The Dream Spheres - Elaine Cunningham [118]
Frequent repetition had drained the words of any empathy they might once have conveyed. Danilo grasped the offered hand briefly.
"Loss is the word, in more ways than one. I can't find my sister's body. It was supposed to be in the family tomb."
"Hmmph. What family might that be?"
Dan told him. The dwarf scratched at his beard and ruminated. "Seems to me yer too late, boy. That family's quick to get rid of servants and such like, ain't they? The ceremony was finished yesterday."
Dan and Arilyn exchanged a puzzled look. "That was not to have occurred until tomorrow. Where was she interred?"
"Not buried. Burned." The dwarf spat into the eternal fire and admired the resultant sizzle as if it illustrated his remark.
"Who was responsible for this mistake?" Arilyn demanded, clearly outraged.
"No mistake. We had our orders."
"Really," Danilo said coldly. "Who has the authority in this place to issue such orders?"
"She ain't from this place, and I'll be lighting a candle to almighty Clangeddin over that!" the dwarf said fervently. He placed a stubby finger on his nose and lifted it to a haughty angle in imitation of his recent nemesis.
Danilo began to get an extremely bad feeling about this. "You're not speaking of the Lady Cassandra Thann, are you?"
"You know her, I take it."
Without intending to do so, he shook his head. "No," he said in a wondering tone, and realized that he spoke truth. "No, I don't think I know her at all."
Fourteen
Danilo found his mother in the garden, deep in the contemplation of the thick tome on her lap. He quickly cast the spell he had prepared on the way over to the family home, one born of his anger and fueled by his haunted dreams.
He intended to reshape the words on Lady Cassandra's page, transforming the scholarly text into an accusing restatement of the agreement they had made just the day before, but the moment he shaped the spell, he felt the magic twist away from him and spin beyond his will and control.
The ink of the open page melted, flowed together. The black stain turned into the color of blood, then leaped up into flame.
Lady Cassandra jolted to her feet with a strangled little cry. The precious book tumbled, unheeded, from her lap. Smoke rose from the smoldering tome, twisting and swirling in a futile attempt to shape the words that Dan and his mother had spoken and that he had placed into the spell. Now their agreement was broken, his trust shattered, and the spell could not recall it.
The noblewoman regarded her visitor for a long moment as she composed herself. "You have my attention," she said at last.
"And you have my promise," Danilo returned with quiet intensity. "I will find out what happened to Lilly, despite your efforts to ensure that this could not happen. Why, Mother? Given the events of this day-the events of the last tenday!-one might reasonably ask what you have to hide."
"Why indeed?" she retorted. "This whole situation is disgraceful. A barmaid's daughter in the family tomb? What were you thinking?"
"You agreed to the arrangements!"
"For your own good," she argued. "If I did not grant some apparent concession, you would not rest until you had your way in every particular."
"Nor will I." Danilo studied her, trying to fathom what went on behind that lovely, composed face. "Aren't you at all curious about Lilly? Her life, her fate?"
"No. Nor do I want to discuss this further. Not now or ever."
"Damn it, mother, you're as stubborn as a full-blooded elf!"
Finally, his words had effect. A look of consternation crossed her face, quickly controlled. "You should choose your words with more care. There are those in this city who might read too much into your comment."
A terrible, impossible suspicion snaked into his mind. Perhaps Lilly was murdered because she was a child of a noble house who clearly carried more than a little elven blood. Arilyn had been attacked. Elaith. Perhaps someone was determined to separate the Thann family from any contact with elves.
Perhaps Cassandra's desire to deny her heritage was so strong that she struck