A Dragon's Ascension - Ed Greenwood [90]
"Please," she whispered up at him, and the cards began to spark and smoke beneath her. She was crying, he saw, tears falling onto the tanthor array.
Suddenly afraid himself, but not knowing why, Kirlstar snatched up his coins, stared at her again with mounting alarm and the plaintive need to know why rising together in his gaze-and whirled out of the tiny shop on Graemere Street without another word, the heavy curtains swirling in his wake.
Orathlee the Wise stared down at the cards again and then reached for the bell that would summon her daughters. Her hand trembled. They would have to pack and be gone this very night, if she read this right. The Dragon At Dawn here, and Morning Over Towers here-it was impossible to say if the Lady's clear warning meant that the danger was going to fall like lightning from the sky in a very short time, somewhere nearby but not actually in Sirlptar-or fall in the morning right here in the city. "Dragonfire," she whispered, as the bell rang and she heard her daughters start up in alarm and come running. She stared down in disbelief at the cards again, shaking her head.
Dragonfire.
The cards did not lie.
It could be nothing else.
Centuries it had been since such a reading, the Seers of the Tanthor had been very clear about that-and on that last occasion, two dragons had torn each other apart above the fair realm of Loroncel, and laid waste to it in their death throes, so that it was but a wasteland to this day.
The time before that-oh, she remembered those lessons vividly, because the stories had been so good; they always were, weren't they, when it had all happened to someone else, somewhere far away and long ago-it hadn't been a real dragon at all, but a storm of spells that got out of hand. Fed by many angry hurled magics until it took on a crawling, wizard-seeking life of its own, a cloak of "dragonfire" that had drowned tall-towered Chalsymbryl, City of Enchanters, beneath the waves, battling mages and all-leaving behind the reefs and whirlpools that sailors called Lost Chaise, a region shunned for its hunger to devour ships.
Ships! They'd have to catch the next ship leaving the docks, no matter what it was or where it was bound. Even if its captain took slaves, they'd at least be alive. It would be hard for her daughters, but Orathlee had been a slave before.
She shook her head again as Meleira and Talace came thundering down the stairs, daggers in their hands and alarm in their wide eyes. "Dragonfire," she whispered again, helplessly. What had someone done, to anger the gods thus?
Darkness fell away as suddenly as a shroud snatched off a corpse, and the dim light of day coming in the windows of the galleries above lit the Throne Chamber of Aglirta again, casting faint shadows amid its dust and riven throne and tumbled stones.
Raulin blinked at the empty place beside Tshamarra Talasorn that had held a king. Sarasper stared at the same spot with despair growing in him, and froze in midsurge. Briefly the shapeshifting healer grew feathers and then lost them again, sinking back into man-shape: an old man who was shaking his head sadly.
Glarsimber whirled to a stop and took two quick paces forward, peering. There, behind those stones! Hardly daring to take the next few steps the baron growled at himself-what price a barony, if the holder not do what is needful for Aglirta?-and scrambled forward, to where he could stare down.
Embra Silvertree and Hawkril Anharu were sprawled awkwardly together. The Lady Overduke's arms were flung wide and her hair made a great swirl on the stones around her. The armaragor was lying on his back, partly beneath her. His