The White Road - Lynn Flewelling [5]
"He is not a person, my dear," Magyana told him gently. "You may be right about the rest of it, but he's not human, or 'faie, either."
"There's something we need to tell you," said Thero.
"What is it?"
"Thero sensed it, but not clearly, when he first saw Sebrahn in Plenimar," Magyana explained. "It's true that the rhekaro has been given the semblance of a child, but another form radiates beyond the physical. I don't understand it, but what I see around him is the form of a young dragon."
Alec stared hard at Sebrahn, squinting his eyes, but saw nothing unusual. "A dragon? That's impossible! Sebrahn was made from bits of--me!"
Seregil was frowning at the younger wizard. "Why didn't you tell us, Thero?"
"I wasn't sure what I was sensing. It's Magyana who sees it clearly."
Magyana took Alec's hand in hers. "Seregil has told me something of how Sebrahn was made. I believe you can tell me more. Do you know what materials he used?"
Alec shifted uneasily; it was a time he didn't really want to remember. "Sulfur and salt, tinctures--"
"Nothing of dragons?"
"I saw dried fingerling dragons hanging in his workshop, but I didn't see him put any in."
"Very well. What else do you remember?"
"There was something he called the 'water of life'--some kind of silver, I think."
"Quicksilver?" asked Magyana.
"Yes, that was it. He put that all in with my tears, blood, shit and piss, hair, and my ..." He faltered, blushing under the weight of their collective gaze.
"His semen," Seregil finished for him. "How in Bilairy's name do you get a dragon out of all that?"
Thero shrugged, his pale green eyes serious. "We don't know yet. But they did."
"It was my Hazadrielfaie blood that Ilban--" Alec faltered, horrified to have the slave word for "master" slip out so easily. "That's what Yhakobin claimed he needed the most. He said that it was the only thing that would work to make a rhekaro. But since I'm ya'shel, he did a long purification process first, trying to get rid of my human blood, he said."
"Ah, that would explain it," Magyana murmured. "I thought you looked different, more 'faie."
That was a sore topic. "I had to drink tinctures of metals and wear amulets; seven of them, I think: tin, copper, silver, gold--I don't remember the others. And he kept taking drops of my blood and making them burn to see what color they were. When it got to the right shade, he used more of my blood to make the mixture do whatever it did."
"Right out of his chest," Seregil growled. "They tapped him like a keg and hung him up to bleed on their mess." He paused, then leaned over and pushed the hair back from Alec's left ear, showing them the small blue dragon bite tattoo on his earlobe. "Could this have something to do with it?"
Magyana raised an eyebrow. "It's possible, I suppose. But it's such a tiny bite. There wouldn't have been anywhere near as much venom from it as there was from yours, Seregil."
The dragon that had bitten Seregil had been the size of a large dog, and the lissik-stained teeth marks spanned the back of his hand and the palm. His arm had swelled up like a sausage and he'd been damn sick for a few days, but lucky to survive all that with no more long-term damage than the mark.
"If that's what Yhakobin really wanted, then he'd have used Seregil instead," Alec mused. "Besides, he didn't know I had the mark until after he'd bought me, and didn't know what it was once he did. I told him it was just decoration." He looked to Thero. "What about the Oreska? Nysander knew about the Helm. Maybe there's some wizard guarding this rhekaro secret, too."
"It's doubtful," said Magyana. "Skala barely existed when the Hazad went north. And even if there is someone, it's quite possible that he or she is sworn to utter secrecy, as Nysander was. Or dead. We lost so many during the assault on the Oreska House."
"Maybe so, but don't you think that somewhere, down in all those vaults, there might be something about this?" Seregil gave her a winning look. "If anyone would know where