The Last

  The general nodded obediently. “I will send the Pale Guard.”

  “Yes,” the Murdano said. “And understand this, dairne: if you attempt escape, I will do far worse than remove the tongues of your companions.”

  47.

  Imprisoned Again

  The Murdano was true to his word.

  Guards marched us down endless corridors. Each hall was cleared in advance by soldiers of the Pale Guard. No one saw us pass, unless it was through a keyhole.

  We climbed steep circular stairs, at last arriving at a stout wooden door hinged and strengthened with heavy brass.

  Inside we found a round room with four narrow windows at the compass points. It was not a marble-and-gold palace, but it was roomy and came equipped with four beds, rugs on the stone floor, and even a faded tapestry on one wall.

  Since no servant could be trusted, members of the Pale Guard brought us platters of food: fruit and nuts, cheese and cured meats. They even procured an anteleer leg for Gambler and fresh herbs and grasses for Tobble.

  “My horse?” Khara asked.

  “It is a fine horse,” the head guard said gruffly. “We value fine horses.”

  “And my sword?”

  “You’ll have no further need of that old piece of rust.”

  Khara blinked but otherwise remained stone-faced.

  They shut the door on us, and I heard the sounds of bars sliding and locks turned.

  Khara went to one window and whistled. “Well, at least we have a view.”

  Tobble ran to another window and leapt onto the sill. “We’re leagues up!”

  I crowded behind Khara and almost stopped breathing. We were in the tallest tower of the sprawling palace complex, high atop the great stone spur, far above the town below. “We’re almost in the clouds,” I said.

  “You did well, Byx,” Khara said.

  “No,” I said bitterly. “If I’d done well, I would have seen Luca for what he was.”

  She put a hand on my shoulder. “This isn’t the first time my family has been betrayed by the Corplis. And in any case, it was I who trusted Luca and led us here.”

  “Somehow,” I murmured, “I convinced myself Luca was a scholar in search of the truth.”

  “Oh, he’s in search of something, all right,” Khara said. “Gold for his family’s coffers. And power.”

  We ate well, but in glum silence.

  That night I slept in an unfamiliar but warm, dry, and comfortable human bed, and I woke to low murmuring. I sat up and saw Gambler standing before the south-facing window. His white-striped face gleamed in the moonlight.

  I listened and realized that he was singing softly in a language I did not know or understand.

  “Vir ghaz wast farl

  Vir ghaz wast marl

  Enweel ma koorish

  Jinn ma santwee . . .”

  He stopped and turned to me. “I am sorry if I woke you.”

  “No, I’m sorry if I caused you to stop. I don’t understand the words, but the melody is beautiful.”

  Gambler nodded. “It’s the death song. A felivet who knows he is about to die sings his love to the moon and stars, our guides.”

  His words hit like a punch to the stomach. “Are you so sure it’s hopeless?”

  Gambler sighed. “I believe you will be kept alive so long as you serve the Murdano. It has obviously occurred to him that while many dairnes are a threat, the man who has the only dairne possesses great power. He will allow us to live, but only as prisoners. My kind does not like cages, and I have already endured many days in the dungeon of the isle.”

  “So . . .” I looked around the spare room. Khara and Tobble still slept. “You don’t intend to—”

  “To end my own life?” Gambler laughed sadly. “No. We believe that a felivet who dies well in battle ascends to a great forest above the clouds. There we hunt endless prey and gather sometimes with others of our kind to tell of our great deeds in life.”

  He seemed to accept this fate. Perhaps even to welcome it.

  “When I have a chance to do it without endangering you, I will take the opportunity to attack the guards. They are prepared. Well armed and well trained. I will attack and, with fortune’s help, send at least one to his human afterlife, whatever that is. They will kill me, and I will rise to meet so many of my kind who have died bravely and gone on before me.”

  “But Gambler—”

  “Yes, Byx?”

  “But . . . but I would miss you. You’re my friend.”

  Felivet faces are not very expressive, but his eyes were moist. “I am honored by your words.”

