Dragon in Exile - eARC Read Free

tea cup in one hand, apple in the other.
    “If you will excuse me, I have an enormously irritating letter awaiting my attention.”
    “Please,” Kamele said, with an earnestness utterly at odds with the mode, “do not let us keep you from your work.”
    Generous permission in hand, he left them.
    * * * * *
    Vishna’s letter had not become less irritating during his break; not even the apple could sweeten it sufficiently to make it palatable.
    In a word, Vishna wanted Assurances.
    Assurances that the trouble pursuing Korval would not touch Vishna. Assurances that continued alliance with Korval would not damage its other alliances upon Liad itself.
    Vishna wished to be held without liability, should the alliance falter, and Korval to accept all risk in any venture they might undertake together.
    “After all,” Val Con muttered, “Korval brings nothing but risk to any venture.”
    Tea cup in hand, he leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, mentally reviewing the alliance with Vishna.
    It was of reasonably long-standing, having first been negotiated by his grandmother, Chi yos’Phelium, though it was certainly not among the longest, or the strongest, of Korval’s alliances among the clans.
    Indeed, his grandmother had negotiated this particular alliance—now, he recalled the entry in the Diary!—in order to deny it to Clan…Ochrad, had it been? He would need to check the entry. It had been a chess move, the alliance with Vishna, and ought to have been reviewed some time since. Only, it had caused neither party any real effort to maintain it; Vishna saw a slight profit from the arrangement, and if Korval did not see a profit, certainly, it had seen no loss.
    “Well,” Val Con murmured. “That casts a far different shadow, does it not?”
    He leaned to the keyboard and typed a request that Ms. dea’Gauss, Korval’s qe’andra , review the arrangement with Vishna and their latest correspondence, and advise him as to the desirability of a continued association.
    That done, he called up the Diaries, keyed in Vishna’s name—
    The comm chimed—not the House tone, but that assigned to Scout Administrative Commander ven’Rathan, she who held Korval’s captives—Korval’s prisoners —in what were thought to be escape-proof rooms, with Healers on-watch at every hour.
    Commander ven’Rathan called but rarely, though she filed a terse written report every local week, the text of which scarcely varied, which was also the case with Korval’s prisoners.
    Something must have…changed.
    Stomach tight, he opened the line.
    “Good morning, Commander.”
    “Good morning, Commander,” she answered, giving him the courtesy of his own Scout rank, and continued with scarcely a pause. “I have been asked to extend…an invitation to you.”
    Val Con frowned. An invitation? Could it be that the Department sought to negotiate for the freedom of its agents? There was a thought that exhilarated—but, no. Every one of the Department’s operatives, from courier to Agent of Change, held it as a certainty, that the Department would not seek in any way to rescue them, should they fall into the grasp of the Department’s enemies. It was, in the worldview produced by training, a matter of pride, that one was expendable, while the Department’s great work continued.
    “You intrigue me,” he told Commander ven’Rathan.
    “And now I will proceed to baffle you: Melsilee bar’Abit extends her compliments to former Agent of Change Val Con yos’Phelium, and wishes to ally herself with his purpose.”
    Melsilee bar’Abit was a Senior Field Agent; wily, resourceful, and utterly dedicated to the Department’s work.
    “It’s a ruse, of course,” Val Con said.
    “So I thought, as well. Therefore, I brought forward not one, but two of our Healers, and had them scrutinize her. Both report that she is sincere in wishing to align herself with your purpose. Both report that her state of mind is serene and clear. One asked if she