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She ignored this as being too silly for comment. “When can we talk?” she demanded. “You’ve got to find a way, somehow. It may be fair important.”

  “‘It may be’?”

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure.” She thought for a moment and decided she had to take a chance and give him some clue as to what she wanted. “I spoke to the badger yesterday.”

  That startled him. “Where?”

  “Aboard ship. In my cabin. He was”—she groped for a phrase—“not himself.”

  Long brows drew together. “Not—” The doors swung open. “Very well—I’ll try to develop some opportunity,” he said quickly. “They’ve scheduled these meetings so tightly we barely have time to scratch, let alone talk.”

  The group of people surged forward, taking them with it. In the banquet hall the emperor waited beside a long, low railing made of gold. Behind it large, open windows gave a view of the sky and a small lake. Ozorne was as splendid as on the night before, although his theme now was silver, from the beads on his hair to the paint on his eyelids. His long underrobe was silver cloth. Over it he wore a black velvet drape like a cloak that covered his back to the knees and left one shoulder bare. Strings of flashing opals linked the free end of the drape to his wrist. He blazed with gems at fingers and toes. Silver armlets like giant snakes wound about his wrists.

  Now, through the windows, two Stormwings dropped in to perch on the gold bar. One was an older male with a pinkish-gray face, tight lips, and small brown eyes. He wore a black iron crown on thinning dark hair. The younger male was green-eyed and lean-faced. He wore bones braided into his long blond hair. While Ozorne and the crowned male spoke privately, the younger one shifted from foot to foot, clearly not pleased to be there.

  Numair frowned. “Daine, isn’t that—from Dunlath?”

  “None other,” she said. The last time she had seen the green-eyed Stormwing, he had been in her bow sight. “How nice for us all. We can have a reunion.”

  FOUR

  STRANGE CONVERSATIONS

  Ozorne beckoned everyone forward. “Honored guests, we present King Jokhun Foulreek, our ally from the Stone Tree nation of Stormwings, and his vassal, Lord Rikash Moonsword. They will join us.” He didn’t seem to care whether or not his guests wished to meet Stormwings. Coolly he presented each of them to the immortals by name. Duke Gareth, bowing to them in greeting, caught a faceful of Stormwing odor and coughed.

  Daine watched the immortals as the introductions unfolded. Jokhun stared at those being presented, not bothering to speak to them. The only time he showed emotion was when he saw Kitten: he frowned, and murmured to his companion. Rikash glanced over. Seeing Kitten, he found Daine and scowled.

  “His face will freeze like that if he isn’t careful,” muttered Daine, shifting Zek from the crook of her arm to her shoulder. In Dunlath a year ago, Rikash had acted for Ozorne in the plot to overthrow King Jonathan, and had lost to Daine and Numair.

  They were the last of the group to be presented to the immortals. Jokhun paid them no more attention than he might a fly on the wall, but Rikash bated her. “We’ve met,” he said coldly.

  “Moonsword?” She had never known his last name. “That’s very pretty.”

  The Stormwing grimaced. “My ancestors were a sentimental lot. I know you, too, mage,” he told Numair. “I remember the onion bomb you threw at me.”

  Ozorne smiled. “Lord Rikash, did you not say the wild animals of Dunlath behaved oddly?”

  “I certainly did,” the Stormwing replied.

  “You have Daine to thank,” said the emperor. “She is bonded to animals through wild magic.”

  The look on Rikash’s face was one of mixed rage, chagrin, and laughter. King Jokhun turned watery eyes on Daine. “Some day we must meet less formally—when you are not protected by your host.” There was an annoying hint of a whine in the king’s nasal voice. “We will discuss a number of Stormwing deaths that are laid to your account.”

  “Anytime,” Daine told him, smiling as sweetly as she could.

  Numair bowed and nudged her to do the same. Once they were away from the emperor and the immortals, he murmured, “This visit gets better all the time, doesn’t it?”

  Daine nodded. She wasn’t sure how she felt about seeing Rikash again. He was a Stormwing, a race of immortals she hated, but personally he hadn’t seemed to be such a bad sort.

