Song of the Dragon

CHAPTER 23

Qinsei knelt with one knee on the steps leading up to the portal, her Matei staff held vertically at her side. The deepening sunset cast a deeply colored salmon pall over the dead carpeting the ground before her. Qinsei did not move, her eyes shifting from time to time to the other portals at the distant points around the field of death.

The carrion birds had come and were only mildly disturbed by her return. Indeed, the longer she knelt here watching the field, the more it appeared to move, undulating under the motion of the rats, carrion birds, and other vermin whose task in the world-ordained by the gods themselves-was to clean up after the violence of conflict, death, and destruction. The pulsing blue-white glow emanating from the headpiece of her Matei staff not only kept the elven Iblisi Codexia safe but also served to isolate her from the scavenging going on all around her.

It was quite beautiful, she thought, her dark reddish robes shifting in the wind. All the power of death brought down to its absolute and common simplicity. The dead flesh would be rendered, the bones would dry, the metal disintegrate into rust, and all the death and violence would fall back into rich earth in time, smoothed over until even this blood-soaked field would be leveled not by the will of the Emperor but by the small things of creation. Elven children would one day walk this field and never know that the horrifying visage and overwhelming stench of death had ever troubled the grass beneath their feet.

Not that the any elves would pass this way for a very long time. The Myrdin-dai would very quickly and quietly reroute their fold system so that such embarrassing places would no longer be anywhere near where anyone might discover them. Fields of the dead like this would be abandoned and forgotten-along with their dead.

Qinsei alone would remember.

So she waited under the darkening skies as she had been told to do-as the Inquisitor expected her to do.

A ripple rebounded across the surface of the portal to the far south. Qinsei slowly stood as a figure in a robe matching her own emerged from the shimmering, vertical pool, Matei staff held with both hands across his chest.

“Phang,” Qinsei murmured.

She could see her brother gazing at her and then stepping down from the platform. Qinsei understood; Phang had found no trace of their bolter prey just as she, too, had failed. But then, neither of them had expected to do otherwise. Wordlessly, Qinsei stood and lifted her Matei from the ground. Both Iblisi moved quickly across the carrion field, their light footfalls scattering the rats wherever they trod. They were both Codexia, well trained and experienced in performing their duties far from the eyes of the Emperor.

They both approached the third portal where the young Assesia-Jukung-had entered earlier in the day. They reached the portal at the same time, climbed the steps together, and stared through its rippled surface to the marshaling field beyond. Battle had been joined there too, but at least they could see movement on the other side. Whose movement and whether the survivors were still under control of the Imperial Will they could not see.

Crows cawed angrily behind them, then subsided.

The wind rose slightly, then fell.

“We should kill him,” Phang observed.

Qinsei glanced casually at her companion. “He is young and foolish.”

Phang was unmoved. “He is a spy.”

“Yes, but whose? He may only be Keeper Ch’drei’s spy,” Qinsei noted with emphasis. “Had Inquisitor Soen wanted him dead, he would have slipped him among the rest of these corpses earlier in the day.”

“You do not believe he has a mandate, then?” Phang asked.

“From the Emperor or one of the other Orders? I don’t know,” Qinsei spoke with a casual air though both Codexia knew that each of their words was chosen with the utmost care. “I believe that Soen does not know either, which is why both we and the Assesia have spent the day chasing shadows while our Master Inquisitor proceeds ahead of us.”

The vague, shifting form of a dark-robed figure was approaching the portal from the other side.

“Then we’ll not kill the Assesia,” Phang agreed, folding his arms in front of him as he cradled his Matei in the crook of his arm. “With a full day’s lead on us, will we be able to overtake the Inquisitor?”

Phang was surprised by her response. It was a rare and noteworthy occasion when Qinsei smiled.

“Only if he wants us to.”

Togrun Fel, as Jugar explained with the enormous surety that comes when no one else present can possibly challenge one’s facts, stood at the northernmost end of the Sejra Hills, a range of round-topped mountains that formed the northwestern boundary of the Ibania region. Beyond it stretched the plains of Western Hyperia.

