Steal the Dragon

3

“I thought that you were going to sleep in the slaves’ quarters last night.” Laeth spoke softly, but Rialla jumped anyway.

She hadn’t been thinking, just staring into the shadows in the corner of the room; Laeth’s voice, like the early morning light streaming through the windows, took her by surprise. She must have been sitting there for longer than she realized.

Laeth managed to sit up, but he closed his eyes again as he rubbed his face to bring himself awake. He was not at his best in the morning.

Rialla felt her lips quirk in an involuntary smile at the familiar sight. Answering his question rid her of the smile soon enough. “I did sleep in the quarters, at least part of the night.”

He cast her a sharp look that belied his sluggishness and asked, “What happened?”

“There was a new slave in the compound last night: an Easterner. This morning she killed herself with an eating knife. I thought that it would be better if I weren’t there when her body is discovered—no sense in attracting attention.” Rialla fingered the now-familiar needlepoint pattern on the back of the sofa.

She could feel Laeth’s steady gaze, as he waited patiently for her to continue. She kept her gaze on her hands and added briefly, “Especially as her owner is the man who owned me before I ran.”

Laeth drew in a breath of surprise. “The slave trainer? You’re certain?”

Rialla nodded, without looking up. “I didn’t see him, but I heard his voice. It’s not something I am likely to mistake, but I checked her tattoo. She too bore his mark.”

“Well, then,” said Laeth with satisfaction, “I suppose I need to think of several obnoxious ways of refusing to return his slave.”

Rialla looked at him then, and shot him a grin. “I wasn’t worried that you were going to turn me over to him.”

“No?” he said, his tone serious. “Then what are you worrying about?”

Rialla shrugged. “I’m not.” At his snort she smiled faintly. “I suppose I am. I wasn’t prepared to meet him again… and the girl’s death was particularly unpleasant. An eating knife is not the way that I would choose.” Rialla looked down again and swallowed. At least the Easterner had found the courage to make the choice.

Rialla remembered staring at a sharp little dagger that someone had left carelessly sitting on an eating bench. It wouldn’t have made much of a weapon, but she remembered considering using it to take her own life—she’d been too much of a coward. The only other time she’d come close to suicide was just after she’d escaped, when she discovered she feared freedom more than slavery.

“Rialla.” Laeth’s tone was gentle, and she knew that it wasn’t the first time that he’d called her name. “What was your owner’s name?”

“Isslic, but I don’t know his family name—slave trainers don’t often use their full names.”

Laeth nodded. “Especially if he’s well enough born to receive an invitation here. Isslic’s a common name; I can think of three or four men who answer to it.”

“If it is his real name at all,” added Rialla with a shrug. “I did notice something that might be worth mentioning to Ren, although it’s mostly speculation.”

“What is it?”

“My former owner liked to travel to find the slaves he trained. He preferred to take them himself rather than wait until an untrained slave came to auction. He contended that most of them had already acquired too many bad habits by that time.” Rialla could feel her face relaxing until there was no more emotion in it than in her voice. “So if he had, say, a slave from Southwood, he probably went to Southwood to get her.”

“Turn around, so I can get out of bed,” ordered Laeth briskly.

“Modesty?” she teased, feeling herself begin to relax for the first time since she’d heard her old master’s voice in the cellar.

“I thought to protect your sensibilities. If you want to see me unclothed, by all means watch,” he retorted, “but I can’t think without my boots on.”

Rialla laughed and faced the wall while he dressed.

“So what you’re saying,” said Laeth finally, “is that if the girl you saw was from the East then the slave trainer went to the East to get her.”

Rialla nodded. “Yes.” She paused and looked at Laeth, who was now fully dressed. “Did Ren tell you about what is happening in the East? That he thinks the leader of the Easterners is a magic user trained in the West?”

Laeth nodded.

“Though my master was a Darranian, he was also a trained mage.” Briefly Rialla recalled the screams of her slain kinfolks. “I am no judge of such matters, but I was told that he’d trained with the last Archmage—certainly an indication that he had some ability. The slave who killed herself was from the East. She thought that she was going to serve the Voice of Altis.”

Rialla rose to her feet. Pacing restlessly around the room, she continued with the story that she had pieced together from the fragments of her dreams while she’d waited for Laeth to wake up. “She knew that such service would include concubinage, but she didn’t realize that it would entail slavery in a foreign land. She believed that the man who enslaved her was the Voice of Altis.”

Laeth sat on the sofa that Rialla had abandoned, relaxing bonelessly on the hard cushioned seat. “You think that the man who used to own you is the Voice of Altis?”

