The Queen of stone

CHAPTER TWENTY — FIVE

The Great Crag Droaam Eyre 19, 998 YK

"Sheshka?" No response came, and the serpents were silent. Thorn held Steel over the body of the medusa queen. "Steel, is she looking at me?"

No, Steel replied. I fear this may be a lost cause.

Thorn opened her eyes to a dire sight. The basilisk Szaj had suffered the worst, and charred bones protruded from his corpse. Sheshka had been partially shielded by the statue of the Valenar elf, but that had simply spared her from instant death. Many of her scales had been burned away, leaving blackened flesh below. Her breathing was slow and faint. She had a deep cut on her left bicep and a piercing wound in her right thigh. The Valenar might have lost his battle, but he'd stained his blades before he fell. Sheshka had defeated her opponent, only to be taken by treachery.

There's nothing to be done, Steel told her. In all likelihood, the wounds are already infected. Even with the aid of a healer, she would need days to recover.

"No," Thorn said. "There has to be a way. The gnolls-they had healing salves. Perhaps-"

You know nothing of the relationship between the gnolls and Sheshka. She seemed suspicious that you were carrying a gnoll's weapon. For all you know, they want her dead. And in either case, she is a warlord of Droaam. Once she's in the hands of the guards, you won't get close to her again.

Thorn was still recovering from the chaos of the battle, and many things were only beginning to sink in. "Why am I still alive?"

"What do you mean?"

Thorn ran a hand along her side, pulling at the fabric for a better look. The blood on her doublet was still wet, but the flesh below was smooth and unmarked. "Toli punctured my lung. I should be dead, but I'm not even hurt." She touched her shoulder. "Even the snakebites are gone."

Andyet the wound from Sheshka's blade remains, Steel observed. It was true. Despite the pain she'd felt at the touch of the sword, the wound wasn't deep, but the blood was still fresh. When you were fighting Toli, you touched him and he cried out in pain. What did you do?

"I… don't know. I was angry, in pain. Then I felt a rush of energy flooding through me, and the pain stopped."

It appears that you stripped away his life force and used it to heal yourself.

"But how is that possible?" Thorn said. "Could it happen again?" She looked at her hands. Was she in danger of killing anyone she touched?

We don't have enough information, Steel said. Perhaps it was a curse placed on Toli, and not on you.

"And about Toli…"

We don't have time to discuss this now, Steel said. If we can't heal Sheshka, you'd best kill her and leave before someone arrives.

"Kill her?"

Suddenly, the pieces fell into place. Sheshka saw Toli, a Brelish soldier. If the medusa lived, she could blame the attack on Breland. If Thorn took his body, the blame would fall on Valenar and Darguun. Trouble surely-but they couldn't allow this to be set against Boranel.

Thorn shook her head. "No, there has to be another way"

We have no time to debate. Kill her. You can dispose of Toli's body in the sewers and we'll reevaluate the situation.

Thorn considered her hands again. Moments ago, she'd stolen Toli's strength to heal herself. If only she could reverse that, to give Sheshka some of her own life force. But she had no idea what she'd done. As Steel had said, perhaps the power wasn't in her at all.

Then she saw the answer.

What are you doing?

Thorn knelt beside the burned medusa. "Carrying out my mission. Which means saving her life."

How-

Thorn sheathed the dagger. She found a patch of unburned scales on Sheshka's back, pulled off one of her gloves, and set her palm against the medusa's skin. Then she concentrated, trying to remember the instructions of the provender at the Citadel.

"You can move it if you need to," he'd said. "You just have to want it."

She felt as if her flesh was actually crawling. The tingling, creeping sensation moved up her leg, shifted across her stomach, and flowed down her arm. Finally, the energy appeared on her hand. Were it holding still, it would appear as a tattoo, an abstract pattern of colored lines. Instead, the energy danced around on the skin of her palm. It was a healing tattoo-the mirror of the one that had saved her at the foot of the Korlaak gorge. When she'd been given the assignment, the provender had placed two designs on her skin, and she'd seen the symbols crawl from his flesh to hers. Now she needed to force the tattoo onto Sheshka.

The symbol didn't want to leave her; it responded to conscious thought, and Sheshka wasn't welcoming it. But Thorn made a wall with her mind, imagining the space on her hand shrinking. The lines of the tattoo compressed as it tried to fit into the ever-smaller space. Then it burst away, spilling onto the scales of the medusa.

