Jane S. Fancher - Dance of the Rings 2 - Ring of Intrigue.pdf - Jane S. Fancher - margozap

Ring of Intrigue

Dance of the Rings Book 2

Jane S. Fancher

Dusk was closing rapidly as the small entourage ap-

proached the outer wall of Rhomatum. A strangely deep

duskthe leyroad lights, once bright beacons leading to

the city, glimmered feebly in the distance. Even Tower Hill,

an architectural mountain rising above foothills of concen-

tric rooftops, seemed subdued, fewer lights and dimmer

shining from those oldest, most elegant buildings of the city

of Rhomatum.

Only the highest point in the City gleamed with undimin-

ished silver leylight: the Rhomatum Ringchamber, upper-

most room within Rhomatum Tower itself. Home of the

Rhomatum Rings.

The source for all those other, failing, lights.

Lightning clouds roared in from the north. An hour be-

fore, just as the entourage had crossed the Oreno leyline,

the storm that had rumbled in the distance all afternoon

had suddenly broken pattern, gaining organization and di-

rection, forming a line of blinding ferocity, a constant bar-

rage of ground strikes that chased the open carriage and

its handful of outriders down the valley.

It was a race now to see whether they could reach Trisini

Gate before the solid mass of atmospheric fury overtook

them.

Deymorin had kept the team to their steady, running trot

as long as he dared. Bracing his feet against the forward

rail of the driver's box, he gave the anxious horses the

signal they eagerly awaited, tired as they were.

Fool, he called himself, and worse, as he guided galloping

horses grimly over and around the ruts and potholes of the

cattle trail; fool, for choosing this side track over the

smooth-graveled Trisini Leyroad.

In choosing the anonymity of off-ley roads, he'd made

their trip from Armayel overlong and dangerously slow. He

should have known that despite the clear morning skies,

the storms that had made the last month an unpredictable,

living hell for the valley would arrive before nightfall.

At least the storm would keep Anheliaa, or whoever was

in control of Rhomatum Tower these days far too busy

protecting the city to notice their arrival. So he trusted the

seasoned team's instincts, and hoped he didn't shed a car-

riage wheel or a brother in this final mad dash.

Kiyrstin, he'd never lose, so long as he had a coattail for

her to grasp.

To the front and sides, the outsiders kept pace, calling

out warning of ruts and mud holes. Nikki, a quiet and sane

presencein every sensebrought up the rear and cast

Deymorin silent reassurances regarding his passenger's

safety.

Huddled in the back seat with Kiyrstin, Mikhyel was a

black sink of nonemotion. Awake, holding his thoughts his

own, that was all a brother could ask, a brother whose mind

could afford no distractions.

The trail branched, one road toward the stockyards, the

other toward the leyroad and the gate. The horses surged

uphill, and the ground beneath the wheels rattled and

bounced, then settled onto the smooth surface of a leyroad.

A mental sigh of relief reached him: Nikki's thought, Mik-

hyel's, or both; or perhaps just his own.

But it was a short-lived relief. At the gate, chaos reigned,

delivery vehicles jammed the opening, the silk balloons that

normally rose above them, taking the strain off the axles,

lay limp over the cargo or deflated even as they watched;

further evidence, if they needed it, that the node's power

umbrella was rapidly failing.

Or perhaps, Deymorin thought, as he raised his eyes to

see stormciouds gathering above the city, that energy was

being redirected.

"The Tower, Deymorin! Has the storm reached the

Tower?" Mikhyel's voice pierced the near-deafening rum-

ble. He spoke aloud, as was not altogether necessary, ex-

cept from a biother who sought to hide his horror of the

lightning.

Deymorin looked beyond the immediate area to the sky

above the Tower.

"It's all right," he shouted back over his shoulder. "The

sky's clear beyond the old wall."

Words or mental image penetrated the thunder and dark-

ness, and Mikhyel's relief filtered back: a conscious leak in

the blackness.

A relief all well and good for the safety of the rings and

those individuals within the perimeter of the old wall, but

the immediate danger to themselves and all those milling

about them remained. The old wall, that marker of an ear-

lier limit of the city's power umbrella, was a mile and more

yet ahead.

But they didn't need to reach the umbrella. Not far from

Trisini Gate lay their salvation, if only they could get to it.

As the lightning bore down on them, Deymorin added

his voice to the general cacophony, ordering his men to

help clear the vehicles and get the horses and their handlers

inside the wall, and never mind the cargo.

