invalid to totter about Orchtrien's palace.
He kicked his gray palfrey into a canter, and his half dozen bodyguards clattered after him. Six was the smallest number protocol allowed. He meant to welcome the hostage like a cordial host, not a foe who feared hostilities.
The Duskmere retainers greeted him with glum faces but likewise with respect.
'Our mistress,' said their chief, 'is the Lady Winterflower.'
Rhespen turned to see if, now that she had, in effect, been introduced, Winterflower would see fit to emerge from her carriage, pull back a curtain, or at least speak. She didn't.
'Is the lady ill?' he asked. 'Or deep in Reverie?'
'I don't believe so,' the servant replied.
Then perhaps she's hard of hearing, Rhespen thought. He swung himself down from his horse, advanced to the coach, and rapped on the door.
'Milady?' he said. 'I'm Rhespen Ash, Royal Councilor and Magician, come to escort you into the Bright City and see to your comfort thereafter.'
'Escort me, then,' she said, still without revealing herself. Her soprano voice sounded sweet, yet cold, like a drink from a frigid spring.
'The weather is mild, and the view going up the mountain is spectacular. I recommend you ascend on horseback, or at least unshroud your windows.'
'No doubt I'll have ample opportunity to observe the walk of my prison once I'm trapped behind them.'
His mouth tightened. He had no wish to vex her, but likewise saw no reason to tolerate the childish discourtesy implicit in her refusal to reveal herself. If he permitted it to succeed now, it would be that much harder to eliminate later on.
'Milady,' he said, 'I could never forgive myself if, through inaction, I deprived you of one of the fairest sights in Faerun.' He murmured a rhyme and swept a talisman through a mystic pass. Winterflower's retainers gawked and exclaimed in alarm, but the incantation was only a few words long, and he'd already finished before they could make up their minds to intervene.
He touched the talisman to the side of the carriage, and the top half of it faded from view. The startled driver appeared to be sitting on empty air, and Winterflower herself, to be riding in some sort of peculiar open wagon. Rhespen pivoted to regard her, and his eyes widened.
With their fair, clear skin and slender frames, most elves were pleasant to look upon, but even by the standards of their comely race, Winterflower was extraordinary. Her curls were soft, gleaming ebony, and her eyes, sapphires flecked with gold. Her features were fine, exquisite, yet somehow avoided the appearance of daintiness. Rather, they bespoke courage and intelligence.
She glared at him. 'Had I been allowed to bring my grimoires and amulets with me into captivity, I'd wipe your feeble enchantment away, then punish you for your impudence.'
He shook off his surprise at her loveliness. 'Then I'm glad the king forbade you their use, and before long, you'll feel the same. Let's continue on our way.' He whistled, and his horse, trained in part by magic, instantly left off cropping grass and came to him.
He rode beside Winterflower as the road switchbacked up into the mountains, past the minor bastions and watchtowers built to guard the way. He chatted about the sights they encountered, and she responded-or failed to-with a silence and an expression as stony as the crags rising around them.
Until Dawnfire came into view. For elves were famously susceptible to beauty, and despite herself, she caught her breath. Her features softened.
Orchtrien's capital was both a city and one vast castle, the whole hewn from the living rock of the mountaintop, then refined and polished like a cameo. Not an inch of it was plain, dingy, or poorly proportioned. At the crest of every spire, framing every window, and etched into every section of wall, finely wrought ornamentation delighted the eye.
'We'll ride out early one morning so you can see it at sunrise,' Rhespen said. 'The stonework catches the red and gold light like a mirror.'
Winterflower scowled, struggling to break the spell of the vista as he himself had earlier exerted his will to cast off his astonishment at her loveliness. 'I hate to think,' she said, 'of all the toil that went into creating that monument, simply to feed a dragon's vanity.'
'It's a city. A good many folk who aren't dragons live there and enjoy it, too. By nightfall, you'll be one of us.'
'I wonder how many poor slaves fell to their deaths in the carving of it.'
'Orchtrien doesn't have slaves. He has subjects, the same as any king. You'll see.'
She sniffed, and still half visible and half not, the coach clattered onward.
A patrol comprised of Orchtrien's personal guards recognized Rhespen and stepped to the side of the street, clearing the way for him and his companions. Clad in gilt armor, the warriors were tall, lanky men with blond hair and tawny eyes. Their skin had a golden cast as well, and in some cases, a faint patterning suggestive of scales. Winterflower studied them as her coach rolled past.
'Those,' said Rhespen, 'are half-dragons.'
'I know what they are,' she snapped. 'Orchtrien's bastards, or the bastards of his dragon sons. Abominations engendered by the rape of elf and human women.'
He shook his head. 'Rape? Milady, I can't imagine how you come by such lurid fancies.'
'Do you claim the women have a choice?'
'Yes. Though admittedly, I don't recall anyone refusing. The rewards are considerable.'
'What reward could adequately compensate a woman for lying with a gigantic serpent? They accept the horror and shame because they dare not refuse.'
'Gold wyrms can change their shapes. They visit their mistresses in the forms of males of their own races.' He grinned. 'Otherwise, I'll grant you, squashing could be a problem. But the two of us, gently born and newly acquainted, ought not to speak of such coarse matters. Your new home is just ahead.'
The column passed through an arch in a wall adorned with flowers, bumblebees, and hummingbirds rendered in mosaic. On the other side, in the very heart of the city, towered a wood of oak and shadowtop. High in the branches hung dwellings constructed on multiple levels, some portions enclosed, others, simple platforms. White, blue, and amber lamps glowed in the twilight, and the scents of cooking tinged the air.
'This is the Elf Quarter,' Rhespen said. 'You can imagine all the hard work and potent sorcery it took to transplant these trees to the top of a mountain, just so people like us would feel at home.'
'In other words,' she said, 'Orchtrien wounded a true forest to create this unnatural place. That doesn't surprise me. His marauders kill trees every day to clear more of his cursed farmland.'
'The army must eat, Milady, the entire kingdom must, and the unfortunate truth is, forests don't yield as much food as grain fields. I assure you, the king intends to leave the greater portion of the woodlands intact.'
'Every particle of soil, every leaf, every twig of our homeland is sacred, Milord. If you still possessed the soul of an elf, you'd know it, but I fear it shriveled in you long ago.'
Rhespen felt a twinge of incipient headache. 'We can discuss these matters later, at our leisure. For now, let me install you in your new residence, and I'll leave you to your rest.'
In the evenings, Winterflower took to singing from one of the open platforms high in her shadowtop. Her repertoire, comprised of laments and dirges, was as cheerless as her conversation, but so lovely was her voice that her neighbors still made it a habit to stop and listen. Over time, word of her performances spread, and even folk who were not elves began to wander into the quarter at dusk to partake of the free entertainment.
So perhaps it shouldn't have been any great astonishment when the king himself asked for a song, but nonetheless, it caught Rhespen by surprise.
He turned from the table where he dined with the hostages and looked across the hall, to the pedestal atop which Orchtrien crouched over his own wagon-wheel-sized plate of beef and bowl of red wine. 'I beg your pardon, Majesty?'
'I've heard about the nightingale of the Elf Quarter,' the dragon replied. 'Please, Milady, grace us with a song to celebrate my victory over the Red Triumvirate.'
