Dragon's Treasure (37 page)

19

Midmorning, after the hunters had left the castle, Azil Aumson packed for his journey.

He had spent plenty of time in the castle's map room; he knew where he had to go and how to get there. Spare breeches, a warm shirt, his warmest, it would soon be fully winter, leggings, gloves. He looked for, and found, the scarlet wool scarf which Thea Serretsdatter, Shem's dead mother, had made for him. He stuffed it into the pack.

His harp lay beside the pack. All the strings but one were tucked into his inside pocket, next to the elk-horn pick Liam Dubhain had fashioned for him.

The hunters had left at dawn. They would be halfway up the flank of Dragon's Eye by now, Karadur in front, his whole face shining with his delight in the chase, his spirit untroubled and happy. Azil had counted on that. The Keep was not empty, of course: Hawk was about, and Lorimir, and Taran. None of them had much taste for the hunt.

His mother, too, was somewhere in the castle, doing the honorable, meticulous work she had been doing for twenty-five years. He did not intend to say good-bye to her: it would break her heart, and he had done that already. He would take no weapons, save his little knife. He did not expect to need them, and there were none his hands could grip. A voice in his head yammered at him steadily, telling him not to be a fool, there had to be another way, he did not have to do this.... He knew that voice well; it was only fear. He ignored it.

The other voice, which sounded like Tenjiro Atani's, and was not, was also silent. It rarely spoke during the day. It would return, in the night, to torment him, and the next night, and the next, as it had for months. It knew his plan, and it did not like what he was doing, at all.

Traitor,
it hissed into the darkness.
I see you, little traitor.
Somehow, he had learned to ignore it, too.

Opening the door, he stuck his head into the hall. Brian was practicing sword parries down the length of the corridor. He said, "Tell Juni Talvela I want to speak with him."

The boy went off. In a little while, Juni came up the stairs. Despite his skill with the bow, he hated hunting, and Karadur had given him permission to remain in the castle.

"Come in," Azil said. Juni stepped across the threshold. His gaze moved swiftly over the bed. "Sit, please. I need you to write something for me."

Juni said, "Of course, sir." He seated himself at the desk. He pulled the paper to him, checked the tip of the stylus, and eased the wax stopper from the mouth of the ink bottle. "To—"

"You can omit the salutation." Azil closed his eyes a moment. He knew exactly what he wanted to say. His heart was thudding hard. "Write this.

"I must go. By all that has been between us, I beg you not to look for me.

I do not go for the reason men will think, nor for any reason that you can imagine, but it is for a reason.

I love you more than life.

I will love you always, whatever form you wear."

He walked to the desk, and read the words over Juni's shoulder. "Give me the pen." He closed it in his fist, and drew his initial below the carefully written words. Lifting the page from the desk, he blew on it to dry the ink.

Then he carried it down the hall, into Karadur's bedchamber. He drew the bed hangings back and laid the note on the pillow. He dug the loose harp string from his sleeve. As he laid it across the note, the pain of what he was doing tore through him, bowing him double. He wondered if there was any way he might take his heart out of his chest and leave it, still beating, for Karadur to find.

A small brassbound chest sat unlocked against the wall near the bed. It was stuffed with gold: coins mostly, nobles from the Lemininkai's mint, coronas from Lienor, bracelets, rings.... Without hesitation, he filled a pouch with coins and thrust it into his shirt. He left the lid of the chest up and returned to his room.

Juni was sitting at the desk, white-faced.

Azil said, "I am trusting you to keep it secret, that I am gone. In three days, more or less, he'll return from the hunt. When he finds the note, he will ask who wrote it. Tell him. He will ask you what I said and did. Tell him everything, hold nothing back. He will ask you if you know where I am going. You don't." He could not smile, but he patted the boy's shoulder. "Answer whatever he asks you, and don't be afraid."

He reached to close the straps of the pack. The leather was stiff. Juni did it for him. Then he said, "Will you tell me something?"

"Maybe," Azil said. "What is it?"

"What am I to say when he asks me how it happened that I let you go alone?"

He did not know what to say.

Juni said, "You are my teacher. It is my obligation to travel with you, wherever you go, to serve you. That is what a student does for a teacher." His young voice broke, then dropped half an octave, as it was beginning to do. His gaze was steady. "I will get my pack, and my weapons, and tell them in the stable to saddle two horses. If anyone asks, we're going to Chingura. You need something at the market." He left, walking swiftly, but not running.

In a short while he was back, wearing his cloak, with loaded pack, bow and quiver over his shoulder, and his sword stuck in his belt. He picked up Azil's pack.

Azil slung the harp over his shoulder.

They walked into the yard. The boys brought the big roan, Guardian, and the grey filly, Aster, from the stable. The horses' breath steamed. The sky was ice-blue. Behind the castle, the great wall of mountains lifted into emptiness, three taller than the rest.

A mile or so down the road they passed a troop of men going toward the Keep.

"Hoy, singer!" It was Wegen. "Where are you off to?"

"Chingura Market," Azil said. "You?"

"The barracks, and bed, thank the gods. Morgan just relieved us."

They went around the gates of Chingura, past farmhouses and shepherds' cottages, until they reached the Great South Road. The horses were eager and fit; it would not take long for them to get to the Mako border. There were no fences, no guard posts between Dragon's domain and Erin diMako's lands, but men bearing Dragon Keep's badges patrolled the road near Estancia, questioning travelers as to where they had come from, and where they were going. The men on patrol would recognize Dragon's singer. If they asked his destination, he would say he was on Dragon's business.

