CHAPTER 18

Lis frowned down at the tiny glob of foaming slime at the bottom of her bowl. The light in the workshop had faded rapidly toward evening, forcing her to improvise lanterns and wicks from the materials surrounding her. She had finished milking the frogs, though that alone had eaten up most of her time, and she still did not have nearly enough of the poison to perform as a mass weapon. For all that effort, she had filled a palm sized phial nearly halfway. More than enough for her own purposes, but nowhere near what would be needed to supply warriors with poison for their blades.

She couldn't even add her own supply to the amount, since it was among the phials that went missing.

Concern slithered along her spine at the remembrance and she looked to the door again, willing Cillumn to return so she could warn him of whatever in the Six realms was happening.

She looked back once more to the small bit of poison, the mucus from the last frog to be milked. This bit, she wanted to experiment with. She carefully lifted one of the fat thorns that she had sliced open and folded the flesh. The gel inside plopped into the bowl on top of the glob of frog slime. Then, she spread the gel with a long, slender stirring stick she had found protruding from one of the provided vessels, ensuring the viscous material covered the poison completely. Denying it access to the air. That should prevent it from going inert.

But that was only half the problem. A gob of slime covered with a gob of gel was not any more useful unless it provided a benefit that both materials alone could not provide. With that in mind she stirred the substance, meticulously keeping the poison from reaching the top until it had been integrated thoroughly with the gel. There.

Now what?

The result looked viable. Given the way it clung to the stirring stick it had solved at least her adhesion problem. But what about the potency? She held the stick up and then looked around the room for the first time in hours. Her eyes ached a little from the concentrated effort on her work. Now, she needed to test the results, preferably on something living, but unimportant.

Logic insisted there was no such test subject in her workspace, and her eyes confirmed the fact.

She was going to have to ask Cillumn, or whoever ran the livestock for the Aerie, for a chicken...or maybe a cow would give a better indication of potency. If the poison could bring down a cow, it should bring down one of the creatures as well.

Of course, there was still the problem of the creatures not actually dying from the poison. The possibility of recovery bothered her. What if one of the warriors was battling several of the beasts, like the group that had chased her up the tree? In such a situation, they wouldn't have time to behead every possessed Shifter as they fell. Having enemies one counted as dead coming back to life could be catastrophic. And what about the bite that the outsider Alpha had mentioned? Not that she was sure she believed the woman's nonsense. Yet, if all the creature had to do was nibble on a passing leg or foot, that posed a greater danger still.

She nearly leapt from the table when the door burst open without a warning knock. She blinked up at the portal, expecting Cillumn, but it was Gayriel who burst in, her black hair curled into ringlets and piled on top of her head. She wore a pair of tight black pants and a shimmering silver top that looked...complicated. Strips of fabric were missing from some places, and in others extra loops of beads caught the light from Lis' lamps.

The woman paused, her face contorting.

“What is that smell?” She blinked at Lis. “And what have you done to that skirt...is that strips of it burning in those pots?”

“Ah...” well, she had to work with what was available to her. Lis stepped closer to the table to hide the remains of the tattered skirt that she wore. It had occurred to her to change before she started, but it seemed that her clothes had gone missing along with her poisons. Unease crawled its way through her. She hadn't thought much about the clothes while she was working, caught up in her attempts to make the poison the Archon requested.

“There's something green on your shirt, too,” Gayriel noted.

“Oh, that's poison. It will wash out easily,” Lis assured her.

“Poison...”

“Well, poisonous mucus actually, from the frogs. But I've worked with it before and it cleans out easily, like it wasn't even there.”

It wasn't horror she saw on the woman's face...she didn't think...but there was a definite caution that hadn't been there before. Lis debated explaining what her creation was for, but she hesitated to do so. How many people did the Archon want knowing about her task? Already, too many were aware of the workshop, as evidenced by the theft and random visitors.

“Illaise has arrived,” Gayriel stepped into the room. Behind her, a Shifter, her guard by the looks of him. He seemed even less impressed with Lis' state than Gayriel, though he avoided her gaze properly.

Lis' lips pulled tight. “Yes, we met.”

“You did?” the announcement surprised her.

“Yes, and if you think that woman is going to aid me in any way, you do not understand Shifters very well.”

“That much is true,” Gayriel muttered. “But she did come, despite her anger about doing so. From that, I gather that these creatures have stumped her, as well, and she is desperate for a solution, even if it comes from outside her pack.”

“But I don't have a solution,” Lis protested.

“Then you will have to lie well,” Gayriel stepped forward and reached out, as if to grasp her arm. “We have to hurry. She interrupted the Archon's meal, so she won't be welcome long.”

“Why would she harass the Archon?”

Gayriel danced on her toes, her urgency creeping over into Lis. It was obvious she would not leave her alone until Lis followed her, but there was no way she was going to leave more of her work sitting around to be stolen. She skirted around Gayriel and reached for a bulb shaped container she had noticed earlier. It had a narrow neck, which might create problems getting her new creation in, but the shape would allow less oxygen to the substance, as well. She hoped.

“I might have lied about who, in particular, had summoned her,” Gayriel admitted.

Lis returned to the table and began the awkward process of scooping the gel into the container. It was a slow task, but with any luck, the mixture would still be potent in the morning and she might find a test subject. If Cillumn would just return so she could ask him for one.

“She wouldn't have come for me,” Gayriel defended. She had taken the silence, Lis' distraction, as a disagreement with her actions. “And if you want a chance at all, you have to hurry.” She reached for Lis again, who avoided her fingers.

“Not until I have this stored and in my satchel. I will not leave it behind,” not without a way to secure the room from all others.