Rialla shrugged. “I don’t know. I wouldn’t have thought that he had the charisma for demagoguery. He was not the sort of man who could sway a crowd. Though his personal servants were obedient, I don’t think that any of them were particularly loyal to him.”

“Magic?” questioned Laeth.

Rialla shrugged. “You know as much as I do. I’ve heard rumors that the last ae’Magi had such a spell, but you know how that is. There are rumors about magicians and their spells all the time. What I know is that the slave was convinced that her master was the Voice of Altis.”

Laeth gave her a thoughtful look and then said, “You must have had quite a long conversation with this Eastern slave.”

“Actually,” Rialla replied, with a tired smile, “she practically forced it down my throat while I was sleeping. She was an empath, too—maybe stronger than I was.”

“I thought that empaths were supposed to be rare,” complained Laeth, throwing one hand across his brow in the best tradition of court theater.

Rialla gave him a sympathetic look. “We are. She’s the first one I’ve ever met.” She walked to the shuttered windows, saying, “What surprised me most, I think, is that she died still believing the man who enslaved her was the Voice of Altis. I would think that an empath as strong as she was could have told that he was lying.”

“Is it significant that you and this Easterner are both empaths?” asked Laeth seriously.

Rialla thought about his question before answering slowly, “I don’t think so. I’m not sure that my master ever knew I was an empath. I tried to keep it hidden at first—then I lost most of my ability soon after he acquired me.”

She drew a deep breath and switched to the point that she had been aiming at. “Laeth, if he is the Voice of Altis, he has good reason to want to stop an alliance between Darran and Reth. He could do that by killing your brother.”

Laeth nodded. “I know. But it sounds as if he just arrived last night, after the attempt on Karsten.”

“If he’s got the kind of connections that would get him invited here, he could have the influence necessary to arrange an attempt on Karsten.” Recalling the poisoning attempt brought another memory to the surface; Rialla snapped her fingers. “I forgot to ask you last night, what do you know about Tris, the local healer?”

“You mean besides the fact that he likes the Darranian aristocracy about as much as you do?” Laeth grinned at her but continued more soberly, “He showed up here sometime after I left. I never met him before last night, but I have heard a lot about him. If you believe even half of what he is credited with, he has the gods’ own power over death. After the way he managed to keep Karsten alive, I might almost believe it.”

“He stopped me and offered to help us,” said Rialla.

“You didn’t tell him about what we’re doing here?” asked Laeth incredulously.

She gave him an insulted look. “Of course not. He was waiting near the stairs to see how hard you hit me—at least I think that was what he was doing. When he saw that you hadn’t done any damage at all, he got curious and started to ask questions. I told him who you were; he told me to ask him for help if we need it. I thought that you must know him for your name to spark such a response.”

Laeth frowned, then shook his head. “No. He didn’t strike me as familiar when I saw him last night; I have a good memory for faces. He’s supposed to be a relative of one of the villagers, but he certainly doesn’t look Darranian.”

Rialla thought about her impression of the man. “I think he might be a mage as well. He acted rather oddly, as if he were working a spell.”

“First empaths and now mages,” grumbled Laeth, without any true distress. He rubbed a thoughtful hand through his hair. “Where do you think that he fits into all of this?”

She tilted her head in consideration. “I don’t know, who can understand mages—or healers either for that matter? He wasn’t faking his concern when he was checking my face for bruises. I can’t see him poisoning Lord Karsten and then saving him at the last minute, unless he’s trying to get something from Karsten. If that were the case, wouldn’t he have been more courteous when he was here?” She sighed. “I doubt he is working against us, but I can’t fathom why he would be supporting us—even if he knew what we’re doing here.

“Uh, Rialla, sweetheart,” interjected Laeth mildly, with a twinkle in his eye. “Have you looked in a mirror recently?”

Rialla snorted at him, much in the manner of her beloved horses. “He offered his help when he found out who you were. It had nothing to do with me.”

She opened the window shutters and said, “I’d better get down to the kitchens and bring up breakfast before it’s all gone.”

She ducked into the small closet that served as a dressing room, grabbed a clean tunic and put it on, along with the blank face that went with it.

The halls were quiet; most of the aristocracy had spent a late night dancing and wouldn’t rise for a few more hours. They were more open while they slept, and Rialla caught a stray emotion here and there as she walked, far more than she usually could. Tension coiled in her, and she stopped in the empty corridor. Belatedly she realized that she’d been receiving scattered impressions since last night—as if the other empath’s death had ripped apart some of the scarring that hindered her gifts.

