Dragon Stones (31 page)

And she needed to get out of the street, before he spotted her from his aerial vantage point.  She pushed her way into one of the burning buildings to her left.  Fire surrounded her, warm and welcoming; but then the floor groaned as she moved across it, and suddenly it split open beneath her, plunging her into a dank cavity beneath the structure.  Burning debris came down after her, and then the entire place collapsed in a roar of smoke and timbers, burying her in the heat and the darkness.

Ponn had spotted T'Sian moving toward the gates of Astilan.  He'd run after her, calling for her to stop, but she didn't even turn to look at him and he soon lost track of her in the shadows.  Figuring she must be going out of the city to transform into her dragon shape, he gave up following and hurried back to the inn.  Gazes turned to him as he entered, then turned away again.  Some here had seen him earlier and knew him as the strange woman's companion; to others he would merely be a foreigner, and of little interest.

The older woman who that morning had peered out at them from the kitchen now stood behind the bar, filling tankards and bantering with obvious regulars; over the course of the day he had learned that her name was Jalla, and that she was the owner of the Sack of Sorrows.  He hurried through the room and up the stairs to the hallway, where a shuttered window opened onto the roof of the dining area.  He opened it and climbed out, peering off to the northwest, but was unable to see anything now that the last of the daylight had failed.  Nor could he see the dragon; he assumed she had taken to the sky to engage the eagles, but she was just as invisible as they were.

Suddenly a series of explosions rocked inner Astilan.  The eruption of light turned Varmot's castle into a silhouette, flat and black against the flashes.  A sound like a huge crash of thunder threatened to deafen him; moments later a wave of force, like a great hot wind, knocked him off his feet and sent him sprawling upon the thatched roof of the inn.  The rumble died away in his ears as he scrambled across the dry, prickly grasses toward the window.  He hauled himself back into the hallway, then turned, blinking away the angry purple flashes that marred his vision.  The interior of Astilan was aflame in a half-dozen places, throwing orange light into the sky.  Had T'Sian made good on her threat to burn the town?  What else but a dragon or a volcano could have generated so much fiery destruction so quickly?

He raced back downstairs.  The common room had already emptied of patrons and servers, leaving only Jalla, struggling to haul a massive strongbox out from behind the bar.  Ponn went to her side.  "Leave that," he said.  "The city is under attack!"

"This is all the money I have in the world," she said, "and I'm not leaving it here to be looted!"

"Let me help you, then," he said, reaching to pick up the chest by one of the handles.

"No!  It's mine!"

"I'm not trying to rob you, you foolish woman!"

"Leave off!"  She swatted his hands away.

"Fine," Ponn said.  "Burn for your coins, then, and see how much good they do you in the spirit world."  Abandoning her, he went out into the street.  The sound of a nearby blast still echoed among the buildings.  People ran back and forth against a backdrop of flame and smoke; hot embers wafted through the air like a torpid swarm of fat, luminous beetles.  One landed on his shoulder; he smacked it out with his hand, leaving a black smudge on his new cloak.

Another explosion erupted from the direction of the southern gate.  He covered his ears as the roar rumbled over him, the ground shivered beneath his feet.  Not T'Sian's doing; her breath destroyed silently, no louder than a whisper.  The men on their eagles must be responsible for this chaos.

Seeing no good way through the inferno, he returned to the inn.  Jalla had apparently given up on taking all her money; the chest stood open and she was stuffing handfuls of coins into her apron.  She did not look up as he entered.

"There's no way out," Ponn said.  "The fire is everywhere.  Do you have a large oven, as for baking bread?"

She did look up then, staring at him.  "You want bread?"

"
No, I don't want bread!  Listen to me.  I know how you plainsmen do your baking.  Do you have a brick oven or not?"

"Yes.  In the back."

"Show me."

