Found (17 page)
Authors: Sarah Prineas
A
fter some shrieking and shouting from Nimble and the councilors, Nevery and Rowan took me aside, to give me a talking-to, I figured.
“All right, my lad?” Nevery asked, and put his hand on my shoulder.
I nodded.
“Conn, Nimble overstepped
himself,” Rowan said. “I didn’t know what he was doing. Argent tried to get in to tell me,” she went on. “I was with my mother.”
“Ro, what’re you talking about?”
“You were nearly hanged!” she said.
“Oh, that,” I said.
Nevery gave me a quick, keen-gleam glance.
Rowan shook her head. “You can’t go alone on this mission to rescue my mother,” she said.
“Kerrn’s there, too?” I asked.
Rowan nodded.
I knew Kerrn. While the rest of the guards and wizards had been running away from Arhionvar, she’d done her duty, went to protect the duchess, and got trapped in the Dawn Palace for it.
And Benet, locked in a prison cell.
The magic needed me to do this thing, and I would do it, but I had to get Benet out first. And Kerrn and the duchess.
“Farn will go with you,” Rowan said, “and six guards.”
I remembered how noisy the guards had been
sneaking into the sorcerer-king’s fortress. “Ro, Arhionvar’s magic. The guards won’t be any help.”
Nevery shook his head. “We have no idea what you can expect to find in the Sunrise, boy. I have been reading every grimoire I could get my hands on. I’ve found nothing to help us.”
I knew what to expect. White predator-cats, dusty whirlwinds, and creeping dread.
“I don’t like the idea of you going alone, either,” Nevery said.
“You should stay here to help Rowan,” I said. I didn’t want him coming with me. It’d be too dangerous, and I couldn’t stand it if something happened to him.
“I know that, curse it,” Nevery growled. “This is how you get into trouble, Conn. Inadequate planning.” He glanced at Rowan. “Still, if he needs to fight his way out again he’ll have Captain Kerrn and Benet to help. Lady Rowan, I think Conn alone might have the best chance of getting to the Dawn Palace.” He switched his glare back to me. “As long as he doesn’t do anything stupid.”
I didn’t answer. Going to the Sunrise was exactly what I needed to do—if I was going to do what the Wellmet magic wanted me to. I didn’t know if that was stupid or not.
The rest of the magisters and guards and councilors, led by Nimble, went through the tunnels to Magisters Hall to sleep and find supplies.
Nevery and Rowan and Argent, with Farn and another guard, pulled the box-chairs up to the hearth in the shell of Heartsease to wait for morning. One of the guards built a fire to keep the night off. I leaned against the wall beside the hearth, where the guard boiled water for tea. The other guard brought us stale bread and cheese to eat. Lady-the-cat came and climbed into my lap and lay there purring.
I scratched Lady behind the ears and told Nevery and Rowan about the flame dragon and the cave dragon and the slowsilver scales, and the top of the mountain exploding and my ideas about how the dragon gave up its body to become a magical being.
“The magic’s original form is dragon, then,”
Nevery said. “Hmmm. Interesting.” He was quiet for another moment and said, “Then every city was built on a dragon lair. And pyrotechnics. Clearly dragons have an affinity to smoke and fire, an affinity that must persist even after they have turned into pure magic. Very interesting indeed.”
I nodded. Then I told them about how the thief dragon had eaten my locus magicalicus.
“It was not a jewel stone?” Nevery asked.
I shook my head. No, it’d been ordinary.
Nevery looked thoughtful and pulled at the end of his beard. “Hmmm. Anything else, boy?”
Yes, there was something else. “Embre’s my cousin,” I said. “And he’s the new Underlord.”
Rowan leaned forward. “You mean Embre the pyrotechnist?” She’d only met Embre once, when we’d gone to him for blackpowder ingredients.
“He’s the Underlord, is he?” Nevery said, his eyes gleaming. “While you were gone, Connwaer, I worked with Embre on the pyrotechnic traps.”
Right, well, the traps might still be able to help us, but not in the way Nevery expected. He didn’t
need to know that, though, or he’d get suspicious about what I was up to. “Embre’s making preparations to defend the Twilight from Arhionvar,” I said.
“Good,” Nevery said. But he gave me another one of his keen-gleam glances. He knew that I always told him the truth, but he also knew that I didn’t always tell him everything.
“Then Magister Nevery can deal with the pyrotechnic materials,” Rowan said. She gave him her sideways look. “I believe he knows a thing or two about pyrotechnics. See what you can prepare to help with the defense of the city. Conn, you take care of your mission to bring my mother out of the palace. Nevery and I will work with this new Underlord.”
That’d be a first, the Underlord and the duchess’s daughter working together. But it’s what the city needed.
After a while, Rowan told me to be careful, and she and Argent left for the Twilight so they could meet with Embre.
Nevery should’ve gone with Rowan, but he stayed behind to talk to me.
I stared into the fire, my eyes getting heavy with sleep. Lady had gone off to hunt mice. I could sense Pip on the banks of the Twilight side of the river. The pull of my locus magicalicus made my bones itch. Thinking about what the Wellmet magic wanted me to do made my insides feel shivery and scared.
Nevery got up to throw some chunks of wood onto the fire. He sat back down on his box-chair and studied me. “You’re up to something.”
I was, true. But I didn’t answer.
“Don’t be stupid, boy,” Nevery growled.
“I won’t, Nevery,” I said.
“Curse it,” Nevery muttered. “It’s risky for you to go into the Sunrise, boy. After what happened in Desh, the predator magic will be drawn to you.”
