Steal the Dragon

8

The labyrinth that served as the government building in Sianim was deserted at this hour of the night, but when Ren stepped inside his office, he waited until the door was shut behind him before removing the shade that muted the light from his lantern.

Pushing aside a few books, he cleared space on his desk for the lantern. Before leaving this evening at the usual time, he’d taken the precaution of pulling the heavy curtains across his window so that no one would see the light from the outside. He wasn’t really concerned with secrecy or he never would have chosen his office as tonight’s meeting place, but it was his nature as well as his profession to keep as much information to himself as possible.

A disturbance in the air currents, and a whiff of sweet perfume informed the Spymaster before he turned around that his visitor was here.

Kisrah ae’Magi, once a minor Rethian lord and now the Archmage, made an impression upon everyone he met. Ren had never actually seen the Archmage before, but he had heard enough about him that he wasn’t unduly surprised by the magician’s distinctive appearance.

Kisrah’s hat was a deep purple that contrasted neatly with the light pink of the long fluffy feather that curled from the hat’s brim to his shoulders. The sleeves of his lavender overcoat were heavily embroidered with gold thread, as were his shoes and gloves. A gold-and-amethyst earring pierced his left ear.

He looked young to Ren’s jaded eye, too young to hold the power he wielded, but many of the more powerful wizards were that way. Someone less observant than Ren might have dismissed the Archmage as an overdressed fop, overlooking the keen intelligence that lurked in his dark eyes. Lord Kisrah had made good use of his power in the decade he’d been Archmage.

“Lord Kisrah,” said Ren in a welcoming tone. “It is most kind of you to agree to come here.”

“Spymaster,” replied Lord Kisrah with a touch of humor in his voice. “How could I refuse when your invitation was so unique? I had no idea that my mistress’s gardener was a Sianim spy until he invited me to meet with you here. Not that I am offended by it. I had begun to worry that you did not deem me important enough to spy upon.”

Ren smiled at him, a remarkably open expression on the Spymaster’s face. “I do have other spies in your household; otherwise I would have found another method of getting a message to you. The wizards’ council would not have called you as ae’Magi if you could be so easily disregarded.”

“I am flattered,” returned Kisrah, with an answering smile. “I suspect that you had another reason for asking me here.”

Ren nodded and gestured Kisrah to a chair that he had cleared of debris earlier in the day. The Archmage ignored the dust and sat, crossing his extended legs at the ankles. Ren pulled his chair out from behind his desk and sat facing Kisrah.

“Are you familiar with what is happening on the other side of the Great Swamp?” questioned Ren.

Kisrah nodded. “You are not the only one with spies. Unfortunately, I did not become aware of the situation until someone started expending a great deal of magic at the Swamp with the intention of clearing the old road.

“My sources say that there will be an invasionary force through the road by next spring at the latest. There was some thought that the wizards’ council should force a confrontation before the road is cleared, but I vetoed it.” The magician leaned forward. “I reminded them of the Wizard Wars and the destruction that they caused. Whoever is opening the Swamp is very powerful. A direct attack on him before we know what he is capable of could have disastrous results.”

“What do you know of the Eastern magician?” asked Ren.

Lord Kisrah shook his head. “Not much. He claims to be the speaker for one of the old gods and uses religion to ease his conquests.”

“Then I might be of some service,” offered Ren.

Lord Kisrah leaned back in his chair and said, “How much will it cost?”

“Nothing,” answered Ren in slightly affronted tones. “If you can take care of the wizard, you are welcome to all the aid that I can give you.”

The Archmage raised his brows in mock astonishment. “This must be a new policy. We’ll be paying Sianim for cleaning the Uriah out of the ae’Magi’s castle for the next twenty years.”

Ren shrugged. “That was different. The Voice of Altis is a threat to us all.”

“And Uriah aren’t?” muttered the Archmage, but he’d regained his smile. “So, what knowledge do you possess regarding this man?”

“He’s from this side of the Swamp,” said Ren. “My informants in the East have confirmed it. I didn’t contact you then, because I had no idea who it was. Yesterday, though, one of my people returned from a mission in Darran. While he was there, he inadvertently ran across some information indicating that the sorcerer we are looking for might be Lord Winterseine.”

“Isslic?” asked Lord Kisrah incredulously, then he nodded his head more thoughtfully. “He is powerful enough in his own right, and I’ve heard rumors that he dabbled in forbidden magic—the only thing that kept him out of the council was those rumors.”

“I had heard”—Ren coughed discreetly: the wizards’ council was infamous for its obsession with secrecy—“that if you knew who the renegade wizard was, you, as Archmage, could control him.”

“Now, I wonder where you heard that,” commented Kisrah, but with no real offense. “I am sorry that in this instance your information is incorrect. The Master Spells might have allowed me to control him, but they have been lost.”

Ren drew in his breath in shock.“ What?” It had been a long time since someone had managed to shock the Spymaster.

