Glancing at Tagen, Aldric opened his mouth to say something like, “What, ten-score feet straight up, and in the dark?” then closed it with a snap as the
tau-kortagor
idly flexed one arm and gave a hint of the heavy muscles hidden by his sleeve.
Yet Bruda did say much the same out loud—although not scornfuly but with regret. “Not even your strength could manage that feat, Tagen,” he said.
“Oh, not throwing it, sir.” The man laughed a little, flattered that his commander had given such a possibility sympathetic thought. “No, I was thinking of a crossbow.”
“You’d have to pad the hook,” said Aldric. “Those things must be noisy when they hit stone. And you’d have to get it first time. Could you?”
“Not first time—not in the dark. Nor second, most likely. But I could promise third or fourth.”
“By which time the—what was it?—the whole garrison would be out to answer your knocking, eh?” Aldric echoed Tagen’s own doubt softly and the Drusalan grinned, amused by the word-play.
Bruda was not amused. He set down his goblet with a sharp click that drew all eyes and turned it slowly around and around as silence fell. “Well done,” he said acidly. “You’re skilled at picking holes, Aldric-erhan.” The Alban “scholar” suffix was more an insult than anything else, the way he used it now. “But let’s hear something positive for a change.”
Aldric stared at the two Imperial faces… hard faces, foreign faces—and knew quite well that he was taking a risk even to voice his thoughts aloud. But he did, at last. “Try sorcery.”
The door opened and Voord came in as if on cue. Or as if he had been listening outside. “Sorcery?” The
hautheisart’s
voice was disbelieving. “Alban, you deserve credit for sheer gall at least—thought little enough for wit. To recommend the use of the Art Magic to a Chief of Secret Police must rank among—”
“Look at the warships of our so-gallant fleet, dear Lord Commander Voord!” snapped Aldric, “Then tell me more about how magic is forbidden in the Empire!”
“So you know about the Imperial proscriptions, then,” observed Bruda unnecessarily.
Aldric stared at him a moment, and nodded; who didn’t, for Heaven’s sweet sake? They were only the most viciously penalised edicts ever to appear in a legal statute book, and they had been stringently enforced ever since their inception fifty years before. Enforced, that is, except where raw power could command them to be set aside.
“If you know, then perhaps you could also suggest where I might find a sorcerer?” Bruda continued in a voice of deceptive sweetness. “Vreijaur, perhaps? Or maybe even Alba?”
It struck Aldric then that Bruda might not be quite as sober as he had first appeared. “Your lieutenant has already pointed out that you are Chief of Secret Police,” he returned flatly. “As
Hauthanalth Kagh’ Ernvakh
, you tell me.”
There was a chilly pause, then Bruda threw back his head and laughed with a harsh bark of mirth which startled Aldric considerably. “All right,” he said, still grinning, “I will. There.” One hand pointed to where Voord was leaning against the door-post looking enigmatic. “That’s your wizard.”
“
Him
?” Aldric was, and let himself sound, insultingly incredulous.
“And why not?” smirked Voord. “Where better to practise secret arts than in the Secret Police? We all of us have our little vices. I already know some of yours, and this is one of mine. You might find out what the others are some day,
hlensyarl”
His smirk went thin and nasty. “Or they might find you.”
“My personal staff are men of many talents, Aldric,” said Bruda. It was impossible to tell if the fact pleased him, but somehow Aldric fancied not. “Many talents—and various.”
“So it would appear.” The Alban poured himself more wine, and flavored the inside of his mouth with a minute sip. He met Bruda’s eyes and held them with his own. “I’ll remember that.”
“Yes. Best that you do.”
“Prokrator,” cut in Voord, “I was a little late. What are we”—all Imperial officers together, he implied, and no play-acting foreigners—”discussing?”
“The
tulathin
and the Tower,” said Bruda, and hesitated. “Well, would magic be of use?”
“Perhaps…” Voord’s voice tailed off as he realized he had over-filled his cup and concentrated on bringing it unspilled to his lips, where a long draught brought its contents to a safer level. Only then did he lower the goblet and nod slightly in agreement. “Yes, perhaps indeed.”
