"So," Sir Jared commented when she had finished. "Oculios is not here as a competing healer, but as a representative of their ruling cla.s.s.""Do you want me to translate that?"

"Might as well."

She did. Oculios stretched his lips into one of his formal smiles.

"That is true to a point. My sodality is greatly interested in your use of magic to a.s.sist in healing. The form is different than our own, but still it falls in our purview. We would like to study Sir Jared at work."

"That's fine," Doc said, "as long as it doesn't get in the way of my treatments."

"Such," Oculios replied earnestly, "would be counterproductive. My second reason for coming here is purely personal. I am interested in knowing whether Sir Jared would care to purchase preparations from my pharmacy."

Elise translated, and Doc thought for a moment.

"You know," he said finally, "that would be useful. I can only spend so much time grinding powders and combining ointments. Wendee certainly doesn't have the knowledge to buy all the raw materials I need, as she bought bandages and the like this morning. I would have had to buy medicines eventually-if we get business, that is."

Oculios laughed when Elise translated this last.

"Never doubt that you will," he said. "Already the news of the foreigner with the interesting powers is spreading. The work you did today on the young man will help-if he recovers with unusual speed that is."

Sir Jared's professional pride was p.r.i.c.ked.

"Would you like to join me?" he asked, rising. Something in his bearing reminded Elise of Earl Kestrel. "I need to check on my patient about now."

"Gladly."

The young man was resting nicely, well enough that Sir Jared asked that word be sent to his parents that he could be taken home that very day.

Although Oculios tried to hide his reaction, he was obviously deeply impressed. After they returned to the consulting room, he spent the next hour negotiating with Sir Jared, working out a trade that involved his goods for the opportunity for himself and selected members of his sodality to observe Sir Jared at work.

The end result was highly satisfactory to them all; indeed, Elise felt as if they might have taken advantage of the man. She said as much to Sir Jared after Oculios had departed.

"Don't worry about him," Jared said with a hearty laugh.

"He'll doubtless be reimbursed for his materials from his sodality treasury and gain in importance for having secured exclusive rights to my time. Did you notice how careful he was to contract for that?"

Elise was relieved. Oculios wasn't the most comfortable person she had ever met. Indeed, his open claims to doing magic made her skin crawl. Still, he had been impressed with Doc and quite ready to pay honestly for Doc's time.Shortly before the dinner hour, their accident victim's parents came to take him home. There was no negotiating over pay. They simply left a small canvas bag containing the accepted guild rate for such work on the bedside.

They also left a small silk purse containing what Hasamemorri told them was a good-luck token. It was shaped like a man's torso cast in porcelain and glazed a pretty, shimmering blue. Since the token had a hole drilled through it like a bead, Elise strung it on some silk cord and hung it in the window alongside the door, where it was visible from without through the lightly frosted gla.s.s side panel.

Hasamemorri, when she descended from above, was temporarily startled at the sight. She studied the swinging token for a moment, then nodded in satisfaction, her fat chins rippling like the congealed gelatin from around a roast.

"Quite nicely done-a foreign touch. It should be good for business."

"Why?" Elise asked. "I thought foreigners weren't liked in New Kelvin."

Teeth were barred in a smile that seemed very white against the pink flesh.

"They are not," Hasamemorri admitted, "but still you are interesting just the same. You are so provocative with your bare faces and odd clothing, but you do magic as well, so you are not as hostile as most foreigners are. You are more like us."

Elise thought she understood, and understanding made her uncomfortable. Doing magic was frowned upon in Hawk Haven. It was not just more unzoranic, like fancy t.i.tles. It was wrong.

The talents were different-they weren't magic-they were just like having another sense, like having good hearing or perfect pitch or something. They weren't really magic.

Were they?

It was only when the package arrived for Lady Melina that Grateful Peace realized how serious things were becoming.

The package arrived in midafternoon eleven days after the unveiling of the comb, mirror, and ring.

Luncheon was over-Lady Melina had dined in small company with the Dragon Speaker and several of his a.s.sociates. Although she was still learning the various t.i.tles belonging to the members of the Primes-a task complicated by the fact that many of them had more than one t.i.tle-she still treated Peace more dismissively than any wise person would a member of the Dragon's Three.

This dismissal continued to suit Peace, for it freed him to watch her. This was precisely what he was doing on the day the package arrived.

He was pacing the secret gallery behind Lady Melina's suite, making liberal use of the peepholes. His desire, formed quite cynically and rationally, was to catch her involved in some act she would not wish known-he wasn't sure quite what that would be, but he was certain he would recognize it if he saw it.

