All too soon, the preliminaries ended. Toren related the plan that Struth had given him.
"As long as the Dragon lives, Elandris will not be taken by force of arms. The emperor of the Calinin has committed his forces, and King Keron will soon be leading an offensive through Tamisan and Thiagra, but the effort will be doomed unless we succeed in assassinating Gloroc. I will lead a group of five or six men in secret to Dragonsdeep. Gloroc resides in the palace there. If we can surprise him in his chambers, we can kill him."
The audience listened in total silence. Alemar's pulse quickened. There. It was said. And even though Toren had faltered before pushing out the last four words, the hope had been made solid and immediate.
"Catching him there is crucial," Toren continued. "But there is good reason to think we can do it. Alemar the Great prepared the trap when he built Dragonsdeep-called Wizardsdeep then-over a millennium ago. As the last of his undersea cities, he made it more grandiose than any of the others, made it the capital of the empire. Its reception hall is one of the few indoor locations in the nation vast enough for a dragon's comfort. For those reasons alone it was natural that Gloroc choose the room as his lair, but that is only part of the story.
"The reception hall contains a portal. Alemar knew that dragons have a penchant for portals. They and the Shagas came to this world through a portal from Serpent Moon. They can sense these passageways from great distances and make use of them whenever they can. Just after Alemar slew Faroc, Triss arrived on the scene by means of one."
Alemar raised his eyebrows. He had heard the account of the slaying many times, and had always wondered how the female dragon could have responded so quickly to her dying mate's summons.
"Most portals that men know of are useless," Toren continued, "because they lead into solid rock, or ocean bottom, or the mouths of volcanoes, or to places… elsewhere. But dragons, as flying creatures, can make use of the relatively large number that exist between points in midair. They prefer to live near one. The reception chamber at Dragonsdeep contains a portal that leads to a corresponding hall in the palace of the nearby city of Seacliff. Alemar deliberately built around both those sites, partly for his own convenience, and partly because the lure would prove irresistible to Gloroc."
"But that's not a trap," Elenya interjected. "That's an escape."
"True. That is one of the reasons Struth hopes Gloroc does not suspect his vulnerability. The portal is an escape route. When we surprise him, we must do it so suddenly and completely that he cannot slip out through it. Or if he does, we must be prepared to follow."
"And how are you going to manage that?" Elenya asked skeptically. "How can you even get into the city without being discovered, much less get inside the palace?"
"There is a tunnel under Dragonsdeep, again built by the Dragonslayer. His own escape route, you might say, though he never had cause to use it. It runs from the art gallery adjoining the reception hall to a spot two leagues outside the great dome. We'll come up inside his guards, inside his gates. We've only a few dozen yards of gallery and a long foyer to traverse to get to him."
"It seems too easy," Elenya countered.
"With luck, getting there will be easy. The assassination itself will be the hard part." Toren splayed his fingers, holding the gauntlets up to the sunshine filtering through the forest canopy. "That's when these play their part. If I am indeed able to use them to full potential-and if the Dragonslayer designed them correctly in the first place-then Gloroc will be powerless. There is a deposit of thrijish coral under Dragonsdeep, though not as much as under other Elandri cities. As you know, thrijish disrupts dragonmagic. Gloroc thinks he has insulated himself from it, but with the gauntlets, I can heighten the effect of the coral many times over. I can immobilize him while my companions stab him with knives coated with dragonsbane. The uncertainty is that we really don't know just how powerful Gloroc is, or whether I have the needed resources. If he breaks free, if I lose my concentration, if human guards appear at the wrong moment… I think you see the challenge. In particular, if he slips through the portal, my capture spell will be shattered. I can follow, but I would have to cast it anew on the other side. Without the element of surprise, Gloroc would surely roast me to a cinder before I could succeed."
Elenya pursed her lips and said nothing.
"Those who accompany me may die," Toren said solemnly. "Even if we succeed, Gloroc's guards or sorcerers could find us before we make it back to the tunnel. I have no choice but to go, but I will demand it of no one else. Geim has volunteered, but I will need others who know the ocean."
"I will go," Tregay announced. "I was born in Elandris." Several others echoed his cry.
"I'll make no choices today," Toren said. "I want all of you to think about it. Tomorrow is soon enough, or the day after. Come to me one by one, when the presence of your comrades is not there to goad you to impulsive decisions."
Alemar felt Wynneth's gaze boring into him. He turned and met it. Her expression intensified.
"Oh, no," she murmured. "I know that look."
"I have to go," he said as they lay in their tent that night, naked bodies pressed against each other for warmth.
"Why?" she hissed. "Alemar. The baby."
"I'll be back before the birth."
"Let Elenya go. She wants to see Gloroc dead. She won't believe it unless she's there when it happens."
"Elenya hasn't looked into Omril's mind as I have. I know the layout of the palace, of the city. If something goes wrong, we may need that information."
"But you're needed here," Wynneth insisted. "The Dragon's ships could arrive any day with the reinforcements. The people need their prince."
"They'll accept Elenya. In pitched battle, she's a better leader than I."
She tugged at an errant lock of hair. "I'm sorry. I know you have your duty. I know we have to use every resource. But I just can't be stoic about this."
He stroked her cheek. "You've survived before, when I was gone to the Eastern Deserts."
She sat up abruptly. "Don't try to console me with that! You were supposed to be gone a few months. It turned out to be two and a half years. Besides, we had scarcely become lovers when you left. We had no obligations to each other."
"This obligation can't be transferred."
He hated having to argue his side. Wynneth's every word stung, because he could not deny her right to feel as she did. It irked him to have to put Elandris first. Though he could name every island in the Dragon Sea, and every city beneath it, he had never been to his father's kingdom. Cilendrodel was his home, a frontier province free of the whimsies and affectations of the ancient kingdoms, a place where he could disappear into the groves and sing with the rythni. Except for a few brief months during his apprenticeship with Gast in the Eastern Deserts, he had never been happy anywhere else.
"I don't want to go," he said hoarsely.
She opened her mouth to say something more, but her shoulders drooped in defeat. "Of course not, you wood maggot," she cursed, but the spite was gone from her tone. Suddenly she leaned down and pressed her lips against his. They lingered that way, and when she at last pulled away, a different kind of fire smoldered in her eyes. She cupped her hand around his groin, and squeezed gently until she obtained the response she wanted.
"You're here now," she sighed. She shifted her round belly out of the way with an experienced air and pulled him toward her.