The D'Karon Apprentice (18 page)

Satisfied, Turiel stepped back and watched as
two windows opened in the air. Combined, they were nearly large
enough to fill the cell. Each opened into the interior of a stone
structure. One was lit only by what light spilled through the
portal itself, offering barely a glimpse of the shadowy shapes
within. The other was lit with the cold blue-tinged light that
could only be reflected from snow and filtered through distant
windows.

“Mott, you will seek Demont. If I recall
correctly, Teht claims that is one of his workshops. Search the
facility for him and remain with him if you find him. If you don’t,
attempt to awaken some of his creatures. He will certainly seek
them out if they awaken. I shall find you when the time comes. I
shall seek Bagu.”

Mott chittered something. Turiel
shuddered.

“No… not Epidime. We will never find him, and
I dare not speak to him regardless. He of all of them, I would
prefer not to find… Now off with you. I shall see you soon.”

Her familiar bounded through his portal and
off into the dimly lit facility. She stepped carefully through her
own portal and turned back.

“And you, sir,” she grinned as the portals
began to close, “do remain nearby.” She wavered slightly, her
eyelids fluttering as though she had been struck with an intense
wave of fatigue. She managed to hold the wavering sensation at bay
long enough to deliver a final, ominous statement. “I look forward
to seeing what sort of scars you shall have when I return…”

Early the following morning, back in Kenvard, Ivy was
preparing to once again face the Tresson delegate. Her first
impression hadn’t been a victory, but it certainly could have gone
worse. Once the servants and staff had joined the meal, Krettis at
the very least had been as off balance as Ivy. A bit of wine and
some good food had coaxed several of the servants and staff into
conversation, and she was quite sure she’d earned a few friends
among them. The same could not be said of Krettis, who said less
and less as the night wore on.

She pulled on her traveling cloak and looked
at herself in the mirror. As glamorous as it felt to be wearing a
beautiful dress the night before, her simple gray cloak,
comfortable boots, and warm clothes made her feel strangely at
ease, as though the night before she’d been playing a character on
stage and now she was finally herself again.

A gentle knock at her door came as she was
pulling her white hair back into a ponytail.

“Are you nearly ready?” asked Celeste.

“Nearly. Come in, please,” Ivy said.

He opened the door and stepped inside.

“Is the
ambassador
ready yet?” Ivy
asked, spitting the title as though it was a loathsome insult.

“She will be shortly. It would be best if she
was not kept waiting.”

“My bags are packed. I’m just making sure I’m
decent. Not that it matters. Something tells me it doesn’t matter
how I look; Krettis isn’t going to want to have anything to do with
me.”

“You both had your share of diplomatic black
eyes last night, and of them, I believe yours were more
forgivable.”

“But this mission is already going in the
wrong direction, and we’ve got
weeks
to go yet.”

“Then there is plenty of time to turn it
around,” he said. “The rest is very straightforward. You and I will
ride in a carriage with Ambassador Krettis and one of her aides.
She will—or, based upon her attitude thus far—will
not
ask
questions about our kingdom and its history. You will answer or
defer to me if you are uncertain. Pleasant conversation and a
greater understanding of one another are the intended goal, but I
believe that we shall call this mission a success if at no point it
descends into name-calling and violence.”

“We’ll see…” Ivy said. She picked up two
cases. “Let’s go.”

“What are you taking with you?”

“My secret weapons. If all else fails,
they’ll be a lifeline for me.”

The pair walked downstairs to find that their
timing at least was right on target. Ambassador Krettis was just
stepping out of her quarters, one of the most recent Kenvard homes
to be fully restored. She was wearing her fur cloak, though the
rest of her clothing was more understated than it had been for the
banquet the night before. A woman several years younger aided her,
dressed simply in a rougher fur coat.

Each ambassador climbed inside, Ivy sitting
beside Celeste and Ambassador Krettis beside her aide. Ivy slid her
cases under her seat and smiled.

“Hello!” Ivy said brightly, holding out a
hand of greeting to the aide as the carriage lurched into motion.
“Marraata, right? You were the one who loved the ice cider and the
stuffed cabbage leaves. You really should have saved room for the
snow candy.”