A liaison, perhaps, or a treasonous conversation of some sort, maybe against the current Dragon Speaker, maybe a plot to steal the ring or comb or mirror-or all three. The problem Peace faced was that, realistically seen, all of these would be more damaging to the New Kelvinese partic.i.p.ants than to Lady Melina.Liaisons were not illegal in New Kelvin-not unless they violated someone's contractual rights and the damaged party wished to press complaint. Could a foreigner be treasonous?

Only, Peace supposed, against their own nation. Anything else was simply political maneuvering.

Still, Peace did not give up hope that he might catch Lady Melina at a disadvantage. If he succeeded, then he would have something with which to blackmail her, With which to make certain that when she went home the items would remain here.

And also a way to make certain that she would go home.

This was how Grateful Peace was thinking on the day that the package arrived for Lady Melina. It came by special messenger. She never received anything by regular mail, although she had commented that if the process of unlocking the magic in the three items took much longer she would need to make arrangements to get in touch with her family.

The messenger was not a man Peace recognized, anonymous in his striped robe and rather generic face paint. He gave the package to Lady Melina and departed quickly.

After the door closed, Lady Melina returned to her favorite seat upon the sofa. She hefted the package on the palm of her open hand, as if trying to judge the contents by the weight. A slight, mysterious smile just touched her lips.

Peace lifted the spygla.s.s he had ready with him for just such an instance. He shifted to a peephole from which he knew he could get a view of the contents.

Lady Melina cut the heavy twine that tied the parcel shut, undid the waxed wrapping cloth on the outside, then undid the lighter cloth wrapping on the inside. The box itself was crafted from a dark polished wood, the latch sealed with wax. The wax bore an impression, as from a ring.

Grateful Peace focused his spygla.s.s more tightly and got a clear look at the seal: a wavy line with seemingly random b.u.mps in it, a line that curved around to meet itself at its beginning. He felt a slight chill of recognition: Endbrook-the emblem of Lord Waln, whom all had given up for dead.

Moving more quickly now, Lady Melina inspected the latch. It opened with a snap that Peace heard quite clearly even from his hiding place.

Lady Melina raised the lid and stared down at the contents. Two slim peach-colored things rested in the box, nestled in a bed of some rough crystal. Each was vaguely crescent-shaped and tipped at the wider end with reddish brown. After a moment, Peace realized that they were human fingers-small ones, as from a child's hand.

Next to them rested a small gemstone, multifaceted and possessed of a deep reddish gold hue. A citrine, Peace thought, or a topaz. He knew gems well, having often portrayed them in his days as an active illuminator. Pinned beside the gem, so that it encircled it, was a curl of hair the precise color of the jewel.

Only when the box was jerked suddenly from out of his line of sight did Peace lower his telescope and look at Lady Melina's face. Beneath the paint she was beginning to affect even when she was alone he could see that her expression was serious, even mildly affronted.

Lady Melina sat very still for about a quarter of an hour, the box open in her lap, its grisly trophies visible for so long that Peace had ample opportunity to inspect them. A child's fingers, fairly recently cut, preserved, doubtless, by the cold weather and by the salt crystals in which they had been packed.

Fingers from a left hand, he thought, but he couldn't be certain.Eventually, Lady Melina rose and carried the box to the fireplace. She laid the fingers among the coals and stood watching as they blackened and charred. Peace caught a faint whiff of burning flesh, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. Lady Melina only blinked slightly as if the smoke had stung her eyes. When the fingers were nothing but two black curves, she broke up the remains with a poker and stirred them into ash.

Tossing the salt onto the flames, which it turned temporarily blue, Lady Melina put the box with her belongings, the gem in her jewel case. Then she rang for a servant and returned to her seat on the sofa.

When a young woman appeared, Lady Melina looked up from the book she had reopened across her lap and said: "There's a bad odor in the room, Tipi. Could you bring some rose petals to strew on the fire?"

The maid bowed and vanished.

Peace continued to watch, paralyzed with disbelief. Lady Melina had a daughter named Sapphire-the Crown Princess of Hawk Haven. He knew that her son and heir apparent was named Jet. Was it impossible that she also had a child named Topaz-or maybe Citrine?

He thought she might. That seemed to fit with his recollections.

Two fingers from a child, a lock of hair, a stone that gave a name, the seal of Baron Endbrook-a threat, a warning, a promise of future harm... or a notification of harm done.

Whatever had been in that box, surely Lady Melina had read the signs as easily as Peace himself had done.

"Give back what you have stolen or the child will suffer."

