Dragon Blood (Hurog #2)(26)

The voice called me back from memories. It belonged to a woman, but it had a bass rumble no female tone should ever carry. I opened my eyes fearfully and saw brightly mottled fur of orange and yellow, bright eyes above finger-long fangs. Somehow the fur seemed to give a little of its light to the room and drive the shadows back to the corners where they belonged.

"Hurogmeten? How long since you've eaten?"

The Tamerlain, guardian of Aethervon's temple, sat in front of me. Another hallucination, I thought, so I didn't answer her. She lived on the hill of Menogue in the ruins of Aethervon's temples outside the city of Estian. She could not be in the Asylum.

Closing my eyes, I waited for her to go away. After a moment I heard the bowl they'd given me skitter across the floor as she inspected it.

"Good lad, you didn't eat tonight," she said. "Garranon said he thought you were drugged rather than magicked, and that's harder to combat."

It was the water that was dangerous; I felt very clever for knowing that much. I had sweated a great deal earlier and now my thirst was great - but I knew the water had held as much danger for me as the wizard. I held a straw in my mouth and that had helped keep my mouth moist, but it wasn't working well anymore.

"Wardwick," she coaxed (I could tell by the change in her voice that she was coming closer), "look at me, lad. You know me."

I pulled my eyes reluctantly away from the wall, and stared into the face of the beast. She was as large as a small northern bear, and her head looked ursine, except for the large golden eyes that were more suited to a tiger. Her thick fur covered a body that was not as bulky as a bear's nor as lithe as one of the big cats'. Her tail curled around her front paws and she purred when my eyes met hers. I thought the sound might have been meant to be reassuring.

The air suddenly felt clearer, like my thoughts, but I knew it was a continuation of my delusions, because the guardian of the ruins of Menogue had no business in my cell.

I sat up straighter and brushed straw off my shoulders, to give myself time to think. The movement exacerbated the remnant pain that lingered after Jade Eye's rage.

"Leave me," I said. The last time I'd met her, her god, Aethervon, had taken over my sister's body and tormented Oreg. No one hurt my people if I could help it.

"Hold your anger," she said. "I come as a favor for a friend. Garranon was worried about you. He asked me to see you if I could. So I took his request to Aethervon. My master has been interested in you since he awoke to your presence when you visited His temple at Menogue."

"Go away," I said again. Aethervon could hang for all I cared. He had used my sister without her consent and hurt my friend. Granted, the Tamerlain had little part in either - but I despised her master.

"I can help you," she said.

I gave a short laugh and tried to hide how much even such a slight movement hurt.

"You tell me Garranon is your friend," I said.

"Garranon is my friend," she agreed.

I stared at her and she met my gaze steadily. I hadn't really considered the Tamerlain as anything except a servant of a weakened, treacherous god. That Garranon was a friend of the Tamerlain was beyond belief. Had he had such a powerful ally, surely she would have shown herself sooner - saving his brother, destroying his enemies. Something. If my life had been hard at the hands of my father, Garranon's had been worse.

"How long have you been friends?" I asked.

My disbelief stung and she jerked her chin up, a low growl in her throat. "He has been mine since he came here to Estian, a child, alone and afraid. He saw me - as no one from that place has ever seen me - and he feared me not. Since that night when he slept curled against me, a child even by your short-lived reckoning, he has been my friend."

I believed her suddenly, but it didn't improve my opinion of her. "A friend who watched as the king raped a child."

"It was never rape, that happened before he was here. The king used herbs ... magic." Even in her inhuman face I could read anguish. She'd known that herbs and magic don't mean it wasn't rape.

While we'd talked, the last of Jade Eye's drugs had left me. Without their aid, my terror of the Asylum, my claustrophobic anger at my inability to fight back effectively against Jade Eyes had been growing in my belly. The addition of bone-deep anger at the pain of a child - for all that he was now an adult well able to take care of himself loosed the ties on my spiteful tongue.

"And now I'm supposed to allow you to help me?" I asked.

She shot to her feet as if I'd hit her, and for an instant the rage in her eyes made me think my worries about my current situation would be over even sooner than I'd believed possible - though I'd been hoping for Oreg rather than death.

She snarled soundlessly, then stalked away from me. Facing the wall she said, "You know nothing about it. I was constrained, as was my master. I had to watch and do nothing." The tension left her in a rush and when she turned back to me, there was only sorrow in her eyes.

"So much damage had been done to the fabric of this world, it was all my master could do to hold it together. Do you think He wanted to let His temple fall to foreign armies He could have destroyed with a touch? But even so much might have been enough to burst the dam built to keep humankind alive. He ... I couldn't even save one child."

I had been ashamed of my words almost as I'd said them. "I'm sorry," I said.