At the center of Dawnfire stood the royal palace, a sprawling hive that was home to a legion of servants, guards, and courtiers. Within that complex rose the high keep containing Orchtrien's personal apartments, and the quarters of those he wanted closest. Prowling the benighted garden adjacent to the tower's southern aspect, inhaling the fragrance of brunfelsia, Rhespen pondered how best to slip inside, and wondered too if he was mad.
Wasn't it likely that, half-drunk as he'd been, he'd imagined Winterflower's momentary change of expression? Even if he hadn't, even if she was secretly unhappy, what could he do about it? Nothing! Whereas he was all too likely to forfeit his life by probing any further into the matter.
Yet something inside him demanded to know the truth. He shifted his shoulders to work the tension out, gripped his staff, and strode to the keep's primary entrance.
At the top of the steps leading to the arched double doors, a long-legged pair of half-dragon guards saluted. 'Milord,' they said in unison. 'The king isn't in residence tonight,' the one on the right continued.
'I know,' Rhespen said. He'd chosen tonight for this harebrained escapade precisely because Orchtrien had flown south to confer with barons busy recruiting and training warriors to replace those slain in last year's battles. He drew twin pulses of power from his staff. The half-dragons swayed, and their eyes opened wide, as the magic touched their minds. 'But I need to retrieve an important document I left inside. So please, admit me.'
Ordinarily, they might not have cooperated, his rank notwithstanding. But thanks to the charms he'd cast, they trusted him completely, and made haste to swing open the small door set in the middle of the huge, dragon- sized one on the right.
Once they closed it again, leaving him to his own devices, he took a wary glance about to make sure nobody else was watching. No one was, so he whispered the words to veil himself in invisibility, then stalked onward, his elven boots muffling the sound of his passage through the sleeping tower's hushed and shadowy chambers.
Orchtrien invariably installed his mistresses in the apartments directly above his own; it was an open secret that a concealed staircase connected one bedchamber with the other. As he approached the entrance to Winterflower's suite, Rhespen was disheartened to see that no additional sentries guarded the way. Their absence cast doubt on the forlorn hope that the king was somehow compelling the elf girl to serve as his concubine.
I could still turn back, Rhespen thought, before I humiliate myself or worse. Instead, he touched the head of his staff to the door. The lock clicked, disengaging, and the panel swung ajar.
He closed it behind him and stalked on through the darkened apartment. He found Winterflower lying on a couch in front of an open casement, immersed in Reverie or simply staring into the gloom. Whichever it was, she bolted upright as soon as he dissolved his spell of concealment.
'Milord!' she exclaimed, glaring. 'Are you insane, to intrude here?'
'Probably, for I perceive that I'm unwelcome.'
'Of course you are.'
'From which I infer that the look you gave me meant nothing.'
'I don't even know what you're talking about.'
'Then I'll leave. Unless you'd care to scream for the guards.' He realized he didn't much care if she did or not.
'I should. You've betrayed the king, compromised me-' Her face twisted. She snatched hold of his hand and squeezed it hard. 'What am I saying? Forgive me!'
He shook his head. 'To forgive, I need to understand.'
Still clasping his fingers, she rose. 'You're a true wizard, not a dabbler like me. I assumed you could tell. After he sent you away, Orchtrien labored tirelessly to seduce me, and always I refused him, even when he hinted that my 'ingratitude' might prompt him to hurt my kin. Until finally, weary of coaxing and threatening, he laid an enchantment on me.'
'To alter your affections?' Elves possessed a degree of resistance to magic that clouded and altered thought, but of course no one was impervious to dragon sorcery.
'Yes. Most of the time, I adore him, and yearn for his touch. Only rarely do I remember myself, and my true feelings, and only for a little while.' She smiled bitterly. 'So you see, there's the real reason no maiden has ever declined to become his harlot.'
'It's monstrous.'
'I don't suppose Orchtrien sees it as any different than when a person like us trains a hound or a horse. At any rate, I'm glad you know. I wouldn't want you to believe I forsook you of my own free will. Now you truly should go, before you're discovered. Just be happy, and remember me.'
'I won't abandon you to this slavery. We'll run away together.'
'As you once explained to me, Orchtrien would find us, and all the more easily since I'd struggle with all my strength and wits to make my way back to him.'
'I'll lift the curse.'
'I know you'd try, but you also told me that neither you nor any other elf commands magic to rival Orchtrien's.'
He felt queasy with helplessness, then an idea struck him. It was reckless, mad, but perhaps that was what the situation required.
'No,' he said, 'not yet.'
'What do you mean?'
'For the time being, it's better you don't know, lest you succumb to an urge to tell Orchtrien. It's better if you don't even recall I was here.' He twirled his hand through a mystic pass, touched her forehead, and caught her as she fainted. 'Forget, and endure a little longer.'
Like Orchtrien's personal residence, the sanctum where he and the princes practiced their sorcery was a tower with gardens growing all around. Over time, the forces leaking from behind the thick granite walls had warped the blossoms and shrubs into growths unknown to nature. As Rhespen prowled along, making his reconnaissance, a pine tree writhed, and the needles clashed softly, as if they were made of metal. Pale, fleshy flowers with lidless eyes at their centers twisted to watch as he passed.
Before the high iron door stood the semblance of a dragon shaped from the same metal. Though motionless at the moment, Rhespen was sure it would spring to life if anyone approached too close, and that when it did, it would take more than a spell of friendship and a halfway plausible excuse to make it step aside. He also suspected that a simple charm of invisibility wouldn't deceive it.
Best to avoid it entirely, then. The only way to accomplish that was to shift himself through space and into the spire blind, with no foreknowledge of exactly where he'd end up. He might appear right in front of a second sentinel. He might even materialize in a space already occupied by another solid object, and thereby injure himself.
Still, it seemed the best option, so he whispered the proper words and sketched a mystic sign. For a moment, his fingertip left a shimmering trail in the air.
The world shattered into scraps of light and dark, and the fragments leaped at him, or at least that was how it seemed. Then he stood on a stone floor in a shadowy chamber.
He turned, looking for threats, and saw nothing but walls, doorways, and the iron portal with, presumably, the dragon statue still oblivious and inert on the other side.
The absence of immediate danger was only marginally reassuring. Confident of their prowess, Orchtrien and his progeny used only warriors and walls, commonplace measures, to protect their residences and thus their persons. Indeed, one could almost surmise that the golds only bothered with bodyguards and such because they comprised part of the customary pomp and display of a royal court. But they'd taken greater care to preserve the arcane secrets of dragonkind, and Rhespen suspected the iron wyrm wasn't the only guardian-or guardian enchantment-they'd emplaced to foil intruders.
Could he cope? He supposed he'd find out soon enough.
He veiled himself in invisibility-it might help and likely wouldn't hurt-and quickened his eyes with the ability to perceive mystical forces. He'd hoped the enhancement to his vision would enable him to avoid magical snares and likewise help guide him to his goal, and so it might, but only if he peered carefully. Over the centuries, arcane power had so permeated the very substance of the keep that every surface and stone seemed to shimmer. It would be
