Silent Hall (12 page)

W
hen Phaedra walked
into Hunter's room, he and Narky were both there. The room had a view out to the forest and did not overlook the courtyard. Thanks to the villagers' animals, Hunter's room had the most tolerable smell.

Hunter looked up and saw Phaedra's expression. “What's wrong?”

“Nothing,” Phaedra said. “Nothing's wrong. You don't mind if I stay here for a little while, do you?”

“We don't mind at all,” Hunter said. “You haven't seen Criton, have you? He's not in his room.”

“No, I haven't seen him,” she said, trying and failing to control her face. She was definitely lying. Oh. Now he understood that expression.

“You know,” Narky said thoughtfully, “I wonder if Bandu can turn into an animal.”

“Excuse me?” Phaedra looked shocked, horrified, guilty.

“Fairies are supposed to be able to turn into animals,” Narky said. “They can sneak into your bedroom as a mouse, and snatch you away even if your door is locked. And if you make them angry, they can turn into lions or bears and tear you to pieces. I wonder if Bandu can do any of that.”

“She's never done anything of the sort,” said Phaedra.

“I don't think she's ever tried,” Hunter said. “If it's anything like swordsmanship, you have to practice all the time if you want to improve.”

He sighed. He wished he still had someone to practice with. He wished… no, this was life now. He was a warrior. He would survive.

“That's a good idea,” said Narky. “Magic practice! Bandu and Criton can work on their magic together. Maybe they'll figure something out.”

Phaedra looked like she might explode. “I think Criton may have considered that,” Hunter said, and Phaedra squirmed until he threw her a lifeline. “What's that scroll Psander wanted us to give him?”

“Oh!” She looked immensely relieved as she fished it out. “A History of the Dragon-Touched,” she read, “by someone called Gardanon. Wow, this scroll is old. Look at how dark the vellum is! I think it's deerskin.”

They let her inspect the scroll for a time in silence. Hunter wondered how long it would be before Criton joined them and Phaedra could return to her room. The waiting seemed hard on her.

Hunter pulled his sword from its sheath and took the whetstone from his pack. Sharpening his sword always calmed him and helped him focus. The repetitive motion had a meditative aspect to it, and the sound soothed his ears. Narky did not feel the same way about it, as Hunter had already discovered; he grimaced at the sound of the metal scraping against the stone, and tried to drown it out by talking more.

“You said that Magor killed Criton's family,” he said to Phaedra. “Do you know anything about them? When we were staying at the Crossroads, he told me he'd never been outside his house 'til the day we met him.”

Phaedra put down her scroll. “Really? He said he lived indoors all his life?”

“Yes. I guess his father didn't want anyone to know his son was a freak.”

Phaedra regarded Narky sternly, but she didn't say anything for a while. She was hard to read sometimes. At first, Hunter had thought that she liked Criton very much, but he supposed Criton's draconic lineage had put her off. She certainly related to him better when his claws were hidden.

“So Criton was living in Karsanye all this time?” she asked. “Or was he somewhere else on the island?”

Narky shrugged. “I think he was in Karsanye. Nobody can keep any secrets in a smaller town.”

“But who could have hidden someone for that long?” Phaedra asked. “His parents would have to bring him food, and never let anybody visit, and keep him away from all the windows. His father must have had a large house for his voice not to be heard or noticed.”

Hunter stopped sharpening his sword for a moment. “Lord Tenedros' son,” he said. “The one with the sick wife.”

Phaedra gasped. “Oh Gods, you're right. She had some terrible illness, so no one could visit, and he brought her all her food… people said her sickness took so much out of him, and the whole time he was keeping Criton and his mother locked away like prisoners.”

Narky clearly had no idea who they were talking about. Phaedra tried to enlighten him while Hunter went back to sharpening his sword. Until Phaedra had come in, Hunter would never have imagined that Criton and Bandu could connect romantically. Frankly, he had never considered Bandu capable of love for anything with less than four legs. But whatever was happening in the girls' room as they spoke, it made much more sense to him now. Criton and Bandu had more in common than he had imagined, raised away from society as outcasts and freaks, loving, each of them, only one other creature in the whole world. And now both Four-foot and Criton's mother were gone.