None of these names were of any use to Drakis. Standing with the sun rising at his back, all he saw was a grassy plain that stretched to a hazy, indistinct horizon whose line was broken only by a single vertical finger of mountain so indistinctly blending its purple form with the dark horizon that he could almost doubt its existence. Even the dark line of the Aerian Mountains far to the north seemed more real than the single pillar to the west.

“What is that?” Drakis asked Jugar.

“That?. . Oh, that. Well, uh,” Jugar said, then spat on the ground suddenly. “It’s nothing, really, just a big pillar of rock. We won’t be going anywhere near it, I assure you.”

“It’s called the Hecariat,” Ethis said, walking quietly up to join them. “A place which the dwarves considered both cursed by their gods and haunted by the restless dead-if my memory serves me well.”

“The Hecariat is not a place to be spoken of,” Jugar said and then spat quickly on the ground once more. “That sad tale and its tragic end is best left within the blasted stones of its lost glory. It is an abomination towering over the Hyperian Plains. .”

“And it is our only landmark by which we may guide our steps across those same plains,” Ethis said to Drakis. “We’ll need it to get across, but the dwarf is right; we should endeavor to keep it on our left and pass as well to the north of it as we dare without running into the Occupied Lands to the north. The Emperor, I suspect, still has a large contingent looting the Mountain Halls of the Nine Kings, and they would make a quick end to us all if we ran into them.”

“I’ve got to stop!” Mala dropped down among the tall blades of grass suddenly, her arms folded across her chest.

The stretching plain had proved to be both difficult to navigate and, at the same time, filled with an incredible, dull sameness. For the three days they had trekked across its expanse, the grim dark finger of stone on the horizon by which they fixed their path seemed to grow no closer. Everything now seemed to come with a mixture of both blessing and curse. Streams winding their way around the hills and ponds that accumulated in their hollows brought the welcome, life-giving water that they needed to sustain their march to the northwest, yet their advent was unpredictable, always bringing into question whether this was the last river or lake; moreover, each presented a diversion from their path as they searched for a crossing or way around its shores. Copses and even forests of trees offered the promise of cool shade and rest during the day but in so doing also offered the threat of wild beasts that took such places for their lairs. The rations they had secured as they passed through the portal system had thus far sustained them and kept them largely clear of any dangers the woods presented, but most of Drakis’ companions knew that they would not last them the full measure of their journey. Within the week entering the cool shade of the woods and confronting the creatures there would become imperative. Even the stretches of flat grasslands that made the going much faster and easier also gave in their ease time to think, question, and, worst of all, remember.

“Now is not the time,” Drakis responded with mounting frustration. “There is a copse of trees just atop that far slope. It does not appear large enough to be threatening. We can all rest there in the shade.”

Mala looked up at him with such hatred in her eyes that it took Drakis aback. It was all so confusing. He was smart enough to realize that he had just said something that terribly angered the woman but could not possibly know what it was he had said that should provoke her. Something in their past-some memory he had just tripped on by accident.

It was a hazard whose avoidance he had not mastered, nor did he see, to his additional frustration, how he possibly could master it. A sound, a smell, or some otherwise meaningless, simple thing passing before his eyes would trigger a cascade of thoughts, experiences, and impressions that threatened to overwhelm him and, he knew, had completely overwhelmed others. In those moments he retreated to his training, occupying himself with repetitive tasks of his warrior calling until he beat back those unwelcome memories. Even then he could not avoid collapsing to the ground from time to time, fighting to control his thoughts and cope with the monstrous past that threatened to engulf him. Each night he awakened both screaming and weeping, his heart pounding at the nightmares that filled his sleep.

And he was not alone, for Belag and RuuKag both were doing the same. Each of them seemed to be clinging to something else that kept their individual monsters at bay.

Then there was Mala.

