Dragon Stones (35 page)

"I apologize for my earlier behavior," Ponn said.

"There is no need.  We did good work tonight; we rescued a number of citizens, and the king's greater purpose was served."

"Greater purpose?  But we didn't find the dragon."

"My lord king never thought that we would," Lebbeck said.  "Though I had hoped …"  He trailed off, then shook his head.  "No, this was a way to keep the people busy, to prevent a panic.  You saw how many had joined our group by the time we finished.  Some of them will go and join other search parties.  Others will help put out fires.  Even the most exhausted will go to sleep knowing that they did what they could to help their fellow citizens, and will feel less helpless for it."

"Laquin thought of all that on his own?" Ponn said.

Lebbeck shrugged.  "More or less."

"But he's just a boy."

"No he isn't," Lebbeck said.  "He's a king."

That morning, the
Pride
passed through the Crosswaters, a churning mass of currents and foam where the three rivers came together.  The Red flowed from Dunshandrin and the Santill flowed from western Barbareth, spilling into and diluting the Dead River that came from salty Lake Achenar.  Talbrett and his men had to put all their attention into steering the small ship into the Dead River, which would take them through the swamps of Madroval and then into the lake.  Left to her own devices, Tolaria stood at the rail of the vessel and tried to see the oracular compound where she had lived.  It stood in the western vertex of the cross, on a promontory that rose from the boggy headland.  This bluff was the first of the stunted nubs that formed the foothills of the Oronj Mountains.

At first she thought she must be looking in the wrong place; but then she spotted the ruins of the temple where the oracles greeted supplicants and granted visions.  She could see that the roof was gone; around the windows, the white walls showed black smudges, like bruises around battered eyes.  Many of the trees had died, either burned up in the fire or killed by the heat, their remaining leaves brown and dry.  It looked like some of the outbuildings still stood, but from the river she couldn't tell which they were or what condition they might be in.

"Tolaria!"  Talbrett was hurrying over to her, evidently concerned about something.  "The currents are very bad today, because the rivers are swollen from the storms.  We will need to drop you upriver rather than fighting them to land at the Crosswaters."

She glanced at him, then at the ruins of her home.  "It really is destroyed, Talbrett," she said.  "The twins were telling the truth."

"You told me it had been destroyed.  Did you not believe it?"

"I did.  But I had hoped …"  She trailed off.

"You hoped you were wrong, that they were lying to you."

"Yes."

After a moment, Talbrett said:  "Do you still want to return there?"

"There's nothing to return to."  She turned her back on the scene.  "I will accompany you to Achengate, if I may, and find my own passage to Flaurent."

"Flaurent?  You want to go back to the college?"

"Someone must tell them what happened here.  Others may have brought them news of the fire, but only you and I know what truly caused it.  Only …"

He cocked his head as if wondering what she would say next; but she had not paused to complete her thought this time.  Rather, she had begun to feel lightheaded, the way she had below deck, in Talbrett's cabin, when she had suffered a vision and collapsed.

As she slumped to the deck, the last thing she saw was the merchant, lunging forward to catch her.  At the same time, her consciousness seemed to splinter, like a painting on glass that had fallen and shattered.

She was on the ship, lying on her side on the cold, wet deck.

And she lay on the muddy ground behind a heap of rocks, covered in broken bits of bracken, half-asleep and trembling with cold.

And she was stretched out on a fluffy bed in a ruined castle, sleeping away days of exhaustion.

And she was pinned beneath the wreckage of a building, battered, humiliated, dreaming of soaring through the open air.

And she was curled up on a cot that was too short for her, caught up in a dream of leading robe-clad Withered Ones in a battle against a living earthquake.

What was this?  Were these other minds that she touched?  They surrounded her, their awareness mingling with hers; it was a sort of vision, she supposed, but one she had never known before.  Did they sense her as well?  Or was she merely an observer here, seeing but unseen, hearing but unheard?  She spoke, not knowing if her mouth formed the words, or if it was merely in her mind.  Who were these people?

