Song of the Dragon

CHAPTER 19

“Is this all of them?” Soen demanded of the manticorian warrior standing next to him.

The evening breeze was rising behind the elven Inquisitor as he surveyed the scene. He would have enjoyed drinking in the freshness of the air as it flowed around him, still damp from the sea beyond his sight to the south. The sunset was deepening into a rich, vibrant salmon color, marred only by the black smoke still curling up from the ruin on the hilltop, its pall rising to join those of a number of surrounding Houses. He would have preferred to turn his back on the carnage, bask in the rays of the setting sun, and breathe deeply of the fresh evening. Such luxuries, however, would have to wait.

“Yes, Master,” the manticore rumbled. “Fifteen of the House servants survived. Two warriors of the House Centurai were alive, but they engaged us on our arrival, and we were forced to kill them. . and it appears impossible to account for the full Centurai.”

Soen turned his head slowly toward the manticore, his gaze itself a question.

The manticore was an old one, golden streaks running through his shorn mane. He shifted uncomfortably. “The Impress Warriors were still returning from the war. The majority of the warriors of this House appear to still have been in transit through the folds.”

“We will deal with one disaster at a time,” Soen said in clipped tones. “You were the first to arrive?”

“Yes, Master.”

“And what is your name?”

“Gradek, Master. . Centurai Captain of House Megnara.”

“Megnara?” Soen said with studied casualness. The names of these petty frontier Houses were only now, after four days into this investigation, starting to make sense to him. House Acheran was only one of the many Houses that had fallen on the frontier, and that name had quickly led them to a host of others within what Soen had come to call the Dark Frontier. It was not until Codexia Qinsei brought him a report of a messenger from the House Megnara Centurai that he had even heard of House Timuran. “Oh, yes, House Megnara. That’s about fifty leagues from here, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Master.”

“So how does a Centurai Captain of a House many days’ journey away end up at the door of this fallen House?”

The manticore’s eyes narrowed, but he gave no other sign of his anger at his embarrassment. “By accident, Master. We were set upon by the mad warriors when they hit during our return from the war. We fed through whatever folds were convenient and available, trusting that the Myrdin-dai would sort out our transportation home after the mad warriors were killed. After several folds, we arrived here and sent a runner at once back through the fold to report to the Myrdin-dai what we had seen.”

Soen nodded. “What of Lord Timuran and his family?”

The manticore gave a quick grunt to show his discomfort before he spoke. “The remains of Lord Timuran were found just inside the main doors. The fire had not reached the body, but there was little left nevertheless. He was only identified by the baton still in his grip, his signet rings, and what little remained of his clothing. We have not yet found his head.”

“It was expected,” Soen thought. “Anyone else?”

“We actually found Lady Timuran first,” Gradek continued, the bile in his stomach apparently settling as he spoke. “We saw her above the subatria wall, impaled on one of the House standards. My Octian Leader Jatuh believes she was dead before the fire reached her body. He is the one who brought her down.

“Go on,” Soen urged.

“Beyond that, the overseers and the Guardians were undoubtedly all slaughtered.”

“All of them. . you’re sure?”

“The moment we arrived, Master,” Gradek said, “I specifically ordered each of my Octian commanders to secure the House and protect any elves they encountered. None were reported.”

“Still, they will have to be accounted for in any event.” Soen turned back to examine the huddled group sitting on the ground before him, the smoking ruins of their former life behind them. “These slaves are all that’s left, then. Any of them broken?”

“I do not understand,” the manticore replied, shaking his wide head.

“No, of course not,” Soen muttered under his breath, then spoke more clearly to the monster beside him. “A broken slave is one who has fallen outside the discipline of House Devotions, Gradek. Their souls no longer yearn for the peace and glory of the Imperial Gods-and as such they are dangerous to both the body and the spirit of the state. I’ll need to examine each of them. You will stay close to me throughout, and I will tell you which are broken and which are not. If I tell you that one of them is broken, you are to kill him or her at once-at once, you understand, without further question or thought.”