  “Just—just do me one favor. Hold off at least for a while.”

  Gambler said nothing. Perhaps he knew the truth: that I had no real plan and saw no real hope.

  “Will you do that?” I pressed. “For me?”

  Gambler lowered his head and was silent for a long time. “Three days,” he said. “I will endure this cage for three days.”

  In the morning, I found Khara arranging her blankets and looking preoccupied. Tobble was helping her with the blankets—if “helping” meant “enthusiastically making things worse.”

  “Gambler is upset,” I said.

  Tobble looked over his shoulder at the felivet. “Maybe I can cheer him up,” he said. He smiled at me. “I never thought I’d say this, but I’ve kind of gotten used to that big old kitty. He’s not so bad, for a dangerous predator.”

  I watched Tobble waddle off. “Gambler says the Murdano has realized that while dairnes may be a threat, one dairne, singular, under the Murdano’s control, would be a power to be reckoned with.”

  Khara nodded. “He’s right, of course. I’m bothered, though, by what Luca did not say to the Murdano. He knows, but didn’t say, that I am a Donati. He has glimpsed my unsheathed sword and must at least suspect its true nature. Yet he said nothing.”

  We sat on the edge of Khara’s bed. “I noticed that as well,” I said.

  “My guess is that Luca hopes to steal the sword and take it to his father,” Khara said. “Fredoro Corpli is an ambitious warlord. He would love to head north and lead a war against Dreyland, should the Murdano decide to go forward with it. If Corpli wielded the Light of Nedarra, men would flock to him.”

  “Simply because of a sword?”

  “Because of that sword,” Khara replied. “Corpli would very quickly become the second leading power in Nedarra, just behind the Murdano himself. And of course Luca would triumph over his older brother, who’s heir to the Corpli lands and fortune.”

  “Some family,” I muttered.

  “Yes.” Khara sighed. “There’s a reason felivets don’t trust humans. We have complex motives, endless greed and ambition, and uncertain loyalties.”

  Our morning meal arrived, and we ate in silence. We had nothing to do but wait. Gambler dozed off in a patch of sunlight, while Tobble sat nearby, occasionally even stroking the cat’s silky head.

  I watched dust motes twirl. I listened to mourning doves coo outside our window. I let my mind wander.

  And then it hit me.

  A glimmer of hope. And the beginning of a plan.

  Humans lie. And I knew their lies.

  No human, felivet, raptidon, wobbyk, natite, or terramant could lie in the presence of a dairne.

  No one could lie in the presence of a dairne.

  Except, of course, a dairne.

  48.

  Araktik Arrives

  It was two days before I was summoned again to the Murdano. I resisted, saying that I was too shy and needed Khara to stand with me.

  The Pale Guard soldiers must have had instructions not to mistreat or upset me, because they allowed Khara to join me. Not only that, they turned a blind eye to a certain wobbyk.

  It was a long walk down interminable stairways and mazelike corridors before we stepped out once again to face the Murdano.

  “Ah, my little endling and her . . . escort,” the Murdano said. “Stand at the back of the room. An
d remain silent until I call upon you.”

  We bowed appropriately and went to the back of the chamber behind a row of soldiers at attention, where no one would notice us unless they were looking closely. A few minutes later, when a handful of the Murdano’s advisers entered, I nudged Khara and directed her gaze to the group.

  Luca was there. We had hoped he would be.

  When Araktik the Seer entered, she didn’t even look our way. All her attention was focused on the Murdano. She was dressed much as she had been at the eumony, and she swept in with supreme confidence. It seemed clear that Araktik believed she had nothing to fear, which meant she felt certain that her Knight of the Fire had finished us off.

  This was good news. But only a start. The plan I had worked up with Khara, Gambler, and Tobble—who could be surprisingly devious when he managed to focus—was risky and tenuous. My throat was tight, and several times I felt my knees start to buckle.