With skills grown rusty with disuse, Rialla managed to raise a shield in her mind against the fragments of emotions that touched her. She could remove the protection if she chose, and explore the talent that was returning to her—but she wasn’t sure that she wanted to do so.

She would never have thought she would be as frightened by the threat of her talent’s return as she had been by its loss. Rialla swallowed and began walking, maintaining her outward serenity with an effort.

Rialla brought Laeth breakfast and helped him into the gaudy full court dress. When he left, she set about cleaning the suite. Keeping busy kept her from terrorizing herself with thoughts of her former master. Energetically she folded clothes and hunted out the dark corners that tended to collect shoes and miscellaneous small items, so they wouldn’t be left behind when they packed.

When she had done all she could do to their rooms, she sat cross-legged on the bed and dropped the barrier she’d imposed on her gift. With that done, she made herself relax and listen to the feelings passing invisibly through the stone and wood of the keep.

Since she first realized that the old scars that had shielded her empathy had been disturbed, she had felt exposed and vulnerable. That could not be allowed. Sitting on Laeth’s bed with her empathy working better than it had since she’d been enslaved, part of her waited for the return of the pain that had destroyed her ability. By the time she’d finished with the exercise, her tunic was soaked in sweat, and she stank like old fear.

With disgust, she washed off with the water left in the basin by the bed and changed into a fresh tunic. She’d just pulled the end of the tunic over her hips when Laeth burst into the room to change for lunch.

He took one look at her and said, “Are you all right?”

Rialla nodded. Being Laeth, bless him, he didn’t push her.

She helped him don his riding jacket for the scheduled hunt. Darranians changed their clothes five or six times a day, and the riding jacket was particularly ridiculous. It was cut so close that Laeth couldn’t put it on alone, and once on it restricted his mobility severely. Just the thing to wear while riding spirited horses through fields and over fences at high speeds.

Laeth was so busy replying to her snide comments on Darranian fashions that he forgot his riding whip when he left the room, with an exaggerated swagger that left Rialla snickering. The whip wasn’t necessary as far as the horse was concerned, but fashion dictated it be carried.

Rather than make him come all the way back to the room, Rialla snatched it up and trotted down the stairs to the entrance hall, where the riders would all gather and talk before they got on the horses.

Rialla kept her slave face on with an effort as she slid discreetly among the guests. She probably shouldn’t have given Laeth such a bad time—most of the men were wearing coats that fit even tighter than Laeth’s.

It took her two trips through the crowded room before she heard his voice. She came upon him and slipped the whip quietly into his hand without interrupting his conversation.

She was careful to keep her gaze down so she lacked warning when a familiar hand wrapped itself around the back of her neck and the voice of her former master said, “Where on earth did you manage to find this one, Laeth? I have been looking for her for years.”

A thumb under her chin forced her gaze from the floor. He was taller than Laeth and stockier, though even after seven years it was muscle that filled the burgundy jacket he wore. His hair was still dark brown and tied neatly in a queue. The only sign of the passing years was the silvering of his narrow mustache.

“She was yours, Uncle?” Laeth’s voice was carefully neutral, though Rialla couldn’t see his face.

Uncle! She remembered the affection in Laeth’s voice when he spoke of his uncle, Lord Winterseine. It would seem that her former master had high connections indeed.

Rialla kept her body relaxed, and focused her eyes somewhere past her old master’s face. She took some comfort in knowing that her terror wouldn’t be immediately obvious. His hand almost touched her tattooed cheek. The spymaster’s mage had warned her that the illusion of the tattoo was visual only. If he slid his hand up farther he would be able to feel the scars.

The slave trainer released her neck, sliding his hand intimately to her shoulder, and Rialla fought back a sigh of relief. “Yes,” he said. “She was a dancer in a small establishment that I own in Kentar. I trained her myself. It’s been six or seven years since she escaped.” He smiled and his voice took on a softness that she knew too well. “I believe that she killed the guard when she did. It will be good to have her back. She is a very talented dancer.”

“Why, Uncle Iss, I didn’t know you trained slaves.” Laeth’s tone bordered on insulting.

“I train my own horses too,” his uncle replied. “I find the ones that others train pick up bad habits. It will take time to retrain her.”

Laeth ran a hand casually down her back in a move as possessive as his uncle’s hand on her shoulder. “I picked her up in the Alliance, near the sea, when I was guarding a merchant train across the wastes.”

There was just the right touch of amusement in Laeth’s voice. It would seem obvious that he was more interested in the abhorrence his uncle would feel at having a member of his family acting in such a menial capacity than in any claim that his uncle would have on his slave.

