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CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The dragon-avatar seated itself, assessed its comfort. “I am ready,” it said. “No, not yet.” The large body shifted minutely. “There. It is imperative that I have as few distracting sensations as possible.”

Elweyr frowned. “Will being in contact with Shaananca be so much harder, this time?”

The dragon nodded. “I expect that to be the case.”

Ahearn crossed his arms. “Even though this body is as healthy and strong as a prize bull?”

“Do not refer to herd animals; it makes me hungry. And yes, even despite the condition of this body. The difficulty is caused by the activity of the mind within it.”

S’ythreni couldn’t help smiling. “You mean the mind that you said ‘compares unfavorably to a mollusk’s’?”

R’aonsun’s glare was histrionic… mostly. “You are Iavarain. I thought your people invented figurative language. Or is it hyperbole? Suffice it to say that my avatar’s mind does not have to be particularly perspicacious for it to complicate the process of contacting another. If it wasn’t for my prior contacts with Shaananca, I doubt I could maintain my end of that thought-bridge for more than a minute, maybe two.”

Ahearn tsked. “Ah, well, given the plan we’ve come to, it’s a pity that fullsee isn’t one of your dragon-tricks. It would make this much, much easier.”

“How so?”

“Well, if Shaananca can see out of your eyes, and you can see out of hers… ”

“I see your intent; we would not need to insinuate Cerven into the Archive as part of Darauf’s retinue.”

The Teurond crown-lord looked from one to the other. “That would make it unnecessary to perpetrate a ruse. Success—and safety from discovery—would be far more likely.” He looked at the avatar cautiously. “I notice, R’aonsun, that you did not answer Ahearn’s question in the negative. So I ask it, as well: Is there any chance that you might possess the gift of fullsee? Has a dragon ever attempted it?”

The avatar closed his eyes, spoke after a long moment. “That question stirs a memory I have had no reason to recall in… well, several millennia.” R’aonsun shook his head in answer to the hopeful stares that were suddenly fixed upon him. “I never had a desire to learn it in my early years. And I certainly lacked opportunity in more recent ones. But now that I think back… ”

“Yes?” prompted Elweyr.

“I saw two different moon plates in ages past, but on neither occasion was I allowed to study them.”

“Why?” Ahearn asked, surprised.

“Among many likely reasons, I now suspect there was one that loomed over all the others,” R’aonsun mused. “Perhaps it was known that dragons could read them, despite the deep-cyphers.”

Cerven’s voice was hushed. “You mean, that dragons might have innate fullsee?”

The round, heavy shoulders of the dragon’s barbarian-avatar shrugged. “Would it be so surprising?”

“And just when were you going to mention that you might have the very skill we most require?” Ahearn almost sputtered.

“Possibly never,” it answered somberly. “Understand: your varied species have often inquired after dragon abilities. It is how we discovered many powers we did not even know we possessed. Nor did we foresee that using them—either for your nations or for ourselves—might embroil us in your own struggles and, in the end, be blamed for causing them.” His neck stiffened. “I have no desire to become the catalyst for a new round of demonizations. So I have no wish to determine if I have an innate talent for fullsee.”

“What are you leaving out of your story?” asked Cerven suddenly.

R’aonsun stared at him. “What do you mean?”

“I observe speakers. I recall their voices, gestures, expressions in the context of what they were communicating when they spoke.”

“Careful, now… ” muttered R’aonsun sharply.

Cerven’s voice became oddly flat… even menacing. Ahearn discovered that the hair on the back of his neck rose as the young man replied, very coolly, “Are you threatening me… Osrekheseertheeshrathhuu’aigh?” He pronounced the dragon’s full name with the same sure fluidity as the ancient Uulamantre had.

The dragon-avatar narrowed his eyes. “No, I was not threatening you, Cerven Ux Reeve. I do not threaten my friends.” His eyes softened, became almost vacant. “But it is so easy to lose friends… as time has taught dragons over and over again.”

Cerven’s voice was no longer icy and detached, but emphatic, almost beseeching. “I… we would never forsake you.”

“You cannot make promises about what you do not know. And no, the problem does not lie in what you don’t know about dragons; it lies in what you don’t know about yourselves. About how fearsome knowledge and endless foreboding can change what you perceive in other species.”

“And particularly in dragons?”

“Yes.” The wyrm’s voice was both sad and sly. “Even the most able and high-minded of you communal beings had uneasy relationships with my breed. Not that I blame you, given what so many of us became.” He sighed. “You see, there is a legend that one of us was trained in fullsee. As the story goes, the skill did not prove to be innate, but once shown the way of it, mastery came easy to the dragon-mind.”

“And what became of that dragon?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Allow me to amend that; nothingness.” When they stared at him, the avatar’s face darkened with impatience. “Do you not understand? The outcome of that episode was utter oblivion: for the dragon and for thousands of your species.

