Kiggs turned incredulous eyes on me. "What is this?"
"She has a hunch. I trust it. Let"s give her a chance."
Kiggs grunted skeptically but followed. We arrived at the door to his beastly tower. Dame Okra rattled the handle, but it was locked. "Where does this go, and do you have a key, Prince?" asked Dame Okra.
"They wouldn"t be up there," he grumbled, but he fished for his key.
"How would they have gotten in?" I asked as the lock clicked.
"Glisselda has a key. It"s not impossible, but it"s not plausible either-" He stopped short. Hollow voices echoed down the spiral stair. "Saints" bones!"
Dame Okra made as if to stomp straight up the stairs, but Kiggs stopped her, staring upward intently. He put a finger to his lips and moved silently, a hand on the hilt of his sword; we followed his lead. The door at the top was slightly ajar, letting light and sound drift down toward us. We heard laughter and three ... no, four different voices. Kiggs motioned us to stay still.
"That"s plenty. Lovely," said a voice I took to be the Queen"s.
"Thank you!" chirped a voice that was clearly Glisselda"s. "Shouldn"t we wait for my mother and Cousin Lucian?"
A third voice made a m.u.f.fled reply, followed by the clink of gla.s.s upon gla.s.s as another wine goblet was filled.
Kiggs turned to us and counted down with his fingers: three, two, one ...
He threw the door open just as the Queen, Glisselda, and Lady Corongi toasted the new year with a gla.s.s of wine. Josef, Earl of Apsig, stood a little apart, the wine bottle in his hand.
"Oh, there you are, Lucian!" chirped Glisselda, who stood facing the door.
"Don"t!" cried Kiggs, lunging across the room toward his grandmother, who was the only person who"d put her gla.s.s all the way to her lips.
"I thought there might be a lovely view of the sunrise from up here," continued his cousin, registering his actions but slowly. Her face fell as Kiggs grabbed the gla.s.s from her hand. "What"s going on?"
"Someone poisoned your mother. Something in the wine. We shouldn"t trust this wine either: I suspect it"s from the same source. Your gla.s.s, please, Lady Corongi," said Kiggs. Lady Corongi handed over her gla.s.s, looking scandalized.
"I hope you"re wrong," said the Queen, sitting down shakily on a stool. She leaned her elbow against a nearby table covered with books and charts. "I fear I had a swallow of mine before you burst through that door."
"We need to get you to the physicians," said Dame Okra, a certainty in her voice that no one dared question. She helped the Queen to her feet and led her to the stair.
"Dr. Ficus is at the Ardmagar"s suite," Kiggs called after her, "but Dr. Johns should be-"
"I know where we"re going!" cried a cranky voice already halfway down.
"Selda, you didn"t drink a drop, I hope?" said Kiggs, turning to his cousin.
Selda leaned against the side of a bookcase as if she were dizzy, but said, "No. You burst in just in time. But what about you, Lady Corongi?"
The old woman shook her head curtly. Whatever poison may have been in the drink, it could not have compared with the poison she glared at the Earl of Apsig.
Josef had gone completely white. He handed the bottle to Kiggs and raised his hands as if in surrender. "Please," he said, "I know this looks bad-"
"I notice you haven"t poured yourself a gla.s.s, Earl Josef," said Kiggs lightly, setting the bottle on the worktable. "You"re not a saar, are you?"
"I am Samsamese!" sputtered Josef. "We do not partake of the devil"s ..." He trailed off, and then turned wide-eyed to Lady Corongi. "You were counting on that. What was your plan, witch? The Queen and princess drink, you pretend to drink, you all collapse, and when I run for the physicians, what? You steal away in secret? You leave me to take the fall for your crimes?"
"Are you accusing this n.o.ble lady of something, you monster?" cried Glisselda, putting a protective arm around the pet.i.te woman"s shoulders. "She has been my teacher for almost my entire life!"
