Dragons of War (29 page)

"That damnable throne is the most uncomfortable seat in the entire world. It's no wonder that my father was in such a dire mood the whole time."

Lagdalen kneaded the knots in the shoulder muscles. The queen was upset to the point of tears.

"Oh, my dears, you are such a comfort to me, only the Mother knows, but really it is all getting to be too painful too bear. All day I sit there and listen to these awful men go on and on with their complaints and their greedy desires. If it isn't the grain factors then it's the builders, or even worse it's the ladies from the Temple. And to think I have to go back in there for another afternoon with the Aubinan merchants. Sometimes I wish…" she sobbed, as all three of the ladies-in-waiting looked to each other and rolled their eyes, how many times had they heard that sob? "I wish I were still a princess. Oh, why did my brother have to die like that? I was quite happy. I had my place. I had my little duties, and I had lots of time to pursue my other interests." More sobs followed.

She lurched up for a moment and shouted. "And I didn't have to sit on that horrid lump of wood all day!"

Lagdalen waited until the queen had settled back on the couch and was sipping her tomato broth. Then she spoke, recalling Lessis's words on how to cajole a sulky monarch.

"Your Highness, you really are not powerless in the matter. You don't have to let them get away with sending this case back to you again. It's cowardice on the part of the judges. You can simply order the judgment served and a sentence handed down. Send it back to the court. That will stop the Aubinans' attempt to overturn the justice of the Marneri Court."

"Oh, that would be wonderful, child, and then the Aubinans will start shipping their harvest straight to Kadein. They ship from Sequila anyway, we have no direct control as we might if they shipped through Marneri. And if they ship their harvest to Kadein's market, then our grain prices are going to go sky high. We need the Aubinas grain to stabilize things, especially with war coming. We'll have panic, then hoarding, and then food riots."

Lagdalen kept her eyes down as she replied.

"Your Highness is correct, the Aubinan grain merchants might do such a thing; but even they might find it hard to justify to the people of Aubinas, especially under conditions of war. Our very existence is threatened, and the Aubinans cannot put aside their petty resistance to justice?"

Besita glared at Lagdalen.

"And now you will lecture me, Lagdalen? Such sauce and stuff do I get from you. You lecture me, you always do, and I know who eggs you on to it!"

There was a silence. Pessila and Kuellen looked to the floor. They all knew that Lagdalen was not just a lady-in-waiting to the Queen of Marneri. She was, in fact, representative of the Grey Lady, Lessis of Valmes. Lagdalen was not yet twenty, but already she was involved in the Secret World, in which agents and spies moved behind veils of mystery. Pessila had heard from her father that Lagdalen now belonged to the Office of Unusual Insight. This was the most shadowy of the Offices of the Empire and the most fascinating to outsiders. But Lagdalen would never speak about her service, except in Ourdh, where she had spent many weeks before, during and after the siege. Lagdalen preferred to talk about her baby, Laminna, now sixteen months old and tottering about. Laminna had pulled a chair down on top of herself, and Lagdalen had nearly died from fright, but the child was unharmed. Sometimes they seemed to be made of rubber. Pessila and Kuellen both had elder sisters with young children. They had heard more than enough about babies. They wanted to hear about the horrors of Tummuz Orgmeen, and the great magics performed by the witches. She had assisted Ribela the Great, the seeress, the Queen of Mice herself. What had that been like? But no, nothing of this could they learn.

Besita surrendered to the inevitable. She would have to endure a scene and the lasting enmity of the grain merchants in Marneri's most prosperous province.

"I should do what the Lord Axnuld tells me, I should stall and avoid any disruption to the markets, but"—she shrugged, the girls looked at her with eyes shiny and bright—"I must keep faith with our legions." She sighed and fluttered her hands at the ladies-in-waiting. "Leave me now, my dears, I would rest a while in private."

Lagdalen and the others went out, past the guards, and stood a moment on the landing. The great staircase of the Tower of Guard was always busy.

Pessila and Kuellen had barely had time to congratulate her on her success in stiffening the queen's resolve, when a messenger, a girl in the plain blue smock of the novice, appeared in front of them.

