DW01 Dragonspawn (7 page)

Slowly, Valdaimon spoke the words, handed from the earliest human mages who had mastered the arts of scrying and futuresight, that infused the crystal with their power. A tiny spark of green light appeared in the center of the clear ball. Gradually it grew, changing color to yellow, then red, then orange, then blue, then purple, then a blinding white. A great flash came from the ball, and then an image formed.

“Behold, Majesty, the scenes of victories to come,” the old wizard intoned.

Ruprecht stood and leaned forward eagerly, gazing into the depths of the ball. Culdus, too, stood and looked over the young king’s shoulder.

In the crystal, they saw the legions of Heilesheim marching forward against a foe already fleeing in terror, while wyvern riders swooped from the sky, laughing, killing at will with thrusts of their spears. In the far distance, great stone towers crumbled, and the king saw himself, mounted on a great black steed with its hooves raised to the heavens, crying out “Victory! Victory! On to another victory!”

“Valdaimon!” the young king exclaimed at length. “It is all as I had planned!”

“Yes, Majesty, truly your wildest dreams shall be fulfilled,” the wizard answered humbly.

“Yes, yes, I see...” The king’s voice broke off. A troubled frown passed over the face of Culdus. The crystal went suddenly dark.

“What was that, Valdaimon?” the old warrior asked.

“Yes, you saw that. What was that?” the pale youth demanded, grabbing the front of the old wizard’s robes. “What was that?”

“Nothing, Majesty,” Valdaimon replied. But the mage could not keep uncertainty from his voice. For he, too, had seen the momentary image—a short man with graying hair and a chubby square face, slinking about a great bedroom with a dagger in his hand. By itself, that could mean anything. But, as though in a dream, a second image shimmered behind the little man: the gem-studded, gleaming Golden Eggs of Parona. “It is nothing at all,” Valdaimon continued. He laughed, a kind of obscene, cackling laugh, to make light of the momentary vision that had deeply troubled him. “Perhaps,” he said, cackling louder as if sharing a great joke with friends, “we have scried the secret dreams of some little thief!”

Ruprecht joined Valdaimon’s laughter, clapping the decrepit wizard on the back. Culdus waited until his own eyes met the wizard’s across the table, then he smiled a small, dry smile.

First Blood

BIGSBY
sat down again on the edge of the bed and eyed the elf carefully.

“This deal stinks,” he said at length. “I don’t know you. I don’t know that you can pay me. I expect that you won’t. And you want me to take on five hundred men in the pay of the Black Prince to steal a treasure that can’t be sold because everyone in the known world will recognize it and know that it’s stolen. Forget about Nebuchar’s assassins—they don’t scare me. Tell me again why I’m going to do this for you.”

Shulana’s thoughts were already far from Bagsby. So much had been implanted in her mind by her brief contact with Elrond that she needed time to think, time to sort it out, time to modify her own plans, if need be.

“What?” she responded, a little dazed.

“What?” Bagsby replied, mocking her. “What? I’ll tell you what. I think this deal stinks and I want to know why you think I’ll even consider stealing the Golden Eggs of Parona, that’s what.”

“Oh. That again.” Shulana’s fingers made nimble gestures in the air, and she muttered words that Bagsby could hear but not understand. In the next instant, he could see only her disembodied face.

“What’d you do?” he demanded incredulously.

“I must go,” Shulana said, turning to leave the room. Then she turned back, and for an instant the elven face reappeared in midair. “You’ll do it, Bagsby,” she said softly and seriously, “because you think you can do it.”

Bagsby glared at her, then slowly his face broke into a grin. “Well,” he admitted, “there is that.”

The face disappeared. The door to Bagsby’s chamber swung silently open, then silently shut. Bagsby was alone.

“Yes,” he said aloud to no one. “There is that. It would be the greatest theft of all time and I,
the greatest thief.” Laughing, Bagsby bounced up from the bed and strode to the large shutters that guarded the great window of his room. He threw them open in time to see the first rays of dawn light the gray, overcast sky. Yes, he thought, the greatest of all time.

Bagsby took a deep breath of the chilly morning air, smiling with self-satisfaction. He gazed out on the neatly manicured gardens at the front of the viscount’s mansion, where the ranks of shrubs and carefully pruned low trees struggled to maintain their dark green coloration on a cold, gray day. He noticed the arrow just in time to do a back flip, the arrow whizzing past just beneath his short salt-and-pepper hair. He landed on his hands and, with a second flip, bounced to his feet, running toward the door. The second arrow thudded into the wood of the door about a half inch above his head.

He’s good, Bagsby thought, dropping to one knee while opening the door. He had to make that second shot on pure calculation; he could not have seen me this far inside the room. The short thief held his dagger at the ready in case a second foe was bold enough to rush in the open door. No—nothing happened. The second man could be waiting in the hallway for the easy shot when Bagsby came running out. Bagsby crouched behind the door, slammed it shut loudly to raise an alarm among the household, then sprang in one leap toward the bed. He landed short with a thud on the hard floor.

