Read Online Dragonlance 08 - Dragons of the Highlord Skies by Margaret Weis, Tracy Hickman - Free Book Online

the warmth of her smile and the flash of her dark eyes, Kitiara was not thinking about sickly baby brothers.
    “My lord was right. You do have secrets,” Iolanthe said softly. “Dangerous ones.”
    Kitiara took a long pull from the mug and, settling back more comfortably in her chair, she put both her feet in the chair opposite, letting everyone in the tavern know that she wanted to be alone this night.
    “Good,” said Iolanthe. The presence of a lover would have been a serious inconvenience.
    Iolanthe left her table and walked up to a bar crowded with soldiers demanding ale or dwarf spirits, wine or mead or a combination of several. The bartenders, red-faced and sweating, bustled here and there, trying to keep up. The soldiers were loud and raucous, shouting insults at the bartenders and groping the barmaids, who were accustomed to the rough crowd and gave as good as they got. Iolanthe pushed her way forward. Seeing a dark pilgrim, the soldiers hastily drew back, making respectful, if grumbling, way for her. A man would have to be very drunk indeed to dare insult a priestess of Her Dark Majesty.
    “Yes, Revered One?” said a harried bartender, who clutched three foaming mugs in each hand.
    “I want my room key, please,” said Iolanthe. “Number sixteen.”
    The bartender thrust the mugs into the hands of various patrons, then turned around to where the room keys hung on various hooks, each with a number attached. The soldiers cursed him for his slowness. He cursed back and shook his fist at them. Finding “16,” he snagged the key and tossed it across the bar. Iolanthe caught the key deftly as it came sliding past her. Key in hand, she climbed the stairs that led to the upper chambers.
    She paused in a dark hallway to look over the balcony down into the bar area. Kitiara still sat there, still staring into a half-filled mug of ale. Iolanthe continued down the hall, glancing at the room numbers on the doors. Finding the room she sought, she inserted the key into the door and walked inside.
    The horned blue helm of a Dragon Highlord lay in one corner where Kit had tossed it, along with various other pieces of a dragon rider’s habiliment. The armor was specially designed and had been blessed by the Dark Queen. It protected the rider not only from the buffeting winds of travel by dragonback but also from the weapons of an enemy. Other than her armor and a bed, the room was empty. Kitiara traveled light, it seemed.
    Iolanthe paid no attention to any of the objects in the room. She stared about the room itself, committing it to memory. Certain that she could visualize it at need, she shut the door and locked it. She took the key back to the barkeep, and seeing he was busy, she left it lying on the bar and departed.
    A glance over her shoulder showed her Kitiara, still sitting by herself, draining yet another mug of ale. Apparently she planned to drown herself in her memories.

    Iolanthe sat in her small sitting room, studying the spell by the light of the fire. Beside her, a candle with the hours marked in increments on the wax burned steadily, the hours melting away one by one. When six hours had passed, Iolanthe deemed the time was right. She shut her spellbook, picked up another book and took that to her laboratory. She was dressed in her robes of magic, thick black robes with no decoration, to blend in with the night.
    Iolanthe placed the second book on the table. This book had nothing to do with magic, being titled A History of Ansalon from the Age of Dreams to the Age of Might with Annotations by the Author, a Learned Aesthetic of the Esteemed Library of Palanthas . A more boring book one could not hope to find, likely to gather dust on any shelf. No one would ever pick up such a book, which was just what the maker intended, for it wasn’t a book at all. It was a box. Iolanthe touched the letter “A” in Aesthetic and the cover that was the lid of the box popped gently open.
    A glass jar sealed with a stopper