Emperor Mage (7 page)

They
had just gotten up from the table when their guides arrived, Prince Kaddar and
Varice Kingsford. Daine scowled as the lady, dressed in dinging green silk with
a transparent white veil over her hair, kissed Numair s cheek, smiling
flirtatiously at him. "I shall walk with His Grace," the lady told
Numair, "but stay close, please. You know so much more about animals than
I do."

Duke
Gareth bowed over Varices hand. "Numair s loss is my gain, Lady
Varice."

Prince
Kaddar bowed to Alanna. "May I offer you my escort, Lioness?"

Alanna
grinned, resting her hands on her sword belt. "On such a beautiful day you
shouldn't be stuck with an old lady like me," she said wickedly. "I
don't believe Daine has an escort."

Kaddar
smiled and turned to Daine. "Then I am free to offer my arm to you,
lady."

My
friend, Daine thought, glaring at the Lioness. To Kaddar she gave a lukewarm
smile. "I'm no lady, Your Highness—just Daine."

The
amenities over, the group was led by Varice and the prince down a maze of paths
that led past a formal garden and partway around the shore of an ornamental
lake. Daine closed off the links her magic formed to the animal world around
her. She could no more hear Zek's thoughts and feelings than she would hear the
zoo captives, but the marmoset understood when she explained why she was
closing herself off. I don't like cages either, he said balefully, chittering
in anger. They put my mate and our little ones and me in a cage, and then we
were sold.

At last
they walked through wrought-iron gates topped by the imperial seal: a crossed
sword and wand, topped by a crown, wrapped in a jagged circle.

CHAPTER THREE

HALL OF BONES

"My
unde loves animals," the prince said dryly as the girl stared at the scene
before her. "He tries to give them room, and the foods they prefer, and
companionship. The ones that don't thrive in captivity he sends back to their
homes."

She
should have realized that the man who showed such devotion to his birds might
pay similar attention to other creatures. While the animals here were
contained, they had far more space in which to move than she had seen in the
royal menagerie when she had first arrived in TortaU.

Lions
basked in the sun, living at the bottom of a well too deep for escape. A lively
brook flowed through the enclosure, and desert trees grew on one side, offering
shade from the midday sun. Chimpanzees raced around an immense cage equipped
with a large, many-branched and leafless "tree" for their enjoyment.
On an island in the middle of a deep pond, strange, reddish-faced monkeys
Kaddar identified as macaques climbed over and around heaped rocks.
     

Giraffes
gazed at her solemnly over a tall iron fence. Daine couldn't help herself: she
went to them, hands out, letting the wards on her power fall slightly.
Startled, the giraffes dropped their heads low on their impossibly long necks
to lip her fingers and say hello while Zek warned them to behave themselves.

"It's
all right," the girl told him, smiling as a young giraffe snuffled her
tunic. "They're grazers. They won't hurt you,"

We
don't have anything like that where / come from, the marmoset replied with
offended dignity. We have proper animals there.

Kaddar,
who'd been taken aside by a keeper, rejoined her. "Has your king anything
this good?"

Daine
bristled at the smugness in his voice. The hot reply on her lips was cut off by
Harailt. "Actually, we're trying something a bit uncommon." He gave
Daine a half wink. "We royal university mages are working with builders on
a new kind of menagerie, a bit like this one, but much broader in scope. We
duplicate the lands each animal comes from—plants, weather, and all; you see
where the mages come in. When it's done, within the confines of the royal
menagerie, a guest will visit small pieces of Carthak, and the Copper Isles,
and Scanra."

Kaddar
s eyes lit with enthusiasm. As he pelted Harailt with questions, Daine wandered
down the curving path with Zek and Kitten, out of sight of

the
others. Here she discovered a pit in which giant, long-nosed pigs drowsed in a
deep pond. Their noses, shorter than an elephant s but nearly as flexible,
pointed toward Daine as she passed. Opposite them, a colony of mongooses
watched her from behind wire mesh that enclosed a high and far-reaching mound
of burrows. Beyond them the path took an abrupt left turn.

This
last enclosure lay below ground level, inside a glassy wall four yards down
from the girls feet. The area was less well kept than the others. A small pond
lay near the wall, but much of the water in it had evaporated. The grass was
brown-edged and lay in patches on bare, dusty-looking ground. The remains of
shattered bones lay everywhere. In back, lying out of the sun in a shallow
cave, were three shaggy, spotted brown bodies.

She
opened a wider crack in her magics defenses, reaching for these strangers.
"Please come out," she called aloud. A twitch of movement: three
rounded pairs of ears came to bear on her.

You
smell of cold places, one voice, commanding and female, said. You smell of
frozen rain and pine trees. You smell of far away. Me and my boys never had a
whiff of someone like you.

Blinking
huge eyes in the sunlight, the speaker came to the foot of the wall. She was
followed by two smaller males.

Daine
wished she could meet the god who had

molded
these creatures. There was a god with imagi~ nation. The source of the
shattered bones had to be those powerful jaws, equipped with strong teeth. The
least of these creatures weighed more than she did. On their fours they were tallest
and heaviest at the shoulder, their spotted fur covering slablike muscle. Their
hindquarters were low and short, but strong. Small tails sported jaunty tufts
at the end.

"They're
beautiful," she breathed.