And she had calmly burnt the fingers and returned to her research.

Not even the scent of rose petals could make the air seem sweet after that.

Chapter XXVII.

Firekeeper was learning the exhilaration of a new kind of chase. a.s.sisted by Elation, by Bold-the crow who had so patiently tracked Lady Melina to Dragon's Breath-and by Derian, the wolf-woman exalted that she was drawing closer to her goal.

Dragon's Breath was no longer merely an intimidating cl.u.s.ter of stone walls, stinking alleyways, and twisting streets. Under the enthusiastic tutelage of the innkeeper's boy, it had resolved into landmarks, even into districts. Oddly, by the time seven days had pa.s.sed, Firekeeper knew this city far better than she had ever known Eagle's Nest.

Driven by a need to know this new territory in which she was forced to hunt, Firekeeper made herself go out every day, made herself listen as the innkeeper's boy recited the names of buildings, of streets, even of important people. Her dreams swirled with peculiar-sounding place names, twisted them around their Pellish meanings.

Aswatano, the Fountain Court. Gyria Aitulla, the Wizard's Tower. Urnacia, the Sand Melter.Nor did the feral human confine her prowling to daytime. Each night when her comrades believed her sound asleep in the stable, Firekeeper slipped out into the darkness. Blind Seer pacing beside her was enough to dissuade any of the curs who scavenged through the icy streets.

Something inhuman in her own body language kept two-legged predators at bay. Indeed, they may have disbelieved what their own eyes glimpsed in the glow of moon or starlight In a concession to the winter cold, Firekeeper now wore her trousers long enough to be tucked into the tops of her boots. Her vest was now lined with fur, but she disdained sleeves lest they drag against her arms. A brown wool cap trimmed with fur was suffered to cover her head-a concession not to cold but to the tendency of the trailing ends of her roughly cut hair to get in her eyes.

So lightly clad, so silent in her movement was she that any human prowlers might have believed they glimpsed some wizard's summoning roaming the streets by night on its master's business, and even the worst elements of Dragon's Breath's nightside knew better than to tangle with wizard's work.

By daylight, Firekeeper and Blind Seer did not dare go too close to the palaces in which the most highly ranked members of the various sodalities worked their art. These were beyond the purview of any foreigner except by specific invitation. By night Firekeeper was under no such constraint. She melted into the shadows and vaulted over polished walls, prowling through the winter gardens and leaving behind only the occasional mark of a slim booted foot-and even these only rarely, for Race Forester had taught her how to eliminate the gross marks of her pa.s.sage.

One night in the garden of the Beast Lorists she was confronted by a brace of tame snow leopards.

These ma.s.sive cats were more naturally gifted in weaponry, but there was a difference between them-they were tame, but Firekeeper was not.

The wolf-woman knew, too, the difference between courage and foolhardiness. She found no dishonor in fleeing a more powerful opponent. After confusing the snow leopards and luring them into a tangle of shrubbery, Firekeeper climbed up and over the wall. Come morning, the leopards' keepers found their charges angry and frustrated, but could offer no better explanation than that some fisher or weasel had come to taunt them in the night.

But even before she knew its true nature, one cl.u.s.ter of buildings teased at Firekeeper, tempting and promising wondrous things. These were Thendulla Lypella, the Earth Spires, the place where the Healed One, king of New Kelvin, lived, the center from which the Dragon Speaker ruled.

Thendulla Lypella stood at a high point at the city's northernmost edge, a cl.u.s.ter of tall, slim towers that reduced to seeming insignificance the complex of interconnected buildings at their base. The towers were crafted of smoothly polished stone and glowed pure white in some lights, pale silver in others, twilight-blue when the sun was at its palest. Some were topped with cone-shaped roofs, shingled in intricately patterned slate. Others were flat-topped, ringed with crenellated battlements that reminded Firekeeper of broken teeth.

No more than a half-dozen people, their young guide told Derian and Firekeeper with peculiar pride, knew their way through the entire complex.

Derian had commented that this seemed a highly inconvenient way to run a center of government, to which the innkeeper's son had replied with that peculiarly New Kelvinese air of superiority that not everyone could learn the mazes that connected the Earth Spires, for they were deliberately kept confusing through the use of magic.

Firekeeper wondered whether this was true. By means of magic-or sometimes by means of ancient magic-seemed to be the boy's most common explanation for anything complicated or confusing. Onerather messy night, she'd learned herself about the existence of underground sewers of which the boy was apparently ignorant. He'd bragged that the city's waste was carried away by magic.