Well, that's the easy part, Thorn thought. She knew little about the force that empowered living symbols, and she'd had trouble activating the tattoo when it was on her own skin. But this time her mind wasn't fogged with pain… and the success of her mission rested on healing Sheshka. With her palm pressed upon the symbol, she considered the scorched body of the medusa queen.

You have to want it.

Thorn thought about the imperious woman she'd seen earlier that day, the proud voice she'd bargained with mere minutes ago. She had fire in her, will to live. Thorn had to draw it out. She shoved Sheshka, pushing down on the sigil.

"Do you want to die?" she said. "Are you going to let go so easily?"

She pushed Sheshka again, trying to channel her own growing anger into the symbol.

"I survived this. A puny softskin. You're going to fall to a fire that didn't even touch me? You're going to let these murderers get away with this? Damn you, they killed Szaj!" She pushed down on the tattoo.

Was it growing warmer?

"Get up!" she shouted. "Live, you coward!"

Sheshka's back arched beneath Thorn's hand, and the medusa queen gasped for air. The tattoo dissolved into a shimmering light, spreading across Sheshka's scorched flesh and healing her wounds. As the glow passed over her head, her snakes began to move again, a few hissing weakly.

Thorn stood up and stepped back into the sand pit, closing her eyes as she did so. She'd taken the sword that was lying next to Sheshka, and she set it point first in the sand.

"Welcome back to the living, your highness," she said. "You'll forgive me if I don't help you stand. The last time I saved your life, your hair bit me."

Sheshka rose up on one arm, her breathing still ragged, and from the sound, Thorn could tell that the medusa was looking at her. Sheshka's voice was rough, still unsteady. "Why… did you… save me?"

"I told you before. I came to negotiate."

"You wear the colors of Zaeurl's children." She was gaining strength, slowly. "Why?"

Zaeurl's children? The wolves. "These aren't my clothes, Queen Sheshka."

The medusa rose to her feet. "Open your eyes," she said.

"And you'll release Harryn Stormblade?" Thorn said.

"Open your eyes."

As dangerous as it seemed, Thorn had seen Sheshka in a number of different circumstances. They'd bargained. She'd heard the medusa's righteous anger when she fought with Beren. Now her voice was soft, almost gentle. Praying that this wasn't some cruel trick, Thorn opened her eyes.

The medusa queen stood before her, looking at the floor. The healing tattoo had done a remarkable job. Sheshka seemed slightly unsteady on her feet, but her burned scales were completely restored. Five serpents studied Thorn as they bobbed and weaved around Sheshka's head. Thorn could see a faint golden glimmer at the edge of Sheshka's eyes, but her gaze was fixed on the floor.

"What is your name?"

"You can call me Thorn."

"And what do you want with Harryn Stormblade, Thorn?" This time, she wasn't demanding. Her voice was steady and quiet.

"I told you. I wish to return him to the eastern lands, to his home."

"Then I release you from our bargain." Sheshka raised her head, but she closed her eyes as she did so. "You have saved my life, Thorn. If you can keep me alive, I will give you Harryn Stormblade."

"Keep you alive… you say that as if you expect it to be a challenge."

"I do." Sheshka knelt by a large stone chest. Reaching inside, she produced the armor she had worn earlier and began dressing herself, drawing the chain mail shirt over her torso and binding the vambraces and shin guards to her forearms and legs. "I caught only a glimpse of the woman who produced the flames. What became of her?"

"She escaped," Thorn said. She'd had a close look at the sorceress, and what she'd seen was fixed in her mind… the blue dragonhawk of Aundair pinned to her cloak. She was one of the Aundairian envoys.

"The Crag is large, and they likely think me dead." Sheshka paused, using her teeth to tie the cords on her bracers. "But guards will surely be here soon to make the shocking discovery. If I'm still alive, I suspect that they'll be prepared to finish the job. And my death would be a tragedy for both of us, it seems."

"Why would the guards of the Crag want to kill you?" Thorn said.

Sheshka buckled a sword belt around her waist. She held out her hand without looking behind her, though two of her vipers fixed their eyes on Thorn. "What do you think just happened here?"

"Four people tried to kill you-and would have succeeded if not for me." Thorn tossed the curved sword toward Sheshka. The medusa snatched it out of the air and sheathed it.

"And I'd like to know exactly how you survived," Sheshka said. She placed a diadem around her head, the band hidden beneath her serpents. An array of metal disks dangled from the silver band. "But now is not the time for that discussion. Who were these assassins?"

"A Brelish soldier, a Valenar elf, a Darguul hobgoblin."

"And how would you interpret such a group?" Sheshka said, straightening the diadem.

