Emperor Mage Read online

  As the blonde turned to the cake, Daine realized that something was wrong with Kitten. The little dragon was clawing at her muzzle and rocking back and forth. Bending close, Daine could hear her squeak, as if she were trying to talk with her jaws glued shut.

  “Kit, what’s the matter?” She bent down to grab the dragon’s forepaws. “You’re—”

  Varice’s shriek raised echoes on the lake. A slave filling Gareth the Younger’s glass dropped his pitcher; it shattered on the flagstones. Daine jerked upright.

  Rats—mostly browns, with a smattering of black ones—poured out of a hole in the front of the cake in a stream, their numbers far greater than even this cake would hold. They tried to climb Varice’s skirts as the blonde continued to scream. Alanna was on her feet, groping for a sword she didn’t wear; the mages were helpless, unable to throw fire at the animals without hurting Varice.

  “Stop!” Daine cried, running out from behind her table. The rats turned to stare at her. “I said, stop!” Opening herself up, she let her power flood out until it swamped them. In their minds she read the knowledge that they were passing through a magical gate from their riverbank homes into the center of the confection. She also saw clearly the image of the Graveyard Hag in their thoughts, pointing them to the gate with her gnarled walking stick.

  “Imperial Majesty!” someone cried, shaking Daine’s concentration. The moment she faltered, the rats broke free. Six of them launched at her face; she slammed them with her power, killing three instantly. Two fled; one fastened his teeth in her sleeve. Coldly Daine shook him off.

  The man who’d broken her concentration was still yelling. “Majesty, even you can’t continue to ignore the portents! You must—”

  Ozorne pointed; emerald fire lashed to wrap around the speaker, a Carthaki nobleman. Emerald flames leaped from his skin. He had time for one agonized shriek before the fire ate him up.

  Daine took a breath and renewed her magical grip on the rats, yanking them back from tables and guests. They fought hard. She dug her nails into her palms, hunting for something to make her furious. She found it when she saw the ruin that had come to the cake Varice had worked so hard to create. Gathering up the anger she felt on the part of Varice, she turned it on the rats.

  We don’t have to obey you, snarled a brown. We don’t owe you anything!

  We serve a powerful mistress, added someone else. Next to her, you are only a shadow!

  She bore down, producing shrieks of rage and pain from them. “Back into that cake, buckos,” she ordered, eyes glittering. “Back where you came from. Do it now, before you really vex me.”

  They struggled wildly, but she had them. When she began to tighten the pressure, she felt their surrender like the buckling of a wall. She called silently, Tell your mistress, if she has a bone to pick with Ozorne, pick it with him, not with them that have to obey him!

  The rats leaped onto the cart and into the cake, vanishing through the gate. When the last of them had gone, the pastry collapsed.

  She looked around. Slaves propped up a fainting Varice. Numair climbed over his table. Giving his wakeflower vial to Harailt and pointing to Varice, he came over to Daine. “Are you all right?” He cupped her cheek in one large hand, eyes worried. “One of them bit you—”

  She held up her arm to show him the rip in her sleeve and smiled. “Didn’t even nick the skin. It was only rats, Numair.”

  He looked at the chaos around them. Slaves who had fled the rodents stayed in the shadows, afraid to come out. Duke Gareth and Duke Etiakret were debating hotly in whispers, as Gareth the Younger looked on. Harailt was pulling the wakeflower from under Varice’s nose as she coughed and gasped. Alanna talked softly into Kaddar’s ear; she had to stand on tiptoe to do it, and Kaddar had to stoop a little.

  “We need to get out of here before the sky starts raining blood or something equally pleasant,” Numair remarked. “Where’s Ozorne?”

  The emperor had left.

  The banquet was over. Varice, hysterical after she roused from her faint, was only able to cling to Numair and cry. All the guests, Carthaki and foreign alike, talked of the ominous signs they had seen and heard of in tense, lowered voices. No one seemed to care if the emperor spied on them or not.

  Daine and Kaddar watched, quickly getting bored. “It’s not as if we can do anything about all this,” complained the girl, cradling a dozing Zek. “I get the feeling the only ones who can do something are your uncle and his ministers.”