He continued in the same vein. “She was a gift for saving the merchant’s son after he was bitten by a snake. I am afraid that I cannot return her to you. Uncle Iss—it has been longer than five years since you lost her, after all. I find I have grown,” Laeth paused with a man-to-man look that conveyed a risque’ meaning to his words, “fond of her attentions. She knows just how to please me.” Laeth casually wrapped his hand around her neck, just as Isslic had. He pulled her away from Lord Winterseine’s grip and twisted her casually around for a kiss.

Rialla complied with Laeth’s demands, but it was his sorrow at discovering that it was his uncle who had hurt her, not passion, that slipped through the fraying defenses of her empathy. When the kiss was over, Rialla glanced unobtrusively at her former master.

Survival had forced her to read his face more easily than she could read a written page, and what she saw there worried her.

Laeth’s uncle smiled and said lightly, “Very well, Laeth, the consequences be on your head, though. Remember that she killed a guard when she escaped; keeping her might be dangerous.”

Laeth smiled back at his uncle and said, “She’ll do me no harm, Uncle Iss. She knows that there are worse masters to have.” He paused. The implication he’d just made might not have been intentional because he continued, “The merchant was free with his whip. If she isn’t a good girl, I’ll just send her back and she knows it.”

Winterseine had started to say something else when they were interrupted by a man who looked several years younger than Laeth. He was handsomer than either of the other men and taller, but he lacked their presence. His voice was a soft tenor when he spoke to Winterseine. “Tamas says that the rest of our party is here.”

Winterseine grunted, but Laeth stepped forward and reached for the younger man’s hand and shook it warmly. “Terran, it’s good to see you again. I see that Uncle Iss still has you organizing his travels.”

The young man laughed shyly and nodded his head. “I don’t know what I’d do if we stayed in one residence more than a week or so—perhaps get a full night’s sleep without worrying if some vital piece of luggage got left at the last rest stop.” Then he ducked his head and added, “It’s not that bad really; Father and I go mostly to the same places, so it’s more like having many homes rather than none.”

Since no one was looking at her, Rialla examined Terran’s face. She had forgotten about Winterseine’s son: he had been as unobtrusive then as he appeared now.

Winterseine laughed, though there was an edge to it, and patted his son on the shoulder. “I don’t know what I’d do without him. He makes all the travel arrangements and I just follow and enjoy the trip. Ah, it looks like people are starting to leave for the stables. Shall we join them?”

Laeth turned Rialla around as if she were a child and patted her rump familiarly. “Go clean the room and see that you find the other green slipper for your dancing costume. I want you to wear it to dinner. Check under the bed; I might have thrown it there last night. I want you ready to join me at dinner tonight.” Rialla walked away obediently, carefully controlling the instinctive urge to run.

In Laeth’s suite she stretched out on the bed and thought about Winterseine. It surprised her how angry Laeth had been. She would have been less surprised by an apologetic refusal to return her, though she found his unexpected defense warming. She closed her eyes and slept.

The sounds of the hunting party’s return awoke her, and she got up hastily and began to dress in the emerald-green dancing costume she’d purchased at Midge’s before leaving Sianim.

The green costume was surprisingly modest for being purchased from a brothel, quite suitable for a public dance. The veils covered her from hip to toe and from neck to wrist, almost concealing the skimpy top and bottom, allowing only faint glimpses of skin between the layers as Rialla moved.

She braided her hair into a neat crown that anchored still more veils that covered her face and neck, leaving only her exotically pale midriff bare. The miniature gold bells that were scattered through the costume were its most unusual feature, and had been a lucky find at the bazaar in Sianim.

She searched through her packs until she found a leather pouch containing the jewelry of a dancer. Viciously long, sharp, golden nails slipped over the ends of her fingers, held on by slender golden chains that attached to black leather wristbands. Similar gold chains dangled from black anklets. A much heavier chain wrapped around her waist and slid down until it rested on her hips.

She put on the silk slippers that matched the rest of her costume. Normally a dancer performed barefoot; but feet were considered erotic and unacceptable for an audience that would include noblewomen. Lastly, she donned the heavy black cloak that covered most of her costume.

Dressed, Rialla descended the stairs and walked out to the dining hall, where she’d been commanded to wait for Laeth. She stood quietly, head down, outwardly ignoring the looks that the servants gave her; hers was probably the first dancing costume they had ever seen. Slaves were expensive—only the very rich could afford them—and dancers were more expensive than most. Most dancers were owned by businessmen, who used them to bring in customers to their taverns and clubs; dancers owned for private use were rare.

