Murtagh

With a seemingly uninterested air, Carabel licked a fleck of blood off the middle finger of her left hand. “That is hardly fair, human. What if I must confer with Ilenna? Shall I hunt for you out of nothing but the goodness of my heart while I await your agreement?”

“Shall I help you out of nothing but the goodness of my own?”

Carabel flexed her fingers, as if to extend and retract claws. “Trust is a sword with a blade for a hilt. It cuts all equally.”

“That is far from a convincing, or comforting, argument.”

“For a human.”

“Human I am.”

She gave him a flat, humorless stare. “I have not told Lord Relgin of your presence here. Is that not enough reason to trust me?”

Despite the werecat’s seemingly relaxed pose, Murtagh saw hints of coiled tension throughout her body. Something’s seriously amiss, or she wouldn’t have gone to so much trouble.

He lifted the staff a few inches and let it rap against the floor. Once. Twice. Three times. He decided. The cat was right; he wouldn’t be able to talk with Ilenna without attracting attention. Regardless of the favor Carabel had in mind, he might learn something by putting his questions to her. Even if she knew nothing helpful, that itself was a useful piece of information. And in any case, it could be prudent to forewarn Carabel and, by extension, Lord Relgin about the strange doings in the land.

“It’s not,” said Murtagh, “but let us both cut ourselves.” From inside his cloak, he removed the bird-skull amulet and the stone with the inner shine and placed them on the desk.

A sulfurous smell began to taint the air.

Carabel hissed and scooted backward on her velvet cushion, her spine arched as if she were about to spring into the air. Her grey hair nearly stood on end. “Where did you find those thingsss?”

Once again, Murtagh had the disconcerting realization that he wasn’t talking with another human, but something entirely different. “Ceunon. I took them off a rather disreputable trader by the name of Sarros.”

Carabel extended a clawed hand and touched the tip of her index nail to the amulet. She snatched her hand back as if burned, and then shivered and straightened, again assuming a dignified air. It was a false front; Murtagh could see that the werecat was shaken, and that likewise disturbed him. Werecats were many things, but cowards they were not.

“Tell the full tale, human, and leave nothing out.”

He didn’t do as she asked. Not entirely. There were some secrets he didn’t feel like sharing, such as his use of the Name of Names. (Even if the werecats were aware the Name existed, he saw no advantage in revealing that he knew the word.) But aside from that, he told the truth.

As he talked, Murtagh was conscious of Bertolf listening behind him. He hoped the man was more discreet than the page.

The crackling of the fire was the only sound in the room when he finished.

Carabel stretched and shivered, and Murtagh noticed for the first time that her feet were bare. “Sssah. You ask questions you may not want answering, human.”

“Then you know where to find the witch-woman Bachel?”

“Yesss.”

“And the origin of the stone? And also the Dreamers that Sarros mentioned?”

Her lips retracted, showing more of her pointed teeth. “Yes and yesss.”

“And you will tell me?”

Carabel’s gaze went to the map over the fireplace before returning to the coal-like stone. “If you will complete the task I set before you…yes.”

“What guarantee have I that you actually possess the information I seek? Tell me first.”

Her tufted ears pressed flat against the sides of her head. “After, human. After. We must both grasp the sword.”

Murtagh still wasn’t convinced. “Maybe I should talk to Ilenna instead. I’m sure I could find a way to approach her unseen.”

An unpleasant scraping filled the study as Carabel drew her nails across the surface of the desk, leaving thin lines in the wood. “You would be disappointed, human. She has no knowledge of these things. I swear it.”

“But you do.”

“Yesss.”

He tapped the butt of the staff against the floor. “And how is that?”

“Because I am a cat, human. I hear many things, and I know more. I hunt in shadows, and I dance in moonbeams, and wherever I walk, I walk alone.”

Nonsense and riddles, but what else had he expected? “What is the task?”

A tense stillness settled upon Carabel, and her eyes flared with dark anger. She looked ready to fight or spring after her prey. “Over the past six moons, three of our younglings have been taken in Gil’ead. One of them was later found lost along the shore of the lake with no memory of how he got there. The others have never been seen again. Most recently, another youngling was seized, not three days past.”

A sympathetic anger formed in Murtagh. “Seized by whom?”

“Men. Humans. But I cannot say why.”

“And you want me to find the ones responsible?”