"Can't, sir!" one shouted back. "Gatekeeper's de-

manding to see papers!"

Deymorin cursed, then yelled at Nikki to change places

with him. Handing the team off to his youngest brother, he

made a flying mount into the saddle and forced the big

horse through the mill to confront the gatekeeper

personally.

"Papers!" the man shouted at him, and held out a hand,

wide-eyed and automated as a mechanical doll.

"Don't be a fool!" Deymorin shouted back, and pointed

at the approaching wall of lightning. "These people are

going to fry, and you'll fry with them! Get them and the

stock through the gate and into the underground. Now!"

The man stared at him blankly, obviously terrified into

idiocy. Ignoring him, Deymorin began shouting orders at

anyone within earshot. He found a manone of the idiot's

assistantsfamiliar with the nearest entrance into Old Rho-

matum, and set him at the forwardmost team, with orders

to get the men and animals under cover.

"After hours, sir!" The man shouted. "Locked!"

"Then break the damned doors down!" Deymorin

answered.

"Yes, sir!"

In a few moments, the frightened horses, free of harness,

were forming a steady stream toward the underground city

and stables, the oldest legacy of Darius' followers, and

newly restored for the delight and amusement of tourists.

Tourists be damned, it got them out of the storm.

Deymorin spotted Nikki with .his unharnessed team in

hand, waved him into line, then searched the madness for

Kiyrstin and Mikhyel. Targeting on Kiyrstin's red hair, a

spot of color in the lightning glare, he pushed his way

through to them.

"We're all right, JD," Kiyrstin shouted, and Mikhyel's

determined calm seeped past the gut-jolting thunder.

"We'll get underground, wait for you there!"

Meaning /'// get your shattering brother to safety, and

don't you dare waste time worrying about us.

Deymorin grabbed a fistful of her hair long enough to

press his lips hard to hers.

As the rain began to fall, he let her go, then shouted,

"Love you!", and ran to help free another panicked team

from wind-whipped balloon silk.

9 9 rSbp

"I remind you, our identification is all in that carriage

outside. Do you care to go retrieve it?"

Mikhyel dunMheric's velvety voice carried a hint of con-

tempt that could cut through the most imperturbable indi-

vidual's confidence.

The keeper of Trisini Gate was not what one would call

imperturbable.

"Iit doesn't matter. The law says"

"I know full well what the law says. I wrote it. Shall I

quote it for you?"

Somewhere beneath the city of Rhomatum, Kiyrstine

romGaretti, estranged wife of Ringmaster Garetti rom-

Maurii of Mauritum, leaned against a stack of hay bales

and watched the Trisini gatekeeper squirm.

"Better yet," Mikhyel continued, and he held out his

hand. "I'll read it to you."

The gatekeeper stared at him.

"Naturally you have the paperwork you are by law re-

quired to hand out to every individual entering the city

without proper identification, do you not?" Mikhyel asked,

and Kiyrstin bit her lip to keep from smiling, then winced

as her teeth encountered the bruise left there by Deymor-

in's parting kiss.

His adrenaline rush, or her ownhard to recall, in retro-

spect, which was responsible. They were still learning each

other's limits.

As her exploring tongue found the misaligned tooth re-

sponsible for her bruised lip and marked it for future refer-

ence, the brown-eyed visage that lurked constantly at the

back of her mind crept forward. Kiyrstin made no effort to

push the image back. Mikhyel didn't need her at the mo-

ment. Mikhyel's keen mind was back on track, now they

were out of the storm, and she had total confidence in his

ability to win so minor a skirmish.

And as it had a tendency to do these days when relieved

of other distractions, Kiyrstin's mind, like a pubescent

schoolgirl's, turned to Deymorin Rhomandi dunMheric.

Deymorin presented an intriguing dichotomy. She'd

known the man only two monthsless than two months in

Rhomatum's odd calendarand yet it seemed, at times, as

if she'd known him all her life. At others, it seemed that

three lifetimes wouldn't be long enough.

Raised to be the head of the Rhomandi Family, premier

Family in the Rhomatum Web, Deymorin exuded a confi-

dence and power to command she'd witnessed in only a

handful of individuals in a lifetime among the rich and pow-

erful of Rhomatum's rival nation, Mauritum.

There could be no doubt, at times such as this, where

men seeking an anchor in time of crisis reacted with instinc-

tive trust to his deep-voiced confidence, that he was com-

fortable with that fate.

And yet he was a virtual stranger to his own people.