  “Would you like to go for a walk, then?” Kaddar asked. “Is there anything you’d like to do?”

  Daine looked around. On the far side of the lake, behind the willows on its shore, she could sense the menagerie. “Can we go look at the animals again?”

  “Let me ask.” The prince went to talk briefly with Alanna, who came back with him.

  “I don’t blame you for wanting to go someplace else,” the Lioness said with a glare at Varice. “Just don’t be gone too late. Tomorrow is another day—provided it comes, of course.”

  Daine stared at the Champion. “Do you know something we don’t?”

  Alanna shook her head. “Only that I didn’t reach my station by ignoring the gods. If his imperial majesty doesn’t consult them—soon—he will wish he had. Now scat, before I start crying.”

  They scatted, passing a squad of guardsmen on their way around the lake. Kaddar slowed and stared at them after they passed, his mouth tight. Then he shook his head, and they walked on. On reaching the menagerie, he left her at the closed, locked gate. When he returned, he bore a huge key ring. Sorting through the keys, he read their tags by the magelight he cast over their heads.

  “What kind of Gift do you have?” Daine asked. “Nobody ever said what you can do.”

  “Very little.” He chose a key and fitted it in the lock. “Call light, move things a short way, call fire.” The gate swung open. “What I do best is grow things. Trees, flowers, vegetables. I like to garden. The plants Lindhall has for his creatures—I grew those.” He closed the gate behind them.

  “That’s wonderful,” Daine replied, opening herself to the captive animals. “A shame you’re stuck being a prince when you can do something important. Do those keys open the cages and enclosures? I want to go inside.”

  Startled, he yelped, “You want to—” Remembering where they were, he finished in a rough whisper, “—what? Go in? Out of the question. Absolutely out—”

  “Don’t be missish, Kaddar,” she replied flatly. “If you don’t let me in proper, I’ll ask Kitten to do it, and maybe she’ll melt the locks off.”

  Kaddar looked at the first enclosure, the lions’. “You swear you won’t be harmed?”

  “Goddess strike me if I lie,” she said, holding up her right hand.

  Shaking his head, Kaddar went to a door set into the wall next to the lions’ pit, looking for the right key.

  Zek watched, fascinated. These keys things—do they always open cages and doors?

  “One of them is just called a key,” replied Daine. Kaddar glanced at her. “Zek’s asking,” she explained. To the marmoset she added, “They open what doors and cages they’re made to open. Two-leggers make locks to keep doors shut unless you have the right key. It keeps folk from stealing what’s ours. It also helps us keep prisoners.”

  Then a key is magic, Zek said, gray-green eyes locked on Daine’s face. If I’d had keys, I could have freed my little ones and my mate.

  Next time, I will have a key.

  Daine cuddled him, “No one’s ever going to cage you again, Zek; I promise.”

  Kaddar unlocked the door. Open, it led to a small, dark stairwell that wound downward.

  “Lights?” asked the girl.

  “Just snap your fingers.”

  She made a face at him. “I can’t snap my fingers, Your Highness.”

  “You can’t? Really? But it’s easy. You just—”

  “I know what you just. I’ve been trying to for years.”

  He grin
ned, teeth flashing against his dark skin. “You don’t know how much better that makes me feel. You can outshoot me and talk with animals, but you can’t do this.” Raising a hand, he snapped his fingers, and small light-globes embedded in the wall flickered on.

  “No need to rub it in,” grumbled Daine. “Kit, are you coming?”

  The dragon went in, but Kaddar hesitated. “Maybe Zek would rather stay with me.”

  I would, Zek told Daine, nostrils flaring as the scent of big cat rolled up the narrow stair.

  Daine handed him to the prince. “Will I need keys down there?” she asked.

  “No. The inner doors are held with bolts. They aren’t locked.”

  May I see his keys? asked Zek. When Daine translated, the prince smiled and held the ring up for the marmoset to examine.

  Daine followed Kitten down the stairs and opened the door that took them into the lions’ pit. The cats were awake. Moving to look at Daine, they caught a whiff of Kitten’s alien scent and snarled. “It’s all right,” Daine assured them, bathing the big animals in reassurance. “She’s a friend. I’d think, downwind of those immortals, that you’d be more open-minded.”