Would Hunter ever have someone like that, who understood his joys and pains so completely? He had never even looked for someone like that. His brother Kataras had had many women, and Hunter had always considered them to be somehow his brother's domain. Father would eventually find some match for Hunter, unless he died valiantly in battle first. Now, for the first time, Hunter thought he might like to find a wife one day. Not yet; he had no house to bring her home to, no lands to support them, no security to offer her father. Besides, death could still take him quite soon if Psander's tasks were as dangerous as he imagined, or if Silent Hall fell and the Gods blamed them for helping Psander. But if Hunter lived, he hoped he would one day love as well.

Narky and Phaedra were still talking about Criton when he walked into the room, glowing with unrepressed bliss. “I'm sorry, Phaedra,” he said, not looking sorry at all.

“Sorry about what?” Narky asked, but Phaedra was already leaving.

Criton responded instead, though to Hunter's mind he shouldn't have. “Me and Bandu were just sitting in her room, um, talking about sad things.”

“Like what?” Narky wasn't getting it. Criton looked to Hunter for help, but Hunter stayed silent, pretending to focus on his work with the whetstone.

Narky turned on him. “Will you stop that? You can already shave with the damn thing – how sharp has it got to be?”

As always, Hunter said nothing. Narky soon backed off. “Anyway,” he said to Criton, “I thought Phaedra said she hadn't seen you.”

“Oh,” said Criton.

“We brought you the scroll you wanted from Psander,” Hunter told him, changing the subject. He hated these uncomfortable conversations, and he hated stating the obvious. Criton was clearly relieved to have something new to focus on, and he took the scroll from the bed where Phaedra had been sitting.

“Thanks,” he said. “I'll read it soon. I think I'll lie down first.”

And so he did.

He lay on his back for some time, smiling up at the ceiling, while Hunter put away the whetstone and Narky sat on the windowsill, looking glumly out over the forest.

Silent Hall really was a very apt name, Hunter thought. The townsfolk and their animals were always making some sort of ruckus out in the courtyard, but on this side of the tower he could barely hear them. He wondered if Psander knew what people called her home, and if so, whether she cared. She had certainly made no effort to supply them with any other name.

“I think I'll read this now,” Criton said suddenly, sitting up. “You don't mind, do you?”

Narky looked over from his spot at the window. “Is there a reason I should?”

“Well,” said Criton. “I don't read quietly like Phaedra. I need to sound all the words out.”

Narky opened his mouth again, but Hunter spoke first. “I don't mind,” he said. “Read.”

“Thanks.” Criton unrolled the scroll, and began to read aloud.

“Blessed is Atel, protector of His servants. Blessed is the one who walks His road.

“I came to Ardis from the east, wishing to lay eyes upon the famed Dragon Touched. The people of Ardis welcomed me in the name of God Most High, who was once worshipped by the dragons and is now the God of their descendants. The commonfolk of Ardis mostly worship Elkinar, the inland God of the Life Cycle, and Magor of the Wild, but they do not keep images of these Gods for fear that they will be discovered by their draconic tyrants. God Most High is a vile, jealous God, and in Ardis the penalty for worshipping other Gods is death. The mere possession of sacred images is enough to doom an entire family. Even images of God Most High are forbidden, so that He may conceal His evil appearance.

“Though their God's jealousy is a point of pride for the Dragon Touched, they nonetheless claim that He is peace-loving and just. Truly, most of the principles they claim for God Most High are unobjectionable; but He must be judged also by the secret rituals that take place when watchful eyes are absent. Let it be known that any God worshipped by the dragons or their descendants is no friend to humanity.

