Free A Sword for a Dragon by Christopher Rowley Page B

Seeress, the Queen of Mice. There were hundreds of names for her, accumulated over six centuries of service to the Empire of the Rose.
    Fi-ice was struck by how lean was the face and how intimidating were the slanted black eyes. Then Ribela put her gloved hands together and brought them up in front of her like schoolgirls before a beloved teacher.
    “Thank you, Sisters,” she said in a sweet, husky voice. “You behaved with courage, I shall commend you.”
    They followed as the Great Witch strode from the room. Along the way they collected Burly, the chamberlain to the dead King Sanker, and Lady Flavia of the Novitiate.
    Both were stunned. Indeed, Burly was terrified by the sight of the woman. Ribela of Defwode had not been seen in human form in a hundred years. She was said to wage her war in other worlds, countering the efforts of the Masters of Padmasa to ally with other centers of the dark power.
    And yet Ribela was here in Marneri. To Burly it meant that something truly terrible was happening.
    At Lessis’s bedside, Ribela immediately began to weave a Greatspell, sending everyone, Burly and Besita included, to fetch her the necessary ingredients.
    Burly puffed down the hill to the harbor and ordered the fins of three mackerel to be cut off and placed in some paper for him. Then he half ran back up the hill to the Temple and skipped in like any twelve-year-old boy might.
    He bumped into Plesenta, the abbess was dancing along with her skirts in hand and some twigs of liomel.
    They gasped, self-conscious at last. What in the world were they doing, skipping along like this, the lord chamberlain and the abbess of Marneri’s Temple?
    They both tried to hold themselves, to come to a halt and resume their more natural gravity. Indeed, for a moment both thought they’d succeeded, only to find their legs still in motion. Together they ran up the stairs so quickly their hearts were thundering in their chests, and then they ran down the corridor and so to Ribela’s side.
    The room was filled with smoke. A small fire was burning on an altar slab. Standing at the head of Les-sis’s bed, Ribela was reading from the Birrak, forming declensions and foundations for the Greatspell work she was about to do.
    Lady Flavia came in with a white dove and long shears.
    Ribela worked on. The liomel twigs were burnt and filled the chamber with their sweet musk. The fins of the mackerel were burnt next and overlaid the musk with a fishy stench. Ribela droned on, her voice gradually building in power until she began to form complete volumes and shape them with
creata cadenza
. The great words of power boomed and hissed in the room. She cut the dove’s head off and sprinkled its blood in the flames.
    The sound of wings frantically beating for escape seemed to fill their ears, though the bird lay limp in Ribela’s hand. Gradually the sound diminished. Ribela laid her hands on Lessis’s forehead. Then she whispered something in her ear.
    Lessis’s eyes opened briefly. She managed a weak smile and then closed them again. Ribela bent to put her ear by Lessis’s lips. Lessis whispered in the language of cats.
    Ribela turned away and clapped her hands for the nurses to return to their posts. She stalked out of the chamber, and outside she turned to Fi-ice.
    “Who is responsible for the surgical work on the Lady Lessis?” she said most directly.
    Fi-ice was taken aback, struggled to reply, not wishing to damn the high surgeon.
    “Come on, woman, out with it,” snapped Ribela.
    “The high surgeon, Carleso.”
    “Ah, so a man is surgeon here. Well, he is to be commended. Excellent work. Excellent. Tell me, how long has it been that you have allowed a man to be high surgeon here in Marneri?”
    “Ah, a man?”
    “Yes, a person of the male sex,” said Ribela, as if she was speaking to a simpleton.
    “I do not know, lady, since the city was founded perhaps.”
    “Extraordinary. Are you sure you can trust him? Men are so easily governed by