The Clandestine Circle (36 page)

He dropped his voice so the other guard couldn’t hear and said, “I wasn’t offended by you the other night. The problem was with me.”

Linsha looked away. All at once she realize she had received something rare and almost unheard of in Sanction, the governor’s apology. Just as suddenly her spirits lifted and she turned back to him, a smile on her lips.

Her relief was so obvious to him, his hand went out on its own accord and gripped her arm.

Although startled by his touch, she didn’t flinch or move away. Her green eyes regarded him steadily while she sorted through what to say. “Lord Bight, yesterday you said the Knights of Takhisis might take advantage of this distraction. It is in my mind that you are right. What better time to attack the city than when it is weakened by disease and its governor is busy with a volcano?”

“That has been on my mind as well, Lynn,” he replied.
He dropped his hand to his side and turned back to look at the volcano. “The dome is almost ready to blow. I can hear the lava rumbling deep within the cone. Tomorrow I will go to the mountain to work my spells. I have to exert much of my power to release the pressure and send the ash and lava where I want them to go, and there are times during the working of the magic when I am vulnerable. I want guards I can trust to be with me. Will you be one?”

Linsha caught her breath. She was honored beyond speaking that he would ask her, would put his welfare and safety in her trust. Then her thoughts darkened, and her face grew pale under her tan. What of the Clandestine Circle? What of her vows to the Knighthood? She was under orders to help dispose of the lord governor. But by the gods, she could not agree to that course. She found his eyes on her again, and this time she couldn’t meet them.

“The time is coming, Lynn,” he said in a voice so soft she could barely hear him, “for you to decide. Friend or enemy.” Turning on his heel, he left the tower and left Linsha in a whirlwind of emotion. She pressed a hand over the dragon scale under her shirt and felt its hard, comforting edges. If only the scale had a magic spell in it to protect her from folly.

For the rest of her watch, Linsha stood by the wall and stared blindly at the mountain while she fought a battle within. This time she didn’t even want the distraction of her juggling balls. Over and over in her mind, she replayed the events of the past sixteen days, examining and considering every face, every conversation, every nuance of feeling she could remember. Somehow she had to find a path through the complications that would allow her to help Lord Bight without incurring the wrath of the Clandestine Circle. There had to be a way! He meant too much to Sanction to lose. By all the stars of Chaos, she finally admitted to herself, he meant too much to
her
.

But so did the Knights of Solamnia. For as long as she could remember, she had listened to the tales of her grandparents and parents, of their deeds and their friends’ deeds. Their courage, honor, and devotion to good had been
imbued in her since childhood. The Knights of Solamnia caught her fascination after she heard her grandmother talk about her uncles, Tanin and Sturm Majere, who became the first non-Solamnics to enter the Knighthood. If they could do it, Linsha determined, so could she. After that, she had asked for the tales of Huma Dragonbane, Riva Silvercrown, and Sturm Brightblade again and again, until even her patient mother grew tired of them. Her beloved parents had not been enthused about their daughter joining the Knights of Solamnia, but they didn’t try to dissuade her either, and eventually, with her parents’ and grandparents’ blessing, she became the first non-Solamnic woman to ascend to the Order of the Rose among the Solamnic Knights. It was an honor she didn’t take lightly. Although she hated the deceptions of her mission in Sanction, she still belonged heart and soul to the Order of the Rose and all it stood for. Honor and justice.

The problem now was to find a solution that would allow her to serve justice without losing her honor.

By the time the brazen sun finally touched the horizon, Linsha had a raging thirst and a bad headache and was no closer to a resolution than when she started. The relief watch came promptly at sunset and told her all was quiet in the city. She and her silent companion rejoined the squad and began the march gratefully back to the palace for an evening meal and a long, cool drink of anything but tepid water from a barrel.

As they approached the East Gate, Linsha felt her hopes rise, and she scanned the area for the familiar tall figure of the commander. There he was, waiting with the City Guards posted at the gateway. He nodded once to the officer in charge, then beckoned to Linsha.

“Squire, attend me,” he ordered.

The squad moved on, leaving Linsha behind. She waited patiently in the shade of the wall while he spoke to the guards on duty, and while she felt anticipation for the coming hours, something of the innocent joy was gone, destroyed by the simple packet in her waistband and its scrawled warning.
The Skull Knight was in the Governor’s Guards. Oh, please, she begged silently, don’t let it be Ian.