Looking perplexed, Jalla closed and locked the strongbox, then led him into a tiny office behind the bar.  The coins in her bulging pockets clinked and jingled as she walked.  A poorly-fitting wooden door let them out into a long, narrow yard behind the inn.  The yard was littered with refuse: Old bedding, tablecloths, a mound of rotting vegetables.  The oven stood at the far end, a weathered, dome-shaped heap of bricks and mortar with an iron door, thick walls, and a tiny ventilation hole at its peak.  It was smaller than he had hoped, little larger than a child's tree-house, and he began to wonder if this idea he had formed was a very foolish one.  But the thick walls of the oven kept in the heat, so it stood to reason they would keep it out as well.

He could see flames over the walls surrounding the yard.  The fire was burning closer, racing along thatched rooftops, consuming spindly structures like so much deadwood.  He hurried to the oven, felt the iron door.  Cool to the touch, as he had hoped.  He opened the door, revealing a black opening large enough to crawl through on hands and knees.  "In here," he said.

Jalla looked aghast.  "You're trying to cook me alive!"

Exasperated, Ponn said:  "I had your bread this morning, and it was not fresh; you did not use this oven today.  Perhaps you will be extremely
lucky
and the fire will spare your inn; if not, perhaps you will merely be
very
lucky
, and the walls of your oven will prevent us both from being burned to death."

She gaped at him, as if he had sprouted a forked tongue like the dragon's.  Well, it was her choice to follow him or not.  He crawled through the low, narrow opening like a bee into a hive.  The interior of the oven was dark as a moonless night on the ocean, except for a sliver of light that came through the vent-hole at the top; the walls felt slightly warm from its last use, whenever that was, and exuded the odor of bread and yeast.

He heard a huffing and scratching as Jalla entered.  She pulled the iron door shut behind her, sat huddled on the brick floor, and said, miserably:  "We'll bake for sure."

She was probably right, but there was no reason to make her still more panicky by agreeing with her.  "Move to the center," he said.  "It will be hottest near the sides."

Jalla glanced at the walls as if they might grow hands, seize her, and hold her tight while the fire roasted her.  She slid away from them, joining him in the spot of illumination beneath the vent-hole.  He wondered if they should stop it up, but maybe it would help the heat escape.

Suddenly Jalla drew a breath and said:  "Your companion—what about her?  Is she out there in the fire?"

"If she is," Ponn said, "then she is probably enjoying herself immensely."

After he had wandered into what was clearly the royal wing of the castle, Adaran found himself exhausted and had started searching for somewhere to hide and rest.  He'd found a small alcove, tucked away behind a tapestry, and chose it as his bolt-hole.  He had to share it with the draped statue of a woman, but that was all right; she was very quiet, and her face reminded him a bit of Redshen's.  He spent a moment looking at her, and then he curled up in the narrow space behind her pedestal and fell asleep.  He woke with a start some time after nightfall, wondering where he was.  After a moment he remembered the dungeon, slipping away, sneaking through the hallways.  He vaguely recalled that no one in the castle had been able to see him or hear him; or had that just been a dream, fulfillment of a thief's greatest wish?

He crawled around the statue, lifted the edge of the tapestry, and peered out into the dim, deserted corridor.  Runners and throws covered the floor, lest a royal foot should touch cold stone; golden sconces, mostly unlit, glimmered with inlaid gems; tile mosaics showed images of of battle, governance, harvests, the hunt.  Decorative and ceremonial armor and weapons hung at intervals, swords and shields and daggers, attractively styled but useless for real combat.

Almost directly opposite his hiding place stood a door, set into an elaborately carved frame that continued the themes of the nearby mosaics; the portal itself depicted a throne, above which a glowing crown hovered, throwing what he supposed were rays of light, as if it were the sun itself.

For no reason Adaran could think of, he went to the door and tried the knob.  Locked.  He stepped back, eyeing the door.  An ornate buckler hung on the wall nearby.  He went to it, felt around behind it.  A lockpick rested in the bottom, held in a lip of metal that curved under the back of the shield.  He took the lockpick, examined it.  Not one of his, but he knew how to use it well enough.  He inserted the tool into the keyhole and worked it for a few seconds, and was rewarded with a click as the bolt opened.  He slipped inside, shut the door, and locked it behind him.