As soon as she thought of the question, she knew the answer; she knew all their names, even her own, and spoke them one by one.  "Tolaria.  Adaran.  Ponn.  T'Sian.  Diasa."

"Who's there?"  That was the one called Adaran, who lay in the mud and stones.  "Am I dreaming of Diasa?"

"I would certainly hope not," Diasa said.

"T'Sian?"  This was the one called Ponn, who slept in the borrowed, regal bed.  "I'm in Varmot's castle.  Where are you?  Are you still in Astilan?"

"I am buried," T'Sian said, her voice a roar in Tolaria's mind; there was something different about her, setting her apart from the others.  "Help me, Ponn!"

"This is such an odd dream," Adaran said.

"I don't think it is a dream," Tolaria said.  "It is a vision.  I am an oracle, and you are all in my vision."

"You're an odd sort of oracle, having visions such as this," Diasa said.  "You're Tolaria?  Wert mentioned you not long ago.  He said you had escaped."

"I have," she said.  "I was being held prisoner in Dunshandrin's castle, but no longer.  I escaped on a ship."

"Is it called the
Pride
?" Diasa asked.

"Yes.  How did you know?"

"So that explains it," Diasa said, apparently to herself.

"Diasa, where's Prehn?" Adaran said.  "Is she all right?"

"The little girl?  She's here with me in Achengate."

"Prehn?" Ponn cried.  "You have Prehn?  My daughter?"

"Well, she's
someone's
daughter," Diasa said.

"You must watch over her and keep her safe!" Ponn said.  "Will you do that?  Will you bring her safely back to me?"

"I don't see myself traveling to Astilan in the near future," Diasa said, "but I will keep her safe, yes."

"Prehn is your daughter?" Adaran said.  "I rescued her from Dunshandrin's men in the mountains.  I think they were going to feed her to the eagles, or maybe sell her."

"Dunshandrin!"  Ponn said the name as if he were spitting it onto the street.  "He is behind all this, T'Sian.  Not Varmot."

"I do not understand," T'Sian said.  "If we are all so widely separated, how can we communicate?"

"It seems to be my doing," Tolaria said.  "I don't know how I brought our minds together or how long it will last, but we must take advantage of the situation while it lasts.  There must be a purpose to it."

"What purpose might that be?" Diasa said.  "To congratulate each other on how ill-used we all are?"

"No," T'Sian said.  "I think the oracle means we must work together to defeat this Dunshandrin and his henchmen.  You all will help me to avenge my hatchlings."

For a moment, everyone was silent.

Then Diasa said:  "Your
hatchlings
?"

"You needn't worry about getting revenge on Dunshandrin," Adaran said.  "I already killed him.  Oh.  Oh, no.  I think I've been—"

Then pain flared through Tolaria, pain in her hands, her feet.  She heard a snapping sound in her ears, the
sound
of crossbows firing.  Adaran's consciousness spun away from her and she opened her eyes.  She lay in her hammock in her tiny room, swaying as the boat rocked in the current.  The merchant sat nearby, on a stool he must have brought in with him.

"This is beginning to become habitual," Talbrett said.

"T'Sian?  Adaran?"

Ponn fell silent, realizing that the others were gone and he was awake, a royally soft mattress beneath him, thick blankets covering him from the morning chill.  He rubbed his forehead with the back of his hand.  Had that all been a dream?  Could there really be an oracle hundreds of miles away who had found him in his sleep and sought to bring him allies?  Was Prehn really alive, and safe?  Was T'Sian really buried somewhere in the city?  What had happened to wake him up?

He climbed out of bed, shivering.  He had tried to light a fire before retiring, but the chimney was evidently blocked; smoke had begun to fill the chamber, forcing him to douse the flames and open the shutters.  The room still stank.  He didn't know if this was because of his misadventure with the hearth, the pall over the city, or both.