"I have a message for the Lady Lagdalen of the Tarcho. Is she within?"

"Better than that girl, she is right here," giggled Kuellen.

"I am Lagdalen, what is it?"

The girl was suspicious. "You hardly seem old enough."

"Appearances can be deceptive. If you have a message for Lagdalen of the Tarcho, then give it me. If not, then be on your way."

The novice compressed her lips. "Oh, very well, here it is, from way upstairs, one of them, if you know what I mean."

Lagdalen opened the sealed letter with a flutter in her heart. She did know, all too well, what it meant.

"I must go, please give my apologies to the queen."

"Of course, Sister," said Pessila with a knowing look to Kuellen. Together they watched Lagdalen disappear, heading up the staircase to the higher levels of the great tower.

Lagdalen climbed high inside the tower, passing the floor where her parents lived, in the ancestral Tarcho apartments, and on, to high floors she had never visited until her introduction to Lessis of Valmes almost three years before. That event had changed her life forever.

There was a row of doors, each made of dark brown wood with a brass number on the front. She knocked at the third, which swung open on its own, without human assistance. She stepped in, and it closed behind her. Lagdalen was used to such things.

Wearing a plain grey linen suit, Lessis was waiting at a small table with a white ceramic pot of Ourdhi kalut in front of her. From the aroma, Lagdalen could tell the kalut was of high quality. She'd learned a lot about kalut during her time in Ourdh.

Lagdalen understood at once. The Queen of Mice would be present as well. Something important was in the works. Lagdalen knew that the seeress, Ribela of Defwode, was very particular about kalut while ordinarily Lessis drank very indifferent stuff, weak tea, cold water, the juice of a lemon once a day.

"How goes the queen?" said Lessis, after they had discussed baby Laminna's growing use of language.

"She has decided to fight the Aubinans at last. She will send the case of Commander Glaves back to the court and demand that judgment be given and a sentence handed down."

Lessis nodded gravely. It was a serious case, and one that could have a powerful negative effect on legion morale. The purchase of commissions by wealthy men had become a source of intense controversy. Lessis's instincts were against it.

"The queen complained, I suppose, when you stiffened her spine."

Lagdalen blushed. "I am clumsy with her sometimes, but I am much better than I used to be."

Lessis smiled. "You have become quite the guileful creature, my dear. You will be a Great Witch someday, I'm prepared to wager on it."

There was a short silence. Lagdalen knew she was about to be asked to undertake some onerous task. She braced herself. Her thoughts flew away to her husband, Captain Kesepton, now riding for the High Pass. For the umpteenth time that day, she prayed for his safety.

"My dearest Lagdalen, you understand the gravity of our situation, I think. We face a terrible test." Lessis leaned forward and hunched her narrow shoulders.

"I must ask of you a great sacrifice, to aid the effort of our Office in this moment of crisis."

Lagdalen looked the witch in the eye, with a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Was there no end to their demands?

She cast her eyes down for a moment. She'd missed Laminna's babyhood the previous summer. What would it be this time?

Lessis's glance flicked to the inner door that opened and admitted the Lady Ribela.

The Queen of Mice was clad in her perennial black velvet garb, the hems decorated with silver mouse skulls. Her face was the perfect mask it had been for centuries.

"Lagdalen my dear, it is good to see you again." Ribela did the unheard of and reached out and squeezed Lagdalen's hand for a moment before she sat down.

"You have made kalut, Sister?" she said in feigned surprise. Indeed, her nostrils had told her that there was some hot kalut while she had still been outside the door.

Lessis looked down at the pot, she had quite forgotten it.

"Yes, or, well, no, I make terrible kalut, but I have obtained some from our friend Narsha."

"It will not stay warm unless we perform prodigies on the magical plane. Perhaps we should drink it while it is hot."

"Of course, of course," Lessis poured the thick, aromatic beverage, and they sipped in silence for a moment.

Lessis turned to Lagdalen again.

