Maikel, my Healer, was working on me when Sul returned. The expression on his face was quite beyond words. "Well," I demanded, "where is she?"
"Please not to speak just now, lord, it is not good for the work," Maikel admonished me gently. I grunted.
"She is gone, master," said Sul, and I heard wonder in his voice, "I was a long way behind her and lost the trail in the woods, so I ran back to camp and started up search parties of whoever was around. I took two likely lads and started off along the Boundary, just in case she'd run that way and been trapped. We must have gone a good mile along when I heard noises and saw something up ahead, by where you met the Dragons." His voice dropped to a respectful whisper. "It was one of them, on our side of the fence, and while I watched it picked her up in its hands and flew away."
I groaned. Damn it to all the Hells, not only talked with them but befriended, not only befriended but rescued! I had been so close. How had she resisted that amulet? It had been made by Berys himself; she should have thrown herself at my feet. Unless—
Unless she had some innate resistance.
Caderan appeared in the doorway, the darkness kind to his lank hair and sharp face. His eyes were bright with excitement. "The creature was on this side of the Boundary, you are certain?" he asked Sul.
"Yes, lord. I saw it lean down and pick her up," said Sul.
"You are dismissed," he told the two, and they left to take up their stations outside. Maikel still worked on my jaw so I could not speak, but Caderan's face spoke even before he did. "We have them, my lord. Did you not say that the treaty included them staying on their side of the fence?"
I grunted assent.
An oily grin spread over his face. "The Dragons are creatures of Order, my lord, they are bound by it straitly. This is your bargaining point, one they cannot ignore. You may not need to make your excursion at all."
My Healer finally finished and I shooed him away. "I will live now, Maikel, I thank you for your pains. Master Caderan and I would be alone."
He bowed without a word and left.
"Explain."
"My—sources have informed me that if you can find a point of their law that they have broken, they are bound to make restitution." He rubbed his hands together gleefully. "She has done it for you, lord. By escaping to them, she has made them break their own laws. Think of it! Dragon gold for the asking!" He broke into a high-pitched laugh that sent shivers down my spine.
"Enough," I snapped. "You will accompany me to the place of Summoning at noon tomorrow. In the meantime, I will need you to explain to me how the girl resisted my amulet. "
"What?"
"Yes, master sorcerer. She was well in my power, I could feel it, but the moment I spoke to her of what I needed to know she drew away from me, and a moment later she struck me."
Caderan did not entirely manage to hide his smile. "Yes, very amusing I'm sure," I said sourly. "May she smite you one day. Fool! I care not for the blow. "How was she able to resist the amulet?"
"I cannot imagine, my lord. No woman should have been proof against it. Of course it means nothing to men when a man wears it, and since it was made very specifically for you, should it be stolen and used by a woman you would be immune, but—"
"Could it be that simple?" I wondered aloud. "It was made for me, I am proof against it—how would it affect one who was my own flesh and blood?"
Caderan's eyes went wide, then narrowed as a sickening smile crossed his face. "Yes, my lord. You have it, no doubt. I think we do not need her blood now, though when she is in your power again I would recommend the procedure for form's sake. Unless she is in fact a man—"
"Trust me, she's a woman."
"—or a Dragon, then the only explanation must be that she is your daughter. Your first born child, my lord Marik, and the price of your pain."
His words swept through me like healing fire. I threw back my head and laughed, despite the aches from the blow, despite the pain I carried always with me. The price of my pain. Once paid it would be gone forever. It was worth anything.
Now all I needed was the girl.
She couldn't stay with them forever. If she was not back in my hands by morning I would demand her return from the creatures, along with gold as recompense for their breaking of the treaty. If they would not agree, somehow I would use Caderan's servants to fetch her back.
And in the meantime, once Caderan left, I meant to don those articles prepared for me and go walking in the dragonlands. It is, after all, always best to learn what you may, and I suspected this lawbreaking by one of their own would not go unnoticed by the creatures themselves.
The Lords of Hell were smiling on me at last.
The fire was but a few glowing embers now. We see in the dark a little better than the Gedri, but not much. As the darkness closed about us I began to ask Lanen about herself. She spoke haltingly at first, but I prompted her when she fell silent and she had much to say in the end. She told me of her old life at Hadronsstead, of her friends and her travels since she left.
"I would like to meet your Jamie. He has known you all your life, perhaps he would know whence your dreams of knowing my people sprang."
She laughed a small laugh. "It's a good thought, but he has no idea. He always said I must have been dropped on my head sometime when he wasn't looking. I don't think he even believes you exist." Then she made a marvelous sound, very short notes rising then falling in pitch.
"What was that?" I asked, surprised. I had not thought to wonder if she could sing.
"What was what? Oh—I laughed, that's all."
"Forgive me, littling, but that was not a laugh. Is there no separate word for it?"
"Mmm—well, yes, I suppose it was a giggle."
I tried to say it. The sound of the word was very like the thing itself and made her laugh again. "Usually only children giggle; it's the kind of noise little girls make when they are together," she told me.
"Our younglings sing, though not very well at first. The sounds are similar," I replied. "Do your people sing?"
"Yes. At least, we all sing but we don't all do it well. Jamie always told me I had a voice like a frog with a cold."
I smiled in the darkness. "I have never heard a frog with a cold sing. Would you sing something for me?"
"What, now?" She was surprised; and seemed pleased.
"Yes. I will join you, if I may."
"What if you don't know the song?"
"Littling," I said gently, "I learn very quickly."
She sat up straight and cleared her throat. "Just remember, you asked for this," she said. "This is a lullaby, such as mothers sing to their little ones to help them sleep."
She sang a sweet song, soft and low. Her voice was perfectly fine, though it was very young. I decided Jamie did not necessarily know everything about her. When she began the tune again I joined her in the second voice, keeping the harmony as simple as the melody. She did not stop as I had feared, she even sang it through once more. I was pleased with the way our voices blended.
She let the last notes die away and said quietly, "If the bards could hear you they would fall at your feet and die happy. I have never heard anything so beautiful, if you take my voice out of it. Akor, please, would you sing for me?" she asked. Her voice was very soft, as if she feared to ask such a thing.
There is nothing she could have asked of me that would have touched me more deeply, nor that I would more readily give. Perhaps it was chance.