The Ale Boy's Feast (26 page)

Aiming the sharp beak of its snout toward the chimneyhouse, the dragon twitched its tail, a chain of interlocking shields. Then it threw itself at the smokestack. Clasping the bricks, it climbed the tower like a mantis up the side of a well. At the top it thrust its long head down into the chimney.

“For the rest of his life, Scharr will boast of this. He found the only creature in the Expanse, other than a firewalker, who could bear the furnace’s flames and steal what they protect.”

Tenderly did not answer him. She had fled.

The dragon disappeared, wriggling down through the smokestack toward the vast furnace pit that burned now with no purpose but to preserve House Jenta’s pride. The furnace chimney became a fiery fountain, and smoke spilled as if a dam had been unblocked.

What did he promise it?

Bursts of sound blasted from the smokestack, like hammers striking metal drums. Then the deed was done. Something unrecognizable climbed out of the fire. Cracking, disintegrating fragments of its shields slid away, shattered by the heat. All that remained was the glossy sheen of bright green bristles—tender skin newly exposed.

The dragon almost fell from its perch as it craned its neck and blinked its glassy eyes. It looked like something made of thistle-stalks. Barking in annoyance,
the dragon licked its exposed limbs with a sinuous, vermilion tongue. It turned its face, which looked like a pricklecone, toward Ryp and stared hatefully at him.

“Our famous Jentan Defenders should be grateful now for the dismissal,” said Ryp to no one in particular. “If they had been here tonight, they’d have been ashes in an hour.”

The dragon did not attack. Instead, it shrank back as if humiliated by its nakedness. Then, growling, it ascended as swiftly as a hummingbird. Without the weight of the shields, it could move almost too fast for the eye to follow. As it launched, it tore out a wedge of the chimneyhouse wall and the blazing stew of the furnace spewed into the courtyard. Mages and acolytes scattered, some fleeing, others rushing in to fight the fire with stonemastery.

“Oh no,” moaned Ryp.

The dragon dropped, landing on the distant, leaning spire of the Epiphany Tower. The tower did not break, but it moved, the ground at its base bulging as the foundation was uprooted from the earth with the sound of tearing fabric.

Ryp pulled a farglass from his pocket and saw that the dragon held the legendary casket, a massive stone box glowing from the furnace’s heat, in its claws.

Strange emotions roiled within the mage as he turned to trudge along the wall toward his chamber. Awe, for he had never dreamed he’d see a dragon again, much less up so close. Rage, for he was ashamed of his reaction. And of course, jealousy. But what did it matter after all? Everything was meaningless in the end.

Farewell, my brother. You’ve had your fun. And you’ve only made my time in this world more unbearable
.

Ryp paused in the doorway of his chamber and blinked. The pillowstone was missing from his bed.

He staggered, his hand clutched at his chest. But before he could cry out, he heard a low voice in the dark room.

“Where are they?”

The pillowstone was in Scharr ben Fray’s hands, broken in two to expose a cavity in the center.

“You boasted that House Jenta kept its promise to Tammos Raak and guarded
his casket. But I knew you were lying. You took the keys to Inius Throan from the casket a long time ago, didn’t you? I came to fetch them while you watched my dragon put on a show, just in case you’d been keeping them under your head.” He held up the empty stone shells. “But you’ve removed them. Are you so afraid I’ll find them that you’re carrying them in your pocket?”

Ryp recoiled as if slapped.

“You say that everything is meaningless. But you are so concerned with protecting Tammos Raak’s secrets that you’ve conspired to keep the truth from me. You’ve learned something that you’d rather the rest of us never discover.”

The chamber shuddered as the dragon roared.

Scharr leaned toward his brother, baring his teeth. “And more than that, you’ve been there, haven’t you? You’ve unlocked Inius Throan and walked inside. How many years ago? Fifty? A hundred? You learned something that dragged you to despair.” His eyes were wild as he threw the halves of pillowstone to the floor. “You’re hiding the truth from the world.”

“Yes, I’ve been there. I’ve seen the stories painted on its walls. I learned that there is nothing worth seeking in Inius Throan. I learned that the four houses have been built upon a lie. We are all more lost than we knew.”

“I’m taking Cal-raven and the remnant of Abascar to Inius Throan,” said Scharr ben Fray, “where Deathweed cannot reach us. We will wait until it runs out of things to consume. It will die.”

“Deathweed replaced the beastmen,” said Ryp. “Something worse will replace Deathweed. The Aerial is departing, Scharr. One by one. We’re going on to something better. Freedom from the body. Relief.”

“You’ve never known any pleasure that wasn’t bodily, Ryp. The sweetness of nectar. The recognition of truth through the senses. This world and the truth are inseparable. I mean to enjoy it as long as I can. Give me the keys, Ryp. Or better yet, come with me.”

“Be quiet before I change my mind,” said the head of the Aerial.

For a fleeting moment, Ryp saw something on his younger brother’s face that he had never seen before. Surprise.

Then he handed over a rolled scroll of cloth.

Scharr unfurled it across the bed and laughed in amazement at the intricate map drawn across its snowy span. At the end of the roll lay a ring with three large keys.

Ryp stepped forward and laid a withered hand on his brother’s arm. “I give them to you, Scharr, because to keep them from you would be to say something there is worth protecting. But Inius Throan is as worthless as a tomb. Go find just how much fuss the four houses have made over a lie.”

“What lie?”

“See for yourself.”

Taking the keys, Scharr ben Fray touched the chamber wall and widened the window into a doorway. Then he stepped through onto a stone balcony that spread before his feet.

“How did you find the dragon?” Ryp whispered, hating his own curiosity.

