“They be…they are…talking, I think. So we wait. But things be good for us.”
Suri heard the door rattle against the frame.
“We’re trapped in a room,” Moya said. “How is this good for us?”
Not trapped! We’re not trapped. Even if the door is barred, Arion can rip it open. I am not trapped!
“Penalty for coming to Dherg lands is death,” Arion explained. “Locked room better, yes?”
A long pause stretched between them, and then Moya replied, “Definitely better.”
Suri was having a problem getting air, despite the quickness of her breath. Inhalations were shorter, and she was puffing instead of breathing.
“So what happens if they don’t agree?” Brin asked. “Will they kill us?”
“Arion?” Persephone said. “If it comes to that, you’ll do something, right?”
Arion hesitated. “Suri will.”
Ghostly heads turned to face the mystic. Suri shook her head, and she didn’t care if anyone saw.
“You can if you let yourself,” Arion told her in Fhrey. “You have the ability, and more raw talent than any student I’ve ever taught. You just need experience. If you tried, you could blow that door off its hinges or dissolve the walls around us.”
Suri stared at the ghostly face of Arion. Does she know?
“Suri, if you wanted you could put every Dherg in a mile radius to sleep. Then we could take any ship we liked and summon a friendly wind to blow us home, and in a fraction of the time it took to get here. You could do all that…and you will…you just have to spread your wings and decide it’s time to fly.” Arion paused then added in a softer, gentler tone, “Suri, when you want to, you’ll move mountains.”
“I don’t want to move mountains,” Suri said, but inside her head the response was: But opening that stupid door would be nice.
“I know.” Perhaps it was a trick of the dim light, but Arion looked very sad then, as if she might cry. “You remind me of Fenelyus in that way. She didn’t want the gift, either. She believed that was why it was given to her. She was immune to the Art’s seduction, to the addiction that touching the chords inflicts. It’s a rare gift, being able to shun power. Gylindora Fane had it, Fenelyus had it, and I think you do, too.”
“I don’t know any of those people.”
Arion shook her head. “Does not matter. When the time comes, you will be a most beautiful butterfly.”
“I’d be happy if she could just open this door,” Moya said, and rattled it.
Suri cringed at the sound.
“But…but…if Suri can’t save us,” Persephone said, “you will, right, Arion?”
Arion hesitated for a long time, and when she finally spoke, it was in a solemn tone, like an oath. “Yes. I will do that for you.”
—
They didn’t have to wait long, Persephone realized in retrospect; it just seemed that way.
In the darkness of that little room—with their fate so tenuous—the seconds felt like days. Upon their release, Persephone estimated that they had been detained for only a few minutes—less than an hour, certainly. When the little people came for them, their attitude had changed. They didn’t yell or poke at them with spears. Instead, a particularly plump Dherg with a red beard, bald head, and floor-length tunic of bright mint green announced in a quavering voice, “Please be so kind as to follow me.”
They were escorted from in front and behind, but gone were the faceless, gray-armored soldiers. In their place were well-dressed dwarfs. Still, all of them were outfitted with a sword attached to their belts.
Persephone and the others were led through the corridors until she was quite lost; not that she had a good idea of how to return to the ship given their haphazard rush. She expected to be taken to some sort of throne room, like the big domed hall she had visited in Alon Rhist. Instead, they were escorted to a little study where Frost, Flood, and Rain waited.
The room wasn’t big, but there were enough chairs for all. In front of the party, a beautiful fireplace, carved to look like the mouth of a beast, burned brightly, filling the room with a warm, comfortable light. A sturdy, practical desk stood to the right of the fireplace. On it was an assortment of tools, metal shavings, and old worn boxes of oiled wood, filled with a variety of metal odds and ends. The surface of the desk was marred, gouged with deep scratches. To one side was a pile of oil-stained cloths, and on the floor at the other end, was a metal bucket filled with a yellow liquid, perhaps the source of the harsh resin smell that permeated the chamber.
Flanking the fireplace were shelves upon shelves and more shelves of little drawers with small, white, polished-marble handles. Tacked up on the wall to their left was a large sheet of tanned animal skin—very thin—on which was painted a strange image. Not pretty like those Brin had decorated her home with. This was very detailed and showed hundreds of lines all interconnected in rings like the pattern found in the slice of a very large tree. A window of nine square glass panes made up the wall to their right. Glass. Persephone had only seen it at Alon Rhist, and she knew none of the others, except Arion, had ever seen anything like it. With the darkness outside, the material magically reflected their own images.
“Please, do sit down.” The red-bearded Dherg gestured at the chairs, as the door to the room closed from the outside. Their escorts crossed the room and waited for them to comply before the one who spoke sat on a wobbly stool behind the desk.
“I am Gronbach Eyck Prigmoore, Master Crafter and mayor of Caric,” he said with a strong Dherg accent that formed most of the sounds in the back of his throat before rolling them out, giving the words a sharp, hard sound. “I understand that you were invited here by these three? Is that correct?”
They all looked to Persephone, even Arion. “Yes,” she replied. “We heard you were having a problem with a giant, and we’ve come to rid you of that menace in exchange for weapons.”
“What sort of weapons?”
Persephone realized she hadn’t considered what would be best. Her people had always used spears and axes, but perhaps swords and shields would be better. She looked at Frost, who sat across from them in front of the rows of little drawers looking just as nervous as she felt. “Swords.” She decided. “Ones that can stand up against the Fhrey’s.”
Gronbach noted the exchange of glances and frowned at Frost and Flood. “Why?”
“We are going to war against them.”
Gronbach’s eyes widened, and immediately he looked at Arion. “This is very strange…very, very strange.” He fumbled with a piece of shiny gray metal bent in an L-shape, flipping it over and back between his fingers. “We have treaties with the Fhrey. You must know this, severe, harshly limiting treaties.”
“Do they prevent you from trading weapons?” Persephone asked.
He looked up. “Well, no, not exactly, but I’m quite certain that’s because no one ever imagined…I simply can’t see that they would…this is very strange.” He looked at Arion again, suspiciously this time. “I think it would be best if we just sent you back home and pretended none of this ever happened.”
“You can’t do that,” Flood burst out, giving Persephone the impression that a great deal had been discussed while she was held in the other room.