“You’re offering to help me,” said Murtagh, wary.
Her eyelids lowered until they were half closed, and she nestled in on herself, as if to brace against inclement wind. “I am.”
“In exchange for what?”
She blinked. “The smallest of favors.”
In an instant, things became clear to Murtagh. A cynical laugh escaped him. “Of course. And what is this smallest of favors?”
The werecat lifted her pointed chin, defiant. “A task that needs doing, and none there are in Gil’ead who can do it, save you.”
“Somehow I doubt that.” He frowned at her; she was trying to manipulate him. “I’m not your errand boy, cat. No one gets to order me about. Not you, not Relgin, not even Nasuada.”
“I would not think to tell a Dragon Rider what to do. This is an offer, not a command.”
Murtagh growled and ran his fingers through his hair. “And what is it you need doing?”
“You will agree to it?”
“That depends on the nature of the task and whether or not you have the answers I seek.”
With a seemingly uninterested air, Carabel licked a fleck of blood off the middle finger of her left hand. “That is hardly fair, human. What if I must confer with Ilenna? Shall I hunt for you out of nothing but the goodness of my heart while I await your agreement?”
“Shall I help you out of nothing but the goodness of my own?”
Carabel flexed her fingers, as if to extend and retract claws. “Trust is a sword with a blade for a hilt. It cuts all equally.”
“That is far from a convincing, or comforting, argument.”
“For a human.”
“Human I am.”
She gave him a flat, humorless stare. “I have not told Lord Relgin of your presence here. Is that not enough reason to trust me?”
Despite the werecat’s seemingly relaxed pose, Murtagh saw hints of coiled tension throughout her body. Something’s seriously amiss, or she wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.
He lifted the staff a few inches and let it rap against the floor. Once. Twice. Three times. He decided. The cat was right; he wouldn’t be able to talk with Ilenna without attracting attention. Regardless of the favor Carabel had in mind, he might learn something by putting his questions to her. Even if she knew nothing helpful, that itself was a useful piece of information. And in any case, it could be prudent to forewarn Carabel and, by extension, Lord Relgin about the strange doings in the land.
“It’s not,” said Murtagh, “but let us both cut ourselves.” From inside his cloak, he removed the bird-skull amulet and the stone with the inner shine and placed them on the desk.
A sulfurous smell began to taint the air.
Carabel hissed and scooted backward on her velvet cushion, her spine arched as if she were about to spring into the air. Her grey hair nearly stood on end. “Where did you find those thingsss?”
Once again, Murtagh had the disconcerting realization that he wasn’t talking with another human, but something entirely different. “Ceunon. I took them off a rather disreputable trader by the name of Sarros.”
Carabel extended a clawed hand and touched the tip of her index nail to the amulet. She snatched her hand back as if burned, and then shivered and straightened, again assuming a dignified air. It was a false front; Murtagh could see that the werecat was shaken, and that likewise disturbed him. Werecats were many things, but cowards they were not.
“Tell the full tale, human, and leave nothing out.”
He didn’t do as she asked. Not entirely. There were some secrets he didn’t feel like sharing, such as his use of the Name of Names. (Even if the werecats were aware the Name existed, he saw no advantage in revealing that he knew the word.) But aside from that, he told the truth.
As he talked, Murtagh was conscious of Bertolf listening behind him. He hoped the man was more discreet than the page.
The crackling of the fire was the only sound in the room when he finished.
Carabel stretched and shivered, and Murtagh noticed for the first time that her feet were bare. “Sssah. You ask questions you may not want answering, human.”
“Then you know where to find the witch-woman Bachel?”
“Yesss.”
“And the origin of the stone? And also the Dreamers that Sarros mentioned?”
Her lips retracted, showing more of her pointed teeth. “Yes and yesss.”
“And you will tell me?”
Carabel’s gaze went to the map over the fireplace before returning to the coal-like stone. “If you will complete the task I set before you…yes.”
“What guarantee have I that you actually possess the information I seek? Tell me first.”
Her tufted ears pressed flat against the sides of her head. “After, human. After. We must both grasp the sword.”
Murtagh still wasn’t convinced. “Maybe I should talk to Ilenna instead. I’m sure I could find a way to approach her unseen.”
An unpleasant scraping filled the study as Carabel drew her nails across the surface of the desk, leaving thin lines in the wood. “You would be disappointed, human. She has no knowledge of these things. I swear it.”
“But you do.”
“Yesss.”
He tapped the butt of the staff against the floor. “And how is that?”
“Because I am a cat, human. I hear many things, and I know more. I hunt in shadows, and I dance in moonbeams, and wherever I walk, I walk alone.”
Nonsense and riddles, but what else had he expected? “What is the task?”
A tense stillness settled upon Carabel, and her eyes flared with dark anger. She looked ready to fight or spring after her prey. “Over the past six moons, three of our younglings have been taken in Gil’ead. One of them was later found lost along the shore of the lake with no memory of how he got there. The others have never been seen again. Most recently, another youngling was seized, not three days past.”
A sympathetic anger formed in Murtagh. “Seized by whom?”
“Men. Humans. But I cannot say why.”
“And you want me to find the ones responsible?”
Carabel shook her head. “No. I want you to find the youngling who was taken. All of the younglings, if possible, but I fear only the one may yet be saved. Silna is her name. We tracked her through the city—a werecat’s nose is hard to fool—and we know where she might be.”
“But you can’t get to her.”
The werecat blinked. Her lashes were as long and fine as the silk atop summer grass. “There is a certain captain of the city guard. Captain Wren. In the barracks he has command over, there is a set of stairs that lead underground to a room where he and his officers meet once every sevenday. Past that room are certain other chambers, and at the end of them is a door that never opens. We suspect Silna might be found therein.”
Murtagh frowned. A captain of the city guard…The implications were unpleasant. “Do you think this Captain Wren is responsible for taking Silna?”
“We do not know.”
“And just how many werecats are in Gil’ead?”
The tips of her ears twitched. “More than you might think, human.”
He let that pass. “Who else has access to those chambers?”
“Again, we do not know. There may be an entrance from the other side, some secret tunnel we have yet to discover.”
His frown deepened. “Have you spoken to Lord Relgin about this? I assume not.”
Carabel let out a sharp breath. “We are werecats, but still, at heart, we are cats. We are the ones who walk through doors. Always and ever. But we cannot walk through the door beneath the barracks, which means there is magic at work, and none there are in Relgin’s service fit to deal with such things. It is a task for a Rider. Besides…there is always a chance that Wren or someone in his command was given orders from above.”