of the tower.

I've had worse climbs in my career. The remains of the stairway left more than enough purchase for me to make my way upward. It just took a while in the dark. I lost any sense of time, and when I squeezed out of one of the upper windows to climb up the last dozen feet to the parapet, the sky had turned much lighter.

But I saw the Tear of Nâtlac, its chain wrapped around the neck of a gargoyle. I couldn't believe my luck, having something finally going right.

I was right not to.

 • • • 

I climbed out of the tower, back onto the roof, and the sky's rosy dawn glow was already fading. If all had gone as planned, Weasel's men were long gone and I was the only invader left in the castle. My strategy, as it was, was to hide myself somewhere and stake out an opportunity to try and ambush the dragon.

When a shadow passed between me and the sky, I realized that the “ambush” part of that plan wasn't going to work.

Something thudded onto the castle roof behind me.

“Frank Blackthorne.”

That impossibly deep voice was very familiar to me, but it had been months since I'd found it actually frightening.

“You're not going to kill me,” I whispered. Unfortunately, my certainty was tempered by the memory of what had happened to the late Wizard Elhared when he said pretty much the same thing to me. You don't tend to forget plunging a dagger into your own neck, regardless of who happened to be wearing it at the time.

“No one said anything about killing you.”

Unfortunately, that was not at all reassuring.

I slowly turned around toward the speaker. The dragon faced me, early morning light shining almost iridescent against the black scales, the serpentine neck twisting so that the massive head hovered above me, looking down, giving a bowel-draining view of a set of jaws that could easily snap me in half.

For months I had grown used to Lucille in this skin, to the point where I had forgotten the atavistic fear of standing this close to something that could crush me like a bug while setting me on fire. Forgotten it, but I hadn't lost it. I just could see Lucille inside the dragon's skin.

The dragon now—the posture was different, the look in the eyes, the cock of the head. Everything screamed to me that this was someone else, and the thought was so wrong that everything inside me dissolved into quivering spineless jelly.

It was a miracle I didn't collapse into a blubbering puddle.

“Your reputation precedes you.”

“I could say the same.”

“Perhaps, then, you might rethink what you are doing.”

I held up the Tear of Nâtlac so it glittered between us. “Perhaps you might rethink what you're doing.”

“Believe me, I have thought quite deeply about this.”

“Put it on,” I said. “End this.”

The dragon laughed. It was unnerving when Lucille had chuckled in that form, but with Snake behind it, the laugh felt as if a crack in the world had suddenly started leaking all the sanity out.

The dragon shook its head.
“That is why you should join me, Frank. Our goals coincide, the only issue you have with me is the timing.”

“Hardly the
only
issue.”

“Beyond possession of this body, what is there?”

“Really? You think I haven't noticed you starting a war with Grünwald?”

“Please. You tell me that war with Grünwald is anything other than inevitable? You stood in front of the queen herself and prevented an invasion.”

“And you're trying to provoke one!”

“First rule of war. Advantage goes to the party that chooses the time and place of battle. And if you care for Lendowyn, you should welcome my hand in this.”

“By all the Dark Lords of the Underworld,
why?
”

The dragon lowered its head until its eyes were nearly even with my own, the fang-filled mouth barely a foot from me. If it hadn't been a dragon speaking, it might have been a conspiratorial whisper. As it was, the words vibrated the teeth in the rear of my mouth.

“Because, Frank, Lendowyn is not going to win any other way.”

The dragon withdrew and cocked its head. When Lucille looked at me like that it was inquisitive. When Snake did, it was just condescending.

“Return that token, and I promise I will relinquish this body—but only when the throne of Grünwald is empty of my pretender brother.”

“No. I've seen what you did to Sir Forsythe's men.”

“Your posturing is becoming tiresome. Those men were threats to the crown.”

“You, maybe. Not the crown.”

“You know Lendowyn law. While I wear this body I
am
the prince.”

“I'm not going to let you do this.”

The dragon laughed and lifted a taloned hand to reach for me. I backed up a step and dropped the jewel to the flagstones at my feet. I rested my heel on it and said, “Stop.”

The dragon stopped reaching for me and said,
“You aren't going to destroy that.”

If you were certain, you wouldn't have stopped reaching.
“Back off, Bartholomew. You must have some idea why I put this on. I could happily live the rest of my life in your skin. But I think
you
want it back, or you would have smashed this yourself.”

I started to think of demands. I had negotiated with the elf-king himself, I was certain I could leverage this momentary advantage into an overall solution. Even if Snake just took the dragon and flew off to bother Grünwald without any soul-shifting—there were worse fates than consoling a permanently human Lucille. There would be legal ramifications but—

The dragon was laughing at me again.

“Don't try anything!”

The dragon shook its head and said,
“Look down to the courtyard.”

“Why?”

“Humility.”

I glanced over the edge of the parapet beside me, down to the courtyard in front of the keep. I saw a mass of armed men wearing black Grünwald armor. It was obvious even though they wore tabards with the Lendowyn colors, as the spikes and embossed skulls were something of a giveaway.

Unfortunately, they weren't the only ones down there.

A group of ragged and bloody men had been herded into a small area surrounded by Grünwald troops three deep. I recognized them as part of Weasel's army. There were maybe a dozen of them. I wanted to believe that meant the majority of them had made their escape, but Weasel stared upward with an expression that told me that optimism was a sucker's game.

“Did you really think I'd allow a group of petty thieves to take away the work of years?”

“To be honest, that wasn't my idea.”

“Of course, you used them to distract me. Slightly more competent of you, but just as futile. Return that bauble, Frank.”

“Why should I give up my one bargaining chip?”

“You should look down there again.”

I did.

Oh crap.

Lucille and King Alfred were both imprisoned with the thieves and outlaws. Normally I'd be all for cutting the royalty down a peg, but nothing about this was normal.

“Tell me that there isn't someone down there you would prefer to continue living?”

I shook my head. “You're bluffing. You can't kill her.”

“I don't bluff, Frank.”
He called down to the courtyard,
“Captain, kill someone trivial.”

One of the larger Grünwald goons pulled someone out of the crowd of prisoners. “Wait, don't—” The sword came out and down before those two words were out of my mouth. I didn't know the man who crumpled at the Grünwald captain's feet, but I now saw at least three of my girls in with the prisoners.

No this is going so wrong—

The dragon turned its head toward me.
“Only one person down there matters to me.”

“Stop this—”

“
Captain!
”

“Stop!” I kicked the jewel away, between us.

A set of talons the size of my forearm came to slam point-down on the flagstones between me and the jewel.
“Now,”
the dragon said,
“you're showing some good sense.”

He dragged the jewel back toward him, slowly, talons screeching on the flagstones.
“While we wait for the guard to come up here, maybe you could enlighten me on how you were planning to make me wear this token before I was ready?”

I shrugged. “I like to improvise.”