Years ago, for a complexity of reasons that no one outside

the family could ever understand in their entirety, Dey-

morin had abdicated his inherited responsibilities to Mikhyel

and retired to the Rhomandi country estates. Consequently,

while Deymorin was still in every legal sense the Rhomandi

of Rhomatum, Mikhyel's face was far better known to the

Rhomatumin populace.

Or should have been. Kiyrstin couldn't blame the con-

fused gatekeeper for questioning Mikhyel's identity claims.

She'd seen some of the popular renditions of Mikhyel dun-

Mheric, and cartoonists and serious portraitists alike had

clung to Mikhyel's elegant, feature-defining beard and mus-

tache as his distinguishing characteristic, a look, Deymorin

had told her, that had spawned a new fashion throughout

the City.

And now Mikhyel dunMheric was as smooth-faced as a

child, the hope that his facial hair would return fading with

each passing day. Four long Rhomatumin weeks had passed

since the battle at Boreton turnout, four weeks since Mik-

hyel had fallen from the sky, burned almost beyond recog-

nition and nearly dead.

He had survived, had healed miraculously unscarredon

the outsidebut his body hair was gone. Everything, he'd

revealed once in answer to her unabashed query, except

his eyebrows and lashes, and the silky black mane confined

now in a braid at his back.

Black-haired and gray-eyed, with his black clothing and

beard, and that indefinable attitude, he must have once

made an imposing figure, despite his average height. These

days he looked more like a harassed cleric. Handsome

enough, if a woman's taste ran toward light-boned and slen-

der, and with a look about his eyes that could, when he

was distracted, become sad and a bit haunted.

But his eyes were keen enough now, gleaming with en-

gaged intellect, and neither the loss of a beard nor this

strange venue could undermine the effect of a voice sea-

soned in the courts of Rhomatum.

The gatekeeper's worries had passed beyond the Rho-

mandi brothers to the chaos of men and animals and legali-

ties of forced entry into city property. Leaving Mikhyel to

persuade the harassed civil servant that the way to handle

the situation was not to incarcerate each and every one of

the individuals trapped in this underground museum, Kiyr-

stin edged toward the aisle down which she thought she'd

heard Deymorin's voice.

There were stalls, and she saw Nikki's blond head bob-

bing on the far side of a broad horse-back, but no Dey-

morin. The sound must have been an echo from somewhere

else in this strange underground maze.

She leaned crossed arms on a stony outcrop, and scanned

this newest revelation of Rhomatum. The decor was

unique, to say the least. Stable, those around her had called

it. Except that in addition to stalls and hay, there were

restaurants and gift shops lining the entrance corridor and

a sign beside the hay bales that read: Tours start here.

The light came from oil lamps rather than the ley crystal

bulbs she would expect to light the shadows within a node's

power umbrella. Oil lamps were a curious affectation within

a Node City's limits, but a welcome one, considering this

city's currently-constricted power.

She'd hate to be caught in the absolute black that must

exist here when those lamps were extinguished. A honeycomb

of stone, organic shapes that bore no resemblance to any

rooms she'd ever known, sounds that echoed endlessly . . . a

person could be lost very quickly in this maze with no hope

of logicking herself free.

"Well, we've a respite, at least," Mikhyel's velvet voice

said at her shoulder. The gatekeeper had left. "When the

storm has passed, he'll send a messenger to the Tower.

They'll have someone come down to identify us."

"What about the box in the carriage? The papers Anheliaa

sent? Deymorin's seal"

Mikhyel's black brows knit.

"I . . . very much fear it won't be there."

"You think someone will steal it?"

"No. I" He seemed uncharacteristically reluctant to

meet her eyes. "Rings, I can't believe I'm such a fool. I

had it. And then, the lightning, the jostling . . . I lost it

somewhere, Kiyrstin." He waved a hand toward the stony

ceiling. "Somewhere up there."

That hand was shaking. He was. Cold. Shock. Reaction

to the lightning and the storm. Perhaps just the chill of the

rain that had caught them at the last. And possibly a re-

lapse of the debilitating weakness that had plagued him off

and on since the incident at the Boreton turnout.

"Anything in the box that could be dangerous in the

wrong hands?" she asked.

"Not really. None of those papers Anheliaa sent are

much good if you can't match our signatures."

"And the seal?"

"Old. Outdated by about a hundred years. It might turn

the right person a handsome profit on the black market,

Jane S. Fancher - Dance of the Rings 2 - Ring of Intrigue.pdf

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