Jaws of Darkness Read Free Page A

handlers waited for it. One of the handlers chained the dragon to a stout iron stake fixed deep in the ice. Another tossed it chunks of meat yellow with crushed brimstone or scarlet from a coating of powdered cinnabar, both of which helped the dragon flame strong and far. The dragonflier unhooked himself and went off to report to his superior.
    Leino went below, too. The stairways and the corridors were cut from ice. So were all the chambers opening onto the corridors. The doors and their fittings were ordinary doors and fittings, and some of the chambers had wall hangings inside to lend more privacy to what went on in them.
    When Leino walked into one of those chambers, the four mages already inside looked up and nodded to him. “Good morning,” Leino said in classical Kaunian. Two of the other wizards were Kuusamans like himself, the other two Lagoans. They shared the great island off the southeastern coast of the Derlavaian mainland, but did not share a language. But every educated man who hailed from eastern Derlavai or the island could use classical Kaunian, the common language of sorcery and scholarship.
    “And a good morning to you,” answered his countrywoman Essi. She pointed to a teapot above a spirit stove. “Get yourself a cup, if you care to.”
    “I think I will.” Leino smiled. “Being inside all this ice makes me want to have something warm inside myself.”
    Essi nodded. “We all feel that way now and again.” Like Leino, like Pekka his wife—of whom she reminded him more than a little—she was short and slim, with golden skin, coarse black hair, and a broad, high-cheekboned face with dark, narrow eyes set at a slant. A steaming mug of tea sat on the table in front of her.
    “Aye, so we do.” That was Ramalho, the senior Lagoan mage of the pair here. He’d worked with Leino on the Habakkuk down in the land of the Ice People. Lagoans sprang from Algarvic stock: Ramalho was tall and fair and redheaded, though a flattish nose said he might bear a little Kuusaman blood. He went on, “Of course, there is warmth, and then there is warmth.” He took a swig from the flask on his hip. His coppery ponytail bobbed at the base of his neck as he drank. He’d done that down in the austral continent, too, but never to the point where it interfered with his work.
    After pouring himself a mug of tea, Leino sweetened it with honey and took a couple of big swallows before it started getting cold. Then he sat down at the place waiting for him at the table. “Shall we begin?” he said.
    “We could have begun some little while ago, had you got here on time,” said Xavega, the other Lagoan mage.
    “I am so sorry, Mistress,” Leino said, inclining his head to her. “I did not realize you had an urgent engagement elsewhere.”
    “Really, Xavega, it was no more than a minute or two,” said Aalbor, the last Kuusaman mage in the chamber. He was in his early forties, a decade or so older than Leino, and was more inclined to be patient than sardonic.
    Patience didn’t help here, not least because Xavega had so little herself. She glared first at Leino, then at Aalbor. “I might have known one Kuusaman would stick up for another.”
    “Oh, let it be, by the powers above.” That wasn’t Aalbor—it was Ramalho. “Have you never been late in all your born days?”
    Xavega glared at him, too. “Things should run properly,” she insisted, by which she no doubt meant, The way I want them to run.
    Leino sighed. He didn’t point that out aloud, and wondered why. Well, actually he didn’t wonder—he knew. He took another sip of tea to make sure the knowledge didn’t show on his face: Xavega was too pretty for him to want to antagonize her too badly. She had hair the color of burnished copper, fine, regular features, large green eyes, and a lush figure that seemed all the more spectacular to him because he was used to the sparer build of Kuusaman women. He was married, aye, and happily so, but he owned an