Gayriel frowned at Lis, and she had the impression the woman wanted to stomp her boot clad feet.

“Lis, if you don't take this chance you will not have another. Illaise is not easy to deal with, and...”

A loud blast, followed by a myriad of shouting, cut off whatever it was Gayriel was going to say. They stood for a moment, staring at one another, trying to process whatever it was that they had heard. It didn't sound good. Gayriel rushed from the room, her guard dashing after her.

“Lady, you must not go out...”

His words were lost in a second blast, this one far more clear.

Lis froze. She recognized that sound and it did awful things to her insides.

That, was the attack of a dragon.

She battled herself, forcing her muscles to work once more. She was inside an Aerie, inside a building made from stone. The dragon was without...most likely being attacked by other dragons defending the Aerie.

Her fingers trembled and gobs of her creation fell to the floor. Come on girl. She had to finish this.

She blocked the sound of a third blast and the rough grating of stones cracking and tumbling from somewhere, and focused solely on her work. Dip and scrape. The bottle was nearly a quarter full, almost half of the gel within. Dip and scrape.

Several roars reverberated along the hall, the power of the sound causing the stones to hum at her feet. The moisture in her mouth evaporated, but she kept working. She would finish this. If she were lucky, it would be useful later. *If I live*.

Why in the Six realms was a dragon—or was it dragons now?—attacking the Aerie, anyway? There had not been a war between the Aeries for a thousand years. Was that changing, just as everything else seemed to be changing? At last, she got the dregs of gel into the bottle, but it needed a topper before it could go into the satchel, and there had been no provisions for that.

More shouting came from outside, and the sound of footsteps along the hall. Whatever the situation was, Lis felt very unsafe in the medic wing. She tipped the satchel, rolling out the remainder of jars and concoctions she carried, and grabbed the first one she saw. A salve for burns. No, given what was happening outside the medic wing, it would certainly be better to keep that one. She picked another, this one a mixture of herbs that would provide a hot dressing capable of clearing lung congestion. Important, but not essential at this juncture. She might sacrifice that one. She pried the cork off of the jar and then measured it against the tiny opening to the poison. Having the general measurement she cut away at the soft wood that formed the seal with the edge of a half-dull blade. When it looked to be about the right size, she squeezed the bit into the poison container's opening, having only to adjust it once. Then, with both care and speed, she started reloading her satchel, wrapping the vessels in leather scraps to prevent them from smashing against one another and losing their contents. It was not a perfect solution, a hard enough jolt would still break them, but it had helped them survive thus far.

Outside had fallen eerily silent for a moment, like a breath inhaled before a scream. When the satchel was ready, she tightened the top, pulling in the material so that it clung tightly against its cargo, allowing for very little movement. Then she shouldered the carrying strap and stepped from the workshop.

The guard Cillumn had insisted on was no longer at his post outside of her door, which was unsurprising given the events, she supposed. She hesitated in the hall, debating which direction was best to go. Gayriel had run to the left...but was she the type of woman to run from danger, or toward it?

Lis didn't even have to think about that hard.

She turned to the right, but halted before she could take a step. The next door in the hall was cracked open. It had definitely been closed when she entered her workshop earlier in the afternoon. In fact, she had never seen it open, but it was the door where the voices had halted while she was eavesdropping. The door, itself, would not have concerned her, if not for the set of legs laying halfway out of it. A good portion of the body lay beyond the threshold, but she could see that it wasn't breathing, the gray pallor of his skin promising he would not be rising again. And she recognized his clothes. The medic.

The hint of a strange scent tickled her nose. Part she recognized, a scent of the very same poison she had been working on. But she could not be sure that such a smell was not coming from her own person. The other was so miniscule, nothing but a hint of soft husky spice. It seemed somehow familiar and, yet, Lis knew she had not scented it before. And then it was gone, with a suddenness that drew more concern. Scents did not just disappear, they faded. If she had not experienced it herself, she would say it was impossible.

Another roar rose from outside, urging her, once more, to action. She would ponder the Lord's murder later. She stepped down the corridor, intending to pass the body and exit the other side of the building, but a sound within the room that the medic protruded from stopped her.

Maybe this direction was not safer. Whoever killed the medic was still in that room, and she had nothing to defend herself with. She hadn't even thought to reload her dart launcher. If she was caught now, she was doomed.

Making up her mind, she turned around, steeling her nerves as she walked toward the sound of an angry dragon. Several angry dragons.

Just focus on something else. Great idea. Like whoever was taking advantage of the commotion to murder unsuspecting medics. Sadly, that thought did not calm her nerves. It did, however spur her onward to the end of the hall, which lead to a small street. She might be able to slip along the walls without being seen by any of the beasts, and without looking at them herself. If she could do that, she should be able to hold back her fear and keep a rational mind. Probably. She wasn't sure yet where exactly she was going to go, she needed to find Cillumn, at least. He would know what was happening.

So focused was she on her task, that she squealed when something grabbed her as she stepped from the corridor and into the street.

“Shhh,” Gayriel scolded, pulling her back against the wall where she stood watching the skies. Her guard, and Lis' as well, stood in front of her defensively, blades drawn and held up as though they might cut down any dragon that neared.

Gayriel pointed and Lis' determination to avoid looking at the beasts evaporated by what she saw. Dragons covered the sky, diving, swooping, and clawing at each other. So many that it was impossible to count them all.

The fear rose without warning, but not before she heard Gayriel's worried shout.

“I know that dragon,” her hand shot out beside Lis' head, pointing to one of the beasts. “That is Grim.”