Marraata nodded sheepishly and shook Ivy’s
hand without a word.

“Yes… we will discuss her behavior at the
banquet when we return to Tressor,” Krettis said. “I’m told the
itinerary for this trip was still in transition prior to my
departure. What sights of this fair land do you plan to share?”

Celeste unfolded a parchment and handed it to
Ivy.

“Oh, wonderful!” Ivy said, glancing over the
list. “I’m only just learning the final details of the journey
myself, but it is going to be lovely. We will be heading along the
coast, stopping at many of our most quaint and comfortable inns. In
three days we will reach our first stop, which will be the Azure
Saltern, a centuries-old source of salt for much of the Northern
Alliance. Then we’ll continue to the hot springs four days
later…”

Ivy continued to list off the most
interesting sights that the north had to offer. Ambassador Krettis
feigned interest for a time, and her aide dutifully recorded the
descriptions, but it became clear to all that Ivy may as well have
been talking to herself. Because she knew that it was part of her
role to finish reading through the list, she did so, but her own
genuine enthusiasm for the exciting new sights they would visit
faded swiftly in the face of Krettis’s obvious disinterest.

She looked the ambassador in the eyes.
Krettis looked back, but Ivy felt uncomfortably as though the
Tresson was looking through her.

“I’m particularly looking forward to the
orchestral performance in Martinsford,” Ivy said, hoping in vain to
initiate discussion.

“Mmm…” the ambassador murmured.

Ivy crossed her arms. “You do not seem
terribly impressed with the planned events.”

“I’m sure they will be quite acceptable.”

“If in the future you were to host a tour of
Tressor, what sort of things would you like to show me?”

“I would not be in a position to make those
selections. It would be done by a tribunal. I would not hazard a
guess, for fear of raising your hopes of seeing them in the unli…
in the event of a Tresson diplomatic tour.”

Ivy tried to push away the flutter of
irritation she felt. Clearly the sting of Krettis’s prior behavior
had faded. She was back to her less than diplomatic mindset.

Ivy furrowed her brow and turned to Marraata.
“It is your job to write things down during this trip, right?”

Marraata looked uncertainly to Ambassador
Krettis.

“She is the record keeper, yes,” Krettis
said.

Ivy kept her eyes on Marraata. “As you saw
last night, Ambassador Krettis and I are both new to this, and
we’re likely to say and do things that won’t be in keeping with the
spirit of this tour.” Ivy turned to Krettis. “We can sit here and
woodenly quote back to one another the civil little fibs and white
lies that we know we are meant to, but I don’t think that will do
any good, do you? We’ll just go home knowing that the other side
can follow the same rules as we can, which I think we already know.
Marraata could probably write down every little flavorless comment
and empty observation we would have said for this whole trip
without us even saying them. I say we should let her do that. Let
her write down what
would
have happened. Meanwhile you and I
can say what’s
really
on our minds. That way at least the
people in this carriage will walk away with a genuine understanding
of one another.”

“You are suggesting my aide falsify her
report?” Krettis said, raising an eyebrow.

“This whole journey was destined to be pushed
through a sieve to remove anything too dangerous or too honest. All
I’m suggesting is we move the sieve to between our mouths and her
quill rather than between our minds and our mouths. We both know
the sorts of things that might be
dangerous
, and we won’t
say any of that. But you speak your mind, I speak mine, Marraata
translates it into something the rest of the delegation will
tolerate, and no one is any the wiser.”

“This is highly irregular,” Krettis said.

“Your people selected a malthrope to be your
host. It was never going to be anything
but
irregular. So
what do you say? Shall we secretly turn this carriage into a place
of honesty? Or shall we chat about,” she glanced at her pages, “the
fine quality of Alliance pine for the next few weeks.”

“This is not wise,” Celeste said.

“Maybe not, but at least it won’t be dull,”
Ivy said.

Krettis blinked once, then turned. “Marraata,
I will personally review your records each night to ensure that
they are suitable to be presented. Ambassador Ivy, your offer is
acceptable.”

“Excellent!” Ivy said. “So what’s wrong with
the stops we’ve got lined up for you?”