Lord Kisrah shrugged, leaning back in the chair and closing his eyes wearily. “In the spellbook of the ae’Magi there are symbols that cannot be redrawn. These are necessary to the spells’ castings. After Geoffrey, my predecessor, died,” Kisrah’s voice echoed with remembered sorrow, “we found the Archmage’s spellbook, but someone had been there before us and removed the pages that held the Master Spells.”

The Archmage opened his eyes to look at Ren. “It is possible that Isslic, Lord Winterseine, took the pages. He was a friend of the late Archmage, and would know where to look.”

Ren drummed his fingers on the arms of his chair and swore softly to himself. “What you are saying is that someone else, possibly Winterseine, could cast the Master Spells and hold all the wizards under his power?”

Kisrah shook his head. “No. Not yet, at least. The council holds the method of working the spells in another grimoire. As soon as we found that the symbols were missing, we hid the rest of the spells in a safe place. No one can get to them now without alerting the council. It’s been ten years and no one has tried to get to the second book.”

“Why not destroy the second part of the spell?” asked Ren softly.

“The spells were developed to keep magicians from each other’s throat. Without them, there is no check on the behavior of the mages. I don’t think that we need another glass desert,” replied Kisrah.

Ren snorted. “I think you magicians exaggerate the importance of the Wizard Wars. It can be more dangerous to have the wrong person command absolute control of all magicians than to have the possibility of a battle between wizards.”

“ ‘You magicians’?” queried the Archmage softy. “Don’t you mean ‘we magicians’?”

Ren stared at him for a minute, then smiled reluctantly. “So that’s why you chose to tell me so much. How did you find out about it?”

Lord Kisrah returned the smile. “Old Aurock used to brag about you. She said that you were one of the few apprentices she’d ever had who knew when to quit. I will see what can be done to confirm Winterseine’s involvement. The council will then decide what to do about him. I’ll keep you informed.”

He was gone with the slight disturbance of air that accompanied magical teleportation. Alone, Ren looked into the shadows in the corner of his office for some time, before he left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Rialla lay flat on her back, pretending to be more winded than she was. No one would bother her if they thought she was resting, and she could tap into the emotions around her without worrying that she would be interrupted.

She’d been here long enough that some of the other slaves had made overtures of friendship, though nothing obvious enough that the dancemaster would see: a wink while she listened to the dancemaster’s impatient scolding, a hand helping her find a towel to wipe her face in the bathhouse. She’d forgotten how warming such small acts of support could be; she’d wanted fervently to forget everything about slave life.

Though in most respects the classes were not as bad as she had expected, in some ways they were worse. The hardest memory of slavery that Rialla had to bear was not the lack of freedom; it was the lack of desiring freedom.

By the time that Rialla had been a slave for a year, she lived for the dance, and practiced far into the night. She’d known that she owed obedience to any freeman, but among the society of the slaves she’d been special. She’d been the best of the dancers that Isslic owned, and she’d taken pride in it.

Lying on her back with the sweat drying slowly in the heat of summer, Rialla supposed that she owed a debt to Lord Jarroh. If she had not felt his slave’s painful death on the night of her escape, she would probably still be dancing in one of Winterseine’s clubs. A wry smile twisted her lips: now she was a spy dancing at Winterseine’s home estate. The sound of the dancemaster’s hands clapping together brought her to her feet before she opened her eyes.

The dancemaster was working one of the standard dances that the slaves would be expected to learn. It was common fare, something that even the Darranian ladies could watch. It was also impressive and, with the right costuming, highly erotic; a useful addition to any slave dancer’s repertoire. He’d been teaching sections of it all week; today he called on Sora to dance it from beginning to end.

Sora reminded Rialla more than any of the others of the slave she had been. Like Rialla herself, Sora had the advantage of being tall and willowy, allowing her to appear more graceful. She was very good, and driven to be even better. Her competitiveness drove her to conquer more and more difficult moves as she labored diligently to please her masters.

It made Rialla’s skin crawl with unwanted memories. She’d tried to forget that she had been like that: driven to exceed the expectations of her master, to be a good slave. It made her almost physically ill to watch Sora strain for the perfect motion of her hand.

She had been careful not to appear to be a challenge to Sora; the girl didn’t need any more encouragement in her effort. Rialla used the dancemaster’s permission to go easy on her leg to restrict herself to lesser moves.

Rialla knew the dance already, but she stood with the rest while Sora performed it from beginning to end. The younger slave was good, but not quite quick enough on the turns, and she didn’t have the experience to bring out the implicit eroticism.

When Sora was finished, the dancemaster nodded at Rialla. She understood his reasoning for having her dance second. Although Rialla knew the dance, Sora had proven herself the better dancer and would give the others something to strive for.

Rialla began her dance, making sure that her gestures were a touch cruder than Sora’s, her moves more hesitant. Because she deliberately held herself back, she was far into the dance before she lost herself to the beat of the drums. She didn’t see the blow that knocked her off her feet.