“Prokrator
hauthanalth
, this is scarcely evidence of careful planning!” From the tone of his voice, Aldric was not so much surprised as angry; annoyed that a plan which in its earlier stages—the “acquisition” of an Alban representative—had seemed geared to the fine tolerances of an expensive machine, should now have degenerated to speculations over wine. And after another half-second’s consideration, he said as much aloud.
“Careful planning?” echoed Voord before Bruda could say anything. “But it is, Talvalin. It is. All of these ‘speculations’ as you call them, have been aired before.”
“And advance reconnaisance? You all talk as if you were seeing this Red Tower for the first time!”
“Most of us are; but it was carefully surveyed by one of my agents not long ago. A single man, rather than a group—attracting less attention that way, and preserving what he learned in his head rather than on paper, for the sake of secrecy.”
“So much secrecy that I see no evidence of what was learned. Who was this so-called ag—” His words cut off as he realized what the answer would be.
“Garet.”
He was right. “Oh,” was all that Aldric said in response to Voord’s statement, but inside his mind was in a whirl. It was ridiculous that so delicate an enterprise should hinge on the knowledge of one man, and that such knowledge should be carried only in the fragile vessel of that man’s mind. It was so ridiculous that Aldric felt suspicion plucking at his hackles yet again. Learning that Voord—of all people—had a fondness for sorcery was one reason; and enough reason to make anyone suspicious without anything to bolster it. But that discovery was beginning to nudge other, deliberately suppressed and now half-forgotten memories into place. Memories from Seghar.
“What plan for us, then?” he wondered aloud, knowing that he was almost too elaborately nonchalant. “Do we climb ropes like
tulathin
—or spiders—or such vermin, or do we—”
“Walk in through the Tower’s front door?” Bruda finished Aldric’s question for him. “Yes, in fact we do. A bold approach. I have all the proper written authorities: genuine for the most part, where we could get them. Otherwise carefully forged.”
“Walk in,” repeated Aldric softly. “Just like that.”
“Exactly so. What could be more realistic? And any other response would be suspicious in itself.” He caught Aldric’s sceptically lifted brows; could hardly have avoided doing so, for the expression was not hidden at all and he could scarcely have missed it. “Oh yes. You’re forgetting, Aldric
ilauem-arluth
Talvalin, that we all— you too!—are senior officers of the finest Army on the face of the earth. Important people, man! We’ll pay our respects to the garrison commander later this evening, and to any… high-ranked guests he might have. Because he knows we rode in today, and he would be shocked by the breach of protocol if we failed to walk in tonight.”
“I hope you’re right, Bruda. Indeed I do. For all our sakes.” Aldric stood up and settled Isileth Widow-maker’s cross-strap comfortably on his shoulder, then her scabbard to his weapon-belt. The longsword had come in with him; had leaned her hilt on the arm of his chair as a loving dog will lean its nose; had not, in fact, been allowed to stray more than an arm’s length away since she was returned to him, even though it was considered most unmannerly to carry a battle-furnished— and thus threatening—
taiken
when to do so wasn’t necessary. But those were manners for Alba and among Albans; here, in Aldric’s view, the sword’s presence was necessary. Very. And would continue to be so while Voord hovered in the background.
Then he glanced at Bruda, nodded and lifted the rank-marked black and silver overrobe from his chair. “Satisfied now,
sir
?” he asked with a thread of good-humor in his voice.
“Reasonably,
hanalth
. But the rank-robe is crumpled; it could do with a pressing. See to it before you wear it on the public street.”
“Yes,
sir
!” Aldric snapped a neat half-salute for Bruda’s benefit, turned to leave the room—and found Voord blocking his path.
“Just where the hell do you think you’re going anyway?”
Aldric hesitated, considering the flavors of the various responses he could make; then shrugged and put a sort of smile on his face as he brushed past. “Sightseeing,” he said. Then he dusted an imagined smudge from the black fur of the
coyac
, where Voord’s arm had touched it. “And to have a look at the moon, if the sky’s clear enough.” He sank the last barb with an unsubtle malice, sure of the Vlechan now. “I’m tired. But you know what they say. ‘A… change is as good as a rest.’”
“Be back by the Hour of the Cat,” Bruda advised Aldric’s receding back.
Aldric turned sufficiently to see the Prokrator’s face, then said, “You mean by eight of the clock, of course. Although midnight would be as appropriate.”