Magic or not, the area surrounding Thendulla Lypella did seem the best guarded of any point in the city.

As of yet, the wolf-woman hadn't found a way inside. The walls were inconveniently high for climbing.

Even if she had managed to find foot- and toeholds on their smoothly finished sides, their tops sloped to a gradual peak that discouraged gripping fingers.

Each of the five gates was constantly guarded, even the broad one nearest to the kitchens where boring things like food supplies and clean laundry were delivered. Firekeeper supposed she could hide herself in one of the supply carts if necessary, but that would mean leaving Blind Seer behind. A slim young woman might hide amid bags of clean sheets; a huge wolf could not.

Firekeeper was beginning to hope that she would not need to penetrate Thendulla Lypella at all when Bold located the artifacts.

The crow had spent much of each day patiently soaring around each of Thendulla Lypella's polished stone spires, inspecting each of the buildings below, which-though small in comparison with the spires themselves-sometimes rose to as many as five stories. With a patience and determination for which his kind was not widely celebrated, Bold landed on windowsills or perched on the edges of parapets-anything to get a glimpse inside.

The peregrine Elation acted as the crow's guardian, and kept him on course when the maze of walls confused him and threatened to send him back over terrain already covered. Elation longed to join the search herself, but knew that she was a showy bird of a type coveted by humans. Moreover, she did not understand the language of New Kelvin and lacked the crow's facility for learning.

In the end, that knowledge of language proved to be the key, though as Derian later commented, no one without wings could have hoped to overhear the conversation that had cinched the crow's suspicions.

Bold had perched on one of the crenellated battlements of a certain tower that for some days had attracted his attention. What had first drawn his attention had been the interesting smells eddying from its vicinity.

First, there was burning, as of many braziers and warming pans. Nearly to a one-Firekeeper did not feel herself a fit judge-the humans felt that even New Kelvinese, mad as they were about tradition, would not choose to winter in tower rooms when, as observation showed, there were plenty of empty rooms equipped with chimneys and other such modern conveniences. So Bold had begun to center his search around this tower.

What was being burned was even more interesting. Bold and Elation scented not just wood and charcoal, as one might expect if a sudden influx of visitors had necessitated these towers being turned into living quarters. They smelled herbs and spices, bone and blood, even melted metals. Had the reek been in the vicinity of the Alchemists' Hall-they were too wise to the dangers of their craft to maintain anything as lofty as a palace-the birds might not have questioned it, but here among the Earth Spires it was an unusual combination.

The spire's windows were opened from time to time, as if a cross draft was welcome despite the chill it brought. Unfortunately, the smooth facade of the structure as a whole had not included jutting exterior windowsills in its design. When the winds whipped about the structures, Bold was often beaten away from his precarious perch and had to make his laborious return on wings that ached increasingly with the pa.s.sage of days.He took to perching on the parapets to rest, protecting himself from the winds by huddling between the crenellated battlements. Taking pity on him, Elation dropped the crow things to eat, including things a falcon found rather nasty, like bread soaked in bacon fat. She knew, however, what such flying took out of even her and admired the smaller bird's persistence.

Had it not been for his jealous refusal to abandon one such morsel, Bold would probably have flown away when the two humans emerged onto the parapets. This would not have been cowardice, but reflex.

A wild bird, even a Royal Crow, did not linger near humans willingly.

The two humans were apparently seeking a breath of air untainted by smoke and other foul odors, for they reeked of burnt bone and hot metal. They were clad alike in serviceable robes of pale grey, their sleeves tied back from their hands. Their faces were uniformly scarlet, though tattooing showed through the paint. The whites of their eyes were nearly as red as the smeared paints on their faces. Yet for all this, they were cheerful.

"That last may have done it," said one. "I swear I saw an image move within the gla.s.s."

"As did I," his companion agreed. "A faint figure but sure. It was deep blue, like a midsummer sky at evening. There was nothing of that color in the room for the mirror to reflect back to us."

"I concur," the first said. "All of us wear working paint and robes: red and dirty white. The walls are grey stone, the carpets old and their colors muddy. Nothing could have given back that hue."

The two men went on in this fashion for some time, repeating as excited people will the details of their victory, embellishing with some small anecdote or flourish until Bold felt as if he had been within the room.

Piece of bread now swallowed, the crow hopped from foot to foot, wondering if he should fly away to spread the news he had or wait to hear more.

"That makes one of the three," the first continued, stilling the crow in his impatience. "The ring and the comb have yet to yield their secrets."

"And even the mirror only begins," blinking his bloodshot eyes. "We are at the beginning of a long road."