“If,” said Lord Winterseine, looking down at her coldly, “I had not seen you dance at my nephew’s hold, I just might believe you had lost the talent you had in the seven years you were gone. I might have believed that you were as stiff and unpracticed as you appear. Get up.”

Impassively Rialla got to her feet, wiping the blood off her cut lip with one hand, ignoring the sweat that dripped down her temple. She had the sick feeling that she wouldn’t like what was coming. She instinctively tightened the barriers that she used to keep out of Tris’s mind.

Lord Winterseine strode up to the line of watching slaves and grabbed one of them, pulling her back to Rialla.

“You are valuable,” he purred to Rialla. “I won’t mar your skin by whipping you—but this one will never be worth much as a dancer.” He held out his free hand, and the dancemaster gave Lord Winterseine the staff that he used to keep discipline. The dancemaster’s face was as impassive as Rialla’s, but she could all but taste his fury. “Just in case you don’t believe I’m serious, I think that a little demonstration is in order.”

He pushed the girl facedown on the mat and swung the staff. The slave screamed when her ribs collapsed under the blow. Forewarned, Rialla had blocked out most of the girl’s pain.

Winterseine turned to the dancemaster. “Take her to the side and wrap her ribs, but I want her here until this one,” he patted Rialla gently on her cheek, where the skin was already starting to turn purple, “finishes her dance to my satisfaction. I hope she won’t need another demonstration, but it is always better to be certain.”

This time there was no question of favoring her bad leg. Rialla knew her master well. She knew that there was a good chance that Winterseine would have the other girl beaten to death no matter how well Rialla danced. So she danced to surpass her best, to keep from living with guilt of the girl’s death. If she danced as well as she could and Winterseine still killed the girl, the guilt would be his.

Her spins had the extra snap that separated excellent from merely good. Knowing that what the master wanted from the dance was not just excellence, but arousal, she emphasized the erotic moves—dancing with more fire and less grace. She managed to make the simple practice costume into something much more erotic. The drummer was better than she had thought. He added the last touch of spice that turned the dance from esoteric and airy into something that belonged only in the most private of clubs or bedrooms.

When Rialla stopped dancing, there was silence.

Breathing heavily, she looked at Winterseine, and was reassured by the satisfaction on his face.

“I want her. Father.” Terran’s rasping voice broke through the silence. Rialla had been so focused on Lord Winterseine, she hadn’t seen that his son was with him.

“No,” replied Winterseine. “She’s been Laeth’s slave for who knows how long. You know as well as I do the loyalty that a slave can develop for her owner. I’m not letting her run loose in the keep until I am sure that she is properly retrained.”

Terran looked away from Rialla and focused on his father. “I want her,” he repeated.

Rialla turned her impassive gaze to Winterseine. A strange expression crossed his face, and it took a moment for her to recognize it as fear. It was such an odd reaction that it distracted her from her distress at having attracted Terran’s attention.

Lord Winterseine turned to the dancemaster and said curtly, “See that she is taken to my son’s chamber this evening after baths. I’ll send a guard to escort her.” He turned and left. With a last look at Rialla, Terran did the same.

The dancemaster bowed his head in submission and gestured for Rialla to wait with the others, while he made sure that the injured slave had been properly treated.

Rialla stood where he placed her and closed her shaking hands over her arms, not bothering to wipe off the sweat that crept down her face. There would be more there before the day was done. She had made the dancemaster look bad and hurt one of his students. He was not going to make the rest of the day easy. Rialla tried to forget what would come after that.

When Rialla emerged from the baths, it was Tamas, Winterseine’s manservant, who waited for her. The thin silk shift that the bath attendants had given her didn’t cover much, and what it did cover was clearly visible through the fine fabric. Seven years a slave had left her largely uncaring about her state of dress or undress, but Tamas made her wish for a blanket to cover herself with.

She kept a bland expression on her face when his hand wrapped around her arm, but the emotions that he was forcing on her by his touch made her ill; so did the thought of what was in store for her.

He led her into the keep and up a back staircase. On the third floor, they walked down a long corridor to a locked door that Tamas opened with a gilt-edged key.

The room she was led into was large and open, larger than the suite that she and Laeth had been given at Westhold. The floor was covered with soft woven carpets in dark colors. The stone walls were whitewashed to make the room look even bigger than it was.

“Stay here and wait for his lordship.” She heard the key turn in the lock as Tamas left.

With resignation that just barely covered her panic, Rialla walked around the room. It didn’t appear to be a bedroom; there was no bed or cot anywhere. Two long, yellow velvet benches provided seating on Rialla’s left and right, drawing attention to the wall opposite the door she’d entered.

