“Your Grace, there’s been word about the king.”
Amaury frowned and looked about for somewhere they could speak without being overheard. He beckoned for the messenger to follow him into his office, and closed the door behind him.
The messenger handed Amaury a note. He unfolded it and read. The king had recovered from his injuries and was in full control of his faculties. When this report had been written, Boudain was preparing for a battle against his cousins. That fight was probably over by now; hopefully he would soon receive word of it.
Amaury nodded slowly. If magic could cause the damage, there was no reason that magic couldn’t undo it. Now that Solène was set against him, Amaury had suspected something like this might come to pass.
“You know what this message contains?” he said.
The messenger nodded. “I was told of the events it refers to.”
Amaury nodded. “The king is in league with a very powerful sorceress. Exactly the type of person the Order and I have sought to stop from becoming too powerful. In a word, she has bewitched the king, but I fear the people aren’t ready to hear such disconcerting news. Do you understand?” Amaury placed a hand on the aide’s shoulder in an effort to add sincerity to his words. “You’re privy to some very sensitive information. News will reach the city soon enough, but until then, I’d appreciate it if you’d keep this, and news of the sorceress, quiet. I hope to have the problem addressed before it becomes serious.”
“Of course, your Grace,” the messenger said, delight at being taken into the Prince Bishop’s confidence evident on his face.
“Good lad,” Amaury said. “Now, I’m sure you’ve plenty of important work to be doing.”
The messenger nodded, smiled, and went on his way. Amaury watched him go, and wondered how long it would take him to reveal the secret that had just been shared with him. An hour? Two? By sundown it would be out, and would spread like wildfire, as the salacious rumours always did. Exactly as Amaury wanted it to.
CHAPTER 31
“How did you get these?” Gill said, looking over his Telastrian swords—the Competition winner’s blade; the Sword of Honour, for graduating top of his class at the Academy; and, finally, the Blade of the Morning Mist, the old family sword that he had recently learned had once belonged to Valdamar, the famed dragon hunter and member of the Chevaliers of the Silver Circle.
“It wasn’t so difficult to convince the innkeeper to give me the items he was holding for you.”
Gill didn’t like the idea that magic could be used to persuade people to do what you wanted, and wondered if you’d be able to tell it was being done to you. He cast Solène a sideways glance. You really did need to trust the good faith of people who could do magic. It was an unsettling thought.
He checked over his armour, which Pharadon had also returned to him. Like the Blade of the Morning Mist, it too was made of Telastrian steel and had once belonged to Valdamar. Though Gill and the legendary hero had apparently been similar in size and shape, the armour had pinched somewhat at first. Now it felt as though it had been made for him, perhaps because of the magical metal’s special properties.
“Time is something of an issue,” Pharadon said, pulling Gill back into the now.
“You’re going to have to tell me more about what you need us to do. You can’t expect Solène and me to rush into something without any idea of what we’re going to have to deal with.”
“I found more Cups,” Pharadon said.
Solène looked about nervously. “Best to keep that quiet,” she said. “Perhaps they’re best left where they are. Lost and forgotten.”
Pharadon shook his head. “They are the only way I have to enlighten the goldscale. She’s been brought to the city and placed in some sort of … menagerie. Time is running out.”
“How are you going to free her?” Solène said.
“I haven’t worked that out yet,” Pharadon said. “Enlightening her is the most pressing matter. If I manage that, I can worry about other matters.”
“Don’t you need to bring her to the temple to do that?” Solène said.
Pharadon shook his head. “I brought her to the Cup to get her away from the slayers, rather than bringing the Cup to her. With the Cup I can carry out the ceremony anywhere. Even a cage in the centre of Mirabay.”
“And these demons,” Gill said. “The Venori. What are they? Really?”
“They are as I said. Demons. They feed on the life energy of other creatures. My understanding was that they were destroyed in my youth, but it seems that the magic of the world has brought them back, just as it did me and the other dragons.”
“They’ve appeared in the same place the Cups were hidden?”
Pharadon shrugged again. “It’s possible the concentration of magical energy attracted them. It’s possible that it woke them. I really don’t know. The Venori are little more than stories to me, and to sense them was shocking.”
“Why do you need us? Can’t you incinerate them?”
“It’s not quite that easy,” Pharadon said.
He described what he had found, and Gill could see where the difficulty lay. He wasn’t at all enthusiastic about venturing into the shadowy bowels of a mountain, let alone a mountain filled with creatures that had given rise to human myths about demons. His life lately seemed to be about dealing with the worst creatures from childhood fairy tales. How had it come to this? At moments he wondered if he was dreaming it all—one of the wild and wicked dreams to be found at the bottom of a bottle of bad wine. He looked over at the mass grave that was still being filled, and he knew he was awake. No man dreamed of so much killing.
As unappealing as this task was, Gill owed Pharadon. Everyone, the king included, owed Pharadon, even if they didn’t realise it. The dragon had behaved honourably, had helped them rescue the king, then heal the king. Now it was time to repay that debt.
If the goldscale was caged in Mirabay, that was undoubtedly Amaury’s doing, and that was reason enough to interfere. Aside from Gill’s sense of obligation to Pharadon, he had an overriding sense of unanswered injustice in the way Amaury was treating the dragon, keeping it from its enlightened state.
“I’ll help,” Gill said. “I don’t speak for Solène, though.”
“Of course I’ll help,” Solène said. “I’m not sure what I can do, but I’ll help.”
“Thank you,” Pharadon said. “There isn’t much time, so we should get moving.”
“How far away is it? Will we get there and back in time?” Gill said.
Pharadon smiled. “It is quite far, but we will make it in plenty of time.”
“Let me tell the king I’m going to repay the debt he owes you, and I’ll be ready to leave,” Gill said.
Pharadon smiled. “Excellent. I hope you’re not afraid of heights.”
“Is that it?” the Prince Bishop said.
“Well, yes,” Ysabeau said. “So far, it is. But it’s quite a big development. We weren’t sure if it would ever wake. Now it’s opened its eyes. Who knows what will be next?”
“Has the enclosure been completed?”
“It has,” Ysabeau said. She didn’t add that the last of the welding had been completed only seconds before her father had arrived. All that mattered was that it was done, that every precaution anyone could come up with had been taken.
“You think it will hold?”
“Who knows,” Ysabeau said. “We’ve done everything we can. If we learn anything new, we can adapt as we go.”
“Good,” the Prince Bishop said. “I want to open to the public as soon as we can, so have your people clear up as quickly as possible.”