Cursing at the pain, Bagsby reached up with his left hand and grabbed at the bedclothes. He pulled down a wad of satin sheet—that would do. He crawled under the bed—no use leaving his back open just in case someone burst through the door. He tied one end of the satin sheet to a leg of the bed, and then made his way in a sideways crouch back toward the window. Chances were the archer in the garden was already in the house. Bagsby would risk the window.

The little thief tied a large double knot in the remaining end of the sheet. He stuck his dagger between his teeth. Grasping the sheet tightly just above the knot, he hurled his body through the open shutters into space. He plunged straight down six feet before the sheet’s length was run out; and the snap as the sheet unfolded to its full length brought him up short. His own weight pulled hard at his elbows and shoulders, but his vice-like grip held. It took him only three seconds to gain a foothold against the nearby wall, and three seconds later he was swinging, back and forth like a pendulum along the front of the building. As his swing reached its highest point near a fig tree, he let go and somersaulted through the air, landing in the branches with only a slight bump on one shin.

“Curses!” Bagsby whispered to himself. “Getting clumsy in my old age.”

It took him five more seconds to scramble up the tree, climb onto a balcony, and position himself, dagger ready in his right hand, beside the large glass doors that led to the second-story hall. By now, Bagsby calculated, the assailant in the hall—for he was sure there was one—would be carefully making his way to the door to Bagsby’s chamber. Bagsby reached out with his left hand and opened the latch on the glass doors. Then, with one seamless motion, he threw open the door, whirled inside, and tossed his dagger, tumbling as it flew, straight at the back of the crossbow-armed figure in black who was creeping down the hall, just as Bagsby had assumed.

The short blade caught the man squarely between the shoulders, and the force of the throw pitched him face forward onto the thickly carpeted floor. Bagsby was on him in an instant. His right foot stamped on the man’s hand; his right hand grabbed the crossbow; his left hand retrieved his dagger. Then for an instant, Bagsby hesitated. An assassin taken alive would be worth a small fortune in ransom money from the Assassins of the Compact in Kala. They despised failure and would actually pay to get back one of their own who had failed, just so they could put the hapless would-be murderer to death themselves in their own inimitable style. Still, it would hardly do for the “elder son” of the honest and pure Count of Nordingham to know too much about the ways of assassins in a land so distant from his home.

“Too bad, oaf. At least you’ll have an easier death than your friends would have given you.” Without further thought Bagsby slit the squirming man’s throat. As the dying man’s blood gurgled and gushed onto the carpet, Bagsby whirled toward the glass doors he had just entered and discharged the crossbow. The bolt caught the second assassin, the one who had fired at him from the garden, squarely in the right knee.

Bagsby shook his head in disgust. He was clearly getting out of shape.

“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he called cheerily to the second murderer who had dropped to the floor, writhing in pain. “Kneecaps always do,” Bagsby continued as he strolled down the hall to stand over the man. He reached down and pulled the black mask from his assailant’s face. Though contorted with rage and pain, the man’s face looked vaguely familiar.

“Tomar?” Bagsby asked.

“Damn you black, Bagsby,” the tortured Tomar responded. “Finish it.”

“Ah, ah, not so fast. Who sent you?”

“You know I cannot say.”

“No need; you’ve handled plenty of contracts for Nebuchar before. This was a pretty bungled attempt, you know. Especially the first shot from the garden—a frontal shot, head-on, against an experienced guy like me. The odds weren’t with you.”

“You’ve grown careless with success,” Tomar spat back.

“True, true, I must admit you’ve hit a sore point there, Tomar,” Bagsby said, nodding a sad acknowledgment. “But not careless enough for your purposes,” he added, swiftly kneeling and slitting Tomar’s throat from ear to ear.

Tomar’s legs were still kicking when the first of the household servants arrived in the hall, drawn by the crashes, thumps, and wails of pain.

“Assassins, sent by some unknown foe to slay the viscount in his sleep,” Bagsby announced to the wide-eyed staff as they surveyed the bloody hall. “Go quickly and tell your master that his life has been spared. And alert the guards to search the grounds. There may be more of these vile fellows about.”

Shulana saw the assassins as she left the grounds of the viscount’s mansion. She considered staying to defend Bagsby, but decided that the thief would neither need nor want her help. She did not think he was in serious danger; there were only two of them. If he couldn’t handle that, he would never succeed at stealing the Golden Eggs of Parona.

The streets of Clairton were filling with busy humans, rushing about their morning activities with that usual combination of intensity and narrowness of focus Shulana found so alien. She used the magic of her cloak to wend her way through the crowded streets unnoticed. Faint stirrings of hunger tempted her for a moment to stop in one of the many small market squares, where dozens of vendors loudly hawked the virtues of their edible offerings, but her desire to escape for a while from the all-too-human world drove her on toward the city gates. Her stomach could wait; her mind and spirit needed sustenance.