“They are toothless,” Krettis said. “You are
showing us places of what you perceive to be beautiful or of
cultural relevance, but they leave unspoken and unexplored the one
thing that has dominated both of our cultures for generations. They
ignore the war. To look at your itinerary, you would think that the
war had never happened. And so long as we are being
frank
,
your land is icy and windswept. There is little more to be learned
of it. You could drag me about for a
year
and I would see
little more than snow, rock, trees, and huddled people trying to
keep warm. What you are showing me teaches me nothing. The one
thing I’d hoped to learn is the truth behind the D’Karon, a group
whom you dubiously blame for every life lost in the entirety of the
conflict. Not once in your banquet did you offer evidence of them.
Not once in your itinerary are they even mentioned. I see very
little value at
all
in any of it.”

Ivy raised her eyebrows and looked at
Celeste. “It’s nice she’s taken so enthusiastically to the
suggestion.” Her eyes shifted to Krettis. “Let me begin by saying
that no one who sees the crystal lakes, frost-dusted forests, and
majestic mountains of my home would ever for a moment suggest that
the sights are not worth seeing. And those huddled people have
scratched out a life for themselves in conditions that those of you
in the warm, bountiful south could hardly imagine. We are iron
hard, all of us. As for the D’Karon, I will gladly tell you of
their treachery. I’ll tell you of the cage they kept me in, the
experiments they subjected me to. I’ll tell you of the way they
hoped to turn me against those who were destined to be my friends.
They took our healers and sent them to die at the front so that
those left behind would wither and weaken. You believe that we will
not show you things of the D’Karon? Look around you! The ruin of
this capital? That is their doing. My body, the whole of the war.
The stories I can tell you, Krettis. You’ll learn
plenty.”
She huffed a breath. “Care to read that back to us, Marraata?”

The aide scratched down a few final words.
“‘Ambassador Krettis praised the landscape and expressed interest
in the many sites described. Ambassador Ivy agreed to answer many
questions and spoke highly of her own people and those of Tressor,
noting the southern land’s bounty.’”

Ivy grinned. “This is going to work out just
fine…”

#

Myranda and Deacon loaded the last of their
bags into the carriages used by the rest of the delegation. In the
interest of lessening the load for Myn, they would be carrying only
the essentials. They kept one shoulder satchel each, as well as
Myranda’s staff. Grustim had a word with Valaamus, then approached
the edge of the lake. He knelt to fill his water skin at the
water’s edge, dictating over his shoulder to Myranda and the
others.

“To reach our destination will take no less
than six days,” he said. “Garr will set the pace. Follow closely.
We shall fly near the clouds. Dragon Riders over the heart of
Tressor are a rare sight, particularly in pairs, but nothing the
people will fret about. You will go nowhere without me as an
escort. You will enter no place without my permission, interact
with no one without my knowledge. To most of our land you are still
the enemy. Your dragon and your items of wizardry are weapons of
war. No diplomatic parties have been sent ahead to prepare the
people. There will be no warm welcomes.”

“Understood,” Myranda said. “Let us be on our
way.”

“One moment,” Deacon said, scribbling
something in one of his pads.

“What are you up to?” Myranda asked.

“It strikes me that while we’ve been
forbidden active spells to aid our search, perhaps
passive
magic would be acceptable. Simply opening our minds to the signs
left by D’Karon magic. I’ve passed the question to Valaamus,” he
said, stowing the book again.

“Will he understand the question?”

“His mystics seem capable. They will
understand,” he said. “I apologize for the delay. When you are
ready.”

Grustim nodded once, mounted Garr, and pushed
his helmet into place. Myranda and Deacon climbed onto Myn’s back
as the Tresson dragon and Rider began to strut forward.

Myranda was no stranger to soldiers and
military discipline. There was undeniably something different about
how a soldier moved. The same could even be said for warhorses, but
until now Myranda had never seen a war dragon take to the sky. The
training was apparent from the first glance. Garr moved with
sharpness and precision. He had an economy of motion that could
only have been the result of endless repetition. He brought himself
to speed with short, swift steps. His wings snapped open and caught
the wind. Two crisp flaps were all it took to get the creature
airborne, and from there a long, slow flap began the rhythm that
would pull him skyward.