The manticore nodded and then looked up at the sky, searching for stars, perhaps, that could not yet be seen. “Yes, Master. . I believe that four of them. . perhaps five. . are broken.”

“Very well,” Soen said, drawing in one last, deep breath of the sweet evening air before setting about the grim task before him. “Your Lord Megnara shall garner much favor this night because of your sure action in his name.”

“Master,” Gradek said, his wide, flat face gazing down at the elven Inquisitor. “We have not slept in nearly two days. It is nearly the hour of House Devotions. Many of my warriors are anxious to return to our Field Altar so that they might. .”

“NO!” Soen barked. “Not a single Impress Warrior is to leave until I have questioned them to my satisfaction-especially for House Devotions! Is that absolutely clear?”

Gradek drew himself up erect with great effort. “Yes, Master Soen!”

The old human woman had stubbly, gray hair barely emerging from her head, but she was stroking it with her fingers like a brush. “There were flowers in the fields then. Such beautiful flowers. The smell of them was overwhelming in the bright sun. Patches of red and yellow and brown and blue. We ran and ran and ran through the field with the flowers rushing past us. How I laughed!”

“What is your name?” Soen asked in soft tones.

The old human woman’s eyes came into focus again on the Inquisitor’s face, but she didn’t seem to actually see him. “She always called me Essie. I never much liked Essenia though Mama told me she named me after her grandmother. It’s strange, in a way, because I can remember Mama telling me I was named after her sister, too. She called to me, ‘Run, Essie! Run!’ and we ran through the flowers in the fields. What a game we played, with the elves chasing us, but we were so fast that they couldn’t catch us! Not Mama and me!”

“Essie,” Soen said. “Do you know where you are?”

“Yes!” the woman said as her fingers caught on an imagined snag in her hair. “Are you looking for Mama, too? She fell into the flowers of the field-I think she was playing a trick on us. She fell among the red flowers, so bright and still wet. She said to keep running, but I can’t remember to where. I’ve looked and looked for her, but she’s hiding in the field, I know she is. There were flowers in the fields, then, you know. Such beautiful flowers!”

“Perhaps I can help you find your mother,” Soen said, patting the woman on the hand.

“Thank you, sir,” Essenia smiled childlike through her weathered, ancient face.

Soen stood and spoke to Gradek.

“She is broken.”

“Please, sire, I need help. . I’m sick. . something is terribly wrong!”

Soen nodded as he gazed into what passed as the face of the chimerian. It was difficult to look at because its shape kept shifting, the plates of its bones sliding beneath the skin as the creature struggled with his own inner monsters tearing at his memories.

“We can help you,” Soen said with measured words, his black gaze trying to lock with the shifting, feverish eyes of the chimerian. “What is your name?”

“My name? My name is. . I don’t know!” The chimerian’s voice rose to a panicked pitch. “I have too many names!”

“It’s all right,” Soen reassured the quivering being, the tips of his own ears starting to twitch. “Just tell me what happened here and we can help you.”

“What happened? What happened?” The chimerian worked his hands nervously until the fingers on each hand had lengthened to nearly a foot in length. “Didn’t you see it?”

“Yes, but tell me anyway,” Soen said, licking his sharp teeth. “What was happening right before. . when everything was still right.”

The chimerian blinked, calming as he concentrated on the single memory. “We were at House Devotions. Lord Timuran was beside the altar with the Lady and his daughter.”

Soen nodded. At last we’re getting somewhere, he thought. Everything appeared fine up to the House Devotions. “And then. .”

The chimerian was blinking faster now, struggling to organize his memories into words. “Then there was some trouble on the other side of the garden. One of the warriors just returned. I didn’t recognize him, but he must have arrived earlier in the day.”

“The day of the trouble, you mean.”

“Yes. . there was a shout. . that’s what got my attention. . and when I looked up, the Guardians were moving toward this warrior. He was fighting them, too. I remember thinking he was frighteningly strong for a human.”

“A human?” Soen asked in mild surprise.