He was right. When I didn’t answer, he glared at me.
“Nevery, it tried to get me in Desh, and I didn’t
let it. Now I’ve got Pip with me. It’ll be all right.”
“Pip?” Nevery said. “Is that what you’re calling your dragon?”
“It’s not mine,” I said. I remembered something. “Nevery, d’you know what the spellword
tallennar
means?” The word the cave dragon had spoken.
“
Tallennar
. No.” His eyebrows bristled. “Pay attention, boy. The dragon is your locus magicalicus, you say.” He leaned toward me, lowering his voice. “Can you do magic?”
I shrugged. If Pip got close enough I could.
“I don’t like this,” Nevery muttered.
Neither did I. But I was the only wizard who knew how to melt into shadows, and under Arhionvar, the Sunrise was nothing but shadows. I could get Benet and Kerrn and the duchess out. They would go back across the river, and I’d stay in the Sunrise to deal with Arhionvar.
A
fter a couple of hours, Nevery left to meet with Embre about the defense of the Twilight, and I went out of Heartsease.
It should’ve been morning, but the sky was still dark. The air was cold; my breath puffed out in
steamy clouds before my face. Rubbing my arms to stay warm, I went across the cobbled courtyard to stand under the big tree. A few black birds perched there with their heads under their wings.
Pip was there, too; it’d come over during the night. The little dragon glared at me as I went past the tree and out to the tumbled black rocks that lined the shore of Heartsease.
The river was dark and still. I turned my back on the Sunrise and looked across at the Twilight. From here the steep streets seemed empty, desolate. The wind and flame from the first night hadn’t come back. Arhionvar was waiting until tonight, I figured, saving its strength so it could finish the Wellmet magic once and for all. I didn’t have much time.
I climbed into the rowboat and dropped the oars into the oarlocks. I looked back at Heartsease, a ragged, dark shadow against the black clouds.
Good-bye, Nevery.
The river rippled silver under the gray-black sky.
I rowed myself to one of the docks that led to stone steps that went up to a street along the river.
Black clouds pressed down from overhead; the air was thick with yellow-black fog. Even though it was morning, it was as dark as twilight, but with no stars. The air was cold and still. Even my breaths sounded loud. Prickles of dread picked at me with icy fingers.
I stood on the dock, waiting for Pip, and then felt the pull of my locus stone getting stronger. From Heartsease came a golden blur, skimming over the waves. Pip landed at the end of the dock and perched there, lashing its tail.
Right, time to go. I went up the stone steps and onto the Sunrise street. It led along the riverbank; I turned and headed up a wider street that led uphill, toward the Dawn Palace. As I climbed higher, seeing nobody, hearing nothing, the air grew colder. I was glad for my black sweater.
It was too quiet. The sky grew darker, and the dread pressed down on me; the air grew thick and
hard to breathe. The houses on either side of the street were empty, their doors hanging open from people fleeing as fast as they could run from the Arhionvar dread.
I wondered if Arhionvar could see me, a bright point in the darkness, and if it was waiting for me.
I paused and looked back toward the Twilight. Oh, no. Black clouds crept across the sky, crossing the line of the river through the city. As the clouds spread, fingers of whirling wind poked down from them and went skipping across the Twilight side of the river. Wherever they touched, fire leaped up. Nevery was over there somewhere, and Rowan. And the Wellmet magic, readying itself in the Dusk House pit. Arhionvar had made darkness in the daytime; this was its attack. I’d run out of time.
I pushed on through the darkness and dread, seeing nothing and no one, until I reached the Dawn Palace. I paused at the gate, peering in. The gallows
tree stood in the middle of the courtyard, the noose hanging down. The air was still, icy cold and stifling at the same time, but overhead the black clouds churned with silent wind.
On cat feet I crept across the courtyard and up the steps to the front doors, and went in. My footsteps echoed as I went through the wide hallway there.
I needed to find Kerrn first. She’d know where Benet was. The duchess’s rooms, then. I raced down a dark hallway and up three sets of stairs, then along another carpeted hallway. Pip followed.
There, the duchess’s door. It was shut. And locked.
I knocked, the sound faint in the thick air. “Kerrn,” I whispered. She’d never hear me. “Captain Kerrn!” I shouted.
The keys jangled in the lock and the door flew open. Kerrn stood there with her sword drawn. Her braid had come unraveled and her face was pale and smudged with soot.
“You all right?” I asked.
She jerked out a nod.
“We need to hurry,” I said. “Where’s the duchess?”
Kerrn stared at me, her teeth clenched and eyes cold. When she spoke, her accent was very thick. “It is too late.”
Oh. Oh, no. Poor Rowan.
Kerrn pointed farther into the room. On the duchess’s bed was a long, covered shape—her body.
“She has just died. She has turned to stone,” Kerrn said quietly. “We must leave her here. We can go through the streets?”
I nodded. “We have to get Benet first. D’you have keys?”
“I have them,” she said.
We hurried down through the palace to the prison cells underneath it.
They’d put him in the same cell they always put me in. When we opened the door, Benet bulled out, swinging a broken-off chair leg. Kerrn dropped the
keys and went for her sword; then Benet saw me and stopped.
“You’re not dead,” he said.
No, I wasn’t. I shook my head.
Benet reached out with a big hand and grabbed me by the scruff of my neck. He bent down and growled into my face, “Next time be more careful, you.”
“I will, Benet,” I said. My voice sounded squeaky.
“You’d better,” he said, and let me go.