  “There you are.” Varice, in a red satin gown that fitted like her skin, took charge of them. Numair she guided to the very end of the head table, far to Ozorne’s right. The only seat next to his was the one she would occupy herself. Daine, feeling cross, realized immediately that the woman had arranged things so that she would have Numair to herself.

  With Numair seated, Varice led Daine to the opposite end of the main board, where Prince Kaddar waited. Daine curtsied slightly, pleased by the elegant sigh of her skirts, and once more silently thanked the queen for her wardrobe. She never could have faced these elegant people in the clothes she normally dressed up in—a blue wool gown for winter, and a pink cotton for summer. Even in these garments, she couldn’t hope to match the prince. He was as finely dressed as he had been on the ship, in a calf-length robe of fine wool tinted a delicate aquamarine, and a shoulder drape of white silk shot through with gold threads. He glittered with jewels; against his dark face, his eyes could easily have been black gems, for all the emotion they showed as he bowed her to her seat.

  “You’ll be fine with His Highness,” Varice told Daine, and left them there.

  Kitten, unnoticed by Varice, sat up on her hindquarters and chirped, drawing a smile from the prince. “I don’t know if your food will be very good for her,” he admitted.

  “She eats anything,” Daine replied. “Trust me.”

  Kaddar lifted a hand, and a male slave appeared by his elbow. An exchange of whispers resulted in a stool being produced for Kitten. Discovering that she could see over the table if she sat on it, she cheeped and whistled softly.

  “She’s thanking you,” explained the girl. “And so do I. It was a nice thing for you to do.”

  A smile tugged at Kaddar’s mouth. “I read that dragons are curious about everything.”

  Daine nodded. “They understand as much as two-leggers. More, because they know the speech of animals as well as human tongues. I can’t speak dragon, but if she wants me to understand her, she makes her meaning clear.”

  Ozorne clapped his hands. Slaves began to move in streams, bringing dishes to the diners so that they could select what they wanted. Female slaves, wearing loincloths and nothing else, went from guest to guest, filling wine goblets.

  For Daine and Kaddar, the dragon was clearly a safe topic of conversation. Her wariness of him began to fade when she found he asked intelligent questions, and listened to her answers. The moment he felt his friend relax, Zek popped out of the sleeve where he’d been hiding and climbed onto Daine’s shoulder. For a moment the prince struggled with well-bred dismay, then suddenly grinned, for the first time looking like a young man not much older than she was.

  “Anyone else?” he asked. “A sparrow in your pocket? A snake as your belt?”

  Daine blushed and looked down. “No one else. Zek just doesn’t like to be parted from me. I think he’s so relieved to be in my care that he doesn’t want to let me out of his sight.”

  “Understandably,” replied Kaddar, stretching a hand out to the marmoset. Zek observed his fingers with the same grave air as he did everything, then climbed on. With that, the ice was broken between prince and guest. They talked about a number of subjects, comparing stories of their lives. The only awkward moment came when a slave arrived with the meat course: antelope steaks.

  Daine swallowed hard. She had managed skewers of roast duck and peppers, smoked salmon and herring, and tarts filled with cheese and ham. She had even tried snails in garlic butter. At the risk of giving offense, she could not eat this. Worse, she knew Kaddar was bound by social custom to eat only the things she did. “I’m
sorry,” she whispered. “I can’t.”

  Kaddar frowned. “Please? They’re my favorite.”

  Her cheeks were hot. “Look—don’t mind me. You go ahead.”

  “It would be churlish of me to eat something that causes you distress.” Kaddar sighed and shook his head at the slave, who removed the offending dish. “At least tell me why.”

  Daine rubbed her face tiredly. “What do you know about me? About what I can do?”

  “Well, you heal animals, and talk to them inside your head, and they do your bidding.”

  “You won’t like that,” Daine told Zek, who was investigating a small dish of hot peppers. To Kaddar she said, “I ask them to do things, most of the time. I don’t like to order them around. Would your friends like it if you always told them what to do?”

  Thin lips twitched. “Point taken. So you ask them to do things and you talk to them and heal.”