A stylized cat was scribed from floor to ceiling in blue so dark that it was almost black. It was bracketed by two doors that were the same shade of blue. In front of the cat figure was a raised platform that extended from one door to the other. A small rose-colored marble altar occupied the place of honor on a small rug in the center of the platform. Terran, at least, seemed to be taking the worship of Altis seriously.

Next to the bench on her right was a low table on which was a neat row of books between two black bookends. Rialla knelt in front of the table and slipped one of the thin volumes out and opened it. Script Darranian was almost beyond her power to decipher, but she read enough that she could tell that she held a journal in her hands.

Men’s voices echoed from the outer hall.

“… there are other things more important.”

“With the mages behind us, it will be much easier.”

“I told you. It doesn’t matter if the mages bow to our whim or not. There are other things to be done and I will not waste power on trivialities.”

She slipped the journal back in place and ran to the door. The distortion from the hall was so great that she couldn’t tell who was speaking, but she recognized the touch of Winterseine’s mind. Since she couldn’t feel anyone else in the hall, she had to assume that the other man was Terran.

When Terran entered the room, Rialla was sitting on the floor with her head properly bowed. He ignored her at first, walking directly to the platform before the altar. He knelt on the rug and bowed his head in apparent prayer. Rialla’s neck grew stiff as she waited.

Finished, he got lightly to his feet and walked back to stand before her.

“Stand up,” he said.

Rialla stood. Terran walked around her once, stopping directly in front of her.

“I remember you, when Father first brought you here. You were frightened of everything.” He reached out and touched her chin.

She shuddered visibly. Even when her empathy had been crippled, she had an awareness of other living creatures that was missing with Terran. Being touched by someone she couldn’t feel on more than a physical level made her feel as if she were being caressed by a corpse. She felt a rising desperation, a need to leave that was fast becoming irresistible.

“Easy,” he said softly. “I know you’ve been with Laeth for a long time now, but I will give you time to adjust. Come, there is a better place for this.”

The deep blue carpet was soft under Rialla’s calloused feet as she shifted carefully off the bed. Silently she picked up the shift that she’d worn to the room and put it on. Without looking at the man sleeping on the bed.

Rialla left the bedchamber and slipped into the outer room, emerging on one side of the raised platform.

Rialla walked quickly to the table that contained Terran’s journals, sparing an uneasy glance at the cat on the wall behind her. If anyone knew what Winterseine’s plans were it would be Terran, and he might have written them in his journal. Rialla would rather have had the dagger to prove Winterseine’s guilt, but she couldn’t go through this again, not even to ensure that slavery in Darran would be ended.

She looked at the books, but knew from her earlier perusal that they were not obviously dated. As she hesitated, she heard a faint rustle in the bedroom.

She snatched the first book on her left, hoping that it would be the most recent one, and strode quickly to the door. To her surprise and relief, it was one of the guardsmen, not Tamas, who waited just outside to take her back to her cell.

With a subtle use of her talent that she’d almost forgotten, Rialla turned the guard’s attention from the book she held. Because of her intervention, he saw nothing unusual in a slave taking a book from Terran’s room. If no one questioned him about it for a day or so, he probably wouldn’t remember he’d ever seen it.

Tris paced the cell restlessly. She was late. Much later than could be easily explained by normal delays. He’d checked the baths and they were empty. She’d been blocking her thoughts since early in the day and he couldn’t break through. He stilled and cocked his head when footsteps sounded in the corridor. He slipped quickly into the shadows when the key was turned into the door.

Mutely, with head bowed, Rialla walked to the center of the cell. The light coming through the window surprised her and left her slightly disgruntled. It felt as if several days had passed since this morning: it could at least be dark.

She knew that Tris was standing in the shadows, but he didn’t say anything. She didn’t know if it was the guard’s presence that kept him back or if something showed in her face. She stood for a while after the door closed, finally exchanging the silk shift for the clean white tunic that had been left for her by the door. She set her discarded clothes carefully over the book; Tris could find something to do with it before morning. With nothing more to keep her busy, she sat on the clean straw.

He didn’t come up behind her and begin rubbing her neck as he usually did, and she was grateful. She didn’t think that she could stand to be touched for a while, not even by Tris. She wished they’d let her take a bath before bringing her back, though she knew from experience that water wouldn’t make her feel clean again.

After a very long while, she curled her legs up against her chest and hid her face against her knees. The healer was very patient; she could hear him breathe and knew that he hadn’t moved since she came in. Rialla knew she ought to tell him something, but she was afraid if she spoke she would shatter the fragile shell that guarded her tears.

Instead she lowered the tight barriers that she’d placed around the part of herself that was linked to Tris.

Tris, I … Even in her thoughts she couldn’t form the words, so she pulled him into her memories instead.

Rialla waited numbly for his reaction—though she wasn’t sure what that would be. Anger, perhaps, or even disgust; sorrow would not be unthinkable for a healer to feel at rape—even if the victim consented to it.

