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Harali has a surprise coming to her in this, of course, but so does Niam. It's a nice surprise for him, though. This finishes up Harali's section and the last of my character intros. That means that - horrors! - I have to start on actual plot now! Eep!
"But if they can't see it..."
"They can each see their own mark."
Her assassin's training had taught her to read people, even those who were good at hiding their feelings. Lord Niam was perfectly calm. He didn't seem to concern himself with whether she believed him or not, no more than if he had been telling her about his horse. He accepted the thing on her head as if it were a mere fact, something she would be silly to deny, but he had the air of a man prepared to indulge her if she insisted on denial.
She went to the door and summoned a servant to fetch the others.
The woman was the first to appear, tripping into the room in a way that was absurd for one of her bulk. "Have you told her yet, my lord?"
"No. I thought it might be easier if she had the word of others besides myself."
"And quite right you are." She settled herself in the chair nearest the fire and looked around the room with bright interest.
The boy, Lur, followed immediately after. He didn't say a word, simply moved to a corner, bracing his shoulders against the wall, hands in his pockets, watching them. Of them all, Harali thought, she'd believe the boy first, if for no other reason than that everything in his posture indicated that he didn't give a damn what she thought.
A few minutes later, the scribe entered. More accurately, he made an entrance, sweeping into the room with the long robes of his craft swirling about his feet when he stopped and bowed to her. To Lord Niam, he said, "What do I write for this page? Another baron. I do believe our dragon is a snob."
Dragon?
Niam said, "I don't think we'll question him."
"And our role here?" Tenni asked, with a gesture that included Wilia and Lur. "Witnesses?"
"Indeed. Would the three of you care to show Lady Harali where your own marks are, and of what shape?"
All three of them put their hands to their heads just above their ears and traced a curved line down their necks to their napes, following the exact pattern that her own mark had done. Tenni said, "We can each see our own, only. In a glass, the shape is silver in color."
Wilia said in a sweetly reassuring tone, "This isn't some elaborate hoax, my dear. I see that you are the type who is not easily persuaded of anything, but truly, what purpose could we have in hoaxing you in such a ridiculous way?"
"Not to mention," muttered Lur, "how we managed to stick that thing on your head."
Harali said carefully, "The only answer is that one of you is a sorcerer."
Niam's smile widened and became genuinely amused. "If you can so easily believe in such children's tales as those, then you should be easy to convince of the truth."
"Why don't you tell me the truth, then."
He crossed his legs, steepled his fingers, and proceeded to tell her. She laughed at first. The idea of a legend from a harper's song coming to life was, in her opinion, no less farfetched than the use of magic by humans. However, the more he told her, the more she began to believe it might be true. None of the others, no matter how sharply she watched them, gave any indication that they didn't believe the tale completely. The boy even looked apprehensive, as if he weren't happy about being included in this particular destiny.
When Niam had finished giving her the story of the dragons and of how he had found each of the other three, guided by the dragon – and if she were going to believe any part of this, his having found them at all, in such distant places, was a powerful argument – he then told her what the dragon wanted her to do. This, she listened to with more patience.
"Just go to the mountain," she repeated when he was finished, "give my talisman, whatever it is, to the dragon, and then come home again?"
"That is all."
"At least that won't take long," she shrugged. "The beginning of the Pilgrim's Trail is less than a week's journey from here."
"We won't be going from the Pilgrim's Trail. The place where we need to meet the dragon is above a falls at the far end of the Stelenath valley, and there is only one way to reach it, through a secret path in the East Divide."
She half rose. "The East Divide? Are you mad? That's all the way on the other side of Elegar, and impassable!"
"If we take the King's Road North, it won't take us much longer than that to reach the Divide, although, of course, we will still be some days' travel from our target then. However, you cannot have been attending – none of us, no matter when we arrive, can leave before the solstice. Therefore, there is no particular haste."
She subsided again. "You're welcome to wait here, all of you, until the time comes."
Wilia beamed. "She is coming with us."
"I haven't decided that! But you are my guests. What will happen in the near future remains to be seen, but you are still welcome to stay."
Lord Niam shook his head. "I am thinking about avoiding the King's Road and taking another route, skirting the southern tip of the Drifal Mountains."
"Why?" Harali demanded.
Tenni was watching Niam shrewdly. "This wouldn't have anything to do with the Black Talons, would it?"
"It would. They are complete now, just as we are, and not far away. However, they are far enough south that their most direct route will be to go around the Drifals. Since, for some reason, we seem to be able to travel faster than they, we can get ahead of them and lay a trap. I have no doubt that, with our strengths, Nathduil can be victorious," he told Harali, "but I haven't stayed alive this long by leaving anything to chance if I can help it."
"Do you plan to kill them?"
"Most likely. That would be the simplest solution. But we must see what is also the most sensible solution, when the time comes. It would be enough to delay them until the solstice is past, after all."
