Faithfully, she reported every shield found, and every shield broken, although Snowstar was reportedly growing worried that she was nearing the end of her strength.
But time was growing short as well. The Eclipse Ceremony would take place beginning at dawn and ending later tomorrow. Everyone intending to take part in the Ceremony—which was everyone except Zhaneel and Amberdrake—was supposed to meet with the Haighlei priests for a special cleansing that would take until sunrise. Amberdrake was excused by dint of his insanity, and “Hawkwind” because “he” was supposed to be guarding Amberdrake. The servants were due at any moment to come and fetch them all.
There was a knock at the door in the next room. Gesten went to answer it, coming back with the expected result.
“They’re here,” he said in a toneless voice. “We’d better get going.”
Judeth rose from her seat, and the rest stood up with her. “If we’re going to have any hope of pulling our tails out of this fire, we have to play along with this,” she said, for at least the twentieth time.
Amberdrake nodded, deciding not to answer because as short as his temper was, he was likely to snap at her. She waited for a few moments, then taking the nod and the silence as her orders, ushered everyone else out, including Gesten. Only Makke remained behind to watch the children. Winterhart was the last to go, casting an anxious glance back at him.
He sensed that she wanted to say something—like “don’t do anything stupid while we’re gone”—but she wisely kept her own thoughts behind her lips. He smiled at her, and mimed a kiss. She did the same.
Then they were all gone. The silence in the suite was enough to make him shake his head with the feeling that he must somehow have gone deaf.
“Well?” he asked finally, just to hear something, even if it was his own voice.
Zhaneel raised her weary head from her foreclaws; she hadn’t slept in all this time, and she looked it. “She has found another shield, and she is working on it. This one tastes magical in nature.”
He frowned, rubbing his weary, aching eyes. That was odd. That was distinctly odd. The chief effect of every mage-storm so far had been to destabilize or knock down shields, so this one would have to have been put up since the last storm.
And to put up a magical shield right now would take an enormous amount of power. Why bother, especially here?
Unless whoever was beneath that shield had something to hide from the priests. . . .
Like more magic? Like—blood-magic?
He had hoped so many times, and had his hopes dashed, that he was afraid to hope this time. And yet—and yet this time all the parameters fit, all of them, and not just some of them.
He waited, and Zhaneel waited, as the water-clock dripped toward three.
Zhaneel suddenly jumped to her feet, uttering a cry that made his ears ring and every hair on his head stand straight up.
“Drake!” she shouted as his heart lurched into a gallop. “Drake, she found him! He is alive!”
Alive, but not necessarily well . . . according to Zhaneel, Skan was trussed up like a bird for the spit, had been cut on a bit, and had not eaten or drunk since his capture. With his high energy needs, he was not in very good shape at the moment, and he was light-headed with exhaustion. Getting details from a tipsy gryphon through a gryphon with the mind of a child to a gryphon who was giddy with lack of sleep was a lesson in patience.
“Little Kechara is worried about her Papa Skan. I can feel it. She hasn’t yet admitted to herself that Skandranon’s in trouble, but she can tell something isn’t quite right. Skan’s been trying to soothe her, but he isn’t in very good shape, Drake.”
“All right, I want every single detail that she can get from him,” Amberdrake said wearily. “I want her to describe everything he’s hearing, smelling, and seeing. If he’s anywhere in the Palace complex, I might be able to identify the place. The gods know I’ve walked over every inch of it, looking for clues.”
Zhaneel nodded, her eyes closed. “There is the smell of peppers, and of night-trumpet,” she said, slowly. “The stone of the wall is a pale yellow, and—it is marble.” She lapsed back into silence for a moment. “She looks in his memory, and there are fine furnishings, like the ones in our rooms.”
“Could be anywhere,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “Could even be out in the city. Damn!”
“Sounds, though. There is no sound of people or traffic, and there are always those sounds in the city,” she said, and his heart rose a little. If Skan was somewhere, anywhere, within the complex, it would make things much easier.
“The sound of falling water,” Zhaneel continued. “And windchimes, wooden ones. Oh, there are night-singers, nearby, perhaps in a garden!”
That narrowed it down a little, to one of the less-desirable, older sections of the complex. Night-singers, which were a type of singing insect, had fallen out of favor a century or so ago, but no one had bothered to eradicate them from the gardens of those who themselves were not particularly in favor. The fashion now was for birds that sang at night, or no singers at all—or, more accurately, the fashion three generations ago was thus, and nothing had changed.
“Anything else?” he asked, in desperation, as his back and neck clenched with tension. She spasmed her talons in her pillows, her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“No—yes!” she said, and her eyes flew open. “There is a sentry, calling the hour, within hearing distance of the room!”
He leaped to his feet, every nerve alive with excitement, his heart racing again. There was only one place where one could hear the hours called as sentries made their rounds, and that was near the outer walls of the huge complex. And because most people did not care to have their sleep disturbed, there was only one building near enough to the walls to hear that—
“He’s in the Hall of Fragrant Joy!” Amberdrake said, fiercely. “He has to be!” He thought quickly. “Zhaneel, try to get the priests to let you in to the others. I’ll go after him now, while we still have a chance of getting to him before they really hurt him.”
“You?” she said incredulously. “You? You are not a fighter! How could you—”
I will not think about this, or I will not have the courage.
“Zhaneel, it is a moonless night and you know you don’t fly well at night! Skan has enhanced night-vision, but you don’t, and if you can’t see to fly, you’d have to walk. That puts you on the ground, where you are terribly vulnerable, and that’s in the open. Inside—well, I may not be a fighter, but the hallways in that old section of the Palace are narrow, and you would hardly be able to move, much less fight!” He took her head between his hands and looked deeply into her eyes. “And I do not intend to fight! I intend to slip in, find him, turn him loose, and get out of there! If I go now, I can probably manage so that no one notices me. You couldn’t be inconspicuous no matter how hard you try.”