"Spotted
hyenas," Numair said at her elbow. "From the grass plains of
Ekallatum, far to the south. Night hunters, for the most part—see the eyes?
They have the strongest bite of any mortal predator—it crushes even the bones
of water buffalo. Hyena packs are matriarchal—"

"Matri-what?"
she asked. Kitten voiced an inquiring whistle of her own.

Numair
smiled. "Their society is ruled by females. Each pack is led by
sisters."

"Sensible
of them," Daine said, grinning up at him.

"Excuse
me." It was Varice. She bore down on them with a brittle-looking smile.
"I'm sorry. These animals aren't to be shown to visitors. I don't know why
the emperor keeps them, when he doesn't even like them...Numair, Daine, please
come back. There's another part of the menagerie you haven't seen." Linking
her arm through Numair's, she led him away from the hyenas.

Come
back sometime, offered the female hyena. Me and my boys are always around.

"I'll
do my best," Daine promised. "Cmon, Kit."

When
she caught up to the rest of the group, the prince led them through a second
barred gate. "This is my uncle's other collection," he announced.
"Each and every one was captured and brought here for causing trouble for
humans."

Kitten
screeched. Daine hushed her, but felt like screeching herself. The cages in
this wide courtyard, none of them as pleasant as those for the mortal animals,
held immortals. Brass plates on each cage identified killer unicorns, griffins,
the flesh-eating winged horses called hurroks, and giant, lizardlike hunters
known as Coldfangs. Here, too, she saw unlikely combinations of human and
animal: giant, human-headed spiders called spidrens and centaurs of both the
peaceful and blood-hungry kinds, the former with hooves and hands, the latter
with talons.

To her
surprise, one cage held a man and a woman with steel-feathered wings and claws
instead of arms and legs—Stormwings. The male had a pale, intense face,
aquiline nose, and fixed, hungry eyes. The female s nose was hawklike, her dark
eyes imperious. She had been beautiful in her youth, it was plain, and now,
older, she was haughty and commanding.

Daine
looked at Kaddar. "I thought your uncle was allied with the
Stormwings.'"

"He
is," replied Ozorne's nephew. "The price of the pact with the
Stormwing King Jokhun was that Queen Barzha and her mate Hebakh be kept here.
Believe me, she would have caused as much havoc in Carthak as Stormwings have
in the north, if my uncle had not made the alliance."

Daine
was trembling. "What do you feed them?" she asked, shaking off
someone's restraining hand. "Do you bring folk in and scare them, so they
can live on that? And these cages are too smalt The griffin can barely open its
wings." Kitten muttered unpleasant things in dragon.

"They
don't need food, and they don't require more room," said Varice
impatiently. "You know these monsters don't fall ill and die. Unless you
kill one, they live forever. Would you rather let them raid villages and
destroy crops?"

"We
mean no criticism of the way the emperor chooses to run his domain," said
Duke Gareth. His eyes locked on Daine with a message she couldn't ignore. She
looked at her shoes, biting her lip before more rash words spilled out.
"Daine speaks only because her bond with all creatures gives her a dislike
of cages. Your Highness, my lady, I regret to say I am not as young as I was.
Might we find someplace shaded, and sit for a moment? Your sun is fierce, even
this early."

Their
group streamed out through the gates. Daine alone hesitated, staring at these
captives. She had no reason to like spidrens, Stormwings, hur-roks, Coldfangs,
and their kind. Too much of her time in Tortall had gone to fighting immortals
like these. Stormwings in particular had caused her, personally, a great many
problems. She ought to be glad these were locked away from doing more
harm—oughtn't she?

At
midmorning she returned to her rooms, to find an old servant woman there,
straightening things. "Don't mind me," she said, her grin revealing a
handful of teeth. "You sit down. I won't be but another minute." She
flicked a duster over one of the carved screens.

Awkward
and unsure of what to say, Daine sat on a chair. She guessed this was a slave,
though she was much older than the other palace slaves that she had seen. The
woman's dress was undyed cotton, looped over one bony shoulder and hanging just
to skinny knees. She wore straw sandals. Her only ornament, if it could be
called that, was a tattooed bracelet of snaky lines that twined around each
other.

Putting
aside her duster, the old woman took the pillow from the bed and plumped it.
"You're from up north, aren't you?" she asked. "Up Tortall way?

Kitten
trotted over and tugged the woman's dress, chattering loudly.

"Not
now, dearie," the slave told her, apparently comfortable with a dragon in
the room. "I have things to do."

"Over
here, Kit," summoned Daine.

The
slave laid her hand on Kittens muzzle. "Enough," she said, black eyes
dancing wickedly in a seamed face. The dragon was instantly silent. Turning
back to the bed, the woman grappled with the slippery comforter.

Daine
barely noticed Kittens abrupt silence. Her upbringing got the better of her,
and she stood, placing Zek on her seat. Ma had not raised her to sit idle, not
when housework was to be done. She also had not been raised to let an elder
work without aid. "Here, grandmother—let me help. Kit, move." The
dragon ducked under the chair. Together the girl and the old woman bared the
sheets on the bed and began to neaten them.

"Yes,
I'm from Tortall," Daine said. "From Galla, before that."

"Your
first trip to Carthak? What do you make of us Southerners, eh? D'you like it
here?"

It
occurred to Daine that the woman might be a spy, there to get information from
her. "It's all right," she said hesitantly. "It's very different
from home, of course."