A Guile of Dragons Read Free

Kellander Rukh was his name, full master of a guile of dragons. To defeat such an enemy is something to boast about, and to give him credit, Earno never does. Not really. Earno was a man to watch at one time, but he missed his chance somehow. Not a player, just a piece; he follows Lernaion’s faction on the Graith. He has some cause to dislike me.”
    â€œThen you’re in danger from him.”
    Merlin stopped walking and took her hands. “No. He had some suspicions, but Lernaion reined him in. I am perfectly safe.”
    â€œBut the Third Summoner—suppose—”
    â€œBe at peace. I am the Third Summoner. There. Now you know something worth knowing.” He squeezed her hands once more, let them go and walked into the green shadows at the base of the tower.
    Nimue followed silently. There was nothing more to say. And if there were, she would not.
    The tower spiraled, hornlike, above the green-gold tops of the nearby trees. It was set on a gray rock carven with strange letters. There were no stairs ascending the sheer rock, but Merlin wasn’t concerned.
    â€œâ€˜Venhadhur,’” he read. “A king’s name. The epitaph is mere bombast. He must have been very late, a semibarbarian petty king of mixed Coranian ancestry. Otherwise he would have been buried near the Hill of Storms in the Northhold.”
    â€œYou taught me to read the secret speech, but I can’t read this.”
    â€œYes, yes. It’s a Firbolgi script, if I’m not mistaken. But I beg you to remember, my dear, it is not ‘the secret speech,’ nor ‘Coranian.’ It is the language of the Wardlands—Wardic, some call it. Aha. Look at this, now.”
    He had made one of the carven words recede, revealing a small lever.
    â€œThis is very clever workmanship,” he said, “but it won’t last. Look at the cracks in that tower! Much of the foundation is based on spells that are now fading. In a century, no one will know this tower was ever here. The Coranian makers could have learned something from their enemies, the dwarves.”
    He pulled the lever and stood back. Part of the stone split open and moved aside, revealing a curved stairway that led deep under the rock.
    â€œThat’s strange,” Merlin remarked. “No treasury; no coffin. There is something on that bottom step, however. Wait here; I’ll just go see what it is.”
    She had no intention of going down. This was the very moment of betrayal, and she didn’t want to be near him when he discovered it.
    â€œIt’s a summoner’s cloak,” he called up to her, “the long white mantle of office. How odd.” He bent down to examine the cloak. His own cloak, which he kept wrapped over his shoulders to conceal the crook in them, fell away. He ignored that. Gingerly, almost as if he could not help himself, he reached down to touch the white cloak.
    Abruptly the white cloak rose of its own accord and fell about Merlin in tightening folds. He began to cry out some words, perhaps some sort of counterspell. She might have gone to him then, in spite of everything, but Earno was at her side, holding her arm in an unbreakable grip.
    The stone began to grate shut over the stairwell. Soon the rock was a single piece again, and Merlin had disappeared underneath it.
    She turned on Earno, venting on him the shame and rage she felt for herself. “Liar! You said he wouldn’t be harmed!”
    â€œHe hasn’t been,” the stocky red-bearded man replied patiently, deliberately. “Give me a moment and we’ll speak with him.”
    He took a piece of silvered glass and a diamond stylus from a pocket in his cloak. He scraped a few symbols on the mirror and muttered some words latent with power. She could feel the spell activate, and the mirror went dark. Somehow, although there was no light in the glass, she could see Merlin in the darkness, struggling with his bonds in the