Heart of a Dragon

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Salvatore stared at the cloth. He traced designs across the surface with the fingernail of one hand. At first the motion was random. His mind was far away. He tried to concentrate on the city, or the dragons, but something intruded. It was a pattern, a geometric shape. His finger began tracing that shape onto the white cloth, and he frowned. It was familiar, and at the same time he was certain he'd never seen it before — not exactly.

His paints were laid out beside him. There was also a worn piece of black charcoal. He picked it up almost absently and began to sketch. He continued to trace the pattern. There were six corners. He filled in circular shapes near the points, and in the center he drew a larger circle, with a concentric ring inside it.

He shaded the edges, and darkened the spaces between the circles. At some point he reached for one of his brushes, and the paint. He started with green. He shaded one of the circles carefully. He lightened the green and highlighted the edges, then switched to white until the sphere appeared to glow.

He worked more quickly now. He shifted colors and brushes. He worked with violet, and blue, red and yellow. His hand became a blur. He painted the spheres around the outer edge, but his mind — his concentration — was fixed on the center. It was plain and white, but in his mind, it pulsed and glowed. He reached for the last packet of paint, opened it reverently, and dipped his brush.

The shift was sudden and absolute. The second his brush dipped into the Rojo Fuego he felt the chair fall away. He was dropping through the air, and beneath him the city spread out in a wide, geometric panorama of color and shadow. He saw the towers, one for each color, and the pattern of his painting focused. Beneath him, the glowing read upper chamber of the central tower approached at sickening speed.

He gripped the brush, somehow it made the passage with him, and though it swirled in the open air and not across the surface of the white canvas, he knew he could not stop. If he let the pattern slip — if he failed to blend the colors in his mind, he was lost. As he fell, his eyes filled with tears. They slid across his cheeks and whipped off into the night sky of a world that could not be. It didn't matter. He didn't need to see what was in front of him. He knew what to do — what to paint.

An impossibly loud scream rose above and behind him. Even over the whistle of wind through his ears he heard the crashing boom as enormous wings flapped. The dragon screamed, but this time it was different. The sound echoed with sadness. There was pain in its voice, and loss. Salvatore's heart nearly stopped from a sudden, empathic sensation of immense sorrow.

Salvatore gripped the brush more tightly. The tower was very close. Red light glowed from windows on all sides of a circular parapet. The roof was smooth stone. As he grew nearer to it, he saw what appeared to be a network of fine, dark cracks rippling across the surface. As he neared, they resolved into a pattern of scales. He couldn't tell if they were painted, or if the tower had actually been carefully assembled from thousands of separate pieces of stone.

He closed his eyes. The image in his mind was nearly complete. He'd filled in the red glow at the windows and now he willed the brush to shift colors. He painted the spider-web-thin cracks. Though he could no longer see the network of stone scales, he brought them to life in his mind.

There was a sickening shift that nearly cost his equilibrium. One moment he was falling, and the next he stood on solid ground. His first instinct was to open his eyes, but he fought it. He had a final line to draw. He bit his lip, steadied his wobbly knees, and drew the brush through the air.

Then he opened his eyes.

The chamber was circular. The walls were convex glass lenses. In the center of the room, too bright to look at directly, sat the largest ruby Salvatore had ever seen. Light shone up from beneath it, caught the carved facets of the jewel, and shot out in all directions. The very air was crimson, like walking through a froth of blood.

He was not alone. Facing one of the windows, seated in a very large, ornate throne, a tall man with long, wavy hair stared out across the city. He sat very still, arms resting on the chair and hands gripping the wood frame tightly.

Salvatore stood before a wrought-iron easel. The white cloth was stretched across it. The painting — the image of the city from above — was complete. Salvatore let his hand fall to his side.

"Is it finished, Sal?" the man asked.

Salvatore's heart nearly stopped. He knew the voice. Now, looking more closely, he saw that he knew the man, as well. It was Snake, and, at the same time, it was not. There were no tattoos on the muscled arms. There were flecks of gray in the dark hair. The man wore a dark red tunic and some sort of robes.

"Senor Snake?"

The man rose slowly and turned.

"No, Salvatore, I am not Snake. Not exactly. You know me, though. You know my brothers. We are connected."