What he felt was white-hot rage. It was strong enough that Rialla pulled her head away from her knees to look at him. He stood where he had for so long, his face still. Without the link she wouldn’t have known that he felt anything.

She didn’t know what to say in the face of his fury. It surprised her that she could think of saying anything at all. If it had been Laeth, standing quietly in the darkness of the little cell, she’d have been cowering in the opposite corner.

“I found some journals of Terran’s,” she said finally, pleased that her voice sounded calm. “I thought he might have known about Karsten’s murder and recorded it. I’m not sure if I got his oldest journal or the most recent one; I didn’t have time to check.”

“You found it in Terran’s room?” She felt his rage focus, and realized he must not have picked up who it had been.

There was too much. I couldn’t catch everything. He told her, apparently catching her thought.

“Yes,” she said. “I found it in Terran’s room.”

“He just let you take it?”

She shook her head. “No. He was asleep in another room. I don’t think that anyone will notice that it’s gone until Terran tries to write in it again. I… umm… suggested to the guard who escorted me back that there was nothing uncommon in a slave taking one of Terran’s journals.”

Tris grunted.

“Even if I took the wrong one, he might have written about Winterseine’s use of magic,” she added.

The shadows in the cell deepened with the lengthy silence, until the only light came from the stars.

Rialla cleared her throat, uneasy because Tris’s rage wasn’t abating. “What happened is just part of being a slave, and not the worst part either. He was clean and didn’t go out of his way to hurt me. I don’t think that he was impressed enough with my performance to want another one.” She knew that she wouldn’t cry now, because slaves don’t, and she felt more like a slave right now than a horse trainer or spy.

“Is ending slavery in Darran still so important to you?” he asked, his head turned away from her. “The slaves here don’t appear to be fighting nearly as hard for their freedom as you are.”

Rialla nodded her head wearily.

“Even after this?”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow,” asserted Tris heavily. “Tomorrow we will leave.”

Rialla stubbornly shook her head. “The journal isn’t going to be enough by itself. We need something—” Her breath caught as the answer came to her. “We need Winterseine’s spellbook. All wizards have one… I think. Can you find where Winterseine’s study is?”

Slowly, Tris nodded. “It’s somewhere on the upper floors. I can try to break in tomorrow.”

“Then we leave,” said Rialla, feeling a wave of relief at the thought of being away from this place.

They talked a while longer, discussing ways of leaving the keep. There were several possibilities, depending on the time of day and how many guards they met. But, eventually, they lapsed into silence.

It was strange how much Terran’s demands bothered Rialla. Sex had never been something that she enjoyed, but it was a part of slavery. She hadn’t liked it, but she didn’t remember the revulsion being so strong it was difficult not to fight back.

The time when Tris usually left for the night came and went. She’d reestablished some of the barrier between them, but it was more difficult to do this time than it had been the last. She found his presence comforting.

Rialla curled up on her side in the straw and closed her eyes. She was exhausted, but couldn’t sleep. After her fourth or fifth attempt to find a comfortable position, she heard a polite murmur at the edge of her awareness.

Sweetheart.

She hesitated, then, reluctant for any kind of intimate contact, she spoke out loud. “What is it?”

Come with me, Tris invited, his mind tugging gently at her.

Where? she asked, curious despite herself.

Here. He pulled her into his dreams.

She stood on a boulder and looked down at the immense waterfall, its thunder vibrating the very rock she rested on. The chilly mist that rose from the water settled on her clothing and darkened the rock under her feet. She glanced up to see mountain peaks looming on all sides; the ridges were white with new fallen snow, but the lower slopes were the rich blue-green of conifers.

The rushing sound of water falling onto the rocks far below deafened her, and she looked down, but the rising mist blocked her view of the bottom. She took a deep breath of the air and felt it again, that disturbance which had brought her to this place.

A narrow path wove along the damp stone cliff face, and she found herself striding down it as if it were a broad highway. As she put her hand on the rough bark of the cedar tree that clung precipitously to a narrow ledge just above the one she walked, she was aware of the slow migration of nutrients from its roots and the nourishing warmth of the sun from above. She paused for a moment, recognizing the peaceful triumph of the gnarled cedar. As she lingered, her insight grew and encompassed the growing things around her.

The broader awareness stayed with her as she continued her descent. There was something waiting in the mist, something special; Rialla could feel the tingling currents of magic in the rocks and air.

The trail she’d been following ended abruptly as the cliff sloped down into the water a stone’s throw from where she stood. She squinted, but couldn’t see anything through the dense fog of the waterfall. Moving water created powerful magic currents; there was enough magic in the gorge to have called a thunderstorm over a desert. With a wave of her hand, Rialla used some of that magic to dismiss the fog.

In the center of the roiling water, a large black stone protruded; the strange whisper of inner understanding designated the rock as a fire-stone, formed deep in the molten heart of the earth. On this stone something slept. If it hadn’t been for the faint rise and fall of its breathing, she might not have seen it. As she distinguished first the side and then the back of the creature, she realized that most of the upper surface of the stone was actually a giant black lizard.