  Life and death were on the line. Not just my life, or the lives of my companions, either. The lives of any species that got in the way of the Murdano’s ambitions hung in the balance as well.

  “My lord,” Araktik said, executing a grand bow.

  “My great and loyal Seer,” the Murdano said. “It’s good to have you with us again. Tell me: How did the eumony go?”

  “Very well,” Araktik lied. “There were some small disturbances, comical in nature, but otherwise everything went according to my plans.”

  “Comical? Please share. You know how I love to laugh.”

  The Murdano was lying. He did not love to laugh.

  Araktik was no fool. She knew something was amiss. I could smell the subtle scents of a human body preparing for trouble.

  Still, she was an accomplished actor. “Well, Your Majesty, the ceremony was disrupted slightly when a pranksterish child released a kite meant to resemble a dairne. The wind seized the kite and it very nearly flew into me!”

  She laughed. The Murdano laughed as well.

  “That is indeed amusing,” the Murdano said. “Did you catch the culprit and scold him severely?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I advised the parents to whip the child.”

  “Of course. Very wise and appropriate.”

  Araktik bowed in acknowledgment, and I sensed her relaxing. She thought her lie had been believed.

  “So,” the Murdano said with a deep sigh, “it’s true that dairnes are gone from the world. A pity.”

  “Yes,” Araktik agreed solemnly. “It is a sad reality.”

  “Mmm,” the Murdano said. “Now that I come to think of it, it was your own mother, my father’s Seer, who suggested that the dairne population should be exterminated.”

  “A wise policy.”

  I grimaced. They were talking about wide-scale slaughter in a casual way. The destruction of my species.

  “Still,” the Murdano said, “it’s a pity. Having many of the creatures was, well, inconvenient. But if there had been a way to keep just a few alive as servants . . .”

  “They all had to be destroyed,” Araktik said harshly. “Your Majesty.”

  “Yes, so you say,” the Murdano said. “And so I believed.”

  Araktik stiffened.

  “But lately I’ve begun to wonder if it might not be useful to have at least one dairne.”

  The Seer paused. She cleared her throat. “For what purpose, Your Majesty?”

  The Murdano was silent for a long time. His mouth formed a cruel smile. His eyes bored into Araktik.

  “I have a surprise for you, great Seer.” The Murdano raised his voice and said, “Step forth!”

  With that, the file of soldiers parted and a hand propelled me forward. Khara and Tobble followed close behind.

  Araktik’s glare was so intense, it should have set me afire.

  “As you see, Araktik, the eumony, which I allowed on your assurance that dairnes are truly extinct, was a bit premature.”

  Araktik’s mouth moved, but no sound came out.

  Humans emit a particular smell when they are afraid. Araktik stank of fear.

  “Tell us, endling of the dairne species,” said the Murdano, “does my Seer speak truth?”

  49.

  The Truth

  We dairnes also emit a scent of fear, and I’m sure I smelled of pure terror. But I summoned all my fragile confidence and said, “No, Your Majesty, she does not.”

  “Oh? How so?” He was playing with Araktik now. “Surely my Seer, my most trusted adviser, would not dare to mislead me?”

  “I do not lie!” Araktik said, struggling to maintain calm.

  “Were you present at the eumony, endling?”

  “Yes.”

  “And did you witness this dairne-shaped kite?”

  I shook my head. “No.”

  “Indeed? What do you claim happened?”

  “Your Majesty, I was that kite. My place of concealment had been discovered by the isle’s own constabulary. Fearing for my life, I leapt and glided—”

  “Glided?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” I spread my arms wide and extended my glissaires. “We dairnes can glide for short distances. But we’re not birds, and we have little ability to control our direction in flight. Though I did not intend it, I nearly ran into the . . . into . . . her.”

  “Your Majesty,” Araktik said, “I—I believed it was a kite.”

  “Endling?”

  “That was false.”

  “This creature lies!” Araktik shouted.

  “I have questions for you, Araktik,” the Murdano said. His voice was low and sinister, the playfulness gone. “Answer truthfully. Your life depends on it.”

