Dragon Bones

"She crawled inside my mind," Tosten whispered. "I couldn't keep her out. She stole my soul, and I couldn't stop her."

Frightened, I looked at Oreg, who shook his head and said, "No one stole your soul, Tosten. You can give it away, but they ca

"Gods," Tosten moaned.

I put a hand on his shoulder.

He stopped rocking and looked up at me. "What happened to you?"

My mind flashed back to the basilisk, and I swallowed bile. "Is there anyone listening?" I asked Oreg.

He tilted his head a moment. "Not by magic."

"Kariarn took me to watch his basilisk eat Landislaw whole. It just engulfed him, like a snake eating a mouse." Even saying it made me feel ill.

"Why didn't he chain you up again?" asked Tosten, who knew who Landislaw was but had never met him, leaving him unmoved to the boy's fate.

"Because he wants Shavig, and he thinks Hurog will sway the other Northlanders, something we may have to thank Duraugh for," I answered, glad to change the subject. Much better to worry about Kariarn than to continue to think about Landislaw slowly dissolving inside the basilisk. "Give me a few moments to think."

They were silent as I ran through possibilities in my head.

There was a game that my aunt taught me to play once. It involved taking a skip-stone board and imagining all the possible combinations of play.

Kariarn was leaving for Hurog very soon, and Garranon and his wife would be dead before Kariarn left: He could not afford to leave the Lord of Buril alive. So Oreg would have to get them out of the keep.

Kariarn's abrupt delay of his plans for Oranstone after Bastilla brought us here puzzled me. Kariarn couldn't have had a better setup to take Oranstone. But Haverness might discover Kariarn's people here anytime. And Kariarn was going to risk that in order to get dragon bones out of Hurog?

Obsessions, I thought, this is all about obsessions. Kariarn wanted magic more than he wanted Oranstone. "What will he do with the bones?"

"Bastilla thinks drinking powdered dragon bones could make her the most powerful wizard alive," said Tosten. "She was gloating over it."

"What would it do for someone who could not work magic?" I asked.

"It could turn him into a mage for a time," answered Oreg. "But he'd have to continue consuming the bones to keep his powers. Eventually, it would kill him."

"Oreg, if you were at Hurog, could you keep the wizards from finding the dragon?" I asked. "Bastilla left a strand of hair in the cave."

"Possibly," he said. "How many wizards does he have?"

"How many could you defeat?"

"If I were in the keep, I could keep three or four of Bastilla's caliber out for a few days. If I could find her hair and get rid of it, much longer."

"Could you destroy the dragon bones?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No."

I nodded and dropped back into thought.

"Ward? Why did Bastilla have Penrod try to kill you?" asked Tosten. "She knew Kariarn wanted the bones, and you were the best way to get them."

"What?" asked Oreg.

I hadn't had time to think about it, but Tosten was right. It was strange. I told Oreg about Penrod's attack and how my brother had saved me.

I thought about the odd look I'd seen on Bastilla's face in Haverness's great hall while I'd been laughing with Tisala and of her reaction when I'd explained why I could not be her lover. Had she been so angry with me that she would risk Kariarn's wrath to kill me?

"I suspect Kariarn doesn't know anything about it," I said. "I wonder how much she can do outside his orders?" Oreg just shook his head, so I put the problem of Bastilla aside and thought about more immediate concerns.

Garranon, his wife, and Tosten had to get to safety. I would risk my life but not my brother's. With him safe, I could go with Kariarn to Hurog. Kariarn would destroy my home in order to get the dragon bones; if I were there with Oreg, destroying Hurog would not be necessary.

"The king," I said slowly to myself, not to my audience. "The king killed our cousin and took Hurog from me, which absolves me of oaths taken as the Hurogmeten's heir. Kariarn proposes to return Hurog to me if I support him."

Tosten staggered to his feet. "Ward…Don't do it. You can't trust him."

"No," I agreed mildly. "But then, he can't trust me, either. He's going to attack Hurog one way or the other. I need to be there, and the fastest way to Hurog is to ride with him."

Tosten frowned at me.

"However," I said, staring at the wall again, "when I tell you my intentions, you become enraged and hit me with—" I looked around and found a new item in the cell that had been added to increase our creature comforts. " — with the chamber pot, knocking me unconscious. You escape the cell by some ingenious method…" I stared at the door, but it looked solid. There was no bar on it, though, just a large iron lock.

"Tosten spent a lot of time on the waterfront," said Oreg. "Waterfront rats have all sorts of useful skills."

I gave Tosten an interested look, and he squirmed. "All right. I know how to pick most locks if you give me a day or two."

"I can do it faster," offered Oreg.

I gri

Tosten drew a deep breath. "I know Oreg will go with you…but are you sure you don't want me, too? I make a fair backup." It amazed me, coming out of Tosten. Not the offer, but the ma

"I need Oreg because of Bastilla and Hurog," I said. "I need you because you can show Garranon back to Tisala and safety. I need you because Beckram likes you, and he just might listen to you tell him a crazy tale about runaway slaves who are spies and dragon bones hidden in the heart of Hurog. Get him to gather the Blue Guard and force-march to Hurog."

He gave me a wary look and checked my face for sincerity. Then he straightened his shoulders and nodded. I'd given him a task to do. I'd gotten him out of danger, especially since there was absolutely no way he could travel all the way back to Callis, get Beckram, and ride to Hurog before Kariarn got us all on ships and sailed into Tyrfa

When Oreg opened the door after a bit of magic at the lock, we could hear the guards at the bottom of the stairs. We kept quiet as we began to search the other rooms on the same floor. Garranon and his wife were in the second cell we found. Oreg had no more trouble with that lock than he'd had with ours.

I pulled the door open and stepped inside, just missing being brained with a (thankfully empty) chamber pot. Originality aside, chamber pots are heavy enough to make good weapons.

I grabbed it before Garranon's wife could try it again. "Stop it," I said in a hushed voice.

"I'm the only one who gets to brain Ward tonight," said Tosten, stepping through the doorway. He bowed to her. "I am Tosten of Hurog, and you must be Garranon's wife."

"What are you doing?" asked Garranon from the shadows. He didn't sound happy, but he was quiet. I released his wife but kept the chamber pot.

"Rescuing you," I replied. "You don't think Kariarn's going to let you live, do you?"

Oreg started working on the chains that held Garranon, and I set the chamber pot on the floor.

"I know him," said Garranon's wife, nodding at me though speaking to her husband. "But who are the other two?

Garranon, shaking free of his chains, peered first at Oreg then Tosten. "They're all Hurogs…but none that I've met."

It wasn't rudeness that kept me from making formal introductions; I just couldn't remember Garranon's wife's name, and I couldn't take the shortcut of calling her Lady Buril or Lady Garranon, because Oranstonian custom didn't work that way.