Twilight fell over the city as they walked down Shipmaker’s Road toward the house near the bazaar. Ian didn’t try to kiss her or touch her while there was still light in the streets and people to see. He waited until they had climbed the stairs and walked into the front room of the apartment.

The room was dim with evening and hot with the summer’s heat. Swiftly Ian closed the door behind her and gathered her into his arms. “Come here, Green Eyes,” he whispered.

Linsha’s reservations faded to distant heat lightning, and she gave in to the desire of his embrace. Their lips met and they shared a kiss, timeless and prolonged, that led to more until their hands and tongues couldn’t get enough and their clinging turned to need. Laughing, Ian hooked an arm under her knees and shoulders and carried her to the bed in the next room.

Hours later, Ian Durne kissed Linsha softly on the cheek and carefully rose from the bed. She slept lightly on her side, her hand close to her face, her red curls springing everywhere across the pillow. He watched her for a moment and felt regret like a knife blade in the gut. Moving silently, he picked up his uniform and boots and carried them to the front room, where he dressed as fast as he could. He opened the door. The night was full and hid the streets and alleys in dense darkness, but across the street, a tiny light flickered once in an alley. Commander Durne beckoned.

Two men dressed in black loped across the street and met Durne at the foot of the stairs. “I want her out of this,” he ordered. “Restrain her, but don’t kill her. Do you understand?” His hand shot out and grabbed one man’s arm in a painful grip. “And, Jor, if you lay a hand on her beyond what it takes to tie a rope, I will flay you alive.”

“Yes, sir,” both men grumbled.

“Good. Meet me at the appointed place as soon as you are finished here.” The commander released his grip and strode into the darkness.

T
he first sign of danger Linsha became aware of was a soft creak of the floorboards near her side of the bed. The unexpected sound brought her wide awake, and her eyes opened to see two black figures lunging toward her. Automatically her hand reached for a dagger, but she had no clothes, no weapons, nothing. Hands reached for her. She erupted out of the bed in a tangle of limbs and bedclothes, screeching with fury.

The sheet pulled tight around her legs and threw her off-balance. She fell into the first figure and felt powerful hands grab her arms above the elbow and force them back until she moaned with pain. Without saying a word, the second figure clamped a hand like a steel trap over Linsha’s nose and mouth. A wad of rough fabric scratched her face and shut off her air.

She fought desperately to escape, but the two silent men were strong and efficient. A strange smell filled her nose from the fabric. It clogged her nose and drifted into her
lungs. She choked and coughed and only succeeded in inhaling more of the noxious smell. All at once she became dizzy. Her strength drained away and her eyesight faded.

Where is Ian? she thought briefly before the world went black and she knew nothing more.

Mica closed the book he was reading and rubbed at the dull ache in his temples. This was useless. He was wasting his time trying to plow through all these books for some scrap of information that probably did not exist.

He had hoped the lord governor would send the squire back to help him, but apparently she had been kept busy somewhere else. Too bad. She was irritating and a Solamnic Knight to boot, but she could be useful. He thought it rather poor planning that the leader of his cell hadn’t bothered to tell him of the presence of a good Knight in the Governor’s Guards. While it was true the Legion and the Solamnics had little to do with each other if they could help it, he knew Calzon had a contact in the knightly order and it could have been useful to know who that contact was. Not that it mattered now. One way and another, Lynn’s identity had been revealed to him.

His biggest concern now was finding the key to the Sailors’ Scourge. He believed the disease was induced by magic, but now he had to prove it and, if possible, find something that would break the vicious cycle of the contagion. That was easier said than done. Mystic magic, his specialty, had very little effect on the disease, so it was probably based on something from the old magic of the gods, the magic that no longer existed on Krynn except in old artifacts and talismans of power.

He stretched his arms and neck. He was getting stiff from so much sitting. As he stood up, his eyes fell on the spine of a book half buried under a pile of tomes and scrolls. A ship’s name flashed into his mind. He snatched the ship’s log out of the pile and opened it to the first page that listed
the galley’s crew. Lynn said it was a pity they couldn’t talk to the captain before he died.

Mica’s finger found the right name: Captain Emual Southack. “Well, Captain, maybe we can talk to you now,” the dwarf murmured.

He blew out his work lamp and went up the stairs two at a time. He sketched a wave to the porter, and before the man could ask questions, he hurried down Temple Way toward the city and the harbor.

In his rush, he didn’t pay attention to the trees around him or the road behind him. If he had, perhaps he would have noticed the furtive figure that followed him carefully through the shadows.