  “I can also be them. I learned how to shape-shift a year ago. My first mistake was when I thought I’d try deer shape, one day last winter. See, I didn’t know the royal huntsmen would be out, looking for some game—”

  “I think I can see where this is going.” He watched her with interest, leaning his cheek on one hand. “So you can’t eat deer—”

  “Last spring we were rounding up killer unicorns, and bandits cornered me. I’d gotten separated from Numair and panicked. I changed into a wild goose.” Remembering, she sighed.

  “Big mistake?” There was sympathy in his voice.

  “They got me with a barbed arrow. I escaped, but almost lost the arm. Anyway, ever since I could take on a creature’s mind or shape, I can’t eat game of any kind. I eat fish, and domestic meat like beef and chicken, but then, I never wanted to be a fish, and I close out the thoughts of barnyard animals. I’m sorry. I used to hunt and eat game with the best of them, but not anymore.”

  The prince looked thoughtful. “So there are drawbacks to your power.”

  “There’s drawbacks to any power, Your Highness.”

  Musicians had entered the room as they talked. Now, in the cleared space before the main board, acrobats started a whirling, athletic dance. Kaddar was feeding bits of smoked eel to Kitten, leaving the girl free to admire the performance. When it was over, she remarked that she’d never thought two-leg-gers had that much bend in them, which made her companion laugh.

  The acrobats were replaced by a number of unusually small black men and women and their animal companions. One old man held the leashes for a pair of tall, rangy, spotted cats. Twin girls carried an assortment of monkeys, while dogs of varying sizes and colors followed the entire company. The minute they saw Daine, all of the animals broke from their handlers to go to her. Quickly the girl stood and walked around to the front of the table, knowing that they would knock the table over to say hello if she didn’t. Zek squeaked in fear and burrowed under Kaddar’s drape as one of the cats rose on his hind legs to plant his forepaws on the girl’s shoulders.

  Daine petted her new friend. “Hello—you’re a beauty, aren’t you?” Silently she asked, How do they treat you, these trainers of yours? Do they hurt you to teach you things? In Tortall she’d found that many animal trainers used pain to make lessons stick.

  The animals gathered around were quick to reassure her. Our two-leggers are wise, the cheetah male who had laid his paws on her shoulders said. They speak almost as clearly as other beast-People do. They never hurt us.

  Daine saw why as the trainers, none of them taller than her earlobe, came to her behind their animals. Flashes of copper fire—wild magic—sparked in their eyes and around their hands as they chattered in wordlike sounds. One woman coaxed the cheetah back from Daine, but the monkeys and dogs crowded into his place.

  “They are Banjiku tribesmen, from Zallara in the south.” Emperor Ozorne had left his dais and come over to the group. “They are saying that they think you are a god.”

  Someone laughed. Daine turned red. “Please excuse me, but I’m no such thing.”

  “You are god,” said the oldest man in heavily accented Common. “I am Tano, the cat-man. The cats come to me, also to my wife. We have cat-children.” Daine realized his face was tattooed with feline whiskers and ears. “Cholombi is dog-man.” The man thus named raised his hands to show dog-pad tattoos on his palms. “Twins are monkey-girls.” The young women with monkeylike tattoos bowed and grinned at Daine. “See? We all one-kind beast. If you are not god, then you god-child. Yes? Which god?”

  Her blush worsened, and Daine knelt to bury her face in the female cheetah’s fur. The cat chirped.

  “I don’t know who my da is.” She wouldn’t have minded telling these nice humans in private but doing so in front of the emperor hurt. “My ma died before she could tell me.”

  The Banjiku chattered briefly.

  “They think it’s too bad you don’t know your father.” Numair had also come over. “They wish they knew his name. They would sacrifice to him and ask him to visit their daughters as he did your mother.”

  Daine was about to protest that she was not the child of a god when she remembered visions she’d had since her mother’s death, of her ma doing everyday tasks in a forest cottage. All included a horned man with hints of green in his darkly tanned skin. Could it be . . .?

