Dragon Blood-Hurog 2 (10 page)

"All the more reason to believe he's at the Asylum. We'll find him," she promised. She glanced at Tosten

and Beckram. "Let's get going. The sooner we get to Estian, the sooner we get Ward."

"You all have the wrong idea," said Tisala to Tosten, who had taken up a post by her side for the day.

"What's that?" he asked.

"I am not now, nor ever will be Ward's woman." It was baldly put, but Tisala didn't know any other way to fight the assumptions that Ward's people were making. Riding Ward's mare was only adding to the problem.

"Hmm," replied Tosten gravely, though a faint smile tilted the corner of his mouth up. "You don't like my

brother?"

She didn't know how to answer that without lying or giving the wrong impression, so she closed her calves against Feather's sides and the big mare increased her pace and left Tosten behind. He waited the better part of an hour before approaching her again.

"I don't know how much you've heard about my father," he said when they were close enough for conversation. "But, being an Oranstonian, you've probably heard the worst of it. Ward, when he speaks of him, will tell you that he was mad. But I've always believed he was evil." He stopped there and rode with her until she thought he'd said all he'd intended. At last he continued,

"When I was a boy, we had a kitchen maid, the daughter of one of the stablemen, whom everyone was in

love with. I was thirteen and thought she was the most beautiful woman I'd ever seen. It was more than her face and form—though those were remarkable—it was … joy, I suppose is the right word, though happiness would work as well." Tosten gently dissuaded his gelding from snatching a bite of grass. "I don't think that she and Ward were lovers until the night my father tried to rape her."

"Ward stopped him?" she asked.

"I used to think it was Stala," he replied. "But I've thought about it since, and I think Ward sent Stala there. The maid was carrying trays from my mother's rooms when my father walked by her. I was hiding

from him—under a piece of furniture in the hall—and when he stopped I thought he'd found me, at least

until she screamed.

"She fought him hard—and he let her. If he'd wanted to, he could have stopped her struggles easily. He was almost as big as Ward is." Tosten stopped speaking again.

They ate lunch in the saddle and Tisala made no move to push him. When Tosten resumed his story, he did it as if there had been no break in their conversation.

"My aunt Stala came in running." Tosten closed his eyes. "I think she heard the screams. No one else in the keep would have gone to rescue a woman trapped by my father. Stala knocked him away from the maid, then slapped her, I think, because the screams stopped. I couldn't tell, since my view was limited by the hall table I was hidden under.

"Stala helped the maid up and sent her to my brother's rooms." Tosten let out a huff of air that might have been a laugh. "I think now, that night was the first she spent in my brother's bed. But at the time I
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felt truly betrayed: by my own inability to face my father down and rescue the maiden, and by my brother's relationship to the woman I, a thirteen-year-old, thought I was in love with. I couldn't deal with

my own shortcomings, so I blamed them all on Ward. I listened to Stala and my father fight—both verbally and physically and then have sex in the hall—and I thought about the maid and my brother doing

the same thing and I hated them all."

There was a smile on Tosten's face when he turned to look at Tisala, but his eyes were flat. "So when the castle laughed at my stupid brother's devotion to his little serving maid, I laughed, too. He followed her around all day at her chores, carrying the laundry baskets or the serving trays for her, and at night she

slept in his bed."

Tisala didn't want to think of anyone sharing Ward's bed, but she set the feeling aside and listened to the story.

"Ward would have been about fifteen or sixteen during that time, and already a big man. My father had begun to avoid him—I think he was afraid of what Ward could do. So he did nothing about my brother's

unseemly devotion, which went on for a little over a year before she married someone else." Tosten's breathing was erratic, and Tisala could tell that this story was not without cost. "One day I walked by my brother's room and stopped because the door swung open by itself. Hurog was haunted, so it wasn't that uncommon to have doors move on their own. I wasn't frightened until I heard Ward crying. He would have married her, I think, if she'd have had him. But she knew her place, if he didn't. She left for Tyrfannig and a marriage with a merchant her father knew." Tosten rubbed his gelding's neck.

