Dragon's Tongue (The Demon Bound) (17 page)

But he could feel the burn of pain in his right hand, and when he looked down, he saw blood on his knuckles. Alaric gasped when he tried to move it. The hand was stiffening.

“Oh, Horns,” he murmured as he staggered over to his chair to sit down and fathom how it came to be injured.

But his mind would not let him. All thoughts were on the presence of pain.

By the Silver Wheel, he hoped it wasn’t broken…

EIGHTEEN

Alaric cleaned the hand in the ewer, and found some old linen to wrap it in. But by the next morning, the hand was swollen and bruised, and he felt a little queasy.

“Horns, Alaric, why didn’t you wake me?” Fenelon said. He insisted on examining the injury, poking it to see if the hand was broken, and Alaric stifled several shouts of protest when tender spots met with more pressure than he liked. “We better get you to a healer first thing…”

“Oh, it will be all right…I don’t need a healer…” Alaric sputtered and pulled his hand free, cradling it close like a wounded child.

“Sorry, but that’s too serious to ignore,” Fenelon said firmly. “We’re going back to Dun Gealach, and I won’t take no for an answer. And if you insist on being stubborn, Alaric, I shall just be forced to carry you back over one shoulder. Won’t that be a sight for the gossips?”

Alaric rolled his eyes. Fenelon had the advantage of height, but Alaric was sure he could raise enough of a fuss to keep the task from being simple.

“I mean it,” Fenelon said. “Just how in the name of Cernunnos did you manage to do that anyway?”

Alaric shrugged. “I guess I must have accidentally hit it on the wall as I slept…”

“That is not just an accidentally hitting the wall injury,” Fenelon said. “That’s a full scale trying to brutally batter the wall senseless injury. Were you dreaming again?”

“I may have been…I don’t really know.” Alaric had agonized over that all night. Probably why he felt so cranky this morning.

“What do you mean, you don’t really know?”

“I don’t remember!” Alaric said, his tone pitched higher in protest.
Horns, I sound like a ten-year-old,
he thought and rubbed his good hand across his forehead. “I woke up standing at the wall, and my hand hurt, but I don’t remember what I was dreaming or why I even hit the wall…”

Fenelon frowned in concern. “We’ll worry about the reasons later,” he said. “Come on, I’m gating us back to Dun Gealach, and you’re going to go see the healer whether you like it or not.”

Alaric didn’t like it, but he knew he wouldn’t get a choice, no matter how much he protested.

~

Tane discovered the blood-stained sleeping gown tucked under the bed, which was lucky in Vagner’s opinion. It much harder to explain to their hostess.

“You know I cannot keep buying you new dresses every time you ruin your old ones, and I cannot conjure you new ones either!” Tane said. “Everyone will think I spoil you.”

“That will be the day,” the demon muttered, then added aloud. “If I had my old form…”

“Mark my words, demon, if you don’t learn to control your ravening, you will be wearing another form. But it won’t be your own. It will be a lapdog.”

“That would be better than this,” Vagner said, listening to his voice growing petulant. “At least dogs have fangs…”

“Test my patience, and it will an old and toothless lapdog that has been castrated,” Tane said, cutting the air with one hand. “Now who have you eaten? And it damned well better not be the innkeeper’s wife!”

“Only some unsavory thief I found on the streets,” Vagner said, then added as Tane’s brows rose, “We were well away from here…”

“He couldn’t have been too unsavory,” Tane said, relaxing. “You’re as bloated as a tick.”

Vagner patted his rounded belly and grinned. “I don’t believe in waste,” he said.

Tane shook his head. “Just get dressed. We must be on our way. It’s still three days overland to Caer Keltora.”

Vagner sighed. He did so wish Tane would just forget all this secrecy and open a gate straight to the Keltoran capital. The demon was not so sure his meal would stay down if the road got too rough. Even Tane might have a difficult time explaining to the superstitious mortalborn why his “granddaughter” vomited blood and a few undigested fingers…

~

The healer was gentler this time. She even complimented Alaric on how well he had cleaned the barked skin of his knuckles. “I doubt that will even need stitching,” Mistress Miranda said.

Alaric merely winced and said nothing as she fixed his hand with her healing prayers. She warned the hand would be stiff for a day or two, and advised him not to pick arguments with any more walls before she sent him on his way.

Like I had a choice,
Alaric thought as he left the infirmary flexing his hand.

Fenelon was not waiting in the outer chamber, and briefly Alaric remembered Fenelon said something about asking Etienne a question, and how he would catch up with Alaric later. So with no one to tell him otherwise, Alaric wandered down to the student halls. Quite a crowd gathered there, sharing food and opinions. Alaric spied Wendon among them, holding court with a number of his peers, though he stood over them more like a master. Just as Alaric was considering finding another direction, he was seen. Wendon waved Alaric over, taking his arm and sizing him up as though he were a servant in need of new clothes.

“Look at you,” Wendon said loudly enough for the others to hear. “Why you don’t look as though you’ve gotten any sleep at all.” He shook his head in dismay. “He’s been keeping you up drinking and carousing, hasn’t he? I’ve heard he’s fond of spending long nights in the lowest taverns of Caer Keltora and beyond…”

“Actually,” Alaric said, aware of whispers and traded glances from the others as they listened, “Fenelon has yet to do anything so base in nature in my company.”