  There was a laugh from above. She looked up and saw Kaddar leaning on the rail. “Is that what upset them?”

  She smiled crookedly. “You’d think they never smelled a dragon before,” she joked, holding her hands out for the lions to smell.

  Entering their minds, she could feel they missed open ranges, even the ones who were bred in captivity, who learned of their true, wild life from the others. That had bothered her from the first, the sadness of their days even in confinement as pleasant as this. She could not turn them loose. Even if she could, they would be hunted down. Now, at least, she could do something for them. Lindhall had given her the idea when he showed her the small worlds he’d fashioned for his friends.

  She asked the cats’ permission first; they gave it. Starting with those born wild, she used their memories to build a waking dream. From different parts of their minds she drew scents, images, sounds, until she felt as if she’d been transported to a hot, distant land. She gave the dreams shape with the chill of winter rains, air perfumed with dry grass, zebra dung, fresh blood, the grunts and lowing of herds of fat prey. Carefully she sowed the dream in each lion, rooting it firmly in their minds. Now, when they chose, all they had to do was shut their eyes and remember. The dream would awaken; they would be home and free.

  With Kitten she climbed back up the stair and went to the chimpanzee enclosure. Kaddar moved away from her as she passed, and looked at her with awe as he unlocked the chimps’ prison. One by one, she visited all the menagerie captives. Dream planting wasn’t physically hard, but it was time-consuming. Kitten grew bored and joined Kaddar and Zek. The prince, to his credit, never complained about how long this took.

  At last she reached the hyena enclosure. All three inhabitants sat at the bottom of the glasslike wall, dark eyes up and watching, rounded ears pricked forward.

  “Perhaps you should pass by these,” Kaddar suggested.

  She stared at him. “Goddess bless—why?”

  “They’re not like other animals, Daine, They’re cowards. If an animal fights them, they run away. They steal kills from lions, cheetahs. They even devour their young.”

  She scratched her head. For some reason, what he said irritated her. “Steal kills, is it? Doesn’t Carthak do the same? Carthak has eaten all her young—Siraj, Ekallatum, Amar, Apal, Zallara, Shusin—even Yamut, all the way to the foot of the Roof of the World.” He stiffened up, offended. “Forgive me for speaking so plain, but you do make them sound like this country of yours. I’m sorry to be rude when you’ve been kind to me, but animals, at least, do everything for a good reason—to eat. To survive.”

  His smile would have gone unnoticed if she hadn’t given herself cat eyes to see into the shadows around them. It was sour, but it was a smile. “You just reminded me that hyenas are sacred to our patron goddess. You know—the Graveyard Hag.”

  “How delightful for them,” she replied, also sour. “Will you let me in there or not?”

  He shrugged and opened the door that would admit her to the stair down. Once she emerged into their pit, the hyenas surrounded her, sniffing eagerly.

  So you came back after all, remarked their leader, the female. I am Teeu. Meet my boys—Aranh is the one with the nicked ear. Iry has more spots than he can use.

  Daine smiled, running her hands over powerful shoulders, exploring the muscles under the hyenas’ rough and wiry fur. “I’m honored to meet you, all of you.”

  Too bad you weren’t here before, Teeu said, touching Daine’s closed eyes with her cold nose. This close, the reek of mush and dead meat made it hard for the girl to breathe. The hungry one was here.

  This time he wasn’t just hungry; he was scared. It’s the best we ever smelled him.

  “What hungry one?” she asked, curious.

  The hungry one, said Teeu, sniffing Daine from top to toe. The one who wants to eat the world. He hates us, but he can’t stay away. And tonight he was sooo afraid.

  “How do you know?”

  We smell it, Iry’s voice murmured. We can smell him quite well when he stands up there.

  May I? Daine asked Teeu. The female let her into her mind, to experience the world as they did. Kaddar was partly right when he spoke of hyena nature. Teeu had killed her twin not long after they were born; it was hyena custom. In some ways they thought like a wolf pack, but their noses were ten times better than even a wolf’s. They mapped their landscape with scent as a bat would map it with sound. She breathed with Teeu, and learned. The wind brought a bouquet of odor to the nose, one the hyena sorted through for her. She smelled Kaddar: lavender from his clothes, his own unique personal smell, each food he’d consumed that night. Kitten’s scent was completely alien, even to one who lived on the other side of the wall from the immortal’s menagerie. Teeu savored it, making sure it would never be forgotten, before she turned to Zek. His odor was musky, touched with hints of the fruit he loved, and mixed with the fear he felt as the hyenas’ smell reached him.

