"Oreg knows what he's doing, Rosem," said Tisala patiently for the third or fourth time. "Trust him."
"Do I have a choice?" he said finally. The edge of desperation clung to his tones.
"No," said Duraugh. "But Hurogs pay their debts."
"The Hurogmeten got himself out," replied Rosem.
Duraugh shrugged. "Maybe so, but you risked a lot to help us—we can do no less."
The atmosphere of Menogue after dark didn't help, I thought. If we'd been back at camp with the men, the familiar noise and bustle would have drowned out Rosem's realization that he was standing on a place reputed to be haunted. No good Tallven would have been caught dead on Menogue after dark—unless he was awaiting the rescue of his liege lord by a pack of wild-eyed Northmen.
It affected everyone. Duraugh had been careful to lean up against a tree so that nothing could sneak up behind him. Tosten stared off into the darkness of the woods as if he expected to see something there. Tisala played with the hilt of her sword.
I closed my eyes and took up a more comfortable perch on the waist-high boulder I'd found to sit on. If something out there meant harm to us, the Tamerlain who was curled up, unseen, behind me would give warning.
A wind came suddenly out of nowhere, strong enough to make the aspen saplings clatter together. Tosten half drew his sword and turned to face the wind, but when I put my hand on his elbow, he slid the blade back into its sheath.
"It's Oreg," I said. If Rosem thought the wind was magic—well, dragon wings are magic, too.
The wind died abruptly and Oreg walked out of the trees in human form. "Ward, you have to come with me."
He could have meant a dozen different places, a meadow where he'd brought Kellen or drawn up a spell he needed me to help power, but my gorge rose in my throat because I knew. He wanted me to come to the Asylum.
After so long in his cell, Kellen was unlikely to trust strangers. He needed to see someone he knew.
Rosem would have done—but that would have meant trusting him with Hurog's secret. And I wasn't ready for the world to realize that there were dragons still.
Tisala could do it, but I needed to face my fears.
"Very well," I said, hoping my voice didn't tremble.
"Where are you going?" asked Rosem, sharp distrust raising his voice half an octave.
"To help Oreg," I said, and strode after Oreg into the trees.
When we'd covered a sufficient distance to hide what we did, Oreg transformed himself into the dragon. The darkness hid him, but even in my fear I felt the familiar sense of awe that a creature so beautiful still walked the earth.
"Up," he whispered like the rustling of the yellow and red leaves of the autumn trees.
I had only ridden dragon-back twice before. It seemed a highly personal thing, so I never asked, only went when he offered. With the adrenaline of the knowledge of where we were going adding to the excitement of such a ride, I was afraid I was going to be sick.
I set my hand against Oreg's cool and surprisingly soft neck scales and swarmed up his shoulder, carefully avoiding the delicate skin of his wings. After I'd settled into the narrow grove between neck and wing, Oreg gathered himself and launched into the air.
I'd never flown at night, and the yawning darkness below worried me more than seeing tiny dots of buildings and patchworked fields had. There was something unsettling about darkness, and I was glad when we reached the city.
The first time Oreg'd taken me flying, I'd asked him about someone seeing us. He'd said that no one sees a dragon unless the dragon wants to be seen. The guards at the city gates didn't look up as we flew above them.
Estian glowed with a thousand torches as we approached. Seen from above, the confusing twists of the main streets spiraling away from the palace took on a pattern. I could see where streets had been closed off in ages past or new ones opened, but the original layout of the streets had circled a place not far from the current castle where there was an open market now.
I could see the low stone walls of the market, where children perched to eat their meat pies or baked apples in the daytime. From above the pattern of the walls looked like a three-towered keep, and I wondered how long ago it had been brought down.
Oreg swooped suddenly and brought us to ground just behind the Asylum in a small park that belonged to a wealthy merchant's house. I slipped off his back and he regained his own form.
"I'll have to transport us in," he said.
I nodded. He stepped behind me and put his hands on my shoulders. Hurog magic, dragon magic flooded me and blocked my senses from everything but its presence. When I could see again, we were in a cell in the Asylum. The smell of the place raised the hair on the back of my neck, so I concentrated on other things.
A cold crystal magelight hung suspended from the ceiling, too far away for the cell's occupant to reach it and cover the light to give himself some privacy. Guards could look through the slit in the door at any time and see the whole small cell. Abruptly I recalled that the laboratory had been lit the same way.
"Ward?" said Kellen, seated on the bench.
I turned away from the door and dropped to my knee. Oreg, I noticed, remained standing. "My lord."
Kellen came to his feet and strode over to me. I bit my lip to keep from voicing my dismay—I've seen healthier people die from starvation.
"So they did get you out."
I could hear nothing in his voice, but I wondered how it would feel to be caged for a decade and then released. A man who'd been a prisoner for so long would know how to hide fear very well, but that didn't mean he didn't feel it.
"Yes, my lord. And we have come here to free you as we should have a long time ago."
He waved away my apologies and began to pace, muttering to himself. Each moment brought the chances of drawing the attention of the guard, but I said nothing.
Finally he turned to Oreg and said, "From what Rosem told me, you must be the wizard Oreg. Can you destroy this board?" He waved his hand to the board that served him as a bench—and a gameboard. "I don't want to leave it behind."
Oreg nodded and walked over to the bench. With his knife he cut a sliver of wood and held it in his hand. He closed his fist and then wiped the dust out of his palm while the bench crumbled into a dark gray mulch.
Kellen stared at the mess as if the crude board had meant a lot to him. His breathing was heavy and I could see the pulse pounded in his throat. "I'm ready."
"I can't take you the way we came in," said Oreg. "Transporting people is nigh impossible if the person I'm carrying doesn't trust me."
"So what do you suggest?" I asked, rising to my feet since Kellen wasn't paying attention to me anymore.
"Flying." Oreg waved an arm at the stone wall between us and the outside. I could feel him draw on the fear that the Asylum's captives had impregnated in the walls. Oreg took the wordless desire of every prisoner and gave it form as the wall popped and the great stones fell to the ground below.
It was a good thing Kellen's cell was on the highest floor, I thought, looking over the edge to the ground below, otherwise Oreg might have collapsed the whole building.
The hole in the wall was more than large enough for a dragon, though Oreg had had to take out the wall next to us as well. Either the other cell was empty or its occupant had been crushed by falling stone. I gave it a closer look and felt relieved that there was no straw on the floor.
I turned back to say something to Kellen, but he was crouched in a corner as far from the broken wall as he could get. I looked at Oreg, but he shook his head and gestured for me.
My old stable master had never liked keeping horses in stalls for longer than a day or two. He told me once of a horse he'd seen who'd been kept in its stall from the moment it was born until it was ready to be trained for riding. It had taken four men to drag the horse out of its stall.