that, properly handled by the velduke's cooks and cellarers, could not help but be preferable to what wagon- merchants could buy from the market fry-stalls, come morning. Oh, yes, the luck of the Falcon was with Yardryk Brightrising just now, making his family name proud truth at last…
He gave Garfist and Iskarra one last sneering smile as they fitted his false crates back in place in front of him, and the stout former panderer heaved and grunted a real stack of crated swords into place in front of that.
The two grinning guards then pulled up crates in front of the stacks to sit on, Garfist and Iskarra closed and fastened the doors on them, and before long the solid gray wagon was rumbling through the cobbled streets of Bowrock with two silent, mind-ridden drovers at the reins, heading for the velduke's keep.
There was a small, round skylight in the domed ceiling, high over the huge guest bed; Rod had never noticed it before.
He found himself blinking blearily at it now, however. The first sun of morning was blazing above it, making it a bright blue eye staring down into a room that was still dim, and cold, and very, very still.
He was naked, of course, and lying flat on his back in the bed, but there was something small, heavy, and hard on his chest, and he was otherwise bare. Where were the linens? The sleeping furs?
And where was Taeauna?
Rod lifted his head enough to see that he was alone on a bed that didn't seem to have any furs or linens on it anymore. There was a small metal
So he'd missed the whole glowing air thing, or had he? This looked almost as if he'd been arranged, for some sort of ritual.
'Taeauna?' he asked softly.
Silence. He couldn't even hear her breathing.
He put a hand up and took hold of the metal thing on his chest, and was abruptly aware of a reek of smoke and a flash of heat.
Not from it, but inside his head… and linked to it, or caused by his touching it. Yes, definitely. His fingers told him it was cool, his nose told him it smelled of nothing more than metal and possibly a little whiff of long-ago oil of some sort, but his mind was telling him that it had erupted in some sort of intense heat, and something had burned, swiftly and sharply, leaving behind smoke.
Rod sat up, holding the enchanted gewgaw carefully, and peering all around the room. No servants, and no guards. Bars across the insides of the doors, where Taeauna had put them last night, and-
'Jesus!' he spat, flinging the metal thing down and hurling himself forward off the bed, landing hard on his knees and clawing his way across the rugs. 'God,
Taeauna of the Aumrarr was as naked as he was, and was lying sprawled and senseless on the floor halfway across the room, face up, and not breathing. Her face looked empty, her eyes blank. And the fingers of her left hand, stretched out toward him, were charred to ash.
'Taeauna!' he cried, touching her cheek. 'Taeauna!' Her skin was cold, and when he shook her gently, she moved loosely under his touch, as if he were rocking something empty. She wasn't breathing!
Frantically he tried to remember that CPR course, the mouth-to-mouth business of wiping the plastic dummy with a foul-tasting alcohol wipe… hyperextend neck, mouth sweep with his finger-
There was soot on her tongue; it turned to black slime on his finger when he wiped at it. He'd let her head fall back as he stared at it, and there was more soot now, like black powder, leaking out of her nostrils. She was dead, she must be.
Rod Everlar burst into tears.
He had to do something, had to… Through a watery, blinding rain of weeping he clawed his way across the room, around the room. Where was her goddamned sword?
His dagger! Yes! There, with his clothes, yes, yes!
He snatched it up, raced across the room to her. Slice the palm, the fingers not the palm, so cold and easy, blood welling out red and fast, fingertips dripping…
Get them in her mouth, you idiot, her mouth!
Cursing, he crouched over her while beating his fist with the dagger still clenched in it on the rug. Rod thrust his fingers into that open, slack mouth, rubbing his blood into her tongue, holding the tongue down with his fingers so it wouldn't fall back and block her throat… feeling it well out of him, trickling, trickling; surely, if he could get the blood to flow down her throat…
If she wasn't stone cold dead already, and his precious special healing powers were too late and no good, that is.
His heart leaped; the blue-white glow! The glow! He pulled his fingers out, but found the glow was coming from his palm as it healed itself smoothly; from that open, motionless mouth, nothing.
Feverishly he slashed himself again, twice this time, deep crisscrossing cuts that almost christened the rug before he could get his cupped palm back to her mouth and pour the blood in.
'Tay,' he pleaded, trying to curl himself around her cold curves, 'live! Live, damn you! Please, please!'
He felt weak and sick; all that blood, flowing out of him. It would pass, this feeling, as soon as he healed. He knew that, but still… still… he was alone in Falconfar, all alone, his life empty, its heart and center gone, just like that. He didn't even know what had happened to her!
'Tay,' he sobbed. 'Tay…'
She quivered, suddenly, under him. Again, a sudden spasm that shook her. Rod clawed at her. 'Tay? Taeauna?'
He could see the blue-white glow in her mouth, rising like fire; she was lapping weakly at his hand now, like a kitten.
Rod's tears blinded him, he gulped and sobbed helplessly, saying her name again and again until she said weakly, 'Yes, 'tis me, lord. I'm not likely to forget my name now, with you bawling it over and over. I'll live. I think.'
Rod snatched her up into an embrace, frantic to kiss her, to hold her, which was when he became aware that someone was pounding on a door, close by, and sharp womens' voices were calling, 'Taeauna of the Aumrarr? Taeauna? Lady of the Aumrarr?'
'Help me into the bed,' Taeauna gasped, into Rod's ear, 'and throw some furs over me. Don't let anyone in until your hand is whole again. They must not see what your blood does, or half Galath will know you are a Shaper before nightfall, and every Doom, lackspells-wizard, and petty tyrant in all Falconfar will be in here trying to seize you!'
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The head-sword of the velduke's guard was a tall, stern knight in magnificent armor, whose face had just gone from cold and professional to open-jawed disbelief. 'New swords and arrows? You tongue-teasing me?'
'Not yet,' Iskarra purred at him, like a Stormar alley-lass.
The knight looked at her weathered face, misjudged her age a trifle, and took her flirtation as a jest.
He grinned, still shaking his head at what fair falcon's fortune had brought him, and said, 'Well, good traders, I'll have to ask you to step down and have a sit, yonder; there's ale. We'll unload your wares, go through them, and pay good gold roezels, counted out to you on yon barrelhead-fair market price, as good as you'll get anywhere-when we're done. My men will take your wagon from here.'
Iskarra and Garfist climbed down, rather stiffly. They had spent much of the night sitting in a jammed, unmoving line of wagons seeking to enter the keep; dawn had come while they were still outside the gates. The dark cloud left their minds as suddenly as if it had been chopped off by a cook's cleaver, as their boots touched the