  What about the hungry one? she asked Teeu.

  The hyena’s memory for scent was as vivid as Daine’s for sights. Their “hungry one” smelled of expensive cloth, soaps and hair oils, amber and cinnamon, spicy food and wine. The girl was startled to recognize it, though her memory of that particular odor was far less strong than Teeu’s.

  Leaving the hyena’s mind, she comforted Zek briefly. When he was calm she called up to the prince, “Kaddar? Why is your uncle afraid of the hyenas?”

  The prince leaned over the wall to look down at her. “Who told you that?”

  Daine rested a hand on Aranh’s sloping shoulder. “They did. They smell it on him. Kaddar, I swear these creatures can smell anything.”

  Kaddar fingered his eardrop. “Kitten, is there a listening spell on us?” The dragon whistled. The sound produced flares from Kaddar’s gems—nothing else. “Thank you. Whenever you wish, you may live with me.” Lowering his voice, he told Daine, “When Uncle took the throne a prophecy was made that hyenas would lead his doom to him. If Chioké hadn’t reminded him that hyenas are sacred to the Graveyard Hag, he would have killed every one in the empire. Instead, he keeps these. We have a saying about things like that: ‘buying off the grave diggers.’” He lifted his head. “What was that?”

  She gave her ears bat shape and listened. “There are humans in the immortals’ menagerie.”

  “No one can go there without my uncle’s permission.” Kaddar examined the keys. “I should check.”

  “Can’t we leave it be?”

  “No. Do you know the magic that can be done with griffin’s blood or spidren wool? If you want to wait, fine.”

  She looked at her new friends. “Do you want the waking dream, the one I gave the others?”

  Teeu yipped her amusement. We would rather have what is here, she replied. The smells in this place are much
more interesting than the ones at home.

  She left them, racing up the stairs to the main walk. Kaddar was quietly trying to fit keys into the special menagerie’s lock. When she joined him, he was scowling.

  “Splendid,” he muttered. “The guards have a way in, at the back of the immortals’ enclosure, but I don’t want to go past them. I’d hoped I’d find a normal lock, one for the cleaning slaves, but there isn’t one. This lock is magical and my Gift won’t open it. I don’t know if the underground tunnels come out this far, either.”

  She heard voices on the far side of the gate. “Are you sure this is needful?”

  “A drop of saliva from a flesh-eating unicorn in a man’s food will kill him after three days of intense pain. It’s undetectable as a poison unless you know exactly what to look for.”

  Daine sighed. “I suppose that means yes. Kitten? Don’t melt it; just open it.”

  The dragon sniffed the keyhole. Backing up a few steps, she gave a demanding whistle, and the gate swung open. Kaddar strode past Daine. Zek, on his shoulder, leaped into the girl’s arms, and she and Kitten followed.

  EIGHT

  THE BADGER RETURNS

  Humans were in the courtyard between the cages. Some were the Banjiku she’d met, as well as other tiny black men and women who could only be their kin. The remaining humans were slaves. They were placing offerings—fruit, flowers, incense—before the immortals’ cages. Apparently they’d heard nothing outside the gate: they froze in shock when Kaddar reached them.

  No one spoke. At last the Stormwing queen unfurled great steel wings, the metal flashing in the light of torches set around the courtyard. “So, girl who slew Zhaneh Bitterclaws.” Her voice was dry and stern. “Do you come to taunt my consort and me?” The humans went to their knees, bowing to Kaddar until their foreheads touched stone flags.

  “Does every one of you know what I look like?” Daine asked the Stormwing.

  “Your face is in our minds,” was the icy reply. “It is rare that we are bested by one so small, and unGifted.” The queen turned dark eyes on the prince. “Have you come to see what you will inherit, mortal? Do you think to master us? You mean nothing. These others at least know they are slaves and give me fear because they know nothing else.”