His perfect companion had become sullen, angry, moody, and argumentative, all while generally complaining to the point of distraction. She cried often and the rest of the time eyed him with such contempt as to make him feel shame without telling him why she hated him.

Part of his confusion was that he also knew why; there were memories of harsh words, snubs, slights, insults, fights, and far worse in his treatment of her that were roiling around in his memory. That he had been manipulated by Timuran and each of his masters-he realized now that there had been many different masters-made little difference to him since he had no connection between the memories to judge whether they were cruelties to Mala that had been manipulated by either Timuran or his daughter or terrible acts of his own volition. He flushed as he remembered the many nights when Shebin had called him to her rooms, disgracing him before her lusts, only to discover that the elven whore had arranged for Mala to discover them. Shebin took particular sadistic delight in breaking Mala night after night until she tired of that monstrous game.

Shebin was gone-dead more than likely at the hands of the very slaves she despised-and yet Drakis and Mala were left to deal with the horrors of the memories that now flooded into their minds.

How were they to have a future after such a past?

Drakis awoke with a start, a massive hand covering his mouth. His body tensed for a struggle but a great weight pressed on his chest, pinning him to the ground and making it impossible for him to move.

A huge silhouette crouched over him, its outline framed by the brilliant stars of the night sky. The pressure on his chest let up gently, and the hand came away from his mouth.

“You were crying out,” Belag’s deep voice whispered over him. “I thought it best to quiet you. It is not good to attract the attention of the night.”

Drakis lay still for a moment, then sat up in the darkness. The nightmare still hovered around his thoughts as he struggled to awaken fully.

The manticore warrior moved silently away from him and the others of their group lying close together at the top of a small hill. He stood apart, tall and proud, his eyes searching the horizon as he watched over them.

Drakis stood up and moved to stand next to the lion-man. The manticorian clans hailed from Chaenandria, a land far to the north and east of the Rhonas Empire. Drakis wondered if Belag had ever walked its legendary plains and then realized that Chaenandrian lands might look remarkably like the land over which they traveled now.

The human turned to gaze at the Hecariat. The strange obelisk of mountain stone lay to the southwest still; it seemed to be at a great distance, but Drakis could make out details of its cliffs during the day. In the dark of night, however. .

“What do you suppose that strange light is at the summit,” Drakis asked idly.

Belag frowned. “I do not know. It shifts about the peak. It is an ill omen. We pass well to its north. I shall see that you are kept safe from its curse.”

“Thank you,” Drakis said, his smile unseen in the darkness.

“It is my honor, Drakis,” the manticore replied solemnly. “You are the chosen one, the incarnation of our hope and the prophesied savior of us all. You shall unite the clans-bring to pass the restored Empire of the north and cast doom upon the elven oppressors.”

The great warrior turned toward him in the darkness.

“You are meaning to our existence.”

Drakis said nothing but kept his eyes fixed on the strange lights dancing about the crest of the Hecariat. Belag, it seemed, was clinging to his faith in Drakis as some sort of hero of the gods. It was not true-or, at least, Drakis had to admit that he didn’t remember it being true-but the one thing the human warrior was certain of was that an insane manticore would easily spell the death of them all. Better to let him believe whatever kept him calm for the time being.

“By Thorgrin’s beard and all the jewels of Bardak,” Jugar muttered in a tone more nervous than angry. “Where do you think you’re leading us, lass?”

Murialis, Queen of the Fae, looked down her nose at the fuming dwarf. “Your impertinence shall be forgiven, master dwarf, but I must warn you against trying my patience. We are not amused by your antics, fool, and your disrespect in this hallowed place. We have come to pay homage to your betters, and I would thank you not to interfere in that which you do not fully comprehend!”

Drakis cleared his throat. They were much closer to the Hecariat than he had hoped, but the Queen had insisted that they divert more southerly and could not be persuaded otherwise. The tower of rock itself was still perhaps three or four leagues to the south, but its brooding presence unnerved him.