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Scharr spread his arms as if the dragon were his own invention. “Her name is Reveler. Her kind have grown fat and lazy in the Eastern Heatlands. But a cleverjay I know—Ruffleskreigh—told me Reveler was feasting on creatures as they fled from Deathweed near the Forbidding Wall’s easternmost end. So I persuaded Ruffleskreigh to deliver messages and strike my bargain with the dragon. I’ll arrange to have herds of muskgrazers led to her doorstep so she needn’t go out hunting anymore. In return, I’ll have Raak’s Casket.”

“It’s worthless. Dusty old scrolls. That’s all. Now send your new pet away. And slip out quietly, or the mages will cut you to pieces for what you’ve done.”

“Why would they care? Haven’t you taught them that nothing matters?” Scharr shrugged. “Ah, but they won’t catch me. You didn’t just provide me with keys. You provided me with a means of escape.” He reached down and thrust his arms through the straps of Ryp’s unfeathered wings.

Ryp barely had time to cry out.

Scharr leapt off the ledge. The wings snapped open, and he glided across the chaotic courtyard.

“They’re not finished yet, you fool!” Even as Ryp shouted, the wings sputtered wildly and dove.

Then another shape left the edge of the wall. The great dust-owl screeched, plunging through the air toward the glider. It caught Scharr’s shoulders and carried him back up in a sweeping arc, then alighted on the stairs of the Epiphany Tower just beneath the dragon.

A moment later Scharr ben Fray was climbing onto the dragon’s back as if it were a giant vawn. And then they were gone—the dragon, the man, the casket, and the keys to Inius Throan.

As silence settled in the room, Ryp felt something slip away from him. He could not name it, and his thoughts berated him for his weakness in wondering what it might be. He saw Tenderly running across the sand, waving her arms madly and calling out as if the dragon rider had promised he’d take her along. He trembled.

hen Warney emerged from the back of Myrton’s greenhouse and opened the trash bin, Cesylle sprang up with a pile of reeking weeds hanging off his head and a rag pressed to his face. “I’ve been in here all day. Thought you’d left me to rot.”

“I told you I’d come back,” Warney whispered. “You unlocked my cage, member?”

Fog around the Seers’ Keep had erased all visibility. There was only the sound of disgruntled archers marching around the Keep to ensure no Seers were seeking to escape. Gossip buzzed in the alleys, where anxious guards locked all possible exits. Cracks were spreading through the Keep’s walls. A strange clamor, like shattering mirrors, clashed within.

The Seers have already escaped
, Cesylle thought.
Who will believe me if I describe it?
He clutched his prize—the Seers’ marrowwood box—to his chest. “This box … it rattles,” he muttered. “Even when it’s still.”

Warney pushed him back down as a line of guards hurried past. One glanced at him but showed no further interest. “Prob’ly figures I’m just a crumb-picker,” he laughed. “They’re off to the glassworks. The queen’s procession is back, and they’re sayin’ somebody stole the queen’s goblet.”

“Good. Keeps the guards distracted. Did you talk to Myrton?”

“Myrton’ll take a look at the box. He’s a good fellow. Trust my eye.” He tapped
his glass orb. “Got a head full of bees and a cloak full of moths, but no need to fear him.”

Cesylle wiped the weeds from his hair.

“Gonna follow me?” asked Warney. “Or rot in the trash?”

“What’s in here, they say it’s worse than beastmen.” Cesylle handed him the wooden, wirebound box. “Don’t drop it.”

Warney shut the greenhouse door behind him, and at once the bandit and the wanted man found themselves in a jungle.

“Could almost call this the Cragavar,” said Warney, “ ’cept that the trees are planted in pots and all.”

When nobody answered, he looked around. Cesylle was shifting from tree-pot to tree-pot like a gorrel in a fangbear’s lair. “Don’t go hidin’,” whispered Warney. “Myrton’s not a Seer.”

“You don’t understand.” Cesylle peered out from behind a tree, shaking like a child who expects a whipping—a feeling Warney remembered well from childhood. “The kindest child in Abascar would put an arrow through my head. There’s no way out of the hole I’ve dug.”

Warney advanced from the tree room into the daylit, high-ceilinged workspace.

In front of a blazing brick stove with a towering chimney, Myrton was scratching his head’s wild spray of grey hair, shelling seeds, and fussing over a table. Without greeting Warney, he took a twig from a handful he had cast across the tabletop and held it in the fire. From the smoke came a high-pitched whine.

“Puzzle, puzzle.” He stepped from side to side, crushing seed shells. “That’s not natural either.”

“What do you mean?” said Warney.

“It’s not the right pitch.”

“The noise?” Warney asked, oblivious. “It should be a different note?”

“No, pitch. Pitch!” Myrton withdrew the smoking twig and showed the ink-black syrup dripping from the end. “This muck’s running like blood through the Cragavar’s trees. Seen it before … draining from bones of dead beastmen.”

Warney noticed that the chemist had the same cloak, same shoes, same mussed tufts of hair as before. “You live in this place?”

“Oh, from time to time I’ll go home and sleep a bit. But I find my joy here.” He smiled at the hanging baskets, the chandelier of twinkling candleflowers. “The marketplace … so much competition, so much shouting. That place is a prison. But here, Warney …” He spread his arms to the array of green and growing things in pots and boxes on tables, benches, shelves, and sills under those great tortoiseshell windows that spread across the domed ceiling. “Here you’ll find the greatest freedom. Know what that is?”

“Solitude?”

“Humility.” Myrton put a finger to his temple. “Surround yourself with things that amaze you, and you’ll forget about comparing yourself to others. The marketplace is a world of masks. Everyone hides themselves for shame. Better to lose yourself in a passion. What’s yours, Warney?”