“That’s right! I remember now; somehow he had a blade. Lord Timuran drew his own sword and was charging toward him. This human saw him coming, I’m sure of it. Guardians were all around him but I saw him turn and. . and. .”

“What happened next?” Soen urged. “One thing after the other. . what happened next.”

“The Well. .”

“The Aether Well?”

“Yes, the Aether Well. . it, I don’t know, it. . shattered. . outward, away from the center. .”

Soen leaned back. “It exploded?”

“I don’t understand.”

Soen shook his head. “You mean it cracked. . it broke.”

“No, sire,” the chimerian’s large eyes filled with tears. “It was suddenly no more at all. . not a piece of it larger than the smallest finger on your hand, sire.”

Soen shook his head in disbelief.

“I think it was that human who did it,” the chimerian moaned. “I think he’s the one that made me sick. Please, sire. . my head is full of bad spirits. . ghosts of the dead. . please, I want to be well again.”

“Rest easy. I know how to get rid of such ghosts,” Soen said; then he stood and turned again to Gradek. “Check with your Octian Commanders. Find out if any of them saw a human male slave any time since all this began.”

“Master,” Gradek protested. “We were running through the folds for days. . we’ve probably seen a number of hoo-mani slaves. .”

“Just ask them!” Soen snapped.

“Sire! By the Will of the Emperor, I live to serve!”

Soen considered the young human warrior. Perhaps seventeen years of age, if he was any judge of human growth. The ears seemed to push straight out of the sides of his bald head, but the youth had a strong jaw. The scar across his forehead told the Inquisitor that he had already seen battle, but he was still young.

“You are an Octian commander?” Soen asked, his black eyes narrowed.

The boy flushed. “No, sire! That honor is not yet within my grasp. Perhaps one day, sire.”

“Why, then, am I speaking to you?”

“Sire! My Octian commander ordered me to report to you on my observations during the time of our approach as we ran through the folds before our approach to House Timuran.”

Soen smiled slightly as he folded his arms across his chest. They really take themselves seriously at House Megnara. This slave acts as though he were in the Imperial Legions. “And your name is?”

“Mellis, sire!”

“Then let us have your report, Warrior Mellis, by all means.”

“Sire! This was four folds before we arrived at House Timuran. We had exited from the previous fold from the riverbank marshaling field and had arrived at the canyon marshaling field with the objective of surviving the mad warrior onslaught and finding another fold by which we could return to our quarters in House Megnara. We had nearly completed our crossing toward that objective when I realized that I had neglected to secure an important item of my field gear.”

Soen glanced sideways toward Gradek.

The manticore leaned over slightly as he explained. “He dropped his sword.”

Mellis flushed once again.

“Go on,” Soen urged.

“I was rapidly approaching the fold from which we had just arrived when I saw several figures approaching outside the line of totems surrounding the marshaling field.”

“Several figures, Mellis?” Soen leaned forward. “How many are ‘several’?”

“Three humans, a pair of manticores and a chimerian, sire,” Mellis said, straightening his back at once. “Oh, and a dwarf. . I remember wondering about the dwarf. They passed right between the totems as they were making their way to the fold, sire.”

“Fold? Which fold?”

“The fold we had just exited.”

“You mean they were going toward the chaos?” Soen asked.

“Yes,” Mellis replied at once. “That’s what caught my attention. Everyone was trying to get away from the mad warriors-and these were trying to go toward them.”

Bolters, Soen thought with a grimace. Seven of them.

Dawn broke with agonizing slowness over the eastern horizon. Soen was impatient for its illumination, for he needed to examine the garden of the fallen House Timuran and could not do so properly without the aid of its light.

At last the sky brightened enough that he dared risk entering the shattered remains of the House itself. The main doors stood slightly open, shadowed from the sun by the remaining bulk of the House. Soen stood there for a time considering them.

“Master Soen.” The words were soft, deferential.

“Yes, Assesia Jukung,” Soen responded without looking at the assassin.

“The remaining slaves are ready for transport.”

The sound of flies filled the space of a breath.