When Laeth entered, engaged in a loud, boisterous and not particularly sober conversation with his cousin Terran, who was frantically trying to quiet him, Rialla fell in behind. She held out Laeth’s chair and helped seat him, then stood back against the wall so that she wouldn’t get in the way of the servants. In their own way, the nobles were as fascinated with her as the servants had been. They were merely more discreet with their stares, so as not to appear too interested.

It was almost fun to pretend, knowing that she was fooling all these people; especially since Laeth had already outfaced her former owner. It was odd, Rialla reflected, that she’d never felt less like a slave than now when she was pretending to be one.

She didn’t notice Lord Winterseine until he spoke in her ear.

“You shouldn’t have run away from me. Little One,” he whispered. “You know what happens to slaves who run from me. Don’t think the young whelp will keep you from my wrath. I have plans for him.”

His rage boiled over onto her like molten lava when he gripped her arm… These fools! Think that they can toy with me, do they? … She was pulled out of his grasp and his mind by a strong hand on her wrist.

“Slave girl,” said Laeth in slightly drunken tones, “get me the brandy that I brought from Sianim. Terran, here, said that he’s never tried Rethian brandy, despite having visited Reth on numerous occasions.” He shook his head chidingly at his cousin, as he shoved Rialla in the direction of the entrance.

She fled the room gratefully and darted up the stairs, not slowing until she reached Laeth’s suite and shut the door behind her. As she tried to locate the brandy she’d just packed, she attempted to figure out what was bothering her about Lord Winterseine.

She had expected him to be angry, but his anger had been disproportionate. She had been valuable, but not irreplaceable. His rage had a hard edge of insanity about it, and of paranoia. From the little she’d caught, she thought Winterseine was angry most of the time… perhaps frightened as well.

When she’d speculated that her former owner was the man who called himself the Voice of Altis, she hadn’t really believed it. She could now. He’d changed in more substantial ways than a few gray hairs in his mustache. Arrogance was necessary to a man who turned other humans into slaves, but Lord Winterseine’s arrogance had grown tremendously.

Finding the bottle at last, Rialla started through the hall to the stairs. She stopped in front of the dining room to catch her breath, then strode in with studied grace.

Winterseine was on the other side of the room from Laeth, who was engaged in being thoroughly obnoxious. Rather than interrupting him, Rialla set the bottle on the table, well out of reach of his exaggerated gestures, stepped back to the wall and let herself be distracted by his antics.

In the middle of the serving of the hot cherry torte, Laeth, who had allowed Terran to keep him quiet through the previous four courses, suddenly jumped to his feet.

“I don’t care who the princess marries; she can marry a donkey if she cares to: I just can’t stomach a Darranian princess marrying that Rethian ox. The only thing good to come out of Reth in the last hundred years is this brandy.” He grabbed at the bottle Rialla had brought down and missed. Giving it a puzzled look, he jumped on top of the table and managed to locate it near his ankles.

He swung the brandy toward his brother with such enthusiasm that even Rialla, who knew that he was about as drunk as she was, winced; but somehow he managed to hold onto the neck and keep from falling off the table at the same time.

“You, Karsten, are the reason that our poor princess is being forced to marry that brainless hunk of bear bait.” His voice held such melodramatic sorrow that Rialla felt a grin tug at the corner of her mouth. So that was why he’d been making such a spectacle of himself.

After this performance, it would be clear that Laeth would be sympathetic to a plot that would halt the union of Reth and Darran. He was hoping that he would be approached by someone who would give them a suspect for the attempted assassinations—someone other than his uncle. Rialla was afraid that he wasn’t going to find one.

Lord Karsten sat pale and composed at the head of the table, but Rialla thought that his lack of color was more from his recent poisoning than from the antics of his incorrigible brother. It was Marri who stood up and proposed that everyone retire to the music room for the evening entertainment. Terran and Lord Karsten, between them, managed to talk Laeth into getting off the table. Karsten poured several cups of something that a hastily summoned valet swore would sober Laeth.

Laeth allowed himself to be quieted and appeared almost normal, if sleepy, by the time he finished the drink. He was led cautiously into the music room and seated in the back. Terran was left with him to ensure his good behavior.

The music room was actually a small auditorium. Rialla felt a moment’s panic at the thought of trying to fit three hundred people into it, but apparently an evening of amateur entertainment was not the highlight of the celebration. Although the room was not huge, there were still plenty of empty seats.

She found out why when the first performer stepped on the stage.

Two hours later Rialla had fallen into a comfortable doze that gave her some relief from the neophyte troubadour performing on a poorly tuned lyre. The performances weren’t without merit. Marri was an acceptable alto, but Rialla’s favorite was a middle-aged woman whose dramatic rendition of a classic monologue was eclipsed by an untimely rip in her overly tight gown.