“It had to be slain. It had too much power, too much control.” In answer to their disbelieving stares, R’aonsun sighed and asked, “Can you not see the compounded implications? My breed can exert control over and read your minds—well, most of them. In combination with our ability to inhabit those with rudimentary intellect, that means we possess the ability to see and hear things in distant places, become the assassins or advisors of kings—possibly both.

“Now, endue that mind with a form of perception that effortlessly unveils the complete reality and shape of all things. It becomes a mind that can often look backward from effects to discover their likely causes. Or, by reversing that process, may hope to project probable outcomes from present conditions.”

The avatar shook its heavy-boned head. “Legend says that particular dragon was chosen among all others not because of its power, or its cleverness, but because of its virtue. But amplified by that terrible power, its impulse to do good became like a roaring in its ears, shouting ever more loudly that it alone could set the world aright. Ultimately, it drowned out the most important virtue of all: humility. And so the dread legend of dragons as embodiments of annihilation was graven into memory; the most virtuous one started by wishing to make the world a paradise, but between the innate arrogance of our breed and the unthinkable power that was wed to it, its path led not to perfection, but delusion, derangement, and near-total destruction. In the end, it was either its survival, or ours.”

Darauf frowned, puzzled. “By ‘our survival,’ do you refer to the species of your avatar: we humans?”

“No. I am not referring just to human survival. No matter the being, the danger was the same: dragons or humans, philosophers or farmers, there was no difference. Any being beside itself would eventually have proven to be nothing more than an impediment to its realization of a universal ideal. Which is to say, a universe empty of everything but itself.”

He frowned and resettled himself, as if shaking off a bad memory. “This is a very dull conversation. I shall contact Shaananca now.”


Darauf leaned away slightly as Shaananca’s words reached out to them through the deep voice of the dragon’s avatar. “I can feel that this is a struggle for Osrekheseertheeshrathhuu’aigh.” She pronounced its formal name well, but with nowhere near the facility of Cerven. “So we must be swift. My welcome to all and I shall presume you would respond in kind. Now, to business. I am aware that you will need information from, but also about, the contents of several moonfall plaques. Most pertinently, the master list of osmotia. The repository here is the most complete known, and I have begun to identify resources I believe you will desire, but the process is much slower now. Much, much slower.”

“Interference from the temples?” wondered Ahearn.

“No, Swordsman. They haven’t the run of the Archive—yet. The problem is that without the Hidden Archivist, and since I cannot involve anyone else in this matter, all such sorting must go through my already full hands. Before we leave the topic, do you foresee any other needs?”

Ahearn discovered that all the eyes in the room were on him. “Any information on the Nidus would be most useful, Shaananca.”

The dragon was silent. Darauf’s eyes widened slightly, the other two Teuronds grew pale. Well, we could hardly keep that cat in the bag any longer.

The avatar finally emitted a long sigh. “I was afraid of that. I presume it is the osmotium of last recourse?”

“It is. Perhaps Elweyr could explain why we—”

“No need. Osrekheseerthee—er, R’aonsun—has reprised the discoveries and discussions that led you to consider it. Do not mistake my tone as disapproving; it is worried. I hope another path presents itself. Now, I am told that a young Amitryean by the name of Cerven is with you at the moment.”

Ahearn shook his head. Damn it all, why do you even bother with Couriers when you know everybody’s business faster than ships can carry word of it?

Cerven had leaned forward. “I am here, Magistra.”

“I am Shaananca, young scriverant. It is a great shame that the Hidden Archivist is not here for you to meet him.”

“Er, but, if he was there, wouldn’t he have to remain… well, hidden?”

The avatar guffawed; Ahearn imagined he could hear Shaananca’s soft chortle behind it. “I suspect he would have made an exception in your case. Not many have perused half as many moonfall plaques as you have now. And soon, you will have deciphered some that have remained unreadable for many, many millennia. You understand that you will have to work swiftly?”

He nodded, then realized that Shaananca wouldn’t know he had; the dragon’s eyes were closed. “I do, Magi—eh, Shaananca. I just hope there is a way for me to slip into the Archive.”

“Be at your ease, young scriverant. I believe we shall solve that very matter in the next few minutes.”

“Before we do,” began S’ythreni, “I wish to ask a question.”

“Please, do so without preamble, Alva S’ythreni.”

The aeosti’s query was, for her, unusually measured. “Would it not be possible to avoid the complexity of bringing Cerven into the Archive if there was already someone there who was capable of fullsee?”

Shaananca’s light laugh came out of the dragon-avatar like a rumble of distant thunder. “That question is as delightfully oblique as its true intent is obvious. No, S’ythreni, I am not a scriverant. Few mantics are, and even fewer sacrists.” She frowned. “Possibly none, now that I think on it.

