“Thus I was content to watch and observe... or so I thought.
“On one of the warmest of the midsummer days, I was startled by a large winged shadow that flickered past. Of course, at first I though it was a blue dragon attack, and I lunged backward into the cave.
“Only then did I look up, and imagine my surprise at the sight of another green dragon, a splendid female! She was not as large as I, and she banked and came to rest on the ledge with a willingness that I found strangely enticing.
“‘Greetings, O strange clan dragon,’ she said, politely dipping her neck. ‘I am called Toxyria, and I am happy to find you here along a coast I thought had been abandoned by our kind.’
“‘Greetings, Beautiful Toxyria,’ I returned, and I explained that I had lived there for but a single winter. ‘And is your lair along here?’ I asked.
“‘A half day’s flight to the south,’ she explained, purring at my flattery. ‘And do you live here with your mate?’ she inquired demurely.
“I admit that in my delight I huffed a plume of green mist from my nostrils, and Toxyria inhaled the gas with obvious relish. ‘I have no mate,’ I explained. ‘I have flown here alone, from a forest a thousand miles and more away.’
“‘There is a plentitude of edibles in these seas,’ she noted, which I interpreted to mean that she did not regard me as unfriendly competition for the local food supply. ‘You will find that the winters are mild, for the sea is warmed by a northern current—that is, if you decide to stay.’ She looked at me with an expression I can only describe as hopeful.
“‘I have never found better hunting, nor a finer cave,’ I said. ‘All that was missing was the companionship of my clan... and perhaps that lack may have been very recently addressed?’
“She moved into my lair the next day, bringing the few baubles of her treasures that she deemed worth saving. I confess that I was embarrassed about my own poor hoard, but I explained the lack by reason of my recent arrival, and Toxy proved quite understanding. In fact, I wondered if she had purposely left many of her treasures behind out of a wish to spare me humiliation. Her tender actions gave me a powerful resolve to plunder sailing ships, perhaps even raid a few castles on distant Ergoth, in order to quickly establish a trove that would make her proud.”
The dragon’s voice turned melancholy, and his expression was far away as he stared toward the twilit entrance to the cave.
“She came here?” Silvanoshei pressed. “Then where is sh—?”
He stopped as Samar put a hand on his arm. The young elf looked annoyed for a moment, but he didn’t press the question.
“That detail, I suspect, our friend will get to in good time...”
Chapter Seventeen
The Truth About Treachery
The crushed mint was sweet, hot, and biting on his tongue as Gilthas bit down on the vial of powder. As Samar had instructed, he tried to envision his destination. Magic surrounded him, and for a dizzying second, he thought he was dying. He had no sense of focus, of place... nothing surrounded him, and he couldn’t picture that any solidity awaited him.
And in the next instant, that crazed sensation passed, and he was staggering, trying to regain his balance as he felt a floor underfoot, saw walls come into view around him. He lurched two steps to the side before he felt his footing level out, and then he stood still, blinking, holding his arms out to the sides as the sense of motion slowly receded.
He was standing within his own study, in the Speaker’s House beside the Tower of the Sun. True to Samar’s word, the magic had returned him to Qualinost. A look out the window showed that it was still the dark of night, so Gilthas assumed that the other part of the warrior-mage’s statements were true, that virtually no time had passed while he was teleporting.
Still dazed, Gilthas reconstructed the magical journey, the hundreds of miles traveled in the blink of an eye. The warrior-mage had told him to carefully visualize his destination, and so he had chosen this room, the place he was most familiar with in all the city.
He thought with a pang about Kerianseray, who would be returning to Qualinost on the back of a griffon. Irrationally he feared for her because she had to travel alone, though when he paused to think about it, he knew that his presence had been more a liability than an asset when it came to safety.
But finally his agitation began to settle, and he started to focus his thoughts, knowing that he had work to do. He needed to find Guilderhand and... His mind balked at the implications of impending violence, but he realized immediately that he needed a weapon.
He immediately went into the formal receiving room, automatically chanting the magic word that brought the crystal chandeliers into blazing prominence. There, arrayed on the stone wall above the massive fireplace, were the weapons of elven heroes—several long swords, a pair of crossed arrows, and an odd collection including a scimitar, long-hafted halberds, and even a wicked and obviously very heavy battle-axe.
The long sword being the traditional weapon of the elven warrior, Gilthas automatically went to the smallest of those, lifting down the keen weapon, surprised by its weight. He touched a thumb to the blade and winced at the drop of blood that quickly welled from his skin. Clearly the weapon was sharp enough to kill. He tested the balance of the sword, wielding it back and forth in front of him, trying without success to imagine what it would feel like to plunge that steel tip into flesh.
But how would he carry it? Or conceal it, for that matter? It was not like the Speaker of the Sun to go armed about the city.
His first question was answered when he found an assortment of scabbards in a nearby closet. One of these easily fit the sword, and though it took him several minutes, he finally figured out how to suspend the weapon from his belt. As to his second worry, he decided to bluff it out. If anyone questioned him, he would haughtily reply that the Speaker of the Sun would carry whatever he damn well pleased when he went about the city. Somehow the grim determination evoked by his words gave him confidence as he stalked through the quiet house and carefully opened the front door to step into the stifling air of the night.
Only then did he remember the Dark Knight guards who had so diligently patrolled the nighttime streets of Qualinost. He knew that his arrogant declaration would carry very little weight with these humans who had seen the elves surrender like whipped puppies even before a blade had been drawn in anger. There was no alternative. He would have to evade the patrols and hope that, on his own, he could be as successful as Kerian had been proven herself to be.
And how would he find Guilderhand? Would the spy teleport himself directly to Rashas? If so, then of course Gilthas would already be too late—unless for some reason the senator had not been where the spy expected to find him.
It was a hope, and the only one Gilthas could arrive at. He trotted down the winding path to the street and then paused to look up and down, trying to spot the patrols that had been so frequent around the Tower of the Sun. Already he was sweating, though he forced himself to breathe quietly, not wanting to make any undue noise. Surprisingly, there were none of the Dark Knights in sight. He didn’t waste time wondering where they were; instead, he darted along the shadows beside the road, hurrying to the nearest corner, where he ducked into a side lane.
Here the path was much darker than the main street, but he still tried to move quietly, loping along and holding the sword, which he quickly realized had a tendency to jangle. He dashed around another corner, trying to remember the street leading to Rashas’s elegant manor. It should be familiar, he thought wryly. It had been the first place he had visited in Qualinost when he had ridden into town all wide-eyed and gawking, never even suspecting why he had been brought here or that he would soon be the senator’s prisoner.