The courier had gained nothing from his inspection of Hugh. Hugh, however, appeared to gain a great deal from the courier. The narrowed eyes seemed to peel back skin and carve away bone, and might have, in a moment, laid bare whatever secrets were kept within the courier’s brain, had not the young man shifted his eyes to his dragon’s spiky mane. The courier did not look back at Hugh again.
It must have been coincidence, but when the courier noted Hugh’s interest in their flying route, a blanket of fog immediately began to drift over and obscure the land. They were flying high and fast and there was not much to see beneath the shadows cast by the Lords of Night. But coralite gives off a faint bluish light, causing stands of forests to show up black against the silvery radiance of the ground. Landmarks were easy to locate. Castles or fortresses made of coralite that have not been covered over with a paste of crushed granite gleam softly. Towns, with their shining ribbons of coralite streets, show up easily from the air.
During the war, when marauding elven airships were in the skies, the people covered their streets with straw and rushes. But there was no war upon the Volkaran Isles now. The majority of humans who dwelt there thought fondly that this was due to their prowess in battle, the fear they had generated among the elflords.
The courier, considering this, shook his head in disgust at their ignorance. A few humans in the realm knew the truth- among them King Stephen and Queen Anne. The elves of Aristagon were ignoring Volkaran and Uylandia because they had much bigger problems to deal with at the moment-a rebellion among their own people.
When that rebellion was firmly and ruthlessly crushed, the elves would turn their attention to the kingdom of the humans- the barbaric beasts who had stirred up this rebellion in the first place. Stephen knew that this time the elves would not be content with conquering and occupying. This time they would rid themselves of the human pollution in their world once and forever. Stephen was quietly and swiftly setting up his pieces on the great gameboard, preparing for the final bitter contest.
The man sitting behind the courier didn’t know it, but he was to be one of those pieces.
When the fog appeared, the assassin, with an inward shrug, immediately gave up attempting to ascertain where they were going. Being a ship’s captain himself, he had flown most of the airlanes throughout the isles and beyond. They had been taking a negative rydai [3], traveling in the general direction of Kurinandistai. And then the fog had come and he could see nothing.
Hugh knew the mist had not sprung up by chance, and it only confirmed what he had begun to suspect-that this young “courier” was no ordinary royal flunky. The Hand relaxed and let the fog float through his mind. Speculating about the future did no good. Not likely to be much better than the present, the future could hardly be worse. Hugh had done all he could to prepare for it; he had his bone-handled, rune-marked dagger- slipped to him at the last moment by Gareth-tucked into his belt. Hunching his bare, lacerated shoulders deep into the thick fur cape, Hugh concentrated on nothing more urgent than keeping warm.
He did, however, take a certain grim delight in noting that the courier seemed to find the fog a nuisance. It slowed their flight and he was continually having to dip down into clear patches that would suddenly swirl up before them, to see where they were. At one point it appeared that he had managed to get them lost. The courier held the dragon steady in the air, the creature fanning its wings to keep them hovering in the sky in response to the rider’s command. Hugh could feel the courier’s body tense, note the darting, shifting glances cast at various objects on the ground. It seemed, from muttered words spoken to himself, that they had flown too far in one direction. Altering course, the courier turned the dragon’s head and they were once again flying through the mist. The courier cast an irritated glance at Hugh, as much as to say that this was his fault.