"She had a miscarriage a few weeks later—the day I heard Ward in his room. I think it was Ward's child. I wish I'd gone to him when I heard him crying instead of closing the door.

"I didn't know if I was going to tell you the whole thing or not," said Tosten. "But it seems the right thing

to do. None of us have seen Ward like this since then. He doesn't have casual relationships. He doesn't flirt, he doesn't light up with eagerness when other women come into the room—just you." He gave her a

quick grin. "I wanted you to know that I don't just think of you as—how did you put it? Ah, yes, Ward's woman. I believe it's much more serious than that."

5—WARDWICK

Ciarra had a nursemaid who told stories of horrid monsters living in the Hurog sewers that ate bad children. Far from being horrified, Ciarra liked to pretend she was a monster. Once she jumped out from

behind a door and terrified the nursemaid. Aunt Stala, when told of the matter, said that the monsters that

scare us the most are the ones we create ourselves.

Two guards came to take me from my haven of straw. Their eyes glittered weirdly and snake-tongues of

fire rippled from the top of their heads. I couldn't understand what they said, but I understood that they grabbed my arms and sought to drag me away from safety.

"
Don't kill them
," advised the quiet voice in the back of my head where a small part of me hid from the drugs and magic.

I left the men where they lay and curled up in my nest with the cool stone reassuringly firm against my back.

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More guards came and removed their limp comrades. After a while Jade Eyes brought in a small metal brazier and set an herbal concoction burning.

"
Something in the smoke
," said my voice. But it wasn't able to coax me out of my safe cubby to knock the fire out. Finally it left me alone.

The smoke was acrid and at first it stung my nose. But after a few minutes the terrible fear seemed to dissipate. The straw became a warm blanket.

When someone came for me, I allowed him to pull me to my feet and support me when the floor heaved

and buckled.

I was brought to a large chamber lined with shelves of pottery. In the very center of the room was an odd piece of furniture, waist high and flat like a table, but heavily padded with straps hanging from it. Jade Eyes was talking quietly with the king's archmage, Arten. I didn't know him personally, but anyone

who'd been to court knew who he was. Truthfully, it took me a moment to recognize him without his colorful, glittery court robes, for, like Jade Eyes, he wore only plain black.

"
Be careful
," said my secret voice. Even though I was no longer frightened, I was glad it had not left me.

"Ward," said Jade Eyes, "how are you feeling?"

I smiled and spread my hands out. "Better."

"I'm going to help you stay that way, all right?"

"
Careful
," murmured the voice, but no tinge of worry or fear could touch me while I suffered the effects

of the herbs they'd burnt in my cell.

Jade Eyes led me to the table and indicated that I was to lie on it. Something about the straps frightened my little voice, but I was anxious to please the man who would help me, so I ignored it. I lay still while a

collar was affixed to my neck to hold my head. They pulled and they prodded and strapped until I couldn't move at all.

"Ward," said Jade Eyes at last, "I'm going to help you—but first I want you to help me." That sounded fair. I tried to nod my head, but had to settle for talking.

"Yes," I said. It was hard to get the word out, just as it had been after my father had hurt me very badly. Fear began to tighten my belly at the memory. But the man had said he would help. I remembered that and relaxed again—though I couldn't remember why I needed help.

"I thought we were to break him, not conduct an inquisition," said Arten. His voice was harsh and it made my stomach tighten again.

"
The king's wizard
." My silent voice supplied the identification, and I remembered that I had reason to fear the king.

"Jakoven says we have two weeks. I want to find out how he set up the magic to guard us all night first.
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I've never heard of such a thing."

"Are you certain it was he?" said Arten. "I've heard the only thing he could do was
find
things."

"He destroyed an entire stone keep," said Jade Eyes, defending me from the contempt in the older mage's voice. "Pretty impressive for a
finder.
And, yes, I'm certain he set up the magic guardian. There was a taste to the magic—a signature, and his aura has the same feel. I'd show you what I mean if you could read auras."