“The Hour of the Wolf? Far too late! Why do you—”
“Voord might tell you. But I doubt it.” Aldric smiled again, the smile of one who knows a secret, and left.
Because of clouds and darkness there had been little sensation of flight; but there had been every sensation of great speed and Dewan’s face and hands were numbed and stiffened by the icy wind which had scythed past them. Only his legs were warm, where they forked the dragon’s armored neck. But for all the discomfort, and all the—he would not give the word more than an instant’s consideration, even though he knew it was correct—all the terror, Dewan ar Korentin would not have missed this experience for half the gold in Warlord Etzel’s coffers.
No, not for
all
the gold, because every once in a while the silvery gray blanket above, beneath and around them had parted, and he had seen the fires of countless stars mirrored by the lantern-lights of human men far, far below. It was impossible to guess the speed of Ymareth’s flight, but the thinness of the cold air and the difficulty he had in breathing it told him that he was at least as high off the ground as the mountain-peak he had climbed for a wager long ago. Why the air should grow weak, Dewan didn’t know; but he was intelligent enough to conclude that if he felt now what he had felt then, and the only similarities were altitude and cold, then one or the other was responsible. And he had been equally cold sitting on a horse, so… Perhaps the richness remained near the ground, where there were more men and beasts to breath it.
“Egisburg,” said Ymareth’s voice inside his head, and with the word the dragon tilted onto one wing and began a lazy, spiralling descent. Dewan’s ears popped as they were filled with the rich, thick lower air, and he swallowed automatically to relieve the pressure; but he was no longer thinking vaguely scholarly thoughts about the composition of air at different heights above ground level.
Instead he was gaping like the stupidest backwoods peasant at the sight which came drifting up towards him as he sank through the clouds towards it, knowing that he was gaping and not caring who else knew.
Egisburg
, Ymareth had said. The single word, the name, could not begin to do justice to the great strew of luminescent jewels which were spread out below him. Oh, Dewan knew what they were, and what their colors meant: the lamps of the city, yellow for the most part, bright and steady where their source was oil-fed lanterns, duller and flickering for live-flame torches. There was a cluster of sapphires—someone’s house-lamps, glazed in blue glass; there emeralds; and there rubies. Further away, slipping beyond sight as they glided down and thus narrowed the angle of view, Dewan caught a brief glimpse of the wealth and reputation of Egisburg: the amber glow of her furnaces, near the silver ribbons that were the confluence of the city’s two rivers. Now and again there would be a harsh glare where some ironmaster worked late into the night, and the cold wind brought with it a faint, faint reek of charcoal smoke edged with the acrid bite of white-hot metal. It smelt of… dragons.
The dragon beneath him banked over and away from the myriad glitters of the city, and Egisburg slipped smoothly out of sight under Ymareth’s wing and body as it turned toward the darkness beyond the city boundaries in a search for somewhere safe to land.
How can even a dragon see in this
? Dewan thought wildly. The thought was stifled an instant later as he learned just how a dragon could see after dark; for the billow of flame from Ymareth’s jaws was as hot and white and brilliant as a lightning-flash, and threw the scudding ground below—and not so far below, at that— into a sharp-edged relief map worked in black and silver-white.
Arrogant, Dewan thought then, but not careless. Who’d be out on a night like this? And who’d believe what they saw if they saw this? And who’d believe
them
? If they were stupid enough to mention anything so linked to sorcery within the borders of the Empire!
Ymareth’s flight curved around, leisurely and slow; Dewan felt the shift of muscles under his gripping thighs as they adjusted the set of the dragon’s wings, and then he felt those same muscles flex like cables to drive the wings forward and down in the final landing maneuver he had watched earlier this same extraordinary day. The dragon’s mailed spine kicked up at Dewan’s unarmored[* *]one, a sensation reminiscent of taking an assault-course jump bareback, and settled beneath him. Movement ceased.
And they were down.
Dewan climbed from Ymareth’s neck—”dismount” was scarcely an adequate description for such a height as was between him and the ground—and walked away like an old man, very stiffly and carefully, his legs locking at the knees with every stride. He was aware that by rights he should still be frightened, or shocked, or at the least startled; but he knew equally well that if asked he would admit only to exultation and great wonder.