The Dragon Revenant - Katharine Kerr [129]
“Let me drink, Tondalo,” he whispered.
“Oh, gladly, master.” The Old One grinned at him, a parody of a servile simper. “Aren’t you glad you taught me the black arts so well?”
The spirit snarled at him and darted at the mist, only to be driven back by the knife blade.
“Promise me you’ll answer my questions, and then you drink.”
“I promise, you ingrate hell-spawn.”
The Old One snatched back the knife and let the spirit feed and batten on the life-force. As the mist thinned, the shape thickened, until it seemed his old teacher of unclean things stood on the altar and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand at the end of his meal.
“Now,” the Old One said. “I have an enemy.”
“Do you? What a surprise!”
“Someone is working against me. Do you remember the matter about which I consulted you? The death of the Master of the Aethyr?”
“I remember nothing but pain.”
“It’s of no matter. Someone is working against me. Someone is blocking all my attempts to scry him out. He must be drawing force from the places where you dwell. Who is he?”
“There isn’t anyone working against you in the Dark of Darkness, not in the miserable fetid corner where you’ve trapped me, at any rate.”
“You He!”
“I cannot lie.”
It was, of course, perfectly true—within its limits.
“No, but you can bend the truth. You’ve seen someone working somewhere else, haven’t you? Who is he, and where?”
The spirit drew back its lips in a soundless snarl.
“I don’t recognize him,” it said at last. “He must have come to power after my time on earth. The way he works marks him for a Hawkmaster, but I have no way of knowing what guild. As for where he works, why not look in the usual places instead of the paths of mastery? You’re still an overly subtle fool at times, Tondalo.”
“My dearest master, I have to admit that I deserve the rebuke. Now begone!”
When he threw up his arms in a ritual gesture and brandished the knife, the spirit fled, whimpering and cursing, back to its trap of torment in the Dark of Darkness that abuts the evil places of the world.
The Old One banished the various forces and released the various spirits inadvertently caught by his invocations, then picked up the dead rabbits and tossed them outside the chamber for a slave to dispose of later. As he put out the candles, he realized that he could most likely identify this treacherous Hawkmaster. The only hireling—or so the masters of the dark dweomer considered the Hawks—who could know that he had some important work in hand would be the master he’d hired the year before from the Valanth guild. Now that he knew his enemy was no more formidable than the head of an assassins’ guild, it would be a relatively simple matter to scry in the usual way and see if his guess were right. Probably the Hawkmaster held Baruma, too, he decided as he thought about it. The question was whether the little fool was even worth rescuing.
In the morning, when the time came to visit the archon, Nevyn took four men of the warband along for an honor guard and Perryn as well, to act the part of manservant and carry the box of Aberwyn’s second-best goblets. The municipal palace was up on the highest point of the city, a flat hill that served for the law courts, temple centers, and training grounds for the militia as well as the site of the civic leader’s residence. The archon, Klemiko, received them in an echoing reception chamber, tiled in blue and pale green. At one end was a dais spread with enough cushions for twenty men, and at the other, four purple-tiled fountains splashing in front of a wall painting that depicted Dalae-oh-contremo in albatross form. Like an endless tide a bustle of slaves came and went, bringing food and wine, while Nevyn and the archon chatted in Bardekian about the marvelously lucky sea voyage. At length, after the lemon-scented finger bowls and damp towels had been brought and taken away again, Klemiko dismissed the slaves with a clap of his hands.
“Well, Lord Galrion, you must have incredibly important business on hand to take a risk like this.”
“Yes, I’m afraid it’s more