“I asked the commonfolk, in the privacy of their homes, whether my status as a friar of Atel would endanger me. The answers were varied. A few said that as an outsider I might be safe. The Dragon Touched are an inherently greedy race, and so great is their thirst for gold that they would welcome their worst enemies into Ardis so long as those enemies were poorer when they left the city than when they arrived. Yet although the Touched do not wish to frighten away any foreign merchants, others warned me that their greed is no protection from trickery and false charges. I was told tales of priests being burned in dragon's fire for the supposed crime of subversion. I therefore resolved to keep my identity hidden, and go about my work in secret.

“Posing as a recent convert to God Most High, I gained admittance to the Hall of Records. The Dragon Touched are exceedingly proud of their heritage, though their race may be little more than two centuries old. Even young as they are, their origins appear to be entirely unknown, at least according to the manuscripts I was permitted to read. One theory expounded upon by the human locals is that the Dragon Touched emerged into this world when a pair of sisters copulated with a dragon and gave birth each to a pair of Dragon Touched twins, boy and girl. These cousins married each other in order to perpetuate the race, but one of the boys took a second wife, a human, whose offspring developed the same draconic features and magical abilities as their half brethren. Thus it was discovered that all who breed with the Dragon Touched pass their monstrosity onto their young.

“The commonfolk of Ardis tell many frightening tales about the secret rituals of God Most High. Some even claim to have seen the elder Dragon Touched feasting upon human children. I hoped, while in Ardis, to enter in upon these rituals of God Most High and verify some of the commonfolk's claims for myself. I was, however, unable to do so. I do not know whether the Dragon Touched saw through my disguise or whether they are especially cautious around their human recruits, but I was never invited to attend these rituals.

“According to the cityfolk, it takes years of careful indoctrination before converts are trusted enough to be allowed to bear witness to the true worship of God Most High. Those who are not trusted are sometimes seduced into believing in their acceptance, and after a year of being carefully watched, are finally invited to an occult service, only to be set upon and devoured by the priests and acolytes of the Dragons' God. Not wanting this fate to be mine, I abandoned my attempts to infiltrate the Dragon God's cult.

“Instead, I focused once more on the Hall of Records. I was unable to discover, during my investigations, which dragon copulated with the sisters – sometimes referred to as the Foremothers. There is consensus that both Foremothers bred with the same dragon, but aside from the dragon's golden coloring, little is known about who he was. It was remarkable to me that the Gods would allow their creations to be sullied by dragon's blood, but the Ardisian sages note that at the time of the Foremothers' impregnation, Gods and dragons still coexisted peacefully.

“It appears that, for a time, the practice among the Dragon Touched was to take human wives, knowing that their draconic blood would overpower our own. Their race could undoubtedly be larger in number and greater in influence if they had continued in this way. Yet, luckily for all of humanity, the Dragon Touched are so vain a people that they prefer to couple exclusively with their own kind.”

Here, Criton paused. His breathing had long grown heavy, and he seemed to be struggling to focus on the words. Hunter and Narky waited for him to continue, and at last he took a deep breath and resumed his reading.

“I should note that there are no Dragon Touched within the royal family, but the king of Ardis has nonetheless committed himself completely to their reign of terror. The clan of Dragon Touched served as his father's advisors and enforcers, and now seems destined to maintain its position as long as the king's line remains intact. Their stranglehold on power is total and unyielding.

“During my time in Ardis, I witnessed the selfishness and cruelty of the Dragon Touched in innumerable ways, large and small. They are a venal, greedy, and power hungry people, and their leaders are the cruelest among them. Brothers murder brothers in the pursuit of power, and sisters, sisters. The current Matriarch is said to have poisoned her eldest son in order to maintain control over her clan.

“Yet perhaps even more than their vile leaders, the most dangerous Dragon Touched are those who conceal their draconic features and become spies among the people, sniffing out the worshippers of true Gods so that they may be executed in the service of God Most High. One must watch for these everywhere, even outside of their stronghold. Those who are discovered in human territory should be slain without hesitation.

“Before I left Ardis, the people of that city gave me one final warning. Some of the Dragon Touched may appear to have abandoned their cruel ways. However, their words of peace should never be trusted. They are tricksters, seducers, and rapists, and though they may at first appear to pose no threat, one must never doubt their evil nature.