Song of the Dragon

CHAPTER 50

The old elven woman had all the credentials of a Court Adjudicator of the Ministry of Occupation-a wizened post well suited to her age. If anyone looked more closely as she traveled the Northmarch Folds, they might discover that she bore the name of Liu Tsi-Feing, Third Court Adjudicator of the Arikasi Tjen-soi Prefecture and a Sight-maiden of the Paktan Order. Liu would tell you that she was a devout follower of Kiris, the elven Goddess of Light and Dark and that her mission on behalf of her master Arikasi dealt with trade disputes in the northern territories.

All of it was perfectly correct.

None of it was true.

The elven woman stepped uncertainly from the fold portal, gripping her walking stick tightly. The fold itself was guarded on both sides by rather impressive Warriors of the Nekara Order with a single Occuran Foldmaster sitting with his feet over the edge of the platform.

Young, the old woman thought, on his first posting for the Order and wondering if there was any part of the Empire more distant from all he wanted than this one.

The woman struggled forward, her staff dragging against the stone of the platform. The day was pleasantly cool. She could smell the breeze coming off the bay beyond the mud and stone walls of the town below. There was music rolling over the walls, and she could hear happy shouts and laughter punctuating the music drifting up the slope.

The Occuran Foldmaster did not bother to stand. He only turned to see who had come through and, seeing no one of importance, turned back to his idle consideration of his own importance.

The old woman would not be put off, however.

“Young Foldmaster,” she said in a quavering voice. “What town is this?”

“Yurani Keep,” the youth replied, though the effort seemed to pain him. “That stack of mud buildings is the capital city of this region.”

“They seem to be celebrating,” the woman noted. “Do you know the cause? Is it a holiday?”

“I do not know the cause. . nor do I care.” The youth stretched at the aching in his limbs. “They have given us three days of rest and peace from their constant trafficking of their wares through this fold, and that is as good a cause as any to celebrate so far as I am concerned.”

The old woman smiled and nodded as she hobbled down off the platform and wound her way toward the city gates. The Foldmaster was typical of elven youth: spoiled, proud, lazy, whining, and lost in his self-importance.

She silently put him on her list.

In time she arrived at the gates through the city walls, finding them both open and unattended. The narrow, winding avenues with their cobblestone streets were filled with short, rust-brown gnome men, women, and children laughing and chattering at one another. Wherever there were small bands of drummers, lute players, trumpeters or other musicians playing together, they were surrounded by other gnomes who were invariably dancing and cavorting through the streets.

She came at last to the large, paved plaza of the city and climbed with stiff and pained strides the wide stairs up to the Great House Hall of the Caliphate of the Dje’kaarin. Several gnome guards stood before the great doorway that led into the hall. The Captain of the Guard stepped out from their number and held his hand up.

“Stop!”

“Yes?” the woman asked weakly.

“You wish to see the Caliph?”

“That is why I have come.”

The captain’s hand flipped palm up. “Ten Imperial decella for ten minutes. Hard coin only-no paper!”

“Could the Captain of the Guard manage to give me a private audience. . undisturbed. . for, say, twenty decella?”

The captain considered for a moment, then nodded. “He’s all yours. . for twenty.”

The woman sighed, then produced the coins for the captain. He stepped aside and motioned the rest of the guards to do likewise. She passed through the large doors and turned her stooped form back to close the doors behind her.

As the doors rang shut, the old elf woman turned, gripping her staff firmly with both her hands. She took in the disgusting room with practiced eyes. Bent over and with shuffling steps, she moved slowly toward the throne of the Caliph.

Ch’drei was in no hurry; she knew how to play a part well.

Few alive remembered that the Keeper had been a great Inquisitor in her day. Down the years of her rise to the highest position in her Order, she had increasingly affected the roll of a withered elven matron. While it was true that her skills had diminished over time, it was not nearly to the extent that even her closest associates in the Order thought. She held them against those times when it was necessary that she travel alone.

This had become one of those times.

It had all gone wrong. She first knew it when reports came back of entire gnome cities being massacred by Iblisi Quorums in the Vestasian wasteland. Jukung had been her choice to quietly contain the problem; he became her mistake, and she could see that now. She thought his passion would give him strength to do the job; instead it consumed him to the point where he forgot what the mission was about. The surviving members of Jukung’s Quorums whom she questioned confirmed her worst fears. He had substituted his own orders for hers. Now Jukung was dead, and all the Empire, it seemed, was talking about how the Iblisi had been hunting a human named Drakis. . and succeeded only in killing everyone they met except him.

This disaster was bad enough-but not enough to bring her out of her lair. Ch’drei had come north for her own reasons: One of the Assesia she interviewed had given her a message from the one person she had no wish to hear from.

Soen.

He seemed to have vanished almost the moment after he had killed Jukung in some obscure human coastal village. The Codexia could not say where he had gone. They had followed rumors of an elven Iblisi tracking a manticore eastward along the Thetis Coast; there were other reports of him among the mud gnome cities, or passing east into Ephindria, or bartering for a ship in Menninos. None of it could be confirmed. All that remained was the message given her by the Codexia.

“Tell the Keeper I leave my answer with the Caliph of Yurani.”

She stopped and looked up at the foot of the throne.

At the sight, Ch’drei straightened at once, tossing back the hood from her head.

The Keeper of the Iblisi stood staring at the form of Argos Helm, the former Caliph of the Dje’kaarin and now a rapidly rotting corpse impaled on the top of his own throne.

“You always were a clever boy,” Ch’drei breathed through clenched teeth.

No wonder the town was celebrating. Argos Helm was a despot of the worst kind, but he had been a despot the elves could easily control. Now it would be only a matter of time-days perhaps-before the warlords of the Dje’kaarin threw the region into an uproar over which of them would be dominant. The guards outside were undoubtedly making their coin letting the jubilant citizens in for a peak at this freak show that. .

A mark on the frame of the throne caught her eye. It would have been invisible to anyone else, but those trained in her Order had it so ingrained into them that it would call their attention even without an active search.

Ch’drei moved quickly around the throne. The blood of Argos Helm had dried down the back of the throne, but she paid no attention to it or the rotting corpse. She pried at the back board. It came away in one piece exposing a hollow space.

Within lay a vellum scroll tied with a brightly colored ribbon.

Ch’drei snatched it from its place, pulled the ribbon free, and unrolled the vellum. The writing on it was in an ancient script known now only among the Iblisi and used generally for messages intended for their ranks alone. She recognized the concise and careful hand that wrote it at once.

My Respected Ch’drei;

I always repay the kindnesses shown me. As you can see, I have done so with the Caliph-and all he ever did for me was to lie.

How ever shall I ever repay you?

Soen Tjen-rei

Ch’drei looked up at the broken form of the gnome Caliph. The sounds of laughter and music, muffled and distant, filtered into the hall.

“So it’s begun, Soen, you fool” she murmured to the empty hall. “And you do not know how terribly it will end for us all.”