The whites of Josef"s eyes shone; he looked unbalanced. His lips moved as if he were performing some dread calculus in his head; he ran both hands through his blond hair. "Prince," he croaked, "I can come up with nothing to persuade you. It is my word against hers."
"You gave my aunt a bottle of poisoned wine," said Kiggs. His earlier ire had turned to ice.
"I swear to you, I never suspected. Why would I question a gift her dear friend Lady Corongi told me to deliver?" He was flailing now, grasping for any argument he could. "You don"t know this wine here is poisoned-you a.s.sume so. What if it"s not?"
"I know you were in the cathedral the day Seraphina was stabbed," said Kiggs, absently rearranging objects on his worktable.
"I saw you talking to Thomas Broadwick," I said, folding my arms.
Josef shook his head vehemently. "I was delivering a message for the Sons of St. Ogdo. It was coded; I had no idea what it meant," he pleaded.
"Liar!" I cried.
"Ask her!" he shouted back, pointing toward Lady Corongi. "She"s the one who put me in touch with the Sons. She"s the one who supplies them with intelligence from the palace. She is the mother of all my troubles!"
"Nonsense," sniffed Lady Corongi, looking at his pointer finger as if it offended her more than anything he"d said. "Prince, I fail to see why you have not bound this miserable creature hand and foot already."
Josef opened his mouth to retort, but at that very moment a horrifying sound-"Thluu-thluu-thluuuu!"-arose from somewhere near Kiggs. Princess Glisselda leaped onto a stool, crying, "St. Polypous"s legs, where is it?" Josef drew his dagger and looked around wildly.
Only Lady Corongi stood frozen, eyes wide with astonishment, as the voice lisped, "I see you there, impostor!"
I looked to Kiggs. He nodded at me and opened his hand behind his back, revealing my lizard-man figurine.
He said, "Who is it calling an impostor, Lady?"
Lady Corongi snapped out of her shock with a shudder. I faced her. Her fierce blue eyes met mine only for a second, but in that fragile eternity I glimpsed the mind behind the manners; in that endless instant, I knew.
Lady Corongi charged into Glisselda, who still stood on the stool. Glisselda screamed and folded in half over Corongi"s shoulder. The venerable lady whirled and bolted down the stairs.
Shock froze us in place for a heartbeat too long; Kiggs recovered first, grabbed my arm, and dragged me down into darkness after her. Josef shouted something after us, but whether he called to us or to Corongi, I could not discern. At the bottom of the stairs, Kiggs looked right and I looked left. I saw the edge of Lady Corongi"s skirt disappearing around a corner. We dashed after, following the faintest of trails-an open door, the ghost of her perfume, a curtain ruffled by a nonexistent breeze-until we reached a cabinet that had been pulled out from the wall, revealing an entrance to the pa.s.sageways.
Kiggs broke off pursuit. "That was a mistake, Lady," he said. He dashed back into the corridor; three doors along was a guardroom. He threw open the door, shouted for attention, and made five hand signals in quick succession. Guards poured out and scattered in all directions. Kiggs dashed back to the shifted cabinet; there was already a guard beside it, who saluted and handed us a lantern as we pa.s.sed.
"What have you asked them to do?" I said.
He demonstrated the signs as he spoke: "Spread the word; all hands; seal the lower tunnels; notify the city garrison; and ..." His eyes met mine. "Dragon."
It was an impressive array of signals. "Will they be following us down?"
"Soon. It will take time to get everyone in position. There are seven entrances."
"Counting the sally port?"
He made no reply but plunged onward into darkness. Of course the palace guard would not be able to reach the sally port in time; that was why he was sending word to the city, but they would be too late. My heart sank in despair. Glisselda might be dead before any of us could reach her.
I had troops of my own that I could rally. I activated Orma"s earring on its chain, praying that he would hear it, that he had not already traveled some ridiculous distance, and that he could reach us in time. Then I reached for Abdo.
Where are you? he said. We were getting worried!
