barracks-style sleeping chamber for her. The Empress had a large suite of rooms for herself and her slaves that included a meeting room, dressing rooms, a private bedchamber, and a bathing room. The entire suite was decorated with exquisite fabrics, leopard pelts, potted trees, and various weapons.
Afec cleared his throat, drawing her attention back to the clothing. Linsha shrugged. She couldn’t have cared less what she wore.
The Empress surprised her though. After fitting her with a green wrap dress that barely gave her room to take a stride, she presented Linsha with a long-sleeved black robe embroidered with a blue dragon that curled sinuously around the sweeping hem.
“Your
Linsha looked so quizzical that Afec hastened to explain. “You have no family to represent you, so you have no family
Linsha thought about that and ran her hand lightly over the exquisite blue silk embroidery. It was a blue dragon, a dragon of evil, a minion of Takhisis. But it was a
After the meeting, Afec escorted her back to her quarters. At the wide door into the building, he handed her the robe and the green dress. As he passed it to her hands, he made a respectful bow and murmured so only she could hear, “When you go to the dragon, use the powder for the guards only in an emergency. Wear the belt. It will protect you from the priests’ magic. The liquid is for the dragon. Make her drink it. It will help her regain her strength.”
Linsha saw two woman approaching and quickly laid a hand on his wrist. Without a change in his expression, he nodded goodnight and shuffled away. Holding the dress and the robe and the items he had hidden in their folds, she watched him go until he disappeared in the direction of his small workroom.
She hurried into her sleeping chamber where she hung up the wedding finery and hid the small items with the dark green tunic and pants under her pallet.
With the patience born of a hundred past clandestine missions, she lay down on her pallet to wait.
Sometime close to midnight Linsha woke to the cry of the wind under the eaves. Lying still for a time, she listened to the sounds of the sleeping room, and when she heard nothing more than the moan of the wind, the creak of the timbers in the roof, and the common noises of the sleeping women, she rose silently to her feet. She gathered the bundle of clothes and the items she had collected and held them close to her body, then she wrapped a blanket around her shoulders. If anyone found her and asked, she would say she couldn’t sleep and was going to the privy. However, there was no need for subterfuge. The sleeping quarters remained quiet, and the halls were empty. Linsha hurried down a corridor and slipped outside.
The wind greeted her with a roar and a bite. The clouds she had seen in the western sky had bulled in after sunset and now covered the entire sky in a black velvet wrap. The clouds’ consort, the wind, roared and rolled over the palace grounds with a strong smell of rain on its skirts.
Linsha took a deep appreciative breath of air and hurried to the cover of a thick planting of shrubs and trees. She changed into the dark clothing, wrapped a gray scarf around her head, and tied Afec’s knotted belt around her waist. She hadn’t had a chance to ask him why he felt the belt was important to ward off the priests’ magic, but it made a good place to hang the small bag of powder and the container of liquid he had given her, a pair of archer’s gloves, and several lengths of a strong lightweight rope she had borrowed from the exercise room. She shoved her light tunic and the blanket out of sight and rubbed dirt over her hands, face and ankles. In this gloomy night, she knew she would be very difficult to see.
A shadow among the tossing shadows, she flitted through the windy night across the grounds to the hedge and stood at last at the foot of the circling wall. If she was right, the guards would be changing soon, which would give her the distraction she wanted to slip over the wall.
Low voices spoke on the parapet above her, and Linsha abruptly realized the change of the guard was already occurring. On silent feet she eased up the stairs by the tower and pressed into the darkness where the tower bulged out from the wall. An archway bisected the tower to allow the guards to pass through and to give them access to a ladder that led up into the higher levels of the watch turret. Linsha peered cautiously through the tower entry and saw six guards quietly conversing along the wall on the other side. Three were leaving and three would be staying. Or four. Hadn’t she counted four the other day?
Footsteps clattered overhead and a trap door suddenly opened in the tower ceiling. A guard climbed down the ladder and hurried to join the others. Another conversation ensued between the two watch leaders.
Linsha eased into the darkness of the tower archway, straining her ears to hear their voices. It was difficult to catch what they said over the roar of the wind and the crash of the surf below, but she thought she heard the Tarmak words for sick and three.
The Tarmaks saluted one another then four marched for the stairs, leaving only three on the walls. Linsha grinned. Apparently one of this guard unit was ill and they didn’t feel it was important enough to replace him on a night like this. So much the better.
Before the Tarmaks decided to move in her direction, she whisked out of the entry and snatched out a length of rope that already had a loop tied at one end. Tossing the loop over a crenellation, she settled the rope as far down as it would go and pulled the loop tight. In the deep gloom of the cloudy night, it was barely visible against the stone, and only if you knew where to look for it. She slipped on the archer’s gloves-the only type of gloves she had been able to find-cast a quick look at the tower, and let herself down thirty feet. As soon as her feet touched the ground, she followed the base of the wall away from the tower toward the narrowest width of ground.
From the base of the wall to the edge of the rocky escarpment was a mere six paces, a very difficult width to utilize if you were crazy enough to attack the palace from that direction. The land had been cleared of brush, rocks, and any kind of cover, but Linsha had the distinct impression that the wall in this section was not so much to keep enemies out as to keep people in. The other day when she sat on the battlements she had seen that this wall was the only one. Unlike other, more vulnerable sections of the palace that had two large defensive walls, this part had one, and one steep, rocky promontory that jutted out into the sea.
She found the place she wanted and eased out away from the wall. On a moonlit night she would have been hard pressed to creep away from the wall without being seen, but she was lucky on this black, gusty night. As long as she did not attract attention with sudden movement, she should be able to creep over to the eroded crevice she had noticed earlier and drop out of sight.
The palace wall remained quiet. No horns blared. No harsh Tarmak voice yelled at her from the wall. No arrow slammed into her back. Only the wind roared over the stone walls and tugged at her body as she scrambled down the worn crevice and picked her way carefully to the steep edge. Fortunately the face of the promontory was not a sheer cliff like the high bluffs near the Missing City. The land dropped abruptly to the sea, but there was enough slope to make the descent possible. She debated with herself about using one of her two precious remaining lengths of rope as a safety line then decided to do it. She didn’t know what lay at the foot of the promontory. She might need a rope. It was better to be cautious than end up a broken wreck at the bottom, so she tied off a long length and climbed down the rocky face as carefully as she dared in the dark and tempestuous winds.
Rock by rock she crept along the steep slope, testing with her feet, feeling her way down. She watched as best she could for a crack or a shaft that might lead into the dragon’s cave, for she remembered in her dream seeing light filter through an opening in the wall of the cave. But if an opening was there, she did not find it in the dark.
Halfway down, she paused to give her aching arms a rest and saw the pale wash of waves breaking below her. They seemed to be washing up on a beach or a gravel bar or a shelf several paces away from the foot of the stone wall, which gave Linsha hope that she would have an area to walk upon as she searched for the cave entrance.
Her rope held through the long descent down the rugged slope until the last ten feet. As soon as the end reached her fingers, she tied a knot and anchored the rope on a slight outcropping where she hoped she could find it again on the way back up. She climbed cautiously down a few more feet, then her aching fingers slipped on a
