Dragon's Ring (19 page)

The shout of outrage from the Prince echoed down the passage.

Finn's look of surprise was closer to the one Meb had imagined on the Prince's face. But Finn charged straight at him. After a moment's hesitation the prince turned and fled, as nimble as only an alvar could be.

"That's torn it," said Finn. "Come on, Scrap. We need to run now ourselves. Try to stay with me. And don't imagine any more disasters."

But seconds later they had one. The Prince had a group of four soldiers with him, coming at a run. Finn yelled triumphantly. "Got him! Seize that alv! He's an imposter using a glamor to pretend that he's Prince Gywndar! It's a trap!"

Such was the conviction in his shout as he ran toward the alvar—who all had swords drawn—that they did pause for a moment. Gywndar fell over one of them. He went flying, and landed in a sprawl between Finn and his soldiers. Before he could get up Finn was onto him. He had him by the scruff of the neck, holding him between himself and the soldiers. "Prince Gywndar is hunting in Mortdale. Everyone knows that! It's fifteen leagues away over the mountain."

The Prince struggled. "Unhand me! He's an assassin! I am your prince! Kill him!"

Finn slapped him hard enough to rock his head back. "Don't be ridiculous. If I was an assassin and you were the prince I would have killed you. I am unarmed, as you can all see." He thrust the stunned Prince at a soldier. "Quick, take him with you! We need the guard-commander. And we need to call a general alert! There may be more of these miscreants in the palace. There was a trap back there with swordsmen. We barely escaped with our lives! Come on, run! Protect us!"

And the soldiers did, half dragging the prince along between two of them. And somehow Meb and Finn were lagging just behind the soldiery . . . and then they sidestepped into a passage. Finn closed a heavy door behind them, dropped the bar, and they ran on.

They ran. And ran. The next few minutes of Meb's life—which had gone from predictable to chaotic ever since she'd seen the black dragon over the bay—were an extreme of chaos. They seemed to run from one group to the next, each escape getting narrower, but they were getting higher. Finn seemed to be trying to get somewhere, besides just away.

They found the place he'd been trying to reach. It was a small, locked room, at the end of a narrow passage. The pursuit was close, and Finn fiddled with his key. It seemed to fit a great many doors. Meb had always thought that keys fitted specific doors—she just wished this one worked faster. At last the door swung open and Finn pulled her in behind him. The floor was painted in an ornate pattern, with small candles set around it at various cardinal points, and little mirrors shining on tiny glass globes.

"Aha!" said Finn. "How convenient. Traditionalists. Well, let's show them that the night is traditionally dark. Alvar see well in the dark, but not as well as I do. And it should release sufficient energy. Balance things up nicely. It's going to go dark in a few moments, Scrap. Very dark, and the cloud has hidden the moon. You can cling onto my coat again. It'll crumple it, but I don't mind. Lilac really isn't my color, after all."

Meb had noticed the pale, glowing globes that lit the palace. But like so many other things their mechanism was beyond her understanding. Light, as she knew it, came from tallow dips, or fish-oil lamps, or candles, or fire or the moon. Mysterious alvar devices were not something she understood. Just accepted.

Finn walked around the room, roughly brushing away patterns, pushing candles together . . . They grew very bright, and then very suddenly went out. His deep chuckle was loud and . . . almost not human in the darkness.

To Fionn, the absence of visible light really was no impediment. He could see heat, magnetism, and the lines of force from earth, air, water, just to start with. He could also see his young charge. He had to laugh. He'd brought this on himself, hadn't he? The dvergar treasure she had on her neck was bad enough, and he had made her carry a load of water-magic too. He'd thought it wise to avoid direct contact with the treasure himself, considering the protections on it . . . he hadn't thought of the consequences of having her take on even more of a magical load. With the alvar being river-folk and her being a summonser to start with . . . Ha. What a mess. And now they had to move out, because the cascade of overloaded force-lines was about to get re-aligned.

"Take hold of my coat, Scrap," he said. He wondered if she had any idea what her true name was. Possibly not. Of course he knew. It was written into the very fibre of her being. To Fionn she might as well have had it tattooed on her forehead.

It was not a name to be taken lightly.

There was something very reassuring about the firm grip she had on his coat even if she could see nothing at all. She could certainly hear enough! The palace had been disturbed with shouted orders and yells before. Now added to that were sounds of panic and screaming. They walked down the passage, turned right—the way they'd come, turned right again . . . and Finn said: "Time to sit down, Scrap. Let's hope this place is well built."

They sat. It was not quite what she would have chosen to do, but she was glad of the rest. And her master seemed to know what he was doing. Which was more than she did. Her plans went as far as "run, because they really all want to kill us."

And then it seemed that the earth wanted to kill them too. Because the world shook under her. She was glad to be sitting down. She was also very afraid and clung to Finn.

"It's all right, Scrap. Just a little realignment of natural force lines." He sounded pleased. Satisfied. "And to make it even better, their pipes have burst. The lake does not like being constrained."

Neither, by the sounds of it, did the people of the white city like what had happened. There had been a lot of shouting in the palace. Now there was yelling, lots of screaming and, by the sounds of it, panic in the entire city. He couldn't have caused a minor earthquake, could he? Surely not. He was just a gleeman . . . and a thief . . . and seemed to know a lot.

"You can stop clinging to me, Scrap. I doubt if there will be any more. The noise is mostly panic. It wasn't a big one. Broken windows and the like, and quite a bit of good flooring flooded, that's all. The real damage is on the road, which is empty at night. They have a curfew . . . Come, we must get out while confusion reigns. Back to the museum and we can change into more comfortable clothes."