The chamber was hot and dry and smelled of illness and impending death.  He turned, scanning the room.  A large bed against the left wall supported the small, twisted shape of a man descending into the depths of terminal illness.  Adaran crept over and inspected the patient.  No one he had ever seen before.  He had expected to find Lord Dunshandrin behind such an opulent door, but this was not him.

High windows in the wall behind the bed were mostly obscured by thick velvet drapes, but in the sliver of space between them he could see the darkness outside.  A way out, perhaps, depending on what might be found on the other side.  Adaran started to move toward them, then noticed the ornamental daggers in crossed sheaths that decorated the footboard of the bed.  After a brief hesitation he took one out, hefted it, tested the blade.  The edges were dull, but the point looked like it had been sharpened recently.  He stood there a moment, then went to the wall on his right, which was hung with tapestries from corner to corner.  He paused in front of one that showed an illuminated golden gate leading into a garden, or perhaps into heaven.  He moved it aside and discovered a door behind it.  This one was locked as well, but it quickly yielded to the lockpick.  He opened it and went into the chamber beyond.  Although smaller than the room he had just left, this one was more sumptuously appointed; its rich wall hangings, gilded weapons, and massive four-poster bed made the sickroom seem shabby in comparison.

The shaggy-headed form of the real Lord Dunshandrin lay asleep in the bed.  Adaran remembered him sitting high on his throne, greeting them all, promising them rich rewards for bringing back the crystals from the dragon's lair.  He thought of the blood spurting from Redshen's cut throat.

Rich rewards, indeed.

He fingered the hilt of the ornamental dagger.  The blade would not cut bread, but he could still plant it in the old man's heart.  He crept to the bedside, dagger at the ready, then hesitated.  Murder a man in his sleep?  Was that how low he'd sunk?  But he couldn't deny the urge to pin Dunshandrin to his mattress; his hand shook with the effort of controlling it.

"Wake up," he said.

Dunshandrin's head lolled to the side and his eyes opened.  Glazed with sleep, they regarded Adaran without recognition.

"Do you even remember me?  I did the job you hired me to do, and then you tried to have me killed, out there in the mountains."

No response.  Perhaps Dunshandrin believed this intruder to be nothing more than an unwelcome dream.  He yawned and stretched, his hands sliding up beneath the pillow beneath his head.

"Now I stand before you with a dagger in my hand," Adaran said.  "Have you nothing to say for yourself?"

Lord Dunshandrin's mouth opened slightly, as if he meant to whisper something for only Adaran to hear; but then he cried, in a booming voice:  "Guards!  Where are my guards?"  At the same time he pulled a tiny one-handed crossbow, cocked and loaded, from beneath his pillow.

Adaran leapt at Dunshandrin and buried the ceremonial dagger between his ribs just as the man fired his weapon.  The bolt whizzed by Adaran's ear and clattered off a shield that hung on the wall.

Panting, Adaran stood back from the bed.  The gilt pommel of the dagger glittered on Lord Dunshandrin's breast like a gaudy bauble worn as decoration.  He looked around, trying to remember why he had come here, what had led him to this chamber.  What had he gained by killing Dunshandrin rather than slipping off into the night?

He opened the door and went back into the sickroom, then crept to the door that led into the corridor.  He put his ear to the crack, heard running footsteps.  Dunshandrin's dying cry had been heard.  He had little doubt that the guards would be able to see him now.  He hoped they wouldn't have a key and would have to break the door down instead.

His mind leapt back to the windows.  He didn't know what was out there, a balcony or a ledge or a sheer drop to the ground,  but that seemed a quibble when a horde of armed men were about to bash their way into the chamber.  He went to the window on the right, opened it, climbed up onto the sill.  He saw a terrace beyond, quite a large one, arrayed with tables and chairs, fountains, trees in great pots.  Obviously this was some sort of royal retreat.  He jumped down to it, landing lightly beside a flower-box.

To his right the castle curved inward and away, forming the back wall of the terrace.  A glass door immediately beside him appeared to lead into Dunshandrin's chamber.  Pale moonlight glimmered off other doors, probably leading to other royal bedrooms.  Guards might come charging through any one of them, at any moment.