Laeth, who had lapsed into a convincing drunken coma, sat up and rubbed his eyes and peered bleary-eyed at the stage. When it was obvious that no one was on it, he stood up and motioned Rialla to follow.

Rialla could hear her pulse pound in her ears, and adrenaline made her muscles taut and responsive. She’d almost forgotten how much she enjoyed performing. Before, it had been tainted by her slave status; this time she was performing by choice.

In the men’s club in Kentar, there had always been a drummer to provide a beat for her, but here she would have to dance to her own music. Laeth stopped at the bottom of the stage and motioned her to continue up the stairs. She took off her black cloak and struck a demure pose, waiting for the audience to quiet. It took time for the people in their seats to realize what she was waiting for and quit talking.

She tested the chamber by a subtle movement of her foot, and the bells rang out with a clear and sweet tone. She had chosen her dance carefully, as the dances that she had used most often were unsuitable for public display. This was an obscure dance that one of the older dancers in the club had taught her; the story of a young girl who is lost in the woods at night and killed by a shapeshifter.

Rialla let herself become the girl, concentrating on the sweet refrain of the bells. Her movements were soft and furtive as she snuck out of her parents’ house, then light and graceful as she dodged through the woods to find her lover.

He wasn’t where they were supposed to meet; but she wasn’t worried and danced to the night and the moon, accompanied by the musical babble of the tiny bells that she wore.

In the middle of an agile leap, she heard a noise. Landing, she crouched, momentarily frightened. She remembered that her lover should be coming. Her fear changed to excitement as she searched eagerly for him. He was not there.

With a shrug, she gave herself back to the dance. Her movements were lithe and willowy, but she was obviously tiring when she heard another noise. This time it was her lover in the form of a black cloak cleverly wielded in her hand. They danced together, laughing and passionate—until she noticed something on his clothing: something sticky that stained her hand.

She looked at him, questioning, and saw a great ravening beast in the place of her lover. She turned and ran, but he flew ahead of her and dropped over her, knocking her to the ground. She struggled uselessly and then they were still,

Rialla lay facedown on the cool wooden floor and panted, listening to the silence that was as much a tribute as the applause that followed.

Laeth stumbled up the stairs with exaggerated care and pulled her to her feet. He grinned and waved at the assembly, managing a credible bow that tested Rialla’s ability to maintain her slave face over her laughter, and tugged her off the stage and out of the room by a side exit.

Safe once more in the suite, Laeth pulled off his alcohol-soaked shirt and undershirt while Rialla washed her face in the cool water in the ewer.

“How did you do that bit with the cloak where it flew up and then dropped?” Laeth’s voice was muffled as he pulled a clean tunic over his head. “Is it weighted?”

“It’s weighted, but it still takes a lot of practice to get it to fly just right.” Rialla sifted through her bag and finally came up with a clean tunic. With it in hand she went to the changing room and stripped out of the dancing costume. The cotton tunic felt feather-light in comparison, though it was longer than most of its kind and hung well past her knees.

Barefoot, she returned to the bedroom and dumped the costume on top of her traveling bag. The bells protested her lack of care, but she ignored the noise as she knelt beside the bag and fought to snug the laces. “Shouldn’t you have performed your drunken sot routine a little sooner? There’s only one day left before we return.” The bag taken care of, she sat cross-legged on the heavy carpet that padded the floor.

Laeth flung himself backward on the bed and said, “Seeing that the primary suspect seems to be my uncle, I suppose it was better to do it today then never. Maybe another slave-training worm will come crawling out into the open, and become the next suspect as Karsten’s failed assassin.”

Rialla could only see his legs from where she was sitting, but she didn’t have to see his face to understand how he was feeling. “I’m sorry, Laeth. It might not be him. The slave girl could have belonged to someone else.”

“No,” he replied. “I told Terran that I had seen an unusually colored slave girl arrive, and he said she was Uncle’s. She died last night.”

“She might have been from somewhere that I’ve never been. There are a number of peoples in the far South, by the salt seas or over the sea, that I have never seen. My empathy is not so infallible that I could tell for sure she was from the East.” Rialla was responding to the misery in his voice rather than out of any conviction of her own.

“I don’t doubt that the girl was from the East. It’s all right, Ria, you don’t have to make excuses for him. Even if he isn’t trying to kill Karsten, he is not the man I thought he was. He is not only a slave trainer, but a slave trader.” He gave a half laugh. “You know, it probably wouldn’t have bothered me before I met you.”