Worse, the plain surrounding the Hecariat was strewn with rock, blasted with great black stains. Most of the stones were nondescript pieces of shattered granite, but occasionally one side of the boulders showed carvings of strange, winged animals or of figures in warrior pose.

The Lyric-or Queen or whoever she was-had not given them any trouble since they had left Togrun Fel, but that in itself gave Drakis cause for worry. The woman had walked for over a week now westward across the plains with regal step and imperious demeanor. However, for someone, who claimed to have been a slave of the Empire for many years she showed no signs whatsoever of the same memory trauma from which the rest of them were suffering. Perhaps it was an effect of her being of the faery-if, in fact she even was faery-but her very lack of problems troubled him.

The Lyric turned from the dwarf and strode with casual step among the boulders. From time to time she would stop, stoop slightly and examine the rock before straightening back up and moving on.

“What is she looking for?” RuuKag snarled, his eyes darting about.

“I don’t know,” Drakis answered in exasperation. “We’ve been wandering this stone field for most of the morning and I still don’t know.”

“I cannot exhort you in stronger terms,” the dwarf spoke with emphasis but was careful to pitch his voice so that the Queen would not hear him. “The Hecariat-that very mountainous pillar to which we have unwisely turned our backs-never sleeps. The lights that play upon its summit herald the doom of any who awaken the spirits that still strive within its cursed halls. I am but a humble dwarven fool, but wise would be the soul who could convince this ‘Queen’ to move her royal court to a safer distance. . where is she?”

Drakis, distracted by the anxious Jugar, looked up.

The Lyric had vanished.

The Lyric lay asleep under a twilight sky.

The stones of the Hecariat stood about her, the carved faces all turned toward her. The air lay gentle as a blanket about her. No blade of grass moved. No cloud shifted in the sky above. The world was silent and watchful.

An enormous woman stepped from behind a broken stone, crossing the grass with silent steps as she approached the lithe form lying beneath the frozen sky. The hem of her turquoise robe brushed across the blades without disturbing them. Brown hair fell in waves around her cherubic face. She stopped and watched the sleeping human with a deep sympathy in her eyes.

A second figure stepped from behind a shattered pillar. This one was a broad-shouldered human woman with powerful arm muscles and a narrow, determined jaw. She wore armor of leather tooled with ancient symbols and carried a scimitar with practiced ease. Her dark eyes, too, were on the Lyric.

“Murialis,” the human warrior-woman spoke in hushed tones as she nodded in acknowledgment to the large woman.

“It is good to see you as well, Felicia,” said Murialis in a whisper.

“Does she sleep still?” asked Felicia of the Mists, leaning closer over the Lyric.

“She does,” Murialis nodded, “and so she must remain.”

A new figure-a chimerian in mismatched armor-stepped hesitantly from behind a jumble of rocks, its four hands shaking slightly as they gripped four blood-soaked swords. The chimerian spoke warily as it approached. “Who are you?”

“I am Murialis, Queen of the Faery,” the enormous woman answered. “This is Felicia of the Mists-Raider of the Nordesian Coast. And who are you?”

“I am. . I am Dyan, assassin warrior of the Shadowclan,” the chimerian answered, slowly returning all four sword blades to their scabbards crossing its back.

“You are new here?” Felicia asked.

“Yes,” Dyan answered then nodded toward the Lyric, still sleeping on the large flat slab before them. “Is she the reason we are here?”

“Yes,” Murialis answered. “We have come for her.”

A ghostly man, transparent down to his long, flowing hair drifted through a stone to meet with the three females in their observations. These were joined almost at once by four more figures stepping from behind even more stones-a towering female manticore in ancient battle armor, a sad elven woman in tattered robes, a pinch-faced human woman in an elaborate black-mantled robe, and a small, female gnome carrying a sack over her shoulder. These joined with the others, forming a circle about the sleeping form of the Lyric, all gazing down upon her.

“Who is she?” asked Dyan, the chimerian.

“She is all of us now,” said the black-robed woman.