  Araktik was trembling. I didn’t know if the other humans could see it, but I could.

  “Have you pressed for the extermination of this dairne in order to avoid being caught in a lie?”

  Araktik looked sick. “No, Your Majesty.”

  “Endling?”

  “Lie, Your Majesty.”

  Araktik started to sputter in protest, but he silenced her with a wave.

  And then came the question.

  “Tell me, Seer, are you aware of any other dairnes?”

  I gasped out loud. Khara and Tobble turned to me, eyes wide.

  I desperately wanted to hear the Seer’s answer. And desperately feared what it would be.

  The Seer shook her head, refusing to speak.

  “Do not play with me!” the Murdano roared. “Yes or no, Seer: Do you know of any other dairnes, or is this truly an endling?”

  “There are”—she paused—“rumors.”

  “Which you concealed from me, your lord and master!”

  “I didn’t . . . I . . . Rumors are merely . . .” She shot a poisonous, panicked look at me. “These are only rumors!”

  “True,” I said, my heart bounding in my chest.

  “Ah, but you believe these rumors, do you not, Araktik?”

  At that, the Seer hung her head. She knew she was defeated. “Yes, Your Majesty, I do.”

  The Murdano looked at me. I nodded.

  Rumors. Mere rumors, I told myself. And yet Araktik believed them to be true.

  More dairnes.

  Hope.

  “You were desperate to kill this endling to avoid being exposed,” the Murdano snapped. “Was it your plan to find the few of her kind who still lived? To use them as truth tellers, perhaps? But only for yourself?”

  Araktik raised her face to him then, no longer terrified, but resigned. She squared her shoulders. “I am your Seer. It would be useful to have such creatures to serve me. Dairnes are dangerous if everyone has them. They are useful when only one person has their power available.”

  The Murdano nodded. “I do not need the endling to tell me that you now speak truth. You conspired to use me to reduce their number until only you had that power.”

  Araktik didn’t bother answering.

  “And you would have used your power to further manipulate me, to fool me, to increase your own influence
. You could have concealed your dairne behind a screen and known the truth or falsity of everyone who spoke to you—including my own servants, my allies. My enemies.”

  “What I did was for the good of Nedarra,” the Seer said defiantly. “This war you’re considering, this obsession with the conquest of Dreyland, is madness! War is impossible without the consent of the natites and the raptidons. They control the sea and the air and could just as easily help Dreyland!”

  The Murdano rose to his feet. Rage glowed from him.

  “You dare to question my will?”

  He descended the steps from his throne and stood within arm’s reach of Araktik. “My father’s father vowed to bring Dreyland to heel, to bring all the world under the banner of our family. He failed. My father vowed the same but failed. I will not fail!”

  Araktik wilted in the face of his fury.

  The Murdano ranted for five uninterrupted minutes about the perfidy of Dreyland, how they had financed pirates and coastal raiders, how they had preyed upon Nedarrans, how they had humiliated the Murdano and more. It was a mix of truth and lies, things the Murdano believed and things he did not.

  But the Murdano did not ask me to tell the truth or falseness of his statements. And I had no reason to open my mouth.

  At last the Murdano fell silent. He returned to his throne, seeming tired and sullen.

  “Take her,” he said without looking at Araktik. “She is hereby charged with and convicted of treason.”

  “Your Majesty,” Araktik began. “I am no traitor. I only wished to—”

  The Murdano waved a hand. “The penalty for treason is death,” he said without emotion. “The slow death. Take her. And make it a very slow death.”

  50.

  In Which I Demonstrate a New Skill

  I suppose I should have felt some pleasure that the Seer who had tried to have me killed was about to die. But the words “slow death” made me sick to my stomach.

  She screamed as she was dragged away. She screamed that she was loyal, that she’d only meant to serve . . . and then began to shout curses and insults, telling the Murdano he was a stupid child who should be shoveling horse manure in a stable, not ruling Nedarra.