Banewreaker(54)

Calandor snorted smoke in a laugh. "Can you read the speech of their lipsss, little ssissster? Neither can I."

"I know." Lilias flicked the mirror with a fingernail in annoyance. "Haergan the Craftsman should have crafted ears onto his creation, instead of eyes and a mouth. It would have been more useful."

"Indeed." A nictitating membrane blinked over the dragon's eyes. "I might not have eaten him if he had been more ussseful."

"I would feel better if Lord Satoris' decoy had arrived in Beshtanag."

"Sso would I, little ssissster." Calandor sounded regretful. "But there is risssk in waiting. I would have gone, if you wished, to ssseek them."

"No." Lilias covered the mirror with her palm. On that point she had been adamant. Calandor was one of the last of his kind, the last known to the Lesser Shapers. In the Shapers' War, scores of dragons had died defending Satoris from his kin; after the Sundering, the Ellylon had hunted them mercilessly, slaying the weak and wounded. She would not allow Calandor to risk himself for a Shaper's machinations. "My spies have laid a trail of rumor from Pelmar to Vedasia, swearing the Dragon of Beshtanag was seen aloft and heading south. It is enough."

"Then it is enough," the dragon said gently. "Haomane's Allies will believe I ferried the Lady here on dragonback. If you ssspeak now, they will be ssertain of it. If you delay, it may be proved a lie."

"All right." Lilias sighed again. "It's time, it's time. I understand. I'll do it."

"You know the way… ?"

"Yes," she said shortly. "I know it."

She knew it because Calandor had showed her, as he had done so many times before. What the dragon consumed, he consumed wholly, knowledge and all. And long ago, in the First Age of the Sundered World, he had consumed Haergan the Craftsman, who had built a folly into the great hall of Meronil.

It was a head, the head of Meronin Fifth-Born, Lord of the Seas; Haomane's brother and chiefest ally, patron of Meronil. And it adorned a marble pediment atop the doorway into the great hall, his hair wrought into white-capped waves. When the world was Sundered, Meronin had brought the seas to divide the body of Urulat from Torath, the Souma-crowned head of the world.

But truth be told, there was precious little to be seen in the great hall of Meronil. Lilias knew, having looked into the mirror, Haergan's mirror, through the sculpture's eyes. Ingolin the Wise convened his assembly, day in and day out. One day, he brought forth a stone in a casket. It blazed with a pale blue light, which seemed to impress those assembled. Well and good; what did it mean?

"I know not," Calandor had said, though he sounded uneasy, for a dragon. "But it is nothing to do with Beshtanag. This I ssswear, Liliasss."

She believed him, because she had no choice. If Calandor was false… ah, no. Best not to think of such things, for she would sooner die than believe it. Lilias gripped the mirror, letting her vision diffuse, sinking into its tarnished surface, sensing the marble eyes wrought by Haergan the Craftsman open.

There.

There.

A skewed view, seen from the pediment. Ingolin the Wise, Lord of the Rivenlost, presiding over the argumentative assembly. Had it ever been otherwise? There, Bornin of Seahold, stout in his blue livery. There, Lord Cynifrid of Port Calibus, pounding the table with his gauntleted fist. There, two representatives of the Free Fishers of Harrington Bay, clad in homespun. And there, Aracus Altorus, taut with energy, willing the Council of War onward.

So few women, Lilias thought, gazing through the marbled eyes. So few!

"Liliassss."

"I know. I know." Drawing on the power of the Soumanië, feeling the fillet tighten on her brow, and speaking the words of invocation set forth by Haergon the Craftsman, who had left his knowledge in a dragon's belly.

In Meronil, Haomane's Allies gaped.

It was hard, at such a distance. Her flesh was mortal, and not meant to wield a Shaper's power nor Ellylon magics. Lilias closed her eyes and willed the marble lips to speak, stiff as stone, forming words that boomed in the distant hall.

"GREETINGS… TO… HAOMANE'S… ALLIES!"

Her face felt rigid and unfamiliar, inhabiting the sculpted relief more thoroughly than ever she had dared. She forced open the dense marble lids of her eyes, gazing down at the assembly. They were all on their feet, staring upward at the pediment, giving her a sense of vertigo.

"YOU SEEK… THE LADY… CERELINDE. SHE IS… SAFE… IN BESHTANAG." The words made a knot in her belly. It was the end of deniability, the beginning of blame. "SHE WILL BE RESTORED TO YOU… FOR A PRICE."

There was squabbling, then, in the great hall of Meronil. Lilias watched them through marble eyes, dimly aware that in a Beshtanagi cavern, the edges of a small mirror bit into her clutching palms. Some were shouting as if she could hear them. She watched and waited, and wished again that Haergan the Craftsman had given ears to his creation.