The irony of that made him smile. He glanced at Juni. The boy had said nothing to the soldiers. His youthful face was resolute and remote. It would do no good to tell him to go back. Clouds scudded across the bright pale sky. Beyond them in the east lay darkness. A storm was brewing in the Grey Peaks. By the time it struck they should be well south. With luck, they would reach the border before dark.

Past noon, they halted in a travelers' shelter to rest and feed the horses. Finally Juni asked, "Where are we going?"

He would have to know eventually, and there was no good reason to keep him ignorant. "South."

"I know we're riding south," the boy said patiently. "But where?"

"First to Ujo," Azil said. "Then down the Great South Road as far as we can go, to Rowena, and Salvati, and Allegria."

Juni said, "You're following the Sparrows!"

"I hope to join them, if they'll have me."

"Of course they'll have you! How could they not?"

Azil said, "They might be too afraid."

Juni's face closed tight. "Afraid of Dragon?"

"Yes."

"Are
you
afraid of him?"

He had known Karadur Atani all his life, had loved him all his life. He had never feared him. "No."

"Won't he look for you?"

"I hope not. I asked him not to."

"What if he does?"

"If he wants to find me, he will. I'm not hiding from him, Juni." He could see the boy's confusion. "You will have to trust me."

They could rest at the Golden Cup in Sogda, north of Mako. It wouldn't matter how crowded the inn was: a good inn always had room for jugglers and singers, and he was a singer. He would sing in the common room the songs they knew and loved: "The Old Man's Beard," "Ewain and Mariela," "The Red Boar of Aidu," "Dorian's Ride."

His mind was empty, now, quite hollow. The yammering in his head had stopped. Grief remained, though.

He pulled his hood up, so Juni would not see his face, and let the tears fall.

* * *

Bending over her work in the carpenter's shop, hands busy, mind fixed on the grain of a stave of wood, Terrill Chernico did not immediately hear the captain's step.

"Hawk," he said. Reluctantly she drew her attention from the length of red yew. Lorimir Ness's face was set and grim. He looked like a man about to go into battle.

She stood. "What is it? What has happened?"

He said, "Do you know where he is? Can you find him?"

There was only one
he
in Dragon Keep.

"Why?"

"Azil Aumson's gone. He and Juni took Guardian and Aster from the stable yesterday, to go to Chingura, they said. But they are absent still, and so are Juni's weapons—bow, arrows, sword—and Azil's harp. I sent men to Chingura. They are not there. They never were there. Nor are they in Castria or Sleeth. And there's a letter in Dragon's bedchamber, on the bed, with a harp string coiled about it. Lita found it when she went to fill the oil lamps."

"What does it say?"

"I don't know. I didn't open it."

"What are you thinking?" she asked him.

He said, "I don't think anything. I don't know anything. But I believe you should call him."

"All right," she said. She laid the stave aside and walked into the courtyard. Lorimir followed. The sky was vast and grey. Dragon had taken ten men with him, mostly men of the cavalry and the archers' wing. The Keep felt empty. It was not, of course: there were people in the stables and the kitchen. She could see the savanna in her mind; an endless rolling country blanketed with soft green grass, orange poppies, blue lobelia, and the grey geese wheeling above it.... But no, she thought, it's winter now.

She closed her eyes, blocking out Lorimir and the Keep, and directed her thought northward.

Suddenly she felt him, blazing across the distance.

Hunter!

Come,
she called,
you must come
....

Lorimir said, "Did you find him?"

"Yes," she said. "He comes."

They climbed to the Dragon's Roost to meet him. Thunder rolled through the vast grey twilight. A white-gold shape plunged from the sky. Bright wings unfurled, the Golden Dragon circled once around the castle. Then, talons spread to grip, he plunged downward. He settled on the granite. A crystalline light crackled across the sky. Then the dragon-form vanished, and became the man. A golden dust, like pollen, touched his skin. His hair was windblown. His eyes shimmered with a white light.

"What's happened?" he said. "Why did you call me back?"

Lorimir said, "My lord, if I have erred, I beg your pardon. But Azil Aumson has left the castle, with Juni Talvela. Neither has returned, and no one knows where they have gone. There is a message for you; a note. I don't know what it says."

"Where is it?"

"In your bedchamber."

* * *

Azil had not written this.

Azil could not have written it; he could not hold a pen. But the words were his, and the nearly unrecognizable letter
A
scrawled beneath the round, carefully scripted letters.

I will love you always, whatever form you wear.
He had said something like that once, to Azil, in the ice.

I do not go for the reason men will think, nor for any reason that you can imagine, but it is for a reason.
The reason men will think: he was talking about Maia, of course. Men thought all sorts of stupid things. He could not imagine any reason that would drive his friend to leave him. Juni had penned the note. Juni had gone with him. That was good. He picked up the bronze harp string, then laid it gently back across the pillow.

The lid of the little chest was up. Azil had taken some gold, then. That, too, was good.

He said aloud, "You should have told me you wanted to leave. I would have sent an army with you, to protect you."

I beg you not to look for me.

Azil never begged. Three years a prisoner in the ice, tormented, starved, beaten, he had refused to speak a word, rather than beg. He had never asked Karadur for anything, except a horse to ride.

I beg you.

Where would he go? Not west, surely, toward Derrenhold, Serrenhold, Voiana: those places were too cold. South, perhaps, to Ujo. East, perhaps, into Nakase. Issho was windy and inhospitable, except near Lake Urai. Chuyo was warm. But Chuyo was far.

Thank the gods Juni had gone with him. He was so vulnerable, unable to hold a pen or a sword, or even saddle a horse.

But Juni, though quick and willing, was only a boy. There was so much danger in the world. He might die, and Karadur would not know it.