  Ozorne watched Daine and Numair, face unreadable as he waved a jeweled fan idly. “The Banjiku skill with animals is legendary,” he remarked. “It was through their legends that your teacher came to believe in the existence of wild magic. It seems he was right—in this case, at least. And now, if they would be so kind as to do the work for which they have been summoned?”

  The Banjiku bowed to Daine, and moved into place for their performance. She returned to her seat and watched the entire thing without seeing it. Surely it wasn’t possible that her da, unknown for all these years, was a god! And yet—Ma had always told her that she’d been conceived in the forest on Beltane, and that her father was a stranger.

  Applause brought her back to her surroundings. The Banjiku and their animals had performed beautifully and were leaving the room. Daine nodded when the cat man winked at her. They would see each other again.

  The banquet over, the emperor’s guests returned to the reception area. Musicians played in a corner while slaves offered pastries and drinks to everyone. Daine was talking about the habits of griffins with Numair and Lindhall when a slave approached, pushing a wheeled cart. Perched on its surface was Rikash. Jokhun had left during the banquet, but evidently his vassal had other plans.

  “Go away,” he ordered the slave, then nodded to Numair and Daine.

  Zek, on Daine’s shoulder, craned forward to stare at the immortal, holding a tiny paw over his nose.

  Rikash grimaced at him. “Still consorting with tree rats, I see.”

  Daine smiled. Rikash’s last encounter with her had involved a squirrel named Flicker. “Now you know what disease the Dunlath animals had.”

  “Was that you, shape-changed?” he asked.

  The girl shook her head. “Not then. I had just learned how to put myself within an animal’s mind. Flicker and that eagle were helping me.”

  “Shape-shifting goes with that skill,” the Stormwing lord pointed out. “I would have thought you would know that by now.”

  Numair grinned. “She does.”

  “How delightful for us all,” the immortal said, voice extremely dry. “I must remember to give Tortall a wide berth.”

  Idly he scratched the brass that sheathed the top of the cart under his feet, drawing squeals from it with his steel claws. Daine gritted her teeth; Numair winced.

  Lindhall bowed. “If you will excuse me?” He patted the humans on the shoulders and left.

  “We were having a nice talk before you came,” Daine informed Rikash.

  “I am devastated to have ruined your fun.” Looking down, he asked in a very different voice, “Do you hear from Maura of Dunlath?”

  “She writes Daine often,” said Numair.

 
; “She misses you,” Daine told the Stormwing. “She says her guardian is nice, but he doesn’t have your sense of humor. You could visit her, you know. She’d like that.”

  Rikash pried up a bit of the metal he stood on. “I must remain here with King Jokhun, for now,” he replied. “I believe my stay will not endure for much longer, and then I may be free to pursue my own life. If that is the case, I would like to see Maura again.”

  “Oh?” Numair asked. “It sounds as if you anticipate a momentous event. What is it?”

  Rikash looked at him sharply, then grinned. “Finish your business here quickly, mage. Carthak’s unhealthy. It will get worse before it gets better.” To Daine he said, “Frankly, I’m surprised to find either of you at this court. It is wise to make a peace with the man who tried to overthrow your king?”

  “It’s very wise, if the greatest army and navy are on your enemy’s side,” Numair said dryly.

  Daine toyed with the silver claw at her throat. “It’s no different from what you did, is it?”

  Rikash stamped the pulled-up brass into place. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Don’t play innocent.” It was such a relief to be able to speak her mind to someone. Rikash, at least, would never complain of her lack of diplomacy. “We’ve seen the menagerie, Lord Rikash. They have one of your queens and her consort here.”

  Kitten whistled confirmation, and silenced when the Stormwing glared at her.

  “You are wrong,” he said flatly. “There are no queens missing from the other flocks, and I have no queen in mine. The old one was slain in combat by King Jokhun, after our custom.”

  “Then maybe the prince was mistaken,” said Numair with a shrug. “He seemed convinced that Barzha was a queen.”

  Rikash’s steel feathers ruffled, then settled into place with a series of muted clicks. “What did you say her name was?”

  “Barzha,” Daine replied as she scratched Kitten behind an ear. “Her consort was named Hebakh. The prince said their being in a cage here was the price of the alliance with King Jokhun.”