Salvatore dropped to one knee. There was something in the man's expression, something in the tone of his voice that demanded respect. He felt as if he were in the presence of royalty, and he was frightened, but at the same time he was compelled to step forward.

"How…" he asked.

"It is not what you think," the man said. "We have met, you and I, but not like this. I have not spoken with one from your world in… centuries. I never thought to see the skies of that place again, though I have felt the pull. You opened a portal."

"I am an artist," Salvatore said. "The dragons… they haunted my dreams. I had to paint."

"I know," the man said. "I know."

He stepped closer, passed Salvatore, and stood behind the easel. The man stared long and hard at the painting. He reached out as if he would brush his fingers across the surface, but he did not. Instead he let his fingers flutter just above the paint. Salvatore thought, just for a second, that he saw the hint of a tear forming at the corner of the man's eyes. Then the moment passed.

"You must go," he said. "You are not safe here."

"You… and Senor Snake…"

"Yes," the man said. "We were bound — connected. You and I are bound, as well, and that is the only thing holding the portal closed. My brothers and I…change. Generations pass in your world, and sometimes we bond with those on other planes. It isn't common…and this generation? I believe it is because of you. Once your dreams connected your Dragons with my own, the bonds formed too rapidly to count."

"You are…a dragon?" Salvatore asked.

"I am a dragon, and many other things, Sal. What happened tonight — that hurt me deeply. It's going to take a lot of time to heal. There is at least one of my brothers in the same state — in the blue tower."

"Enrique," Salvatore said softly.

"Yes, but it is different for him. In your world, his spark is gone. In ours, he transferred. They are twins here, now. It has caused an imbalance, but I believe that it will pass. The man you knew as Snake was too far gone to be brought through, but I took the dark one."

"Anya Cabrera?"

"Yes, that is the name she went by on your plane. Here she has bonded, as well, though not with one of us. There are lower things, in the seas, and in the ground. I am certain I have not seen the last of her, but she poses little threat in her current state. In the same manner that drawing us through to your plane increases the energy and power of those we are bonded with, drawing your kind through to us weakens what is here. Having your Anya Cabrera on my plane for the span of her days is a blessing, of sorts."

"But," Salvatore frowned. "I am here. I have not bonded with a dragon."

"You are different. Surely you see? You are bonded with this place. There will always be a connection. It makes you dangerous to us. It makes you dangerous in your own world, as well."

Salvatore took a step back, and the man let loose a thunderous laugh.

"I will not harm you. I only want you to understand — the gift you have is rare and wonderful. Most men — and dragons — never come to understand a single world. You have seen two, and your mind — your art — keeps them alive for you. In my lifetime, there has never been another Worldwalker, though I've heard stories."

"That is what I am?" Salvatore asked softly. "A Worldwalker?"

"It is your gift. This may not be the only world you will visit. For now, you must go. And you must do something for me."

Salvatore nodded.

The man stepped over to the easel and glanced down at the painting.

"It is a remarkable likeness…exactly as I see it from above. As you have seen it. You must take this back with you, and you must guard it well. Without this, you cannot return — in the wrong hands, another might open the portal. If it is open for too long, it will break. As long as the history of my people stretches, I cannot tell you what might happen if you were to allow this to happen."

"Can't you keep it here?" Salvatore asked. "Safe?"

The man shook his head. "It is of your world. It belongs with you…or your kind. Find a safe place for it. It would be best if its existence were forgotten."

"Can it just be destroyed," Salvatore asked, though he believed he already knew the answer.

"No, it is bonded to this place. I am not certain exactly what might happen if you destroyed it, but it is a likeness of my city…"

The man's voice trailed off for a moment, then he turned to Salvatore with some urgency.

"Roll it up carefully. You must go."

Salvatore carefully rolled the painting and tucked it into his pocket. Somehow, the paint had dried completely in the short time he'd stood in the dragon tower.

"I do not know how to go back," he said.

The man winked at him. Before Salvatore could move to protect himself, he was lifted, carried. One of the windows was not a lens. It stood open to the night, and without another word, the man / dragon tossed Salvatore over the edge. He fell away into the blackness below with a high-pitched, keening wail. Sometime before he struck the ground, his mind went blank. The last thing he saw, winking and strobing in the back of his mind, was the red tower.