Ponn dressed, then slipped on the warm cloak that he'd bought the day before.  A guard was posted outside his room; Ponn asked the man to take him to the king.  A number of delays ensued as the king was located, his permission sought, his more pressing business concluded.  Eventually, Ponn was ushered into the same small chamber where they'd met after the attack on the city.  Laquin was waiting for him on a throne that hadn't been there the night before.  It looked old and battered and appeared to have been recently repaired; Laquin sat in it sideways, with his legs dangling over one of the padded arms and his back against the other.

"Good morning, sire," Ponn said.  "I wondered if—"

"This kingship business is incredibly tedious," Laquin said.  "You would think that with an enemy army bearing down on us, I would be planning grand strategies and bold maneuvers, wouldn't you?"  Pause.  "Well, wouldn't you?"

Ponn, who had thought the question rhetorical, said:  "I would suppose so, sire."

"You would suppose wrong," Laquin said.  "My
captains
are planning grand strategies and bold maneuvers.  I am busy looking over petitions, claims, and counterclaims resulting from this destruction Dunshandrin has visited on us.  The captains occasionally ask me for my opinion, but I think they ignore it."  He shrugged, as if resigned to the fate of irrelevance.  "What was it you wanted to discuss with me?"

"I had a dream," Ponn said.

"Oh, no," Laquin said.  "Visions and prophecies?"

"There was a woman named Tolaria.  She claimed to be—"

"An oracle."  Laquin cocked his head at Ponn.  "Tolaria is a new oracle at the Crosswaters.  We were notified of her appointment by dispatch several months ago."

Ponn said:  "I'm surprised you would remember that."

"I was in training to be king someday," Laquin said.  "I was sent to the Crosswaters to meet the new oracle."  He looked momentarily wistful.  "She was very pretty."

"Was she a gifted seer?"

"So we were told, although the oracle in charge of the facility seemed to think her abilities overrated and assigned her to mediation work.  What was she doing in your dream?"

"I don't know.  There were other people there, too.  T'Sian the dragon, a woman from Flaurent named Diasa, and a man named Adaran who claimed to have assassinated Dunshandrin."

Laquin raised an eyebrow.  "Really?  That's interesting, if it's true.  What else did he say?"

"He said he had saved my daughter from Dunshandrin's men.  I told you how she had been kidnapped."

"Yes."  Laquin scratched his head.  "Busy fellow.  Is there any chance he can assassinate the princes for us as well?"

"I don't think so," Ponn said.  "Something happened to him just as I awoke.  He … may be dead."

"Pity.  Well, Pyodor Ponn, I must say that I don't know what to make of this dream of yours.  You had never met nor heard of Tolaria before this?"

"Never.  Happenings at the Crosswaters are not conveyed to simple innkeepers in Enshenneah."

"And that is all you are, eh?"  Laquin chuckled, then grew serious again.  "My father employed an interpreter of dreams and visions, though I've no idea if she survived the attack.  I haven't seen her, so I expect she did not."  He eyed Ponn.  "What do
you
think, simple innkeeper?"

"I don't know," he said.  "If Tolaria is a real person, there's no reason to believe that the others were not also real.  Perhaps Adaran really did kill Dunshandrin, or thinks he did.  Perhaps my daughter and the dragon live."

Laquin nodded.  "It sounds to me as though Tolaria may still be doing mediation," he said, "but of a different sort.  I hope that is the case, and you are correct."

"So do I," Ponn said.

Diasa sat up as the vestiges of her dream fell away, the hum of crossbows echoing in her ears.  At least two of them, she thought, discharged at close range.  If the dream was real, and they had been shooting to kill, there could be little doubt but that Adaran was dead.  Pity it hadn't happened a week earlier.

She looked around the tiny garret room.  Yellow light streamed in through the windows, which were set into dormers that poked out through the slate roof of the inn.  Diasa sighed and rolled out of bed.  Her clothes lay on the floor where she'd dropped them.  She tugged on her leather gaiters, then slipped her tunic over her head and cinched it around her waist.  She went to the window, opened it, poked her head out, and looked toward the lake.  She had slept longer than she'd intended; the sun had begun to climb toward afternoon, sparkling on the surface of grey Lake Achenar.  She must have been very tired indeed.