"The problem, my dear, is that we lack any source of intelligence from Padmasa. We are blind, and we cannot anticipate our enemy's moves except in the most general terms. This blow is the strongest our enemy has ever launched against us. We must get some clear idea of his intentions if we are to be able to defeat him."

Lagdalen's concern grew and darkened. This attack from the enemy sounded more threatening than she had previously understood.

"We are blind. And so we must attempt something rather daring. We must infiltrate the very center of the enemy's power. We must enter the darkness of the heart of Padmasa. We must go into the Tetralobe, and then to the Deeps."

The very idea brought a chill to Lagdalen's bones. Tummuz Orgmeen had been one thing, the fortress of a Doom, but the Tetralobe of Padmasa? The lair of the Masters themselves? How could anyone enter that freezing nadir and hope to evade capture?

Lessis, however, seemed oddly cheerful about the matter.

"You are wondering how we might enter that dreadful place and ever hope to reemerge. Naturally, we will not be entering it in human guise."

Lagdalen breathed a deep internal sigh of relief. So, they wanted her to help them with some great magic. That was all right, Lagdalen would gladly serve. She would do whatever had to be done while the witches rode the chaotic ether in the astral mode.

Ribela set down her cup. She made a tiny gesture, and Lessis ceded to her.

"Unfortunately, dear, we will not be able to attack from the astral plane. We cannot get through on the higher modes of perception. The Masters have developed great barriers there. They have become very strong."

Lagdalen was left groping. "But if you cannot use magic, and you cannot get inside, then how will you do this?"

Lessis smiled gently. "We will go in with physical bodies, but we will not go as human beings. We will make our entrance in more humble, miniature guise."

Lagdalen's eyes widened.

"Animancy?"

Lessis nodded.

"Yes, my dear, it will require great power to achieve success, but it will be done."

Lagdalen heard the certainty in Lessis's voice. Lagdalen knew that of all witches, these two were the greatest practitioners of the art of animantic magic. Verily were they known as the Queens of Mice and Birds.

"In such small forms, it will be easy for us to enter the Tetralobe unobserved and to explore, We will be too insignificant for the Masters to notice."

"However, there is a problem," said Ribela.

Lagdalen had seen it already.

"You have to get to Padmasa in human form and then change."

"No, my dear, we intend to complete our transformations here and travel there in nonhuman form. Which means we will require some means of transport, since I will be a very small bird and Ribela will be a mouse."

"How? What?" The dread in her heart changed direction dramatically. She felt her heart thud in her chest.

"No!" They wanted her soul? For that?

"We would ask only that you assume control of an eagle for a few days. Just enough to fly us there and to bring us back after our mission."

Animancy? She would be removed from her own body and placed in the mind of an eagle, another creature, a wild, predatory bird? What of her child? Her darling Laminna.

"Will I be able to return? I mean, will I stay an eagle?"

The eyes of both witches sparkled momentarily.

"The effect will only last a few days," said Lessis. "Just enough to get us there and back. It will be arduous, child, but it can be done and it is our only hope."

"Yes, I see," said Lagdalen with heavy heart.

"There is no one else we can ask for this service," Lessis said softly. "You have the heart and the spirit and the intelligence, and you have worked with both of us in the past and understand more about our work than any stranger could."

Lagdalen sighed. Lessis sighed. Lagdalen sighed again.

"Once again, we must ask you to sacrifice your motherhood for the sake of the empire."

Lagdalen felt Ribela's eyes hard upon her and managed to prevent herself from being unforgivably weak in the presence of the Queen of Mice.

"There is a terrible peril, child. We must sacrifice ourselves if need be at this time. Our cause is greater than any individual life."

Lagdalen looked to Ribela, and found words.

"I had only heard that there was war in the West and that the enemy was going to attack Fort Teot."

"The truth of the situation is being kept quiet lest it spark general panic. As it is, there was panic in Kadein. Riots over seats on coaches and berths aboard ships. The enemy brings more than one hundred thousand to bear upon us."

"But how could they breed so many?"

"They abducted thousands of women from Ourdh during the dark days a year ago. Those women have been used to produce this horde of fell imps."

"It is possible that they will overwhelm our forces in Kenor and reach the coast by winter."