Jade Eyes stepped into my line of sight. In one hand he held a staff that glittered with gold and precious gems. On the very top of the staff, looking out of place, was a battered claw the size of my hand.

"Dragon," I said. It came out easily and that took away from the sick feeling in my stomach that tried to insist there was something wrong.

Jade Eyes smiled. "Yes, it's a dragon claw. I'm told that Seleg himself gave it to his king as my king gave

it to me."

"
Seleg hod no right
!" The voice was so loud, I expected Jade Eyes to hear. "
His duty was to guard
dragonkind. Betrayer
."

"Hurogmeten," I said, the strength of the voice leading my speech. But I forgot what I needed to say, and so fell silent.

"Yes, he was Hurogmeten. Just like you." Jade Eyes bent his head closer to me. "Seleg was a mage, Ward. Are you a mage?"

I frowned at him. Everyone knew that story. "I used to be, but my father broke me."

"Can you work magic now?"

I couldn't remember, so I tried.

"Oh, yes," said my voice, eagerly. "Fire is easy, almost as easy as finding. I can do fire even without Hurog's magic to help, remember?"

As soon as the voice said that, I knew it was easy. There was so much here that would burn. I could feel the oils in the clay pots. They went first, bursting into flame in violent explosions that shattered pottery on

all four sides of me. It was fun.

I heard vague shouts echoed by the sharp pops of the pots, but for the most part I was lost in the joy of working magic. Candles melted to stubs, oil-soaked wood sought my magic more than my magic sought

it. Power began to loosen the hold of smoke and drugs, almost I could begin to plan. Cold hands touched my forehead with white-hot fury. There was no warning, no period of going from bad to worse; just shivery bands of pain that wracked my body and caused me to twist helplessly, caught

between it and the leather collar that would not let me move away.

But I knew all about pain.

I knew that when it stopped, you closed your eyes and played dead, because sometimes my father
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would stop if I quit moving.

So I lay limply while Jade Eyes vented his anger at the damage I'd done to his lab, the precious items it had taken years to collect burnt to ashes in an instant

When he saw what I'd done to his dragon's claw, he hurt me again. He hurt me until Arten dragged him off. "He's unconscious. Damn you, man, leave off."

I was willing to let them think me senseless. It had saved me before. But the pain had been worth it. The

dragon claw was destroyed, its magic scattered unused (though I could have brought down the building with its power) and no one would get any more benefit from Seleg's betrayal. Without the magic pouring

through me, I couldn't remember why that was important, just that it was. Sweat dripped into my eyes and I thought at first it was blood.

Jade Eyes snarled at the other mage, 'Tell the king he'll have what he wants. Tell him I can do it in a se'night." Then he hurt me again.

Men came to put me into the cell at last. They brought in food and water and set it near me. When they were gone and wouldn't see I was awake, I grabbed the carafe and drank until I noticed that the world was beginning to grow eyes in the shadows. I set the water down, though I still thirsted. The food was easier to ignore. I wondered for a minute that my skin was unmarked and not split from the allconsuming pain, but then the shadow-things began to creep out of the corners and I hid in the hole in the straw.

"You are a difficult man to find, Wardwick of Hurog."

I huddled away from the voice because it wasn't my voice. My head hurt and my lips were cracked and dry. When I closed my eyes, all I could see was the strange color of Jade Eye's irises.

"Hurogmeten."

The voice called me back from memories. It belonged to a woman, but it had a bass rumble no female tone should ever carry. I opened my eyes fearfully and saw brightly mottled fur of orange and yellow, bright eyes above finger-long fangs. Somehow the fur seemed to give a little of its light to the room and drive the shadows back to the corners where they belonged.

"Hurogmeten? How long since you've eaten?"

The Tamerlain, guardian of Aethervon's temple, sat in front of me. Another hallucination, I thought, so I