He led her off again, and while water washed over their shoes once, that was the most serious problem they had. They had to wait until some people passed—and just let others run past them. Soon they were outside the palace, in the walled gardens, but the wall provided little obstacle to Finn, and he hauled her up it easily. The streets were full of milling alvar. Meb and Finn were just some more of the same. Order was being shaped out of chaos by the yelling and by soldiery spilling out of the palace, but it was not quickly enough to stop the two of them walking peacefully to the museum. It was just as dark inside there, after Finn had let them in with his "fits anything key," but he knew his way, or could see a great deal better in the dark than she could. Soon she was reunited with her familiar breeches, cotte, cloak and boots.

"Don't forget to transfer the things you have in your pockets. Or to bring with you the bag with the Angmarad in it. It's been a lot of fun, but I think it might be harder if we had to do it again too soon," said Finn from the darkness.

Fionn had always been adept at using a mixture of magic, trickery, brute force and mechanical means to do his work. And his glib tongue of course, although he tried to avoid levering rocks around with that.

The road from the white city was as much of a problem as the vast collection of rubies—and the magical energy associated with them—that its treasury had accumulated. Of course all things are interlinked, something the First had been aware of. The road ran too straight, carried too many people with the energies they trafficked, quite unintentionally. They'd cut through several granite spurs and altered the course of the river to achieve that. Fionn had discovered, quite by accident many centuries ago, how to make magically activated detonators. It was simply a case of having too much power pass through any one point at any time, and he had several options here. The area was overdue for an earthquake . . . in fact, the longer it took before it happened the worse it would be—he could see the plates and tense-bound energies waiting for the slippage.

He'd laid his explosives carefully, wedging them into cracks, and laying them behind piles of precarious rock. Of course the spurs and the river had been his first choice. But any place where his explosions would cause some deep, low frequency vibration would work. That was partially the result of the explosions . . . and partially the rockfalls. The vibration caused the planes of rock to start their slippage and release their stored energy, which, compared to his puny explosives was a giant compared to an ant.

* * *

Leagues away across the wide and island-studded ocean, Myrcupa, self-styled high lord and defender of the tower, had been sulkily staring at the great edifice that had been magically constructed long ages back to guard the strand of here and elsewhere that held the plane of Tasmarin. He was thinking of quitting this thankless task and seeing if he could ambush Zuamar of Yenfar. Yet he felt compelled to stay.

The death of his sycophant had hurt him. When the tower at Morscarg had fallen, seventeen years back, the talk had been that some nihilist had somehow managed to sabotage and destroy the foundation.

Dragons are nothing if not patient. He'd guarded this one faithfully in shifts since. But . . . well, the Tower had repelled any life-form—including its guardians. That was what it was supposed to do, Myrcupa knew. But he had felt—a little resentfully, that it might have given its defenders some . . . well, respect. Not that it was alive . . . Knowing it was illogical had not stopped him feeling that way.

He was supremely unaware of an earthquake many leagues away.

But he did see a crack in the vast masonry, one of several they were monitoring, suddenly grow and spread and run with a long, thunderous tumult up the wall.

He still could not reach it to do anything about it.

But although he took to the wing and searched, there was no-one visible attacking it, despite a strong scent of magic. It smelled . . . human.

Myrcupa despised humans.

The centaurs had always been the cusp between animal nature and civilization. Over the long history of their kind they'd swayed between the two. They believed that at last they'd reached some kind of balance, here on the high plains. Here philosophy and the noble arts of poetry and the sagas, the wild music and great dance had risen above the old scourges of conflict and war. Yes, the sheer, high cliffs of Thessalia, Laconia and Lapithidia limited the extent of the high tableland which they lived on. It had meant an end to the great migrations. But on the other hand it kept the Children of Chiron to themselves too. For centuries they had had limited contact with the other species. The plane of centaurs had always been one of poorly defined boundaries, in which conflict with humans, alvar and even the sprites had been a prominent part. Those years had honed the centaurs for combat. A man-horse could out-maneuver any horse-man. And they had become, perforce, great archers.

But the arts of war had been relegated to yesteryear, here. Until now. The dark glass of the seeing pool had caused old sabers to be sharpened and polished, and spare arrows—war arrows, with heavy heads for penetrating armor—to be made and fletched. Now the dust from great phalanxes of centaurs drilling and training hung over the high plains. The Children of Chiron had never been at home at sea. But they had been slowly accumulating transports. And the magical arts and defenses were being practiced. The time was coming. If . . . when . . . the black dragon brought down the next tower, or even before that, the fatelines all led to war.

Or extinction.

Ixion paced the looping trail that looked down on Lapithidia's only port, a good half a mile below. He looked down on the ships moving slowly toward the harbor. His companion Hylonome scanned the skies.

"Dragon," she said pointing.

He would have seen it too, as it was closing in on two vessels out beyond the Lapith point.

"It's green," he said, "Not that that will help the sailors."

They were too far off to see the crews—doubtless leaping into the water. But they could see the sails catch fire.

"It begins," said Hylonome in a heavy voice.

Ixion said nothing. From here they could not to do anything to help either.

The stream that flowed down from the mountains had offered Hrodenynbrys little respite from having to get out and walk next to it. Land was just so awkward. He couldn't merely swim over obstacles. He had to go around them. And slipping out of the water made merrows terribly vulnerable. He was very glad to reach the lake. Merrows had been this far before, of course. But the Angmarad had not been given into the keeping of alvar at a whim. The spells of warding set on it would, the merrow knew, protect it, and prevent him from getting any closer. The alvar had been their usual thorough selves about it, Hrodenynbrys had to admit, sourly. They'd protected it against the magics of all the species, calling in help, where need be. Well, all species except alvar, and humans of course.