The Dream Spheres Read Online Free PDF Page B

danger. But nevertheless when he saw her his eyes lit up with a genuine pleasure that gave lie to the bright façade he wore in her absence.
    “Arilyn, you must come watch this!” he called, raising his voice over the applause that followed his tale. He beckoned with the object in his hand—a half-blown rose in a rare, true shade of blue.
    A murmur of interest rippled through the group. Such roses were the stuff of legend, known only on distant Evermeet. Danilo had somehow managed to charm a few of these treasures away from the fey folk. He had
    determined to fill the courtyard behind his townhouse with an elven garden in honor of his lady, one that would rival the best Evermeet had to offer. Arilyn had heard that this romantic tale was repeated often by Waterdhavian ladies, always punctuated by wistful sighs. Many eyes turned in her direction now, some envious, some merely curious. The crowd parted, leaving her standing alone.
    More than a few stares lingered pointedly on the sword she wore on her hip. She was the only person in the hall thus armed. To be sure, the moonblade was a priceless thing, worth more than the gems that bedecked a score of guests, but it was still a weapon. Most likely, a few of them had heard of her dark reputation and regarded an assassin’s sword as not merely a faux pas but a threat.
    Arilyn ignored the stares and went to Danilo. Her fingertips brushed his outstretched hand and the symbolic rose he held, then she fell back to observe the spell he clearly planned to cast in tribute.
    He held the rose out before him at arm’s length as he sang a few words to it. When he drew back his hand, the blue flower remained suspended in the air. Chanting now, he drew from the bag at his belt a pinch of dark powder with a distinctive, unmistakably barnyard aroma. He sprinkled this on the floor beneath the rose, quickly sweetening the burgeoning spell with another layer of powder that smelled of meadows and summer rain. A flurry of rapid, graceful gestures followed, accompanied by a song in the Elvish language.
    Power, in the form of green and glowing light, began to gather around the spellcasting bard. Danilo’s audience fell into expectant silence as the verdant aura reached out to envelop them, as well. Elsewhere in the room, laughter and conversation faded as the guests awaited the effects of the spell. Their faces showed varying degrees of curiosity, wonder, or—in the case of
    those who knew Danilo’s reputation in such matters— apprehension.
    His spell ended in a high, ringing note. Some of the spectators responded to the music with a smatter of applause, but most merely gaped at the transformation taking place before them.
    The blue rose was growing—not as roses grew in the normal course of events but with the same eerie speed that a dismembered troll regenerated its limbs or a hydra sprouted two new heads to replace one lost to a warrior’s axe. Unlike these regenerated monsters, however, the elven rose did not stop growing once it reached the size ordained by nature.
    The rose’s stem lengthened into a stalk, which in turn sent new shoots racing toward the ceiling and roots slithering along the smooth marble of the floor. Leaves murmured as they unfurled. Buds quite literally popped open, sounding like tiny bottles of sparkling wine decanted by unseen pixie folk. In moments dozens, scores, hundreds of rare blue roses covered the magical rosebush.
    The monstrous rosebush.
    Already the thing was half way to the vaulted ceiling, and the limbs were beginning to droop down of their own weight. Its growth showed no sign of slowing. This, Arilyn surmised, could be a problem. She grimaced and dropped her hand to the hilt of her sword.
    Gracefully soaring branches described a slow, lazy outward arc, then began a plunging descent toward the marble floor.
    Murmurs of wonder fell abruptly silent, and a heartbeat later returned as cries of alarm. The rosebush’s many branches lunged toward the revelers