“Better to ask who she was,” spoke the ghostly man.

“Who was she then?” Dyan said as she gazed down on the sleeping figure.

“She was loving,” the gnome said sadly.

“She was an incomparable talent,” said the black-robed woman.

“She was powerful,” agreed Murialis.

“She was fragile,” said the sad elf.

“She is fragile still,” said Felicia. “We are all she has to protect her. She has seen too much, heard too much. She cannot protect herself from the truth of her past. Without us to watch over her, her mind would be forever broken, and she would cease to exist.”

“And we would no longer exist along with her,” the ghostly man added.

“I have protected her,” Murialis said, stretching out her hand and brushing it gently across the stubble of her growing hair. “I shall live in her and for her. I shall continue to stand between her and the truth that would destroy her and all of us. And each of us must be prepared to do the same.”

“But we are only characters from the stories she has told,” Felicia said, frustration evident in her quiet voice. “We are only dreams.”

“Then we shall be made real through her,” Murialis replied. “We shall stand between her and the truth of the world, and within our circle she will be safe.”

“Will she not feel our pains, too?” the sad elven female asked with concern.

“Yes,” Murialis responded. “And we shall bear them, too.”

“Lyric?” Drakis called carefully. “Uh, Murialis?”

Mala nudged him, then whispered. “Listen!”

Weeping.

They found her lying across a great stone half buried in the plain. A carving of a woman, her face broken and now missing, lay beneath the Lyric’s embrace. The Lyric sobbed, tears running down her cheeks and washing streaks across the blasted stone.

“Tianya!” she cried. “My sister and darling! That your tragic love should have brought this doom upon all your people! Was it not enough to break your heart? Did you have to break the hearts of the mothers and daughters of your ruined kingdom, too! May the woodland spirits curse a passion that should cause such pain!”

Drakis leaned toward the dwarf. “What is she talking about?”

Jugar shook his head. “Lad, I have no idea.”

The sky was dark. Rain clouds had gathered in the afternoon. Lightning flashed to the south, rolling thunder in their direction.

Drakis, his beard thickening along with the ragged hair on his head, stepped wearily toward the chimerian, who squatted on the ridge at the top of a narrow hill. They had left the Hecariat and its terrible pillar five days behind them, and yet still his gaze was drawn to it off to the southeast. He felt sometimes that it was calling him back to his death.

“How much farther do you think we have to go?” he asked.

Ethis didn’t look back, didn’t turn. “We can’t stop and rest, Drakis. We have to continue the march tonight.”

Drakis blinked. “What?”

Chimera were difficult for Drakis to read even in the best of times. Their pliable faces and shape-altering bodies and limbs made it impossible to judge their moods. Still, there was something in the way Ethis spoke-those few times he did speak-that stood the hairs up on the back of Drakis’ neck. Something was different about Ethis, and, as every warrior knew, what a fighter doesn’t understand can kill him.

“We’re within fifteen-perhaps twenty-leagues southeast of the border,” Ethis said casually. “We can pick up the River Galaran to the north and follow it all the way up to the Weeping Pool.”

“Wait,” Drakis said, cocking his head to one side. “How do you know about. .”

“The banks of the river will be our guide in the darkness,” Ethis continued. “It’s the surest way we have of getting there, and we haven’t a moment to spare.”

“That’s not possible,” Drakis felt his anger rising. “Mala was a House slave. She’s in no way prepared or trained for the rigors of a forced march. Besides, we all need rest. We’re nearly there now, why not just. .”

Ethis turned his head toward the human. “We are being followed, Drakis.”

“We’re. . followed?”

“For a week now, perhaps longer,” Ethis replied.

“And you didn’t tell. .”

“There was only one of them then. I could keep track of him. But now there are four, and we are in real danger,” Ethis continued. “Our best hope now is to run-all night and tomorrow-as far and as fast as we can toward Murialis’ realm.”

“What do I tell them?” Drakis asked. “What can I say that will get them moving again?”

“Tell them they are being hunted.”