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He spun on his horse hoof, then stepped over to Ragwrist. “Elf, let us settle the accounting. Name your price, and if it’s her weight in silver, I’ll melt every plate and goblet on both sides of the Titan bridge to meet it.” He turned back to Wistala. “I do not come to buy you, Oracle, but to free you. I would not have one who has done such service choking in the wake of gargant flatus.” He extracted a knife from his sleeve with such speed that it almost looked as though it had grown there and moved to cut the blue silken cord.
“No, I beg you, mighty king,” Wistala said. “That twist could be broke at the slightest pull. I would keep it as a souvenir of happy journeys under the kindest of masters.”
“I’ve never known a dwarf to begin negotiations at such a disadvantage as saying ‘name your price,’ ” Ragwrist said. “I’m quite befuddled. But if that is the case, the negotiations shall be brief. I seek only assurances as to her treatment.”
“Treatment!” King Fangbreaker said. “She may go where she likes. But if she will reside with the Wheel of Fire, she’ll want for nothing as long as I have voice to call for it to be brought to her. I would ask only her counsel in return.”
“Let us adjourn to my tent, if you will accept my hospitality, great king,” Ragwrist said. “It would be unseemly to name a price before the object of the negotiations, methinks.”
“Elves and their protocols. Of course, Circusmaster, of course, but I am tempted to simply behead all present and free the dragon.”
“My king, no!” Wistala said.
King Fangbreaker laughed. “I joke, of course. Let’s get this over with, Ragwrist. It’s too nice a day for tents and incense.”
The party left, and Wistala sagged. Her spine had been tightening, her body closing on itself like a telescope all through the audience, yet she could not account for her fear.
“Shall I read your fortune?” a tiny voice squeaked.
Wistala looked down to see Iatella crouching between brazier and piles of pillows, cradling Intanta’s old, saucer-shaped crystal in her lap as though it were a very fat doll. The girl was on the fire-keeping staff and had come along to work the camp kitchen and get road experience.
“Certainly. Practice away,” Wistala said.
The little girl stood before her gravely, then knelt, all seriousness as is the manner of hominid children when hard at play. She drew designs around the crystal, then found something wrong with its placement, and inclined it a little so it faced her better.
“I see tragedy in your life,” Iatella said.
This was no great secret to anyone with knowledge of Ragwrist’s circus, but it showed the girl had some skill, for you always wanted to start out on firm footing.
“Wonderful,” Wistala said. “I’m most impressed.”
“Elves, dwarves, men—you have seen a good part of the Hypatian Empire,” Iatella went on, pulling at her lip in thought.
“Amazing,” Wistala said.
“Birds, too,” she added. “Birds and death.”
How . . . Where was she going with this?
“I see you. Something in shadow, a dragon with a scarred face the color of an old soup-pot. And one of many colors, turned white as snow. You thought him dead when he turned white.”
How was this possible. Auron? How on earth could she know about Auron, or that morning on the mountainside she thought him frozen to death?
“Oh,” she said, and her voice was no longer that of a little girl, but something older and croakier than even Intanta. “A terrible reckoning. Three dragons, opposition, and the fate of worlds in the balance.”
And then she screamed, such a scream that it seemed to shoot right through Wistala’s body, the tent, the soil itself, and fainted.
A circus dwarf, one of Brok’s staff, and a pair of the Wheel of Fire dwarves rushed into the tent.
“What happened?” the circus dwarf asked, after a dwarvish expostulation from the others.>“Rumor, rumor, rumor. I’m interested only in facts and expenses and how much I might get from the dwarves for you.”
“I shall ask you to drive a harder bargain than you know. I want several conditions on the sale, all in the interest of my health, of course. Is Brok still with you?”
“Of course.”
“I need him to forge a very stout collar for me, something that even a troll couldn’t break.”
“What, so that the dwarves may better chain you? Suppose you wish to break away and escape?”
