Dragon and Judge

"Exactly," Alison said. "You and that K'da trick where you lean off your host's back and look through a wall."

"Over a wall," Taneem murmured.

"Whatever," Alison said. "The point is that you'll be able to get a look at the actual lock mechanism, which is something none of the other safecrackers will have had."

"But I know nothing of such mechanisms."

"That won't matter," Alison said, frowning in the darkness. "Well, no, actually you're right. You'll be able to draw me a better picture if you know at least the basics."

"We have only four days," Taneem reminded her.

"No problem," Alison assured her, trying to hide her own misgivings. It had taken her two whole years to learn these skills.

But then, Taneem wasn't going to have to actually open the safe. "First thing tomorrow, we start your lessons," she told the K'da. "In the meantime—" She yawned wide enough to hear her jaw crack. "I'm going back to sleep. Pleasant dreams."

"Yes," Taneem murmured. "And to you."

CHAPTER 11

The days under the desert sun quickly fell into a rhythm. At sunrise Jack would be awakened by Thonsifi, he would shower and eat, and then it was off to the Great Hall for the morning judging session. At noon there would be a break for lunch, at which time the boy sometimes quietly discussed the thornier cases with his hidden K'da companion. After lunch would be the afternoon session, and then Jack would return to his apartment for dinner, a quiet evening of talking and perhaps a little exercise to help him keep in shape.

It was in the evenings that the white stones and light shafts finally came into their own. The reflectors on top of the pillar were obviously angled to catch the rays of the sun as it dropped across the western sky, sending light down the shafts to set the white stone aglow. The effect lingered on for nearly two hours before the sun finally vanished below the horizon, giving a welcome bit of additional light where the canyon floor had already grown dark.

Once the glow faded from the white stones, it was usually bedtime. Sunrise and Jack's Judge-Paladin duties came early.

And when Jack and the rest of the canyon populace were asleep, Draycos set off on his night's patrolling.

He'd been doing this since their second night in the canyon, though he hadn't yet told Jack about it. His original goal, after the first night's shuttle incident, had been to watch for further activity by Foeinatw or other possible informants.

But Foeinatw stayed out of trouble from that point on. Or at least he stayed out of Draycos's sight.

Nor, apparently, did any of the other Golvins stir once they'd retired to their homes at sundown. Not really surprising, given the long climb most of them had to reach those homes in the first place.

And so, with the canyon floor apparently deserted, after the first three nights Draycos switched from watching for trouble to looking for a way out of the canyon.

Only to find that there wasn't one.

Certainly the steep canyon walls were climbable, at least for Draycos himself. The vine mesh that covered the stone pillars didn't grow on most of the cliff faces, but there were enough cracks and claw openings in the stone itself to provide a patient K'da with a path to the surface.

But without his climbing equipment, Jack didn't have a hope of doing the same. Draycos could carry him for short distances, but as he and Jack had already concluded, there was no way he was going to climb three hundred feet of cliff with the boy on his shoulders. There was a line of small caves about fifty feet up along the eastern cliff, but they were too low to make a convenient halfway resting point. Draycos didn't climb up to examine them, but from the pathways of ivy mesh that had been set up between them and the ground, it was clear they were being used for something by the Golvins.

The ends of the canyon were no better. At the upstream end the river rose sharply into a series of impassable waterfalls, while the downstream end cut through a narrows that would be as tricky to climb as the cliffs themselves.

On the first night of his scouting Draycos spent so much time traveling back and forth across the canyon that he nearly got caught out in the open when the sky began to lighten. The second night, he made sure to watch his time, returning to Jack's apartment well before dawn.

He arrived to find the apartment brighter than when he'd left, the white stones in the wall giving off a soft glow as the reflectors above sent down the light from the larger of Semaline's two moons. Draycos slipped through the doorway fringe, and he was padding his way to the bedroom when the light subtly changed.

He spun around, expecting to see someone behind him in the doorway. But there was nothing there.

And then he saw it. One of the glowing stones in the wall had gone dark.

Someone, or something, was in the shaft.

Silently, he crossed to the opening. Narrowing his eyes to slits to hide most of their own telltale glow, he looked up.