The Schemes of Dragons

X

ELENYA AWOKE. She lay on a firm straw tick, covered with warm blankets. Wood smoke tickled her nose, and embers popped and crackled nearby. Every sense told her she was safe. She opened her eyes and saw that she was within a woodcutter's one-room cottage.

Her demonblades and rapier, as well as her gauntlet and amulet, waited on a stool within easy reach. Her clothes, laundered, the tears patched, hung on the nearest wall. Fresh bread and cheese lay on the table, with a flagon of wine. Broth steamed in the hearth.

Examining her breast, she touched a well-healed scar. She flexed her biceps, and found it stiff but unbruised. A glance in the small mirror beside the bed showed that the abrasions on her face were reduced to flesh-colored areas on her otherwise tan features.

In spite of this, she felt absolutely awful.

She tried to control her dizziness as she dragged herself out from under the covers. She noted, gratefully, that the chamber pot had been put close by. She hung on to the bed frame while she used it. By the time she replaced the lid she felt immensely better.

She tried to stand, but even pulling on the bed with her arms only got her to a stooped-over, bent-knee position. She coughed. The taste in the back of her mouth could have dissolved steel. She stayed there, legs shuddering.

"Here, now, what do you think you're doing?"

A man's figure stood framed in the doorway, features obscured by the brilliant daylight behind him. She recognized the voice. "Grandfather," she whimpered. "Help me get back in bed."

Cosufier Elb-Aratule picked his daughter's daughter up by the small of her back and the rear of her knees, lifted her into a sitting position, and propped up her spine with a pillow. He was still as strong as ever, though a bit grey and weathered.

"Alemar said you're to remain in bed until he returns," he said as he pulled the blankets over her legs. "You're not out of danger yet." He patted her hair. She realized from the scent and the unmatted texture that he must have washed and combed it for her while she slept.

"How long has it been?"

"Three days."

"That's…"

"Your lung hemorrhaged," Cosufier said gravely. "He almost didn't save you."

"I'm not sure he has yet," she said, stifling another wave of nausea.

Cosufier didn't smile at her attempt at humor. He waved at the hearth. "He had me make a soup-some herbs and things. I don't think you're going to like drinking it."

She didn't answer. For one thing, her throat ached when she talked, but mainly she knew that she would probably say something flippant, and she had seen her grandfather in this mood before. Her rump had never stung so badly as the time, at age eleven, when she had antagonized him at the wrong moment.

"How is Alemar?" she asked.

She wasn't certain, but she thought she saw a flicker of distress on her grandfather's face. "He's better than you are, though he's only been up since last night. He'd be here except that he's gone to rendezvous with a messenger from your father."

She tried to remember the last few minutes before she'd lost consciousness, but everything after she'd killed Enns was murky. "Is there news?"

"That's what Alemar has gone to learn," Cosufier said, pouring a small bowlful of broth and holding it out to Elenya.

She wrinkled her nose. "Smells like oeikani piss."

"That's the main ingredient."

She nearly lost her grip on the bowl.

"I didn't concoct the recipe," her grandfather said indifferently. "I just followed the instructions. He said if it was good enough for Shigmur, it was good enough for you."

She rolled the broth around in a disconsolate manner, and waited for it to cool. Her grandfather seemed unduly cross. She ran a finger over the pattern etched on the porcelain.

"This was one of Mother's," she said.

"Yes. I keep a few things here. It's one of the huts I used to use as gamekeeper."

"We're on the Garthmorron estate, then?"

"Deep inside it, yes."

"Is that wise?"

"It's territory known only to me and my former assistants. And I don't stay in one place long. Where better to hide than familiar ground?"

"You've seen the manor recently, then?"

He nodded, pressing his lips together. "No change. The Dragon's appointee is still in residence. He's let most of the servants be. Hoping, no doubt, a stray word will lead to me, or to you and Alemar."

"Have you heard from Lord Dran?"

"He's making the best of his retirement in Aleoth, though I know it hurts him to the quick to face the thought of dying away from Garthmorron. Seven generations of his family are buried in this soil. He had already picked out his tree."

Nearly as many generations of their own family had found their rest under the boughs of these woods, Elenya knew. And now Cosufier was a fugitive here.

"I'm sorry, Grandfather."

The old man shrugged as he threw another log on the fire. "Don't be stupid. If I'm going to blame you for the Dragon's actions I might as well blame Alemar Dragonslayer for killing Gloroc's parents in the first place. Yet if he hadn't, Elandris would never have been built, and Cilendrodel would never have been colonized, and Garthmorron would never have existed. You didn't have any choice about the Dragon hating you."

His words came out with an odd, bittersweet undertone. He was not telling her something. "Grandfather? What's wrong?"

He kept his eyes on the fire. "You should have let him go."

"Who? Enns?"

"Yes."

"Grandfather! He tried to kill me! He's responsible for Milec's death!"

"Yes," he answered wistfully. "Alemar and Wynneth pieced it together, with help from the rythni. He deserved to die. But you took a great risk. You almost died, almost lost the gauntlet. There would have been time for revenge later, under more favorable circumstances."

"He was mine," she stated.

"And you got him," Cosufier replied. "It was just luck that your brother found you, instead of one of the patrols Puriel sent to comb the woods around Eruth."

The back of her throat ached. Why was he being so sharply critical? It was not his nature. "He might have escaped, gone to the Dragon. What would you have had me do?"

He glanced downward. "Forgive me. You're right. You had no choice," he said quickly, as if sorry he had broached the subject.

"There's something more, isn't there? Tell me."

Cosufier sighed. "I am an old fool. I was going to let you rest, not say a word."

"What is it?"

He looked up with haunted eyes. "It's gone. It took too much to heal you. Alemar's power is spent."

Her skin turned to ice. She finally remembered the anguished scream she had heard via the amulet, back at Enns's death site. "But… if he goes on Retreat?" she asked plaintively.

"We can hope for the best. But tell me, when will he be able to do that?"

Her hands fumbled at the cup. "I don't know," she said. Even if he were to try, would the Dragon allow him the chance to leave the outside world behind?

Cosufier exhaled loudly and stepped to the door. "Maybe on some fine day when Gloroc's skull is decorating the mantle in Garthmorron Hall and you've put up your sword to make babies." The undertone of accusation had left his voice; all that remained was melancholy.

The snap of a twig under his foot echoed between her ears for long moments afterward. She shivered and drew the blanket up tightly over herself. All at once she raised the bowl and drained the contents in one long, searing swallow.

Or maybe when it rains in the eret-Zyraii, she thought bitterly.