“The Centurai of House Megnara has been returned, and a special Devotion has been arranged for each of their warriors. . as you directed. None of them will remember this.”

“Thank you, Assesia,” Soen said but did not move. “Have you considered these doors, Jukung? The delicate and intricate carvings crafted no doubt in the Imperial City itself by skilled artisans of the Fifth Estate. What must it have cost old Timuran to have them brought to this remote place? Now they look tired to me, as though they feel the weight of what is behind them.”

“Master,” Jukung urged, an impatient edge to his voice, “Keeper Ch’drei is awaiting our report.”

“Then we had best give her a complete one,” Soen responded as he stepped quickly through the gap between the main doors. “We do not yet know who this House Timuran is. . or why its fall brought down nearly the entire frontier. But I know where to look for at least some of the answers. Coming?”

It was the smell that was worst, Soen decided. The sights of the blood and carnage, torn limbs and broken, jutting bones one could analyze from a safer, more objective position of the mind, but the putrid, cloying smell of rotting flesh could never be put at a distance. He choked back his bile and took a single step into the garden.

Or what little remained of the garden. The avatria had crashed down into it before the structure folded sideways, collapsing into the northeast wall, slicing down through the subatria curtain wall and buildings, burying them in a hopeless pile of unrecognizable rubble. It was there, Soen noted with detachment, that the fire had burned most fiercely, but the off-shore winds of the evening must have kept the flames burning away from the southern and western sections of the subatria.

“What happened here, Master?” Jukung’s words were heavy, as though he were having difficulty speaking.

“The House fell. . quite literally it seems. Here it is, Jukung; this is the center-the root. Everything that fell on the frontier-every Well that failed-started with this event.” Soen turned to face Jukung. “The answer is here, Assesia. Have Qinsei and Phang discovered what I sent them to find?”

“I am only an Assesia, Master. I am not privy to. .”

“Have they or not?” There was no question in Soen’s voice.

“Phang reports that the Impress Scrolls are lost-apparently burned and scattered beyond recovery,” Jukung answered though his eyes were fixed anywhere but on Soen.

“And Qinsei?”

“She has recovered most of the Devotion Ledger for the last eight months.”

“Well, that’s something that may prove useful.” Soen began picking his way around the southern edge of the garden wall. Here the debris was minimal although it was also unfortunately easier to pick out individual bodies or their parts. Soen dutifully noted a large concentration of warrior and Guardian bodies choking the hall that led back to the Hall of the Past on the far side of the ruined garden. In his mind, Soen pictured the Guardians gathering for their mutual defense against a suddenly insane and desperate enemy, trying to back into the corridor and find a more defensible position.

Just before this pile of dead, a glint caught his eye near the base of the curving wall. Soen looked up again at the smoldering mass of the avatria that loomed above him. He could make out only a handful of plates from the underside of the structure; it was unstable to say the least. Soen hoped to the gods that it would hold long enough to satisfy his curiosity.

Soen moved quickly around the remaining southern wall of the garden. There were more slave bodies here; some had been crushed under the debris from the collapse while others had died from sword and dagger wounds. Their blood had mixed with the dust in dark, solid stains. Still he kept his eye on his prize, moving as quickly as he dared.

At last he stopped. He stood under the archway that opened into the Hall of the Past, but that history did not interest him just yet. He reached down and plucked the shining object from the dust.

It was a crystalline shard-barely more than a sliver-that fit neatly in the palm of his hand.

“What is it?” Jukung asked in a hoarse voice.

“That, my young Assesia,” Soen said through a rueful smile, “is part of an Aether Well.”

“You are mistaken,” Jukung said. “It cannot be.”

“And yet it is,” Soen replied. “Aether Wells might crack or they might split, but the power of the Aether itself binds the crystals together. It is impossible for them to shatter once they are forged-and yet,” he held the crystal within inches of the young elf’s face, “here is it. In the face of the impossible we find ourselves holding it in our hand.”

Soen turned and looked up. “And there it is.”

“What, Master?”

