“What?” Gleamdren pressed herself up against the bars of her cage, her sulky eyes wide with disbelief. “You’re teasing me. I demand you let me see!”
“You can make no demands here,” said Hri Sora, turning suddenly. “You are bound by my pleasure, Gleamdrené Gormlaith.” Nevertheless, she lifted the cage by its handle, not caring how it swayed. Gleamdren, unbalanced, fell to her hands and knees. “But it is my pleasure,” Hri Sora continued, “that you should see.” And the dragon carried her prisoner to the edge of the roof and held out her arm.
Gleamdren gasped. She hung suspended over a drop of unbearable length. As the cage swung, she caught glimpses of the red stone so terribly far below. Without the cage, she would not fear. Heights never bothered her little head, and she would gladly cast herself from the highest peaks of Rudiobus Mountain. Such was her nature, flighty as she was. But not in a cage, without freedom of movement. Not with those iron bars surrounding her, pulling her down . . .
But the dragon did not let go. “Look,” said Hri Sora.
Gleamdren looked and gasped again as her gaze sped across the miles, seeing over the distance with such unnatural clarity that she felt dizzy. “What are you doing to my eyes?” she demanded.
“Giving you my sight. Behold your suitor, queen’s cousin!”
And Gleamdren saw Captain Glomar writhing on the stone street at the city’s edge. She frowned, her fear forgotten. “Where are the others?”
“What others?”
“My suitors. Where are the rest of them?”
“There are no others.”
“You’re wrong. There should be a dozen at least. More, even!”
“Only one.” Hri Sora’s smile was cruel and cold. “And that one not for long.” She raised her other hand, gleaming with long black talons. She snapped her fingers.
Gleamdren saw the movement of darkness deep in the city. The flow of a black shadow that was deeper than shadow, moving like a living animal through the streets. And even at that distance, she heard the baying.
“I have put the Black Dogs on his trail,” said Hri Sora. “They’ll drive him into my city. He will never find you, Lady Gleamdren. Unless, of course, you tell me what I wish to know.”
Gleamdren watched that blackness flowing like spilled ink, drawing ever nearer to where Glomar lay still, clutching his swollen ankle.
“Tell me the secret of the Flowing Gold,” hissed the dragon. “Tell me, and I may even now let him go.”
The voices of the Dogs were the death tolls on a booming bell.
“Tell me,” said Hri Sora. “Tell me what I need!”
Gleamdren’s face was pale and cold, as though a piece of her had died as she watched the scene being played out below her. At last she pulled herself to her feet and walked unsteadily across the swaying cage floor to the other side, where she could face the dragon. Though the iron made her dizzy, her small white hands grasped the bars, and she raised her gaze to meet the dragon’s as she said:
“I cannot believe there’s only one. I have scores of beaux! Are you sure there aren’t more knocking at your gates?”
Hri Sora nearly flung the cage over the roof’s edge then and there.
12
THEY TRAMPED THROUGH THE FOREST for what seemed both forever and an instant, though the light never changed. All was still, yet Imraldera sensed that life moved through the blurry shadows just beyond the Path she trod behind the poet. Life, and death as well.
How long had it been since she’d last eaten? Since she’d last sipped water that was not ensorcelled? Her steps shortened and she stumbled.
Eanrin whirled about, his eyebrows drawn into an irritable line. “You mortals are such a poorly put together lot, it’s a wonder you survive as long as you do! You look as though you’re ready to fall into little pieces, and who will be left to pick you up?”
She glared at him but could not suppress a relieved sigh when he continued, “Sit down and rest. This is as safe a place as any. Can’t have you fainting on me again, especially once we come to Cozamaloti Gate.”
This name meant nothing to Imraldera. But it didn’t matter. Though she hated to demonstrate any weakness in front of the Faerie cat, at the word “rest,” her knees gave out beneath her, and she sank gratefully into a cushion of soft moss, resting her head on her crooked arm. She was too tired even to sleep.
Eanrin prowled about the periphery of the grove of silver aspens, his long nose sniffing and twitching so that she almost thought him in cat form. “This was a Haven once,” he declared at last.
She watched him, offering no response.