“Besides,” Shaananca continued without pausing, “I suspect Elweyr already knows why the fullseeing we require cannot be provided by mantic constructs or miracles.”

Elweyr turned toward the group. “Mantic fullsee would take far too much time and manas. The cognates that emulate it are so short that it would take several weeks just to distinguish the moonfall plaques we need from those that are useless to us. That’s why Cerven’s skill is the only way to achieve this. It lasts as long as he can concentrate and does not require frequent rest between applications of manas.”

“Which brings us back to the challenge of slipping him into the Archive,” Ahearn muttered.

Firinne shook her head. “We have problems to address before that one. Swiftsure may not enter Tlulanxu’s bay, let alone tie up at the docks. This ship—and all of this lot—must remain hidden and their presence unsuspected.”

The dragon’s seemingly sleeping head nodded. “You are more right than you know. These days, even I am watched, and it is entirely likely that if any of you are recognized, you would be followed—by temple devotees, if not the militia. And if you attempted to enter any but the most common, public spaces, I suspect they would petition to have you approached for questioning.”

“Would such observation apply even to Darauf? Even when he’s inside the Archive?”

“If you mean to determine if he might have ‘escorts’ who would learn of his interest in osmotia and moonfall plaques, you are quite right. And even if the temples’ interest did not become overt—for fear of causing a diplomatic incident—the mere news of what he was researching is likely to spark swift and accurate speculation.”

S’ythreni nodded. “Because Indryllis disappeared in the Nidus. So if anyone—anyone—enters the Archive seeking information on ancient portals and accounts about the Nidus, they’d be fools not to connect the two.”

Ahearn sighed. “Aye, we’d be lucky to get to sea again before the Consentium’s troops and ships were both hanging on our heels—or putting manacles on our wrists.”

“Correct. So, as Captain Firinne has aptly asserted, the Swiftsure may not enter the waters near Tlulanxu, nor may those now aboard walk its streets. If you did, your mission would be over before it started.”

Darauf folded his arms as he thought. “Would there be any way for me, or my aides, to remove the needed sources from the Archive, given my lineage and the millennia-long alliance between our nations?”

“No, because all the sources you require are housed in the Hidden Archive, from which no holdings may be removed. Under any circumstances.”

Cerven had, quite independently, adopted an identical posture for his ruminations. “The moonfall plaques are incised. A rubbing could be made quite easily. That could be brought out.”

“It could, but the Archive is closely policed, now. All objects leaving the premises are subject to inspection, including personal items.”

“That is madness,” muttered S’ythreni.

“It was also inevitable, given the increasing distrust the temples have for anything secular. And because we take steps to frustrate their intrusive actions, their distrust grows.”

Darauf shook his head. “I fail to see a way forward. We will not be allowed to remove anything from the Archive. Nor can I access the sources within the Archive, since we must presume that I will be followed into it.”

“Yes, but we can be certain that those watchers will also follow you out of it.”

“And how does that help us—?” began the younger aide. Darauf raised a stilling hand.

Shaananca explained. “Since we must indeed presume that you will be watched, and whatever you touch examined, the actual quandary is no longer ‘How may you remove sources from the Archive?’ It becomes, ‘How can your researches be conducted without being observed?’”

“With respect, Magistra, if this is not a riddle, then it is doing a most excellent job masquerading as one.”

The dragon’s avatar smiled, although its eyes remained closed. “Riddles are often another way of saying, ‘Seek the solution that is hiding in plain sight.’ So, let us start with a certainty: the temples or the Propretoriate—or both—will provide you with assistants and scribes when you enter the Archive. These persons will no doubt offer to take any notes you might wish, as well as to copy passages from sources and like tasks. And there will be one or more accomplished observers and spies among them.”

“But what would occur if your plans changed? Suppose—for sake of argument”—her tone had become ironic—“that upon debarking, you sent word that your visit would regrettably be much shorter than anticipated. Tell me: what manner of response do you anticipate this would cause among the officials in Tlulanxu?”

The older aide laughed. “They’d be running around like wet hens, each scratching to get their hour or two with an heir to the throne of Tar-Teurodn.”

“I agree,” Shaananca answered. “So it would be apt and useful if a large, collective event were hastily arranged so that all the officials who wished to meet with you still might—including those from the temples who have sent spies to walk in your shadow.”

The younger aide folded his arms. “How would this be arranged?”

“Simplicity itself. Since—as your colleague observed—there will be more temples and propretors looking to meet the crown-lord than he has hours in Tlulanxu, it would be a masterstroke of convenience and cooperation if the Propretor Princeps were to ask for one of the many august institutions in the city to host a gathering. This would allow your lord Darauf to present his credentials to all major parties at once.

