Song of the Dragon

CHAPTER 10

“So how long did they say it would take?” Jugar asked nervously through chattering teeth. The naked dwarf squatted with his back wedged into the corner of the dim room, holding a large, brass ladle firmly in front of his manhood and appearing resolved never to move it. An iron grating overhead allowed square columns of light to fall into the room, casting the dwarf and the human in shadows of stark relief.

Drakis stood naked on the stone platform surrounding the circular trough in the center of the room. Clear water constantly overflowed its edges, splashing down over the stones before falling through a metal grating in the floor. He held his own ladle in one hand, scooping water from the trough and, pouring it over his head, cascading it down his powerful body. He then set the ladle down and picked up a pumice stone from the floor, lightly scraping at the dirt on his broad chest and forearms.

“How long for what?” Drakis asked casually.

“You know for what!” the dwarf’s voice almost broke in his nervous exasperation. “How long before that woman brings our clothes back!”

“Oh, that?” Drakis smiled to himself. He did not know much about dwarves beyond the easiest way to kill them and how they reacted in battle. He had imagined a great many things about them, but being prudish was not one of them. He was finding this fool of a dwarf to be most entertaining. “Essenia said that she would have them cleaned at once and bring them when they were fit to wear-although she appeared to have her doubts about getting your costume presentable. But, then, she had her doubts about you getting presentable either.”

Jugar glowered back at the human in silence for a time, then his features softened slightly. “Wait! Hold still for a moment.”

Drakis turned toward the dwarf. “What is it?”

“Turn back around. . a little more,” the dwarf murmured, his eyes fixed intently on Drakis. “Now lean forward just a little. . there.”

“What are you up to, dwarf?”

“Hold still, please.”

The sound of the water murmured across the silence.

“May I finish now?” Drakis ask impatiently.

“Yes,” the dwarf responded thoughtfully. Several heartbeats passed before he spoke again. “Those scars on your back. . how did you get those?”

Drakis poured another ladle of water over his head, brushing the remaining grains of pumice from his skin as he spoke. “Which scars?”

“Those rather nasty looking scars on your back,” Jugar replied. “Who gave those to you?”

“I’m an Impress Warrior, dwarf,” Drakis scoffed. “We all have scars.”

“So I have observed,” Jugar continued. “But these are particularly nasty looking. I would venture to say that such scars would be most memorable indeed. So, when did you get them?”

Drakis absently reached his right hand around his side, running his fingers along the ridges of his skin. “Why, I. . isn’t that something? I don’t remember.”

“Have you ever seen them?” Jugar said through his still chattering teeth.

“Seen them? Now how would I see them? They’re on my back.”

“You don’t know your own past, Drakis, my friend.” Jugar’s eyes squinted as he considered them. “So perhaps you’ll believe me if I tell you something about your future. Your beloved Lord Timuran has not called you back to gratefully accept your bountiful conquest but to take out his rage on you.”

Drakis set the ladle down slowly, the features of his face hidden in shadows. “That is no prophecy, dwarf. I could have told you that. I will be shamed before him.”

“You will be more than shamed, Drakis,” the dwarf continued, his gruff voice firm and sure. “He will strike you, lay open your flesh to agonizing pain and all your tears, and protest, and pleadings of your love for him will be soundless in his ears. He will not stop.”

Drakis stalked over toward Jugar, the silhouette of his muscular frame looming over where the dwarf crouched. “The foolish curse of a dwarven fool! My master has never so much as touched me in anger!”

The dwarf looked up, the softened look of his eyes framed in the square of light from above.

“He would kill you if he could, Drakis, this very afternoon. But someone will intervene on your behalf-and will save your life, though in doing so you will wish that you had died.”

“Only gods can know the future,” Drakis said flatly.

The dwarf shrugged. “That which has happened before will happen again. You’ve only forgotten. Remember my words, Drakis, and maybe then, my friend, you will come to me and know the truth.”

Drakis thought for a moment and then shook his head violently, sending particles flying from his shaved head. “So you’re back to that again. Now I’m supposed to have forgotten nearly dying. Well, one thing you should not forget: that Essenia and I will throw you into this trough personally if you don’t get over here and scrape off some of that dwarven stench.”

“Dwarves do not bathe!” Jugar grumbled emphatically.

“That I most certainly believe,” Drakis replied easily, “but in this case you may want to make an exception. We’re being summoned before Lord Timuran himself, and he takes no more delight in the smell of dwarven slaves than any other conquered race.”

Drakis and Jugar stepped into the Warrior’s Courtyard. The Impress Warrior felt renewed after the bath despite the dwarf’s bizarre and gloomy predictions; bathing was a ritual that was so basic among the elves that it made him feel a part of the Empire that he so fervently wished to join. The tunic that he wore was that of a slave, but it was clean, and in that he felt a sort of purity, elevated somehow above the commonplace.

He strode quickly across the packed dirt floor and through the open portcullis with the garishly dressed dwarf struggling to keep up. They passed under the tall archway and onto the darkly stained sands of the small arena floor.

“Our lives to the Imperial Will!” came the echoing call from across the arena floor.