It was beautiful. Rialla searched for the inner knowledge that allowed her to know that the tree was cedar and that rivers held magic—but it wasn’t there.

I’d never seen one before, said Tris unobtrusively. I’d been out walking when I felt the disturbance in the forest.

That’s not a wyvern, stated Rialla, staring at the creature, not wanting to say anything further for fear of being wrong.

What do you think it is? replied Tris, with a touch of amusement. I didn’t think that my carving was so far from the real animal. An image formed of the intricately carved game piece that resembled the sleeping lizard.

Even as Rialla questioned Tris, a jeweled green eye opened warily and the graceful head and neck uncurled and lifted, until the creature had as good a view of Rialla as she had of it. As it moved, the pattern of color on its scales shifted to match the white and blue of the rushing waterfall, then continued through a range of colors.

“Ah,” said the dragon, in a voice rich with music and rustling scales, “I had thought that all of the children of the forest were gone.”

Tris waited until he was certain she was asleep. He shifted her clothes aside and picked up the book she’d taken. If it were discovered with her, he was sure Winterseine would find an appropriate punishment.

It was harder leaving through the stone than it was coming in, when gravity aided his descent. He emerged outside the keep on his hands and knees in the dirt.

Rising, he shook the dirt off his clothes as best he could. He used his magic to summon the darkness and muffle the sounds of his movements. So concealed, it was a simple matter of stealth for him to arrive unseen at his small hut, nestled in the outer court like one of so many beehives. He’d been offered accommodations in the servants’ hall, but he’d chosen a domicile that offered more privacy—even if it was less than impervious to the weather.

Rape in any form had always enraged him. It was a violation of the male’s protective role—even among the humans—but this anger went deeper. Rialla was his, whether she knew it or not.

Guilt struck him at that thought. Rialla was his because she hadn’t understood what the bond between them meant.

Despite the appearance of stolidity that his size and usual manner lent him, Tris had always been impulsive, even rash. He acted on the moment, without thought for the consequences—and he very seldom rued his actions. Even when he had been banished from the enclave, he hadn’t regretted helping the girl. But this… this was different. This time he wouldn’t be the only one to suffer for his impetuousness.

He’d done it on impulse: initiating the link between the fire-haired dancer and himself. He could have figured out a better way to keep in contact if he’d wanted to—but he wanted her… a human. He hadn’t intended to bind himself to a human at all, though he had more tolerance for them than most of his kind. Even when he realized that she was the one Trenna had meant in her vision, he had no intention of bonding to her; Tris was not one who believed in fate. But he had known she was his. He would have recognized it even without Trenna’s vision.

Rialla had intrigued him from the first, and not just because of her appearance, spectacular as it was. He relished her humor, her reluctant courage and her ability to play Dragon and win by fair means or foul. He hadn’t known her long before he realized that the only way she was going to trust him enough to let him close to her was if he refused to allow any barriers between them.

There were not many among his people who were so joined anymore. Most had fallen into the simple marriage ceremony the humans used. Too often a perfect mate could not be found and the link waned rather than strengthened with time. But he had known it wouldn’t be that way with Rialla, known it before he established the bond between them.

The connection was strong enough now that he couldn’t break it. It had been too late once she inadvertently used his magic to find the water when Winterseine had “disciplined” her.

She could still block him out if she tried hard enough, but he didn’t think that she could do that indefinitely—then she would find out what he’d done. He wondered if she would prefer slavery. He wondered if she’d see any difference between him and Winterseine. With a sigh, he closed his eyes.

It was the sound of the guard’s key in the lock that woke Rialla the next morning. Tris was gone, of course, but it would have been nice if he’d told her what he planned to do before he’d left. She glanced casually at yesterday’s clothes, but the journal she’d taken was gone too. She hoped Tris had been the one to take it. With a slight shrug, she followed the guard out to the practice floor.

The raised platform that served as a dance floor could also serve as a battleground. Even as Rialla worked to rid herself of the night’s stiffness, she could feel the hostility of the other slaves.

Of course they blamed her for the injury Winterseine had inflicted on the other dancer. The slave who had been hurt had been a comrade; Rialla was an outsider. She couldn’t expect them to blame Winterseine: they were too well trained to object to their master’s actions. Rialla had shirked her duty, something that a good slave never does, and it had hurt of one of their own.

The other dancers’ hostility didn’t upset Rialla, but it served as an unpleasant reminder that once she would have reacted the same way.

As the first moves of the dance began, the girl next to Rialla waited until the dancemaster was looking away before she extended a foot too far. Rialla took a short step and avoided falling, having read the girl’s intention an instant earlier. After that, Rialla used her empathy to avoid most of the mischief, and simply ignored the rest of it.