Bad things are happening. I need you and Lars to run, as fast as you can, to the northwest face of Castle Hill. The sally port in the side of the hill might have a hostile dragon emerging from it shortly.
Or it might have a very strong, wickedly fast old woman. There was still some uncertainty on that point.
How do we get down the castle wall on that side?
St. Masha"s stone. You will find a way. I hoped that was true.
And what are the two of us to do against a hostile dragon?
I don"t know. All I know is I am in the tunnels right now, behind it, and if you and Lars show up there will be twice as many people as there would be otherwise. We don"t have to kill it; we just have to delay it until my uncle gets here.
I let him go because I could tell he was going to protest again and because I kept tripping over the uneven floor when my concentration was elsewhere.
We pa.s.sed the three doors, now unlocked and ajar, and knew that Lady Corongi had come this way as well. When we reached the natural cavern area, Kiggs drew his sword. He looked me up and down. "We should have armed you before coming down here!" His eyes looked haunted in the lantern light. "I want you to turn back."
"Don"t be ridiculous."
"Phina, I don"t know what I"d do if you were hurt! Please go back!" He squared himself as if he intended to block my way.
"Stop it!" I cried. "You"re wasting time."
A veil of grief fell across his face, but he nodded and turned back toward the job at hand. We set off at a run.
We reached the mouth of the cave, but there was no one visible, just women"s clothing scattered all over the floor like a shed skin. Kiggs and I glanced at each other, remembering the folded gown we"d found here before. It had been right in front of us, and we hadn"t had the wit to see it.
Glisselda had clearly put up a struggle while "Lady Corongi" undressed, so there was some hope the creature was not yet able to fly. We dashed out of the cave into the slick, snowy gra.s.s, looking around for the pair of them. Glisselda screamed; we turned toward the sound of her voice. Above the cave entrance, silhouetted against the growing pink of the sky, stood a wiry, naked man, Glisselda thrown over his shoulder.
He"d been at court disguised as an old woman for almost Glisselda"s whole lifetime. Doused in perfume, avoiding other saar, worming his way close to Princess Dionne, he had bided his time with a patience only reptiles possess.
For all my exposure to saarantrai I had never before seen one change from human to dragon. He unfolded himself, stretched, telescoped, unfurled some more. It seemed logical as it happened, all his human parts plausibly dragon: his shoulders separating into wings, his spine extending back to tail, his face lengthening, his skin bursting out in scales. He managed the entire thing without letting go of Glisselda; he finished with her clasped firmly in his front talons.
If we had been smart, we would have charged him while he was transforming, but we"d stood rooted to the spot, too dumbfounded to think.
All doubt was finally removed: it was Imlann.
He would not be able to fly for several minutes; a newly transformed saar is soft and weak, like a b.u.t.terfly fresh from the chrysalis. His jaw worked; he could still spit fire. I pulled Kiggs back inside the cave before the fireball hit the dirt at the entrance, sending up a spray of scorched stones in a burst of brimstone. Imlann couldn"t work up a very big gobbet yet, but if he craned his neck down into the cave, he wasn"t going to need full flame, especially if Kiggs refused to retreat.
How long would it take Lars and Abdo to get here? And Orma, if he was even coming? I saw only one course of action, and turned to head back out of the cave.
"Are you mad?" cried Kiggs, grabbing my arm.
I was mad, as it happened. I turned back and kissed him squarely on the mouth, because this really could be the last thing I ever did, and I loved him, and it made me desperately sad that he would never know. The kiss startled him into releasing my arm, and I dashed out of his reach, out onto the snowy hillside.
"Imlann!" I cried, jumping and waving my arms like a fool. "Take me with you!"
The monster c.o.c.ked his head and screamed, "You"re not a dragon; we resolved that in the laundry. What in blazes are you?"
This was it. I had to be interesting enough that he wouldn"t kill me out of hand, and there was only one piece of information that could work: "I"m your granddaughter!"
"Not possible."