“It would, of course, require a sizeable structure with large open areas for such an affair. Which would give any temples vying to host this meeting an advantage. And those who most suspect the motives for his visit would undoubtedly be the ones who’d most enjoy vouchsafing the prestige of the event—as well as the profound convenience of observing him from within their own halls. And through their own spyholes.”

You shrewd old bird! Ahearn mused appreciatively—before he realized he’d actually muttered it aloud. “Er, I—apologies, Magistra!” was his very late and very lame attempt to lessen the insult.

He couldn’t tell if it was the dragon grinning or Shaananca doing so through him. “It is very kind of you to think so highly of my abilities,” was her wry reply. “Now, let us assume that—by sheerest coincidence—this event falls on the same day that you have reserved for your researches at the Archive. So, you will have to leave it earlier than planned.

“Of course, you shall be detained that morning, and thus arrive late with your scribe and an assistant, having even less time to gather the sources you wished. When you lose track of the passing hours, it will be your escorts—assuredly the ones from the temple which is now hosting the event—who will endeavor, within the limits of diplomatic courtesy, to shoo you on your way. And so you shall leave, with them urging you on and functioning as your entourage and bodyguards, even as you are instructing your scribe’s assistant how to finish a few last transcriptions.”

She paused. “Now, do you really think that any of those temple or Propretoriate escorts will, in their distraction to ensure your timely arrival, give a single thought to monitoring the actions of a lowly scribe’s apprentice? Would they even be able to justify it, since none of his patron’s researches have been provocative in any fashion?”

Darauf was smiling, as was everyone else in the great cabin. “Of course they won’t watch the young fellow. And if they were thoughtful enough to wonder if maybe they should, they’d also realize that doing so would also bring suspicion upon them—and those who pull their strings.”

“So, young Cerven,” Shaananca resumed, “you shall be apprenticed to the crown-lord’s staff: an aspiring scribe soon to be a journeyman.”

Cerven frowned. “I am not sure I will be able to affect a believable Teurond accent, Magis—Shaananca.”

“You will not need to. Your credentials—if any ask for them—will indicate that you are finishing your apprenticeship under the auspices of Talshane of the Outrider Expeditionary Cohort. It is he who has arranged your final test: to serve under an heir to the throne of an allied state. And inasmuch as you were headed to Dunarra, he also elected to use you as a confidential courier for an advice packet to authorized parties in Tlulanxu.”

“But… but,” stammered Cerven, “that’s a lie.”

“In fact, it is not. It was he who sent you with this motley band, was it not? And I have received such a packet from Talshane two moonphases ago. The accompanying letter indicated that he commended you to foreign service, and named Tar-Teurodn as one of three excellent places you might gain that experience. And note my careful wording regarding his packet, which I shall remit to you upon your arrival: Talshane ‘elected to use you as a confidential courier for an advice pouch sent to authorized parties in Tlulanxu.’ There is no mention of their identity or the nature of their ‘authorization.’”

Elweyr rarely grinned widely, but he did now. “That is as masterful a fusion of truth and misdirection as I have ever heard or read.” While Ahearn felt a slow smile coming on—a match for S’ythreni’s own—he watched the puzzled frowns on both Umkhira’s and Cerven’s faces. “There is no lie in that statement,” he explained, “but it is easy to misread.”

Umkhira frowned. “Those words may not contain a lie, but they are crafted to create misunderstanding in those who read them.”

Ahearn shook his head. “No, Green Lass: only those who should not be reading them.” When she looked unconvinced, he added, “So you’re saying you’ve never left a false trail to confound enemies that might be following you?”

Umkhira muttered darkly, but nodded her acceptance—however grudging it might be.

Firinne was nodding in frank admiration of the ploy. “There’s one last piece of the plan that must be set in place: Darauf’s arrival.”

The crown-lord’s older aide, Osanric, shook his head. “That’s been seen to, Captain. You may recall we had a second boat with us, an advice packet that we sent ahead to Tlulanxu, bearing word of the impending visit. We proposed no itinerary nor identified any particular interests, which gives us much flexibility now. It’s enough that they know he’s coming, that he’s traveling with his staff, and under the graces of the king. And so we have ample room to adapt to this—or any other—plan that might have made use of our presence and the crown-lord’s position.”

“All considerations have been addressed, then,” Shaananca said. Even through the avatar, her weariness was audible. “All know their roles in this. Darauf, how soon do you plan to sail?”

“Yesterday, Shaananca!” The crown-lord’s smile was broad and winning, the very picture of a worthy scion who still retained a bit of boyish charm. “But I suppose I’ll have to settle for this afternoon. If tides are with us and seas are following, we should see you in three days.”


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