It took her a full hour to find a solitary copse more than a mile beyond the city gates. This refuge proved to be a small growth of conifers, hardwoods, and scraggly, prickly vines not large enough to be dubbed a wood. Still, in its center, an old oak reared its head high above the younger trees around it, and at its base Shulana could not see beyond the edge of the copse to the muddy fields beyond. Her vision thus insulated from the world, she felt secure, almost as though she were at home again in the Elven Preserve. She sat on the damp moss that grew at the oak’s feet, leaned her back against its rough bark, and allowed her mind to meld into the being of the tree.

Shulana’s mind possessed neither the power nor the discipline of Elrond’s. Still, in this state, undifferentiated from the living plant life around her, she was able to find the freedom from anxiety needed for clear thought. She considered the questions and problems presented by Elrond’s communication one at a time.

First, there was the almost overwhelming fact that Elrond, the greatest, oldest, and most revered of living elves, was a prisoner in a human dungeon! That single fact, should it become known to the other elves of the preserve, could start a new human-elven war that would unleash so much magic and so much hatred that the entire world would die in its flames. No elf had thought anything amiss when, some twenty years ago, the ancient Elrond had announced he had a task to perform and left the safety of the Elven Preserve. No elf had thought anything amiss when he did not return, for an elf might spend twenty years on a journey that would take a human a mere fortnight. But Elrond’s imprisonment by humans was unthinkable! Under the Covenant no human could slay or imprison an elf, and no elf could slay or imprison a human. This was such a basic tenant of the Covenant that the infrequent violations to date had always led to prolonged and tense negotiations. Of course, there were always some violations that went undiscovered, and both sides endeavored to show understanding and goodwill when unfortunate incidents arose. But Elrond! For a human to imprison Elrond was the equivalent of elves systematically destroying human temples to the gods they professed to worship! War would be the only honorable elven response to such an outrage.

But war would be suicide. So depleted was the elven population that it would take every elven mind and every elven spell to balance the sheer numbers of the humans. Horrendous, raw, elemental forces of nature would be unleashed—the forces of earth and air, fire and water, turned loose to roll like primordial chaos over the face of the earth. Even if anyone or anything survived, there would be nothing left to live for.

Therefore, Shulana concluded, she would not communicate the news of Elrond’s imprisonment to her fellow elves. It would remain a secret, buried in her own mind, shielded by long tradition from the prying of magic and even from the sharing of mental communion, when elven minds, linked to trees and grass and green life of all kinds, merged into a kind of oneness.

Second, there was the warning in Elrond’s message. He had told her to hurry, to do quickly what she must do. Therefore, Elrond, the great one, who could commune even with barren soil as long as plants had once grown in it, was aware of her own scheme, even though she had first thought of the plan only ten years ago, long after Elrond had left the preserve. Not even the Elven Council understood her full intent. Of course, if any elf could know her mind, it would be Elrond. Not for nothing was he her great-great-great-great-great-uncle. Not for nothing had he personally instructed her in the basics of elven magic. And not for nothing had he told her the tales of the elven-dragon wars, fought far beyond the memory of all living elves save Elrond himself. To her, and her alone, had he imparted the secret of the fabulous Golden Eggs of Parona. What his purpose had been, Shulana could even now only vaguely guess.

But urgency was what Elrond demanded. Her plan must be fulfilled quickly, lest the treasure fall into the hands of the Black Prince. The thought of that particularly vile human brought Shulana to consider the brewing human war. Through her contact with Elrond’s mind she had full knowledge of all the plans laid by the Black Prince, his arrogant desire to subjugate the world to the whims of his juvenile and malicious will. Normally, the subjugation of one group of humans by another would hardly concern an elf. Humans who called themselves kings or emperors and thought of themselves as immortals came and went by the score in the lifetime of an elf. But in this case, there was a difference. The Black Prince, unless stopped, would also possess the Golden Eggs of Parona.

But what matter that? Humans had possessed the eggs for three thousand years, ever since the dwarves found them in the bowels of a rich vein of gold far away in the northernmost mountains of the world. Why would Elrond urge her to hasten in her plan?

The answer, of course, was Valdaimon. For there were three who knew the secret of the treasure of Parona, and Valdaimon was the third. And should Valdaimon come to control the potential power in the Golden Eggs, not even the sum total of all elven magic could stop him.

Thus, Shulana could only conclude that Elrond knew her plan, approved it, and urged her to hasten lest Valdaimon come to possess the treasure and control its power.

That left only one final matter to consider. Shulana had a duty as a kinsman to Elrond. As the closest living elf with direct lineage to Elrond’s parents, Shulana owed her kinsman her special loyalty and protection. She would not only have to complete her plan for the Golden Eggs. She would also have to rescue Elrond from the dungeon of the Black Prince.