Drakis smiled as he looked to the far side of the arena. “Jerakh! How did you get back so soon?”

“I have you to thank, brother warrior,” the manticore replied as he crossed toward the human. “Our master’s eagerness to see you has left the folds in complete disarray. The Foldmasters in their haste to comply have been moving any units from House Timuran they can find.”

Drakis could see warriors straggling in behind Jerakh. He shook his head. “So the victorious Centurai of House Timuran is home at last, eh?”

“Hardly,” Jerakh said with disdain. “I managed to come through with three Octia, but the rest of the Centurai is spread all through the fold system. It’s a mess that will take days to unravel.”

“I’m sure you’ll manage it,” Drakis said.

“I’m sure the only thing I’m going to manage is a bath,” the manticore returned, a playful edge to his smile as he passed the human. “You can straighten out the Octian. . you’re the Centurai Master now.”

“Well, if that is so, then I’m turning over this dwarf to you,” Drakis said, gesturing toward Jugar.

“Excuse me, Captain Drakis,” the dwarf sputtered, “but I’m. .”

“Drakis, just Drakis,” he sighed. “I’ve not been appointed captain yet, dwarf.”

“But, Drakis, I’ve not been presented to your master as yet! As part of your rightful treasure which you so valiantly liberated from the dwarven realms. .”

“You’ll be presented with the rest of the prize treasure tonight at House Devotions,” Drakis said, interrupting the dwarf. “Before then, Jerakh here is going to see that you get properly shaved and branded for the slave you have become.”

“He’s full of words,” Jerakh said with disdain.

“Which is why I’m turning him over to you,” Drakis said flashing a tight grin. “I’ve been summoned.”

Jerakh gripped Jugar’s shoulder tightly enough to elicit a grunt from the dwarf. “I’ll see it’s done.”

Drakis turned away, taking several steps before he stopped and turned back toward the manticore. “Oh, Jerakh. . I was glad to see you at the Ninth Throne. It was getting a little close up there, and I needed a friendly face in the mob. We’d have never gotten away with the prize without you. You saved our honor.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” the manticore replied with a shrug of his great shoulders. “We were stuck on that pillar of rock you left us on for another six hours before a Proxi showed up to get us out. It must have been some other incredibly handsome Warrior you saw at the throne.”

Drakis’ smile waned at the thought. He turned instinctively to look up at the avatria towering above them. He pushed Jugar’s predictions out of his mind and crossed the arena to the chakrilya and his audience with his master.

Sha-Timuran sat upon the elevated throne and glared down through his black, pupilless eyes.

Drakis kept as still as the cold, marble stone on which he knelt. Since he had been ushered into the large, oval room by the house slaves, he had waited on his knees, his head bent over in submission. Even so, he felt the chill stare of his master’s blank, onyx-eyes. No slave spoke in the presence of his or her master until specifically bidden to do so. No slave looked upon the master until directly addressed.

So he had remained, with increasing pain shooting up his legs as the moments dragged into eternity.

He was keenly aware of his surroundings. The audience hall was situated within the floating avatria, its arching walls rising upward in the shape of wide, alabaster leaves whose tips cradled crystal panes, each casting columns of light from a delicate lattice overhead. Curved stairs led down into the room from two archways situated between the leaves while the throne itself floated at the far end of the oval floor.

Standing still as statues at the perimeter of the room were a number of the elves from the household, paid servants who worked in the avatria or as overseers in the subatria below. These were pressed against the curved walls well away from their master’s position in the hall. One slave, the Lyric, had little choice in the matter. A waiflike human woman clad in a loose fitting, translucent robe, she was chained by a golden collar to the throne of the master. Drakis vaguely remembered seeing her, though if she had a name, he did not know it. The Lyric squatted as far from the throne as the chain would allow. Only Tsi-Timuri, Timuran’s wife, and their daughter, Tsi-Shebin, stood next to the throne with any affectation of desire.

Everyone waited.

At long last, Sha-Timuran spoke.

“Drakissssss,” he said, his grating, high-pitched voice hanging onto the last syllable, drawing it out like the sound of a snake.

“My Master,” Drakis answered, his words sounding too loud in his own ears. He looked up.

Sha-Timuran was tall even by elven standards, making even more pronounced the narrow features of his race. His sharp, narrow chin jutted out from the angular features of his face. The back of his head was elongated compared to the other creatures of the world, a protuberance that the Imperial Will had pronounced at once as unquestioned evidence of both the physical and mental superiority of their race. His elegantly elongated ears framed his face, and the hair that rimmed his protruding crown fell back in long, white strands. He still wore a common lime-colored work tunic beneath the mantle of his House. The mantle was a required sign of his authority whenever formally holding audience, though today it had apparently been hastily donned. He held his long baton restlessly in his hands, the Imperial medallion fixed to its head turning repeatedly, flashing occasionally in the column of light cast down from overhead.

But it was the featureless, black eyes staring down the thin, hooked nose that held Drakis in such awe that he forgot to answer.

“Drakis,” Sha-Timuran repeated from behind a thin veil of patience.

“By your will, my Lord!”

“So you have returned to us from the war,” the elven lord said with quiet detachment. “My great warrior-now leader of my Centurai, it seems. ChuKang has fallen, and yet somehow-somehow-you managed to survive.”