Laeth sat up on the bed and crossed his legs underneath him, ignoring the damage his boots were doing to the bed tick. “I always wondered where he got his wealth, but I was never interested enough to find out. Before he inherited the Winterseine estate from a cousin, the only land he owned was a small property in the South, good for fanning but not much else. Everything that Grandfather had went to Father, and then Karsten. If Uncle earns his money through slavery, it gives him a definite motive for killing Karsten.”

Rialla reached up and touched him on the knee, a rare gesture from her. “Lady Marri might not have been far off when she claimed someone was trying to blame you for the assassination attempts. If Winterseine manages to pin the blame on you, then he gains control of all the wealth Karsten holds, as well as a good deal of the power.”

He gave her a tired smile. “I suppose we’ll just have to see to it that my brother doesn’t get killed. Then I won’t have to worry.”

The great ballroom had been cleaned and polished for the occasion. Even its healthy size was barely capable of handling the crowd of people who had come to celebrate the birthday of the most powerful lord in the realm. There was scarcely room to stand, let alone dance.

The gentry, and the more wealthy merchants and farmers of the surrounding areas, had been invited to mingle with the powerful aristocrats. Mostly, thought Rialla as she dodged through the crowd with the cool glass of ale she had brought from the kitchens, so that Karsten could house some visitors with the local gentry rather than trying to cram them even tighter in his keep.

She had gone on many such errands this evening, allowing her to mingle despite her slave status, but she’d managed to overhear nothing more interesting than a clandestine affair. She’d managed to avoid Lord Winterseine, chiefly because he had not sought her out, but she found herself constantly aware of his presence.

Approaching Laeth, Rialla observed that his little group had been invaded by Lord Karsten and Lady Marri. Laeth’s brother looked pale and had spent the better part of the ball sitting down on one of the couches set up here and there along the edge of the room. Marri kept her hand on his arm and her eyes lowered, like any good Darranian wife. Laeth’s cousin Terran stood quietly in the background with several other young men.

“… lucky that the healer is as good as he is.” Rialla caught the tail end of Laeth’s statement as she handed him the vessel she carried.

“Indeed,” agreed Karsten, “I sent an invitation to him this morning requesting his presence here so I could suitably reward him.”

“Did you offer him enough of a bribe that he would show up? If you don’t express your gratitude to him, people might think that you were lacking in manners.”

Laeth’s comment drew a gasp from someone, but his brother only laughed.

“As a matter of fact, I told him I wanted to talk to him about reducing the amount of payment that the village owes me,” said Lord Karsten, exchanging a boyish grin with Laeth. “If that doesn’t make him show up, I don’t know what will.”

“Lady Marri looks thirsty,” observed Laeth laconically. “Would you care for something from the kitchens? Some ale, perhaps?”

“Please,” she agreed. With a gesture, Laeth sent Rialla scurrying back to the kitchen.

She was almost to the door when some instinct caused her to spin around and look up. In a corner of the domed ceiling a shadow coalesced and condensed until it took on a monstrous, writhing, floating form that seemed to swim through the air as if it were buoyant.

Someone else noticed the thing and screamed. The creature, now fully materialized, slowly twisted through the air toward Lord Karsten like a giant snake with tentacles. Then it hesitated, as if something caught its attention. At the same time, Rialla felt a tentative touch on her mind; gentle and seductive, it froze her where she stood.

The thing shifted direction with a swiftness that something that size shouldn’t have, whipping its tail behind it with an audible crack. Green and brown patches of scraggly fibers that looked remarkably like weeds hung here and there from its body, dropping off as if the creature had leprosy. The end of its tail was armed with sharp black spikes that glistened wetly in the light of the ballroom chandeliers. The only bright color on it was the red of its eyes, all six of them glittering like a king’s ransom of rubies as they focused on its prey—Rialla.

Rialla absently took a step closer to it, as it hovered slightly in front and above her. While she was standing there, the better part of the crowd fled the room in a blind panic, until the space around her was unoccupied, leaving only a knot of people near Lord Karsten on the far side of the room. It stretched out one of its black, cordlike tentacles and touched her carefully, ruffling her hair.

There was no pain, only a slight tugging to indicate what it was doing, but the contact opened it to her empathic senses, and she knew its nature. Older by far than any creature she’d ever touched in that manner, it too was empathic. It fed on emotions until there was nothing left, then consumed the body of its victims—she could feel its anticipation.

The creature was too alien for Rialla to pick up any but the most basic of memories, but she could tell what its intentions were; finding an empath was an unexpected treat—something it hadn’t fed upon before.