She'd already thought this through. "The Gantii Vuus fought alongside Brelish troops in the Last War, and the Valenar will fight for anyone. I'd conclude that someone in Breland wanted you dead."

"Yes. Neither the hobgoblin nor the Brelish was protected from my gaze. Both wore the clothes of their nations-hardly an intelligent action for an assassin, as you seem to have concluded."

"So they expected to be petrified, then the wizard fills the room with fire, killing you, leaving the corpses intact and the blame on Breland." Thorn's mind raced. So was Aundair behind this? The sorceress wore the Aundairian crest, but Breland and Aundair were allies. "But why would Toli agree to this?"

Sheshka wound an arm ring around one bicep. "Because his true loyalties lie elsewhere, of course. You saw what he became."

"A werewolf." Thorn knew almost nothing about these creatures. Legends said they were all but extinct.

"Yes," Sheshka said. She placed a ring on her finger and hissed sharply as she released it, as if it caused her pain. She turned to face Thorn, closing her eyes as she did. "And Zaeurl and her children have always been loyal to the Daughters of Sora Kell."

"So you think the Daughters want to kill you and make it look like Breland is responsible?"

"I believe they already have," Sheshka said. Sheshka paused for a moment near Szaj's corpse, then strode out of the room. Thorn followed her into the main chamber. "The evidence is here, and all they need to do is ensure my death. My people will certainly demand vengeance. Why they would want war with the east I cannot say, but it seems inevitable. I don't know what stakes you hold in such a conflict, but there's nothing we can do alone."

"Ber-" Thorn caught herself before she said the name. Surely Sheshka knew she was one of the envoys, but didn't know which nation she was from. "What about my companions? I can't leave them here."

"There is nothing to be done for them," Sheshka said. "If the Daughters are behind this, we will be lucky to escape with our lives. If your comrades are diplomats, it's more likely that they will be kept as hostages than killed. If you help me escape, I can get word to my people. We cannot stand against the full might of Droaam alone, but I can help you. At the least, I may be able to find Harryn Stormblade, though I fear it won't be easy."

Only then did Thorn realize that she'd been throughout the medusa's chambers and had seen no petrified warriors. "So Harryn isn't here."

"No. Until recently, he stood in the Great Hall. Two days ago he was moved beyond the walls of the Great Crag, at the orders of the warlord Drul Kantar. If you are willing to remain until my soldiers arrive, we might be able to find him. But until then, he could be anywhere in the city. Searching for him would be… what is your phrase? Like searching for a tree in a forest."

"Or a bone in an ossuary," Thorn said glumly.

Sheshka's reaction surprised her. The medusa's head snapped toward her, and her snakes coiled back as if preparing to strike. "What did you say?"

Thorn took a step back, closing her eyes. Something dangerous lurked in the medusa's voice. "It would be like finding a bone in an ossuary. It's a container for holding-"

"I know what an ossuary is," Sheshka said. "Why did you say it now?"

"A note was left for me at the welcoming feast. That's what it said."

"Let us go." A rack of weaponry hung in the main room, and Sheshka selected an ornate short bow and quiver. She turned to face Thorn. Her eyes were closed, and she had regained her composure. Bow in hand, armor gleaming, she was every inch the warrior queen. "We may not survive the journey. The gates lie above us, and they will be guarded. I can no longer say who in this place can be trusted, but we will not die alone."

"Could we use the sewers?" Thorn said.

Four of Sheshka's serpents turned to look at her, their posture suggesting surprise. "I suppose…" she said. "There must be a path leading out. But I do not know the way, and it would be a gruesome journey."

"Honestly? I've seen worse," Thorn said. "Besides, I know a ritual to help with that, and to keep trackers from following. If you'll allow me, your majesty."

Thorn had held back from casting the shielding spell, because she'd hoped to include Harryn Stormblade in its effects, but it seemed she'd need its defense now. She whispered the syllables of magic, tracing the pattern to include the medusa, and she could sense Sheshka's odor fading from the room. "It's done."

"Then ready yourself for battle," Sheshka said, nocking an arrow to her bowstring. She nudged the door open with her foot, revealing the corpses of two guards. One lay in a pool of blood; his head had nearly been severed from his body, likely by the blades of the Valenar elf. The other had been felled by magic. A focused burst of flame had melted her steel breastplate and charred the muscle beneath, leaving metal bound to seared flesh.

"You'll need the myrnaxe," Sheshka said. If the sight unnerved her, she gave no sign. "This is a night for silver."