Drakis swallowed. “My Lord! My brother warrior ChuKang was great, indeed, and led the Centurai of your House to great honor. We followed him into the heart of the Dwarven Throne and. .”

Sha-Timuran held up his long-fingered left hand, his right still gripping the baton. His voice wheezed with the sound of rusted blades sliding together. “We have heard the stories of that final battle-indeed, all the elven world, it seems, is talking about the fall of the dwarves, news of it having reached the Imperial ear itself. How could it be helped since the House of Tajeran has insured it to be impossible not to hear the tale?”

Sha-Timuran’s long, pale fingers twitched along the handle of the baton.

“Tajeran. . ah, that noble House of my neighbor.” Sha-Timuran stood now from his throne, his voice rising with each step of his bare, narrow feet, “A neighbor who shall never let me forget that a warrior of my own House. . my own House. . held the crown of the dwarves in his hands and tossed it into HIS hands!”

“But, my Lord,” Drakis blinked in confusion. Lord Timuran was a kind master who prized him. Lord Timuran had never spoken harshly with him in all the years of his life. “If you will but hear me. . you will understand. .”

“THREW IT TO HIM!” Lord Timuran screamed, his voice squealing with a sound like scraping glass. “Tossed it to my neighbor’s warriors as if it were scraps from the table!”

Instinctively, Drakis leaned back from the onslaught, catching himself with one hand behind him before he could fall to the floor. Sha-Timuran stood over the startled warrior, his hands shaking with fury. “But, my Lord, your warriors . . we saved them for you, and I thought I was throwing the crown to. .”

“Saved them?” Sha-Timuran’s lips twitched into a hideous grimace. “You thought?”

In a sudden eruption of rage, the elf lord’s baton slammed against Drakis’ face, its medallion cracking his jaw. The sharp edges of its ornamental wings cut furrows across his cheeks and nose that instantly erupted with welling blood. Drakis’ head pitched sideways with the blow, its power twisting him around until he fell with his face against the marble.

Through the haze enveloping his mind, Drakis saw his blood staining the marble beneath him.

Marble, he noticed only now, that had been deeply stained before.

The pain of his broken face was nothing compared to the confusion that overwhelmed his mind. Drakis had fought and killed many creatures-human and otherwise-who had done him far less harm. Yet all he could think was that Timuran was good. Timuran was kind. Timuran was father to them all. Surely there had been some mistake. His master, he thought, did not understand. He pushed himself up, kneeling on the floor, his hands clasped together as he turned to grovel before the elf lord.

“I didn’t want them saved you stupid, thoughtless hoomani! I wanted the crown! But now my neighbor has the crown, and in his appreciation of your ‘gift,’ he arranged to have you delivered to me at once-so that all the Myrdin-dai would know which House of the Western Provinces gave away the greatest prize of the war!” Sha-Timuran shouted through a rage that seemed boundless, beyond control or thought. His hands were working the length of the baton handle now, twisting it and pulling at it. “You embarrass my House, you embarrass my name, you make me the heart of every citizen’s laughter from one end of the Empire to the other, and you think that is worth saving the pointless, worthless lives of a few slaves! You will pay for the insult-someone always has to pay, Drakis-someone always has to pay. Hoo-mani always have to pay!”

The baton handle separated under Sha-Timuran’s hands, revealing as they pulled apart the long strands of a living firereed. The nine fronds of the plant extended nearly six feet in length, a whip waving menacingly in the air as Timuran raised his arm above his head.

Drakis’ eyes went wide. His speech was slurred by the sudden swelling of his cracked jaw but he spoke past the pain. “My Lord! The bounty we brought you! The greatest treasure of the dwarves. .”

“Bounty?” Sha-Timuran snapped. “You bring me a dwarven fool and an ugly piece of rock and call it ‘bounty’?”

Sha-Timuran’s arm swung. The fronds flashed suddenly through the columns of light, wrapping around Drakis’ back. The razor-sharp hooks of the firereed cut through his tunic, burrowing down into the flesh of his back. Searing pain engulfed the human as Sha-Timuran pulled, raking the fronds across his back, their barbs tearing his flesh and leaving his nerve endings raw and exposed.

Drakis’ tears mixed with the blood flowing from his face. “Please,” he choked. “I’ll do anything for you! Tell me and it shall be done!”

Sha-Timuran, his hand raised for another blow, gazed for a moment at Drakis through the solid blackness of his eyes.

Then, with a coldness Drakis had never known, Sha-Timuran slowly smiled.

The firereed whip cracked again through the hall, ripping at Drakis’ back and tearing new furrows in his skin and muscles.

“Master! Please!” Drakis sobbed like the confused child he was, “Tell me what you want!”

The blows rained down on him faster now, the pain becoming an overwhelming, encompassing reality. Drakis panicked within himself, repeating the same words over and over again through the cries and sobs that were wrenched from his soul.

“Please. . I’ll do anything. . tell me what you want!”

The last thing Drakis knew was the sound of the whip grating against his own bones. .

. . And the sound of Sha-Timuran’s angry laughter.