Casually, giving her no warning, it projected a stray thought, and Rialla screamed in terror that she could feel the thing absorb—but the terror broke her trance. Frantically, with a dancer’s agility, she twisted out of the cord and ran. Grabbing a gilt-edged sword hanging from the nearby wall, Rialla ripped it from its mounting and held it in front of her with practiced ease. She could taste the blood where she had bitten her lip.

The sword was obviously made for decorative purposes—it was ill-balanced and unwieldy. It was also, unfortunately, dull. She thought wryly that she would more likely be able to bludgeon the thing to death with the sword than cut it.

Another black cord stretched tentatively toward her. When she struck out at it, it merely wrapped itself around the sword and tugged it gently away, dropping it carelessly on the floor out of Rialla’s reach.

Muttering a filthy word, Rialla grabbed a black cast-iron candle holder and knocked the candle off the sharpened spike at the end. The candle snuffed itself out on the floor.

The candle holder was almost as good a weapon as the sword. The point was sharp enough to skewer almost anything, but it was only two hand-spans long. Judging from the creature’s size, that was almost long enough to enrage it. The holder was also heavy; she could just manage to hold it if she rested the base on the floor. Unless the creature was as stupid as an enraged boar, her makeshift weapon wouldn’t do her any good. From what she could sense, the beast was smarter than she was. Though she had strengthened her mental protection as well as she could, she felt the creature laugh at her.

Rialla dropped the end of the useless candle holder and stepped back to avoid its bounce. Then, with deliberate calmness, she waited for the creature to touch her again. There was one weapon she hadn’t tried. Though she had never done anything like it before, she knew that it was possible to turn the creature’s attack against it. If she were strong enough.

A slender cord wrapped itself around her neck so gently it almost tickled. Sweat trickled down Rialla’s neck as she waited for its mind to touch hers. When it did, she welcomed it—luring it deeper and deeper. Then with a savage, desperate wrench she tore down the scarred barriers that kept the emotions of everyone around her out of her mind, and poured everything she could gather from the crowded ballroom into the creature’s mind. Theoretically, if she could rid herself of it fast enough, only a token of the full effect would touch her.

Momentarily, she caught something out of the crowd… a voice in her head, Lord Karsten’s… betrayal and surprise—hot pain that faded into the nothingness that she recognized as death. There were a jumble of emotions from people near Karsten’s body. Ignoring the import of Karsten’s murder, she fed his emotions and death into the mind of the creature that she battled.

The thing struck her with its tail, trying to break her concentration, laying open the large muscle in her thigh. She fed the burning pain back to it. The creature twitched and fought frantically, as if it faced a physical weapon, losing control of its thoughts as it tried to flee. She sensed the opportunity and thrust its own terror back into it.

When its heart burst under the adrenal surge, she frantically tried to close her mind. With an ear-shattering wail the creature fell heavily and lay silent and unmoving.

Rialla slowly became aware that she was on her hands and knees and that the floor was wet. The smell of half-rotten plants was thick in the air. As the minutes passed, she knew that she had to find the strength from somewhere to make sure that no one touched her. She could feel people moving closer as the stillness of the monster gave them courage.

If one of them decided to help her, they were likely to suffer the same fate as the creature that she’d killed. She didn’t have the control to shield her empathy against such an invasion.

There weren’t many people left in the ballroom, which made her condition slightly more bearable. Through her weak barriers she could sense Laeth and the tearing grief that he felt at his brother’s death. Rialla could feel Lord Jarroh’s rage and Marri’s surprise at the depth of sorrow that she felt.

The healer must indeed have accepted the lure that Karsten had offered him. Rialla heard his voice ring clearly through the abandoned room, calmness in the insane clamor of the ballroom. “Lord Karsten is dead. The knife punctured his heart and left lung; he died almost instantly. I am sorry, but there is nothing I can do.”

Someone was getting too close. Rialla managed to say hoarsely, “Stay away.” He wasn’t listening, so she added hoarsely, “It might not be dead.” That made him back away fast.

There were too many thoughts in her head. She needed to rest before she could block everyone out. The stone was cold against her cheek, cold and wet.

“No. Stay back. Lord Laeth. Unless you want to end like that thing over there. Give her some time.” The healer again. Tris. Someone who would keep the people away until she could pull up her barriers.

She relaxed and concentrated on retrieving her barriers, but she loosened her control too soon. She should have known how well Laeth followed directions; she felt his intention just an instant too late. When he touched her, she screamed, trying frantically to shield him from the confusion of emotions, his and hers. Mercifully, she passed out just after Laeth did.