The dancemaster was good; he saw what was happening and moved Rialla away from the others: too much contention would disturb the training. She smiled grimly and concentrated on her dancing.

At break Tamas was waiting for her. He grabbed her arm with bruising force as she wiped her forehead with a rough piece of cotton towel. Rialla stiffened in surprise, not at Tamas, but at the snarl she felt from Tris; she hadn’t noticed how near he was. Turning her head slightly, she saw him sitting in the shade near the keep, rubbing oil onto a smooth piece of wood.

To regain her attention, Tamas shook her lightly. “It seems you caught the young master’s attention. He wants you to come with me.”

She looked at him for a second in blank horror before she dropped her eyes, letting him drag her across the bailey and into the darkness of the keep.

Rialla trailed Tamas meekly enough through the twists and turns of the halls and up two flights of stairs into the more private area of the keep. When they reached a place that was quiet enough for her purposes, she struck.

Her elbow hit Tamas hard in the center of his chest. While he struggled for breath, she pushed his head violently into the wall.

“Nice,” commented Tris from just behind her. He made no move to help as she lowered Tamas carefully to the floor.

“Did you find out where the study is?” Rialla asked from her position on the ground.

“Yes,” Tris nodded, “one of the servants told me. Though I thought that we’d be looking for it in the dead of night. Traveling through the keep unseen in the middle of the day is going to be difficult.”

Rialla turned her attention to the unconscious servant and reached reluctantly to touch his face with her hands, wishing that physical contact didn’t make mental touch so much easier.

The initial contact with his surface mind wasn’t too bad, but when she probed more deeply, she felt as if she were being immersed in filth. Carefully, she ensured that he would sleep for a while longer, and then backed out of his mind. She was sweating when she stood up and tugged him into the shadows underneath the nearby stairs. She shook with the effort that it had taken to keep herself in contact with Tamas’s distorted frame of reference. Tris’s warm hands on her shoulders brought a measure of peace with them.

“Some people are harder to contact than others,” commented Rialla hoarsely, wiping perspiration off the back of her neck with the cloth that she’d been using before Tamas took her into the keep. “I hope I never have to do that with him again.”

“You won’t if we make it out of here,” said Tris. “Follow me, keep alert and let me know if we are going to run into anyone.”

They walked quietly down the corridor until they reached another, smaller stairway that circled up to an oaken door. From the shape of the walls, Rialla assumed that this was one of the two towers in the keep.

Carved into the door, the stylized cat of Altis eyed them austerely from above. Tris pointed upward, indicating the door. Rialla probed hastily for anything that hinted the room was occupied.

Tris waited until Rialla nodded before he started up the stairway. The door opened inward without a sound. There was a ostentatious gold key on the inside of the door. Rialla turned it, locking them in Winterseine’s study.

The heavy drapes blocked most of the light, and as Rialla turned to her right she bumped into a narrow bookcase with her shoulder. It was nearly as tall as Rialla was, and apparently filled with books. It should have been heavy enough that a horse could have bumped into it without knocking it over.

Rialla looked with stunned disbelief as it tipped and started to fall. Tris grabbed at it, and managed to steady it.

“I thought that you were supposed to be graceful,” he quipped as she joined him straightening the books that had been disarranged.

“Graceful, yes,” she agreed, “but dancers don’t need to see in the dark.”

As she spoke, Rialla picked a book off the floor where it had fallen from an upper shelf. It was finely bound in leather, with a brass clasp to keep it closed, nothing to distinguish it from any other book—except that it rattled.

“Tris, could you light this room?” asked Rialla, working the clasp.

Light flared, then steadied. She opened the book to reveal that a section in the center had been cut out. In the resultant space was a plain silver ring, its only ornamentation a small blue stone, dislodged from the cloth it had been wrapped in. The ring’s stone was polished smooth, and the indigo depths glittered oddly in the magelight. Rialla shivered with the uneasy sensation that the ring was examining them as much as they were inspecting it.

“There’s magic in that,” said Tris softly. “Old magic.” He shut the ring in the book without touching it and slipped the tome back into place on the shelf.

He took down the one next to it and opened it. It was hollow as well, but empty. The dagger, with its distinctive handle, was in the third book. The serpent’s ruby eyes twinkled at them for a moment. Tris took it and tucked it into the leather apron that was standard garb for a woodcraftsman.

He put the book that had held the dagger back on its shelf. Hastily they continued to straighten the books, until the bookcase looked as neat as the others in the room.

Rialla shook her head. “Do you know how much those books were worth before he ruined them?”

Tris snorted. “They were never books—there’s no sign of ink on the paper. I suspect that he had them bound with blank pages then hollowed them out.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” admitted Rialla, getting to her feet and looking around the room.

The rug she stood on was only slightly less valuable than that one in Terran’s chambers. Tris’s light clearly revealed the rich reds and golds of the elaborately woven patterns. The room was small, but it contained two more bookcases and a large desk.

“Over here,” said Tris, moving to the desk.