"Yes, possible! Linn married the human, Clau-"
"Do not speak his name. I want to die never having heard it uttered. He is a nameless thing, ant.i.thetical to ard."
"Well, your nameless daughter bore a child to her nameless thing husband."
"Orma told us-"
"Orma lied."
"I should kill you."
"You"d do better to take me with you. I could be of use in the coming conflict." I spread my arms, posing dramatically, my crimson gown like a gaping wound in the snowy hillside. "Being a half-breed has given me formidable abilities that neither dragons nor humans possess. I can contact other half-breeds with my mind; I can direct them at a distance with a thought. I have visions and maternal memories. How do you imagine I knew who you were?"
Imlann"s nostrils flared, though I could not discern whether he was skeptical or intrigued. Down in the cave, Kiggs stirred, moving himself slowly and silently into position to attack.
"I know all about your cabal," I said, feeling the urgency of keeping my mouth moving. "I know the coup back home is going forward as we speak."
Imlann raised his spines as if alarmed that I could know that. Had I guessed right? Despair washed over me, but I kept going: "You"ve killed the Ardmagar and half the royal family; war is coming. But Goredd is not sufficiently weak that you will be able to walk right in. You"re going to need my help."
Imlann snorted, smoke curling from his nostrils. "Liar. I know you bluffed me before. You should not have been so quick to brag. Even if I believed in your powers, your loyalty lies with the princeling in the cave. Which of your "formidable abilities" will you use when I lean down and roast him? I"ve worked up quite a good flame now."
I opened my mouth, and there was a sound like the world ending.
It wasn"t me, although I was ridiculously slow to comprehend that. Lars, who"d sneaked up on the left, had started up his great war pipes, brawling and caterwauling and screaming musical obscenities at the dawn. Imlann jerked his head toward the sound and a shadowy figure leaped at him from the other side, vaulted up the dragon"s neck, and clamped arms and legs around his still-soft throat. Imlann thrashed his neck around, but Abdo held tight-tight enough to prevent Imlann from spitting fire.
"Kiggs! Now!" I cried, but he was already there, stabbing at the foot that held Glisselda. Imlann uttered a gurgle and withdrew his foot reflexively. I reached Kiggs at just that moment; together we rolled Glisselda to one side. I helped the sobbing princess down the rocks toward the cave entrance while Kiggs, unwilling to leave well enough alone, took a stab at the dragon"s other foot. Imlann lashed at Kiggs, knocking the prince down to our level. He landed on his back, all the air slammed out of him. Glisselda ran to his side.
There was a hot, sulfuric wind, and I looked up to see Imlann launching himself off the hillside, Abdo still clinging to his neck. I cried out, but there was nothing I could do. Abdo couldn"t let go while he was in the air; the fall would kill him. Imlann circled lazily back toward us. If he was hardened enough to fly, he was too hard for Abdo to keep squeezing him flameless. He was coming back to torch us into cinders.
"Get back!" I cried to Glisselda and Kiggs, shoving them toward the cave. "As far as you can!"
"Y-your lying saved us!" gasped Kiggs, still dazed from his fall.
My lying. Yes. "Hurry! Run!" I urged him.
Something huge screamed through the sky just above us. I looked up to see Orma hurtling toward Imlann, and I wept with relief.
Imlann turned tail and fled, or appeared to. He let Orma nearly catch him before reeling around in the sky and grappling him. They pinned each other"s wings and plummeted toward the earth but managed to escape each other"s grasp before they hit the trees. They spiraled upward again, each looking for an opening. Imlann flamed; Orma, noticeably, did not.
He"d spotted Abdo and did not wish to harm him. The humanity of it took my breath away; the colossal stupidity of it filled me with despair.
Abdo, clamped onto Imlann"s neck, would deprive Orma not only of the use of fire but also of the ability to bite Imlann"s head off easily. Orma"s only hope would be to successfully drop his father out of the sky, but his father was longer by a quarter. It was not going to be easy, and Abdo might still die.