Lur shifted. "Lady, you haven't asked yet."
"Asked what?"
"What's in it for you." To Niam, he said, "That might convince her."
"You're a wise lad." He turned to Harali. "We have told you, frankly, that Nathduil will not protect humans from the natural ills and disasters that Steleduil concerns himself with. What we have not told you is that Nathduil saves his concern for those humans who matter to him, only. Which is we five, his Talons. He will guarantee you a long, safe, and healthy life, but more than that, he will give you your one greatest desire."
Despite her will, her heart leapt. She calmed it before saying, "Oh?"
Wilia waved a plump hand. "Anything you want. What do you want most in all the world, Lady Harali?"
"That is none of your concern. Nor that of any of you. I will not speak of it."
Tenni frowned. "I am recording all the events of this journey. I would like to know, if only for the record."
"I gave you my last word on this subject. You will not know. That is my secret, and only mine."
Tenni started to speak again, looking smug, but he was silenced by a gesture from Niam. Niam rose, then, and suggested that they all go back to their rooms now. Before Wilia rose, however, Niam said her name in a warning tone.
"I was only looking at it," she said, aggrieved, and set a gold-trimmed inlaid box back on the table beside her.
"Yes, I'm sure. But believe me, my dear, if you 'borrow' it, or anything else from this castle, I shall break each of your fingers. One at a time."
Wilia rose with dignity. "Lady Harali is our hostess. I would never borrow anything from her without asking her first." And with this, she swept from the room.
Smiling wryly, Niam shut the door behind the others, then opened it, checking for eavesdroppers. Satisfied, he shut it again and came to Harali. "You don't have to tell anyone what your greatest wish is," he said. "But I will know. The dragon will tell me, for I am the Prime Talon." Suddenly, he stared at her, astonished, and abruptly, he began to laugh.
"What's funny?" she snarled.
He kept laughing. "Oh, my dear young woman, I do apologize. You have an amazing ambition. You have no idea how apt it is."
She rose to stand facing him, challenge in her posture. "You know nothing."
"I know that your single greatest desire," he dropped his voice to a level where no one but the two of them would hear it, "is to assassinate our king."
She automatically reached for the belt knife which, since she was within her own home, was not there. "You're insane!" she spat.
Niam held up both hands defensively. "Please. Sit. I shall naturally keep your secret, but it will be easier if you cease trying to deny it. Even if it had just been a lucky guess, the fire in your eyes confirms it. However, it was not a guess. I was told. I know."
Slowly, she sank into her chair again. He sat opposite her, at his ease, and said, "First, I shall promise you, I will never reveal your secret. Nor will the dragon tell any of the others. And to prove my good will, I will tell you my own greatest desire, that which Nathduil will grant to me on his victory. No one else knows this. I have not told the others, no matter what Tenni insinuated. But you, I will tell, and when I do, you will understand why I laugh." His mouth quirked upward in a wry smile. "My greatest desire in life, Lady Harali, is to be the king of Elegar."
For a moment, she simply stared at him. Then the humor struck her, and she grinned. "How very convenient for you!"
"Exactly. Nathduil assured me, when I first heard him, that he would find a way to vacate the throne and set me upon it. Apparently he foresaw that granting your wish will accomplish the former. I applaud your ambition and wish you well, my lady, but you would do better to postpone your attempt until you have Nathduil's help. If he wins the solstice battle, my girl, then no matter what the odds are against you, you will succeed."
Deep in a cold, dark place in Harali's mind, she had always harbored a doubt that she would fail. The king was well guarded, his city was enormous and unfamiliar to her, his habits unknown to her. She could see herself failing in a hundred different ways. To counter this, she never looked hard at it. She simply used it as the impetus to train to become as skillful as possible and to feed her determination learn as much as she could, in every possible away, once she reached the capital. She would not have her will sapped by doubt.
But now she felt warmth and light pour into that place. In her mind she saw nothing but victory.
The dragon was giving her the thoughts. He would help her. He would see her through to the end, and then home again.
She smiled.
Lord Niam nodded. "You see. Shall we drink to our partnership? And may I beg that you never decide you want to depose me. Although I will certainly never do to you what the king did to your kin," he added, reaching for the wine, "so that will probably not become an issue."
"You know what happened to my father and brothers?"
"That they were executed like commoners? Yes. It was one of the reasons that I kept my own sword sheathed and did not join the rebellion."
"I thought you were just a coward."
"I suppose you are right, if a value for one's life, and a disinclination to throw it away in a useless battle that cannot be won, would be considered cowardice."
She raked her hair back. "I don't know any more. I would not even hate the king if they had been executed as was their right, as nobles. As it is – I will see him dead, or die myself in trying. But it seems now that I have a good chance of being able to strike without chance of failure."