He ignored the ledgers that covered the desktop, and ran his hands over the locked drawers, stopping at the bottom one on the left side.

“There’s something powerful in this one,” he commented. He slipped a ring of keys out of his belt pouch and inserted a likely one into the lock.

“Are those clan keys? Where did you get those?” asked Rialla.

“I believe so; they were left as payment,” answered Tris.

The lock turned over, and he pulled the drawer open. Inside was a thick book with a silver clasp. Embossed on the expensive white leather was a symbol that Rialla knew well.

Tris glanced at her and then back at the book. “That’s the design he used for your tattoo.”

“It’s Winterseine’s,” agreed Rialla. “But is this a grimoire?”

“I’m not going to open it. From the feel of it, that book has enough magic in it to destroy this keep and half the surrounding countryside,” replied Tris briskly.

“It’s magic and it has Winterseine’s personal seal,” said Rialla. “That’s enough for me.”

Tris took the book out, shut the drawer and locked it. He undid his belt and slipped the book under the loose tunic, shifting it until it sat in the hollow under his ribs. Once he had it placed to his satisfaction, he cinched the belt tightly around his waist. Under the heavy woodcraftsman fabric, Rialla could hardly tell that the book was there.

“Can you tell if there is anyone nearby?”

Rialla relaxed for a moment and concentrated. “No one, as long as Terran isn’t there.”

“What do you mean?” Tris raised an eyebrow.

“Terran could be listening from the other side of the door and I’d never know. For some reason my empathy can’t detect him at all. However,” she added, “I suppose that we can chance it.”

They made it down the circular stairway without incident. As they approached one of the stairs that would take them farther down, Rialla stopped Tris with a tug on the back of his tunic.

They’ve found Tamas, she told him, and instituted a search. They’ll block the stairways and search the lower levels first before they start up here. Rialla felt a cold knot of dread form in her stomach. She wanted out.

Then we need to find a window up here, said Tris.

You’re enjoying this! accused Rialla hotly.

He grinned unrepentantly at her and started back up the hall, leaving Rialla to scurry indignantly after him.

The first door that Tris tried opened into a guest bedroom, complete with window casements. Winterseine hadn’t bothered with the expense of glazing them in, so when they folded the casement doors back, there were only two barriers to their escape from the keep: guards and gravity.

Rialla looked around cautiously, but no one was watching the back side of the keep. There was a good reason for this. The only windows on this side were on the third floor. Anyone stupid enough to jump out of one of them and onto the hardpacked dirt of the courtyard below would wait for the searchers.

Rialla peered cautiously down the ivy-covered walls. I don’t know, Tris. It looks like a long way to the ground.

Don’t fret, advised Tris, reaching out to touch a strand of ivy.

Rialla watched closely, but she couldn’t see any difference in the plant after he touched it.

I want you to follow me. This will only support our weight if we climb straight down. Without giving her a chance to protest, he climbed out the window, twisting to get his shoulders through the narrow opening.

Looking at the fragile strands, Rialla felt some trepidation—but anything capable of holding Tris was more than capable of holding her. She waited until he was well on his way before starting after him.

The ivy felt unnaturally stiff, providing easy handholds.

The edges of the leaves were sharp, as if they had been fabricated out of metal, and she gained a few cuts before she discovered how to reach through the leaves to the vine beneath. When she neared the ground, Tris caught her by the waist and set her aside. He touched the ivy again, returning the plants to their original state.

Rialla turned to look around nervously, but there was still no one observing this corner of the keep. She dropped the protection from her empathy to catch any hint that someone saw them, and hoped fervently that Tamas was far enough away that she wouldn’t have any more contact with him.

Here now, said Tris, let me change your hair color to something less distinctive. The gatekeepers are going to be looking for a lone slave with red hair. With the number of slaves around here, they are not going to be suspicious of one walking out with a freeman.

Winterseine has been known to reward fine work with an older, less valuable slave, agreed Rialla. If you can add some gray to the brown it will look better.

He touched her hair for a moment then took his hands away. Done.

Without further ado, they strode casually around the keep and toward the gate in the surrounding wall. Tris stopped where he had been working on the door and picked up the heavy tool bag that rested nearby. No one challenged them until they reached the portcullis.

“Hold,” called the older of the two men on the wall. “What’s your purpose?”

“I’m Jord Woodcraftsman; the hold stores are low on cherry. This slave knows where there are some cherry trees big enough for making furniture after they are seasoned.”

The guard frowned down at Rialla. “I don’t recognize that one.”

Tris nodded. “She’s a kitchen slave. She’s been sent out after wood for the fires—so she should know the trees nearby. If she doesn’t, I daresay I can find them without her and she’ll still serve my purposes.” He said the last with a leer.

The other men laughed and pulled the portcullis up high enough that Tris and Rialla could duck under it. Rialla led the way down an obviously well-worn trail into the woods.