“The story of the House,” Soen said as he stepped carefully across the debris and strewn bodies into the Hall of the Past. Soen followed the broken wall, reading it for a few moments until he summarized for the young Assesia. “Sha-Timuran was an elf of the Third Estate,” Soen said, mulling his own words. “His name apparently did rank among the noble Houses of the Empire. Two generations before it had been ranked only in the Fourth Estate, but due to a series of favors looked kindly on by the Imperial Eye, House Timuran was allowed to prove itself in the Third Estate by taking up residence in the Western Provinces. And this, it seems, was the result of all his efforts. He had grand hopes of garnering honor through battle. His single little Centurai had participated in nearly every battle against the Nine Dwarven. .”

Soen suddenly stopped.

A long stain ran down the length of the Hall of the Past.

Soen moved quickly, running around the bend of the hall as he pursued the path of the blood on the floor. Within a few strides he could see its source-a single, elven body slumped backward against the wall at the far end of the corridor. The face was bloated and discolored, but Soen recognized at once the uniform of the House Tribune, a patch remaining over his left eye. His blade was broken, but the grip was still in his hand.

Soen straightened, considering the figure before him.

“I know this elf,” he murmured in awe.

Jukung slid to a stop next to the Inquisitor, eyeing the dead Tribune. The smell of rotting flesh was overpowering. “Master, we must be going. .”

“Pause for a moment, Jukung, and honor a fallen hero,” the Inquisitor said, gesturing toward the dead elf sagging against the wall before him. “This is Se’Djinka-hero of the Benis Isles Campaigns among a dozen others. He was a general back then, and I only personally saw him twice. He lost favor in the Imperial Courts, however, and vanished from the official histories. Now we find him as a dead Tribune in this obscure, ambitious House.”

“This place is unsafe, Master,” Jukung urged, gagging even as he spoke. “We must hurry. .”

“Don’t you think this is odd, Jukung?”

“I. . what, Master?”

“That the Guardians of the House had all formed together in the entrance to this hall,” Soen said, speaking aloud his thoughts as he considered them, his eyes fixed on the corpse before them. “It doesn’t lead anywhere except to one of the access towers, but the avatria had no doubt fallen by the time they made their defense. This hall would have been a dead end. Yet here we see their Tribune. Why would a Tribune-and especially a successful and brilliant tactician by all accounts-put himself and his force in such a precarious position unless. .”

Soen reached forward, gripping the Tribune’s armor behind his neck and pulling the body suddenly forward. It made a sticky, ripping sound as it separated from the wall and collapsus to the floor. Soen stepped over the body to the wall, gave it a cursory look, and then pressed against it.

The flat stonework shifted inward slightly and then swung back toward the elven Inquisitor. At once, Soen stepped back, pulling open the hidden door.

“Unless he was protecting something,” Soen finished as he stepped into the doorway and then stopped.

The room was uncomfortably small and completely devoid of decoration or furniture. It had never really been intended for use but had been part of the original plans, and no one had bothered to make the alterations necessary to delete it. Yet the Tribune knew it was there-and so, at last it had served its purpose.

A single figure stooped shivering in the corner of the room.

Soen reached his hand out with care.

“Tsi-Shebin?” he asked softly.

The elven girl looked up, her black eyes wide, though whether with anger or fear, Soen was not sure. She remained as she was, however, her arms locked around her knees. The room stank of her.

Soen knelt down with agonizing slowness, then spoke. “Shebin. . my name is Soen. We are here to help you. We will take you away from here. You will be safe again. Do you hear me?”

The girl jerked her head in two short nods.

Soen drew in a deep breath, watching her carefully.

“Who did this, Shebin?” he asked.

She blinked and then her eyes narrowed. She opened her mouth, and when she spoke, her words came in croaking sounds so harsh that he was unsure he understood her.

“Did you say a slave?”

“Yes,” she rasped. “A slave. . a hoo-mani slave! You have to catch him. . bring him back to me. . let me kill him. . I have to kill him.”

“What slave?” Soen asked. “What is his name?”

“DRAKIS!” she screamed.