Dave Smeds - The Schemes of Dragons

Deena felt a burden lift from her shoulders. Thank the gods for wise old men.

"We will see what happens," Obo continued. "The transformation I am hoping for is not one that all the high sorcery in the world can manage. It's up to Toren himself." Obo slurped a quick, bracing sip of tea. "I've invited him to join us, by the way. He's done with his tests early today."

"You did?" Deena blurted. Her pulse quickened.

"Yes," he replied smugly. "In fact, here he comes now." He lowered his voice. "Keep in mind what I've said, young woman. And keep blushing. It becomes you."

Damn him, she thought. The heat in her cheeks increased. The conniving old trickster must have known his comment would have that effect.

The modhiv ambling toward was not the same man she had journeyed with across long reaches of two continents. The aura of disorientation had left his posture, replaced by determination, interest, and alertness.

He stared at Deena a long time. "You look different," he said. Was that approval she detected in his tone?

"I don't have to wear such, um, sturdy clothing now that I'm not on the road," she replied, adjusting the laces of her bodice.

"You've let down your hair."

"That, too."

"She's also had a bath recently," Obo said dryly. "Have some tea, boy, or it will get cold while you catalog all the changes in her appearance. I get the feeling you didn't know you were in the company of a woman on your trek."

"We were busy fighting cannibals and wizards," Toren said. "She was my comrade-in-arms."

"You'll be reassured to know I've been keeping up my archery practice this week," she informed him pointedly.

He chuckled. "That's good. But to be frank, I rather like the change." His speech pattern did sound remarkably like Obo's, she reflected. "Women shouldn't be warriors."

Obo guffawed. "There's a woman I know in Cilendrodel who would have a few words to say about that."

Deena smiled. "No, Toren's right." She nodded toward the modhiv. "By the way, your High Speech is excellent."

"It should be," Obo quipped.

Toren shrugged. "It is a very… round-about tongue. When a Vanihr needs to say something, he says it. I prefer Mirienese. It's more direct."

"We can speak it if you'd like," Deena offered in the aforementioned language.

"No," Toren replied in the High Speech. He dipped honey in his cup. "You know I still speak it in a fractured way. I like not having to search for the words I want."

"I suppose I could have taught you Mirienese as well," Obo mused. "You could have slept another couple of days…"

"That's all right," Toren said quickly. "I'm content."

There was a short, pregnant gap in the conversation. Each of them sipped from their cups.

Obo cleared his throat. "I have a matter to attend to. If you'll excuse me?"

Deena almost stepped on the hem of his robes to keep him in place, but the sorcerer slipped out of his seat with the elusiveness of a child, and sauntered away across the flagstones, his gait barely betraying his feebleness.

Deena turned, and found Toren staring into the pattern of the tea leaves at the bottom of the pot. He looked up, met her glance.

"I was not myself when I last saw you. I'm sorry."

She sucked in her lips. "Yes. Well. I knew that. Don't worry about it. I trust you and your ancestors have… come to an arrangement?"

"They are there, should I call them," Toren said wistfully. "But not in the way they used to be."

She nodded sympathetically. "Aside from that, how has it been for you? The tests?"

A sly smile crept over his features. He set two fingers on her cup. His eyes glazed. Steam began to rise from what had been lukewarm tea. When he was done, she picked up the cup, darted her tongue in it, and nearly scalded the tip.

"Clever," she muttered. "You could be handy in the winter."

"I feel like an eagle whose wings have been bound all its life, freed. I can't ride the thermals yet, have yet to make my first kill, but I have learned to glide from nest to ground. True flight is only a matter of time."

"And has Janna been a good teacher?" she asked, pretending nonchalance.

"Yes, though it's difficult at times to think of her as a teacher."

"Oh?" Deena eyebrows rose. "And what else would you think of her as?"

"A female."

"I see." She smoothed her skirts, was annoyed at the knobbiness of the knees under them.

"But I keep my attention on her lessons. The alternative is to study with Struth. I do enough of that. Something about learning from a big frog raises the hair on the nape of my neck."

"I didn't know you had any," she snapped, referring to the relative hairlessness of his body.

He blinked at her tone. "Janna has a gift for clear explanations. Hasn't she ever instructed you?"

"Not about sorcery. I have no gift."

"Of course," he said quickly. "So much goes on in this temple, it seems that everyone is a magician."

"No," Deena said. "Some of us must settle for less."

He frowned. "I didn't mean to imply you were a nettle among flowers."

"Sometimes I feel that way."

He regarded her carefully. "You are a mystery, Deena. How did you come here? How long have you lived at the temple?"

"Not long. Early winter before last, the Dragon's troops invaded Mirien, sacked my home, killed all my family. I fled to Serthe. One day I happened by the Oracle of the Frog God. I threw in a coin and asked what I could do to hurt Gloroc. Struth liked that. She gave me a home. I was not suited to be a priestess, so I helped in small matters of business. The goddess found it handy to have a woman around who had had some martial training-that happened because my father was a career soldier who had no sons. I escorted the last candidate from her home in Aleoth, and then I was chosen to help fetch you."

"What happened to that candidate?"

Deena paused. "She failed the tests. She died."

Toren scratched his chin.

"So you see," Deena continued, "why I have reason to favor the Elandri resistance against the Dragon."

"Yes. Did you lose children in the invasion?"

"No. I've never been married."

He refilled his cup. "I've never been married either. That did not keep me from having a son."

Her cup slipped from her grip and landed noisily on the table top, nearly tipping over. She sucked spilled tea from her fingers. "No wife? When you mentioned your child, I assumed…"

"A natural mistake, I suppose. modhiv are not permitted to marry. Their lives are constantly at risk; it would not be fair to a wife. In addition, a warrior must be able to go to a skirmish without worrying about a spouse left behind."

"But your son."

"A Vanihr must have offspring to carry the totem. I made an arrangement with a woman. She bore Rhi, and cares for him when I cannot. But she is not my wife. In fact, three years ago she married my cousin."

Deena traced patterns in the spilled tea. "Yes, it would be important, to have a recipient for your totem. Your immortality, as you said last week. I almost expected you to leave as soon as Struth restored your ancestors, to go back and be with Rhi."

"I long to," Toren replied. "But what would be the point of dying on the way? Until I pass on my totem for the first time, I must survive at all costs. I don't know what my final decision will be, but for now staying at the temple and developing my talents seems more sensible than running for the Wood with the Dragon's assassins at my heels."

"I hope you will choose to aid us," she said. "It is a good cause. And good people stand to die if the Dragon has his way. Like my family."

"I've thought of that. Self-preservation is not my only emotion." Suddenly he reached out and tenderly brushed the tip of her chin. "I'm well aware of the goodness of some of the people here."