“Then why do you look so pale?” Wendon clearly looked disappointed that his first attempt at slander had failed.

Alaric held up his right hand, pointing to the faint scars on his knuckles. “I’ve just been to the infirmary,” he announced. “Nearly broke my hand on the wall last night.

“Missed him, did you?” Wendon said and smiled wickedly. “Can’t say as I blame you for trying. There’s many a soul from Keltora to Yewer who would like to punch Fenelon’s nose to the back of his head…”

“I did not try to hit Fenelon,” Alaric said with a sneer. He wasn’t about to admit he’d had his moments. “I tried to punch the wall.”

“Why?”

“I was angry at it for blocking my way,” Alaric said, hearing the ire tighten his voice.

“You were angry at a wall?” Wendon looked horrified. “Poor Alaric. Fenelon’s madness must be contagious…”

“I was dreaming, Wendon,” Alaric said…then stopped. “I was dreaming the wall was in my way,” he said more to himself.

“Oh, now that is absurd,” Wendon said. “You’re becoming as mad as Fenelon. Just where was this dream wall?”

Alaric frowned. “I don’t know. I didn’t want it to be there, but I had no choice. Excuse me…”

“Where are you going?” Wendon said as Alaric lurched away.

“To find Fenelon and tell him,” Alaric said.

He got just a glimpse of the frustration masking Wendon’s face before Alaric fled the hall.

He could not remember the whole dream, but he could remember the offending presence of the wall.

~

Finding Fenelon proved easier than Alaric hoped, and involved little more than stretching mage senses through the great hive of Dun Gealach to pinpoint that quicksilver presence. Alaric sensed Fenelon in one of the open courtyards, accompanied by Etienne’s warm aura. Eagerly, Alaric worked his way through the warren of adjoining keeps until he found the pair. They were seated together on a bench overlooking a small pool and canopied by a trellis of ivy. Their voices, while soft, carried to Alaric’s ears.

“Are you certain?” Etienne said.

“Oh, it’s there,” Fenelon said. “I only got a glimpse of it yesterday, and at the time I didn’t think much of it. I mean, any number of childhood traumas can cause one of those things to manifest within a mageborn’s mind. But with everything that has happened over the last few days…”

Alaric paused.

“Do you think he put it there himself?” Etienne asked. “That he built it deliberately?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Fenelon said and shook his head, “though I can’t help wondering why you didn’t notice it that night.”

“I was only looking for honest answers to Turlough’s questions,” she said. “Had I known there was a real need to look deeper…”

“Yes, well, likely I’ll try to get a closer look at it the next time I work on teaching him protective spells to stop his dreams.”

Alaric took a deep breath, frowning.
They’re talking about me.
He debated retreating then and there, when Fenelon rose suddenly and turned towards the gate where Alaric stood.

“Alaric?” Fenelon called.

Alaric froze, feeling like a rabbit that had just seen an owl swooping down from the sky. But Fenelon merely smiled and beckoned.

“Come on, Alaric,” Fenelon insisted. “We’re not going to bite.”

Alaric almost wished they would. He’d know how to deal with that. He took another deep breath and slowly crossed the path. Etienne watched him, her expression stoic and guarded. She remained seated and only smiled in acknowledgement when Alaric offered a respectful bow.

“So, exactly how much did you hear,” Fenelon said.

Horns! Alaric flinched and turned away, ready to bolt. But Fenelon caught Alaric by the arm and put asunder all hope of retreat. He could do no more than yield as he was drawn over to the bench and firmly seated there. Fenelon’s hand never deserted Alaric’s shoulder as though eager to make certain the younger mageborn stayed.

“It looks like we need to perfect your skills in the finer art of spying, Alaric,” Fenelon quipped. “You wear guilt like a peacock’s tail.”

“Fenelon,” Etienne said in soft rebuke.

“Well, it’s true,” Fenelon said and sat on the bench so Alaric was sandwiched between them.

No hope of escape at all now. Alaric took a deep breath, never taking his eyes off his own hands which clamped down on his own knees. “I gather I was the subject of this little conversation,” Alaric said.

“Of course you were,” Fenelon said. “Otherwise, Etienne and I would not have been having it in such a usually private place, and you wouldn’t be so red-faced about sneaking up on us…which I’ll give you credit for locating us when I didn’t tell you where we were to be found.”

“I was not sneaking,” Alaric said. “I deliberately sought you because I remembered something about last night.”

He closed his eyes, pulling the anger down.

Fenelon’s hand squeezed Alaric’s shoulder before deserting it. “We’re not angry with you, Alaric, and you have every right to feel angry yourself,” he said. “I merely wished to discuss this interesting little conundrum with Etienne before I approached you about it.”

“What conundrum?” Alaric opened his eyes to look at Fenelon.

“You’ve got a memory wall in your mind, my young friend,” Fenelon said and tapped a finger on Alaric’s forehead. “I saw it yesterday when I was teaching you to build them, but you started fighting back before I could get a good look at it. But even with that brief look, I could tell it was pretty powerful, and I don’t think you’re the one who put it there. A wall like that is a very complex spell that even some master mageborn find difficult to maneuver into place with that much precision.”

A memory wall?
Alaric thought and cocked his head. “I came to tell you I remembered something from my dream last night. I dreamed of a wall in the tower that should not have been there…and I dreamed that I tried to get past it to see what lay being it, but I couldn’t.”