Antyr obeyed.
Menedrion's brief confusion ended in relief. ‘You won't be needed tonight,’ he said curtly.
Antyr looked concerned, but this was no place to remonstrate.
'Sir,’ someone said urgently, nodding significantly along the corridor. Menedrion raised an impatient hand and frowned.
'Report to my … private office tomorrow … afternoon,’ he said to Antyr. ‘I'll have decided what to do with you then.'
Antyr bowed then he gave Menedrion a significant look, as discreetly as he could. ‘May I leave the palace in the morning, sir?’ he asked. ‘I have matters to … research.'
Menedrion stopped and returned his gaze. ‘Yes,’ he said slowly. ‘Yes, you may.’ Then he was off again, towing his entourage after him. ‘But make sure you get everything you require. You'll need to be available to leave with my company the day after tomorrow.'
'Leave, sir?’ Antyr managed as the tide swept by him. ‘Company? Leave for where …?'
The question faded as Menedrion retreated but a passing figure said, ‘To the border. Escorting the envoy.'
Envoy? Antyr mouthed as the corridor began to revert back to its previous rhythm. ‘What's happening, Tarrian?'
Tarrian shook his head. ‘I don't eavesdrop, you know?’ he said, his tone mildly injured. ‘Except on business.'
'I know,’ Antyr said. ‘But I also know that some people shout a lot. What did you just pick up from that lot?'
'It's all jumble,’ Tarrian replied. ‘I've been getting whiffs of something all day, there's a lot of excitement washing about.’ He hesitated and his concern seeped through to Antyr.
'What is it?’ Antyr said.
'It's the Bethlarii, I'm afraid,’ Tarrian replied reluctantly. ‘Something about a Bethlarii envoy.’ He hesitated again. ‘And Menedrion's mind was full of images of war.'
Antyr went suddenly cold, and the splendour around him seemed to become just so much dross.
'You're not on the reserves now, are you?’ Tarrian asked gently.
'I'm well down the list,’ Antyr replied. ‘They'd be at the gates before my turn came, I think, but…'
'I understand,’ Tarrian said. ‘There are no words to measure the folly of it.’ He tried to offer a little solace. ‘Still I might be wrong,’ he said. ‘Menedrion's a wild man, and he's looking for something to take his mind off his real problem. And I wasn't really listening.'
Antyr reached down and stroked him. ‘Don't worry,’ he said needlessly. ‘I've no doubt we'll find out what we need to know in due course. In the meantime Menedrion's real problems are also our real problems and we'd better bend our mind to them. We'll have to find this Nyriall tomorrow and hope he can help us.'
'There's another problem now,’ Tarrian said.
Antyr looked at him inquiringly.
'We can't go anywhere with Menedrion,’ Tarrian answered. ‘The Duke told us not to leave the city.'
Antyr caught a glimpse of a worried-looking middle-aged man across the corridor. He was stooping slightly. With a jolt he realized it was himself reflected with fearful accuracy by an elegant silver-framed mirror.
'Not pretty, is it?’ Tarrian said. Antyr ignored the comment but straightened up, adjusted his robe, and smoothed down his hair.
'Well, we'd better go and speak to the Duke then, hadn't we?’ he said.
Chapter 17
Antyr's encounter with Menedrion had at least overcome his hesitancy about inquiring of anyone as to where in the palace he might be and, still buoyed up, he fixed the first guard he found with an imperious stare and demanded to know the whereabouts of the Duke's private quarters.
Fortunately, the guard in question had just seen him talking to Menedrion and gave him the information without even submitting him to a suspicious look.
Now, as he walked through the palace, Tarrian's disturbing news conspired with the eerie problems mounting around him to unsettle him again and send his mood swinging rapidly between excitement and depression.
Gradually, he brought his thoughts into some semblance of order. Practical problems first: he had to see the Duke about Menedrion's order that he prepare to leave the city. That was a conflict of instructions that he had no intention of attempting to resolve on his own! He could see that any meeting with the Duke about it might lead to complications concerning how it had come to pass that Menedrion had contacted him, but on balance, he decided that a naive craftsman's openness and honesty was his best protection; indeed, it was perhaps his
Then, though largely at Tarrian's prompting, came the problem of payment. Should he try and find Aaken and debate that with him, or should he raise it with the Duke? He quailed at the prospect of either, and decided to make his final decision when he was on the battlefield itself. As for Menedrion's fee-he was glad he'd waived it.
Then there were the other, darker, problems: the Duke's strange dream. Menedrion's even stranger one, if dream it had been. And his own frightening … visitation. It was difficult but he knew he must try to accept that he could do nothing about any of these until something else happened or unless the old Dream Finder Nyriall gave him some help. A siren voice somewhere down inside him still tried to lure him away from this terrifying, clinging quagmire he felt he was sinking into. Get drunk! Run away! But somehow he managed to shout it down.
He shook his head as he walked along. His encounter with Pandra and Kany earlier seemed like distant memories and his aching walk to the Aphron Dennai was an eternity away.
As for the possibility of war? True, it was only Tarrian's vaguely snatched impression, but his stomach plunged again, even though, of all his problems it was perhaps the one that he could do least about.
'We're nearly there.’ Tarrian's voice interrupted his uneasy reverie.
Antyr looked up with a start. He had been so absorbed that for a moment he could not remember where he was. As he gazed around he was startled to see dark windows on either side of the corridor. Then he realized that they were passing over one of the palace's many high-soaring covered walkways.
He stopped by a window and looked out.
'Tarrian,’ he said softly. ‘Look.'
The wolf had been walking some way ahead, his head lowered intently, but he turned without comment and came back.
As the two of them stared out of the window, a ghostly Dream Finder and his Companion gazed back at them, but shining through these images was the sprawl of Serenstad with its fog-blurred lights expanding steadily outwards.
'I didn't realize we'd come so high,’ Antyr said.
'You've been a bit preoccupied,’ Tarrian said. ‘We've come up quite a few stairs. And don't forget, the palace is built on a slope.'
Antyr nodded absently. It was still a breathtaking sight. What must it be like on a clear day? Glancing from side to side he could just make the edges of the two buildings that were joined by the walkway; both of them disappeared up into the darkness. And what must be the view from up there?
'Come on,’ Tarrian prompted gently. ‘Let's find our client.'
Reluctantly, Antyr pulled himself away from the window and set off after Tarrian again.
As they passed through the door at the end of the walkway, they emerged into what appeared to be a large foyer. It was not as brightly lit as the corridors they had been walking along, but its most striking feature was the silence as the echoing marble floor gave way to a lush carpet.
'Where now?’ Antyr asked, instinctively whispering.
'Nowhere,’ Tarrian answered significantly, and even as he spoke, two large guards appeared silently in front of them.
'Have you lost your way, sir?’ one of them said politely. He had a slight foreign accent. Mantynnai, Antyr
