Vaan and Kula looked at each other uncomfortably.
“Blue-white, almost silver,” Kula said crossly.
“So it was.” Cayce nodded. “But I asked him.”
Vaan merely smiled the same helpless smile and shook his head.
Cayce turned to Captain Hask, hooking her thumb back at Vaan. “He’s enchanted,” she said. “He can’t tell us about the dragon he wants us to kill. He can’t even describe it to us after we’ve all seen it. Think about it. Has he ever said anything concrete to any of us about our quarry?”
Some of the soldiers flickered their eyes toward Captain Hask, and one even coughed, but no one disagreed with her, so Cayce went on.
“That’s why he’s so quiet all the time, and why she says so much about his job. For all we know, he works for the dragon and it’s his job to lure mice like us into his master’s hunting ground.”
“No,” Vaan said. His face was flushed, and his eyes were wet with rage.
“I can vouch for Vaan,” Kula said. “He has told the truth: He is enslaved, and he wants the dragon dead. I would know if he were lying to me.”
“So you say, but aren’t pixies expert liars? Steeped in illusion and glamour? How would we know if he fooled you? Assuming you’re not in on it.” Cayce soon regretted this last part as Kula turned her angry eyes on the poisoner’s apprentice.
“This is no trick,” the anchorite said. “Was it pretense when the dragon destroyed your garrison, Captain Hask? Did lies or sleight of hand destroy the farmers on that bridge? The beast we saw tonight is the same one that attacked your fortress, Captain, the same one that enslaved Vaan’s tribe. It is the same one that’s been upsetting the natural balance all the way from here to the far edge of my forest. Vaan sought out those of us who have the motivation and the skills necessary to kill this dragon. There will be great danger, but that is no secret. It’s also why you and your leering master are being so well paid.”
Kula stepped forward, looking past Cayce to Rus. “Is that what this is about? Are you sending in your underling to renegotiate the terms of our agreement?”
Rus started as if Kula’s call had woken him from a deep sleep. Slowly, he stretched and yawned, displaying his cape’s purple lining in its glorious entirety.
“Sorry, what?” he said. “I was lost in thought. Has my apprentice been speaking out of turn again?”
Kula glanced back at the apprentice. “She has.”
“Oh, dear. Did she say anything of substance?”
Cayce held her tongue as her face reddened. Rus was a worm, but surely even he wouldn’t just set her up then abandon her like this.
Kula’s eyes narrowed, and she looked from Rus, to Cayce, to Hask, to Vaan. The pixie lowered his face, and Kula nodded. “She raised an issue that bears addressing. Vaan is, in fact, under a geas. He is magically prohibited from betraying any of the dragon’s secrets. He can say nothing that would cause his master to be harmed.”
Rus showed exaggerated interest. “Is he, now? How fascinating. How’s that work, then?”
Kula spared one final glare for Cayce before she answered. “The dragon we hunt can exert powerful influence over the minds of sentient beings. Vaan is free to go where he likes when his master doesn’t need him, but he can not speak freely of the dragon. Not its nature, not its weaknesses.” Kula turned and sneered at Cayce. “Not even its color.”
Rus rolled his cane back and forth across his hand. “And you didn’t think this was worth mentioning to the hunters you’d assembled? You don’t think someone who cannot tell all he knows might have omitted something crucial to our understanding of the stakes? Crucial to our survival?”
“I want him dead,” Vaan said. As he spoke, his four transparent wings extended from his back and began to beat. The pixie floated off the ground until he was hovering several feet over the group. “It took me almost a full year to get around the geas and enlist Kula’s aid, and only then because. she is so intuitive. I did not create this threat. I did not lure you here to be his victims. I did not assemble you for any reason but those Kula voiced on my behalf.”
Captain Hask stepped forward, between Kula and Cayce. “None of this is important,” he said. “The brute we saw tonight is the one that killed most of my men. I mean to destroy it in its lair or die trying.” The officer turned his dead eyes up to Vaan. “Do you know where that dragon nests?”
Vaan shrugged, and Hask said, “I’ll take that silence as a yes.” He turned to Kula and said, “Can you lead us there?”
“I can, and I will. There is nothing I want more than to confront and defeat this abomination.”
“Then I submit”—Hask’s glower went back and forth from Cayce to her master—“that its color is immaterial. As is its name, its place of origin, and who can speak freely about it.
“We know what it is. We have seen it in battle. We have all come to kill it. Let’s find the damned thing and get on with our work.”
Rus paused, stroked his chin, then nodded. “I suppose I must agree. This new information doesn’t really change things that much. Stand back and be silent, my apprentice. When Rus agrees to terms, he sticks to them until the job is done.”
Rus’s eyes locked on Cayce’s from behind his curtain of golden yarn. If Rus’s furtive expression wasn’t enough to alert her, the colossal lie about never changing a contract’s terms would have done the trick. She knew her master was too experienced and too professional to wink, but she recognized his need for her to let this matter drop.
Kula crouched back down over her map in the dirt and said, “We’ll reach the edge of its lair just after dawn. The tunnel will lead us all the way to the mountain’s interior. We’ll wait for the light here, just outside its sense of smell. When the sun burns off the morning fog, we’ll go forward in stages, as agreed.” She raised her head and locked eyes with Cayce. “And we are still agreed, aren’t we? Poisoners?”
“Agreed,” Rus called airily.
Cayce bowed her head and stared at Kula’s map on the ground.
“Agreed,” she said.
Cayce shuddered under the prodding hand of her master. Rus shook her shoulder, drawing her from the deep morass of sleep.
“Come on,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
“Mmm?” Cayce struggled to fully open her eyes. How had she fallen asleep? The last thing she remembered was waiting in the thick brush, just a ridgeline away from a clear view of the dragon’s cave.
Rus’s thick index finger flicked across Cayce’s nose. “Faster than that,” he said. His voice was soft and low, just above a whisper. “Let’s get what I came for and leave these heroes to their noble work.”
Her nose stinging, Cayce rubbed her eyes and swallowed a yawn. “What?”
“What, Master.”
“What… Master?”
Rus pulled Cayce to her knees and helped her keep her balance when she swayed and almost toppled.
“I was right about pixies,” he said. “Never work with ’em. This is a fool’s errand, and we’re leaving.”
Cayce’s mind began to clear. She noticed a strong sent of camphor mixed with ammonia in the air around them and the clean, sharp scent of mint from her master’s hand.
“But the job?” she managed.
“Stuff the job,” Rus said. “If they all get killed, we’ll be famous as the only survivors. If they kill the dragon, we can claim to have been a part of it. There’s no need to actually get involved.”