When Dragons Rage

8

The column of snowflakes swirled across the Aurolani landscape moving toward her as if with intelligence and intent. Isaura reached out with an ungloved hand. Long, slender fingers sheathed in flesh barely darker than the snow itself sank into the whirlwind. At her touch the snow-ghost flew apart, small flakes lighting on her long hair and gown, hidden there as completely as if they had fallen back to the snowfield beneath her feet.

The breeze that had animated that tiny cyclone spawned others that raced toward the Conservatory as if Southlands warriors mounted an assault on the building. The Conservatory had been built into the side of a mountain. The magicks the sullanciri Neskartu had used to create it had molded molten rock into towers and chambers. Even the exterior walls, having been battered by a quarter century of fierce northern storms, still retained their pristine, glassy surface.

Students stood in the white field before the Conservatory, for those who had studied there for years had become at least partially inured to the cold. Those trained in combat dueled each other, male and female alike stripped to the waist, their bodies adorned with colorful tattoos. Magicks crackled between them, the sounds carrying crisply through the cold air. If the combat mages even noticed the rising breeze, they did not seek shelter from it.

Other longtime students wore more clothing, but likewise ignored the wind. The newest students, however—most children and all facing their first winter—huddled together, their backs to the wind. As distant as she was, she could feel them attempting to summon a warming spell. Having been trained on Vilwan, their methods were awkward, their efforts stunted, and their results meager.

Isaura tilted her head slightly to the left and watched them. The Vilwanese students had been plucked from the sea and brought to Aurolan to be trained by Neskartu, but they resisted him and his methods much as they tried to resist the cold. And suffered equally for both.

Isaura did not resist the wind and cold, but embraced it. The Vilwanese saw cold as the absence of heat, but she knew this was merely shortsightedness. There was still heat in the wind, for heat was merely energy, and if there was no energy, there would be no wind. Heat is there; one merely has to know where to seek it.

Another whirlwind bore down on her, and she sensed its intent immediately. She turned, looking back at the frosted fortress of black stone that dominated the high-walled mountain valley. Where the Conservatory had been shaped of stone, the fortress seemed like a tooth that had erupted from the snowy landscape, strong and sharp.

She caught a flash of white in a window of an upper chamber and smiled. Isaura began to walk swiftly toward the castle, the whirlwind tugging at the skirts of her gown, urging her on. She flicked a hand at it, reweaving the threads of energy running through it, and it collapsed into a small cloud of ice dust.

From it rose another whirlwind, this one more powerful. It circled her once, eliciting a shriek of delight as her hair danced on its teasing tendrils. The storm lunged at her, surrounding her in its fury. The wind howled inarticulately, then lifted her up and bore her on an icy pedestal to an upper balcony of the castle.

Isaura laughed aloud, her silver eyes flashing as she soared above the landscape. Outside the valley, far to the north and again to the west, she could see the distant, dark cones of volcanoes with steam rising from them. Vast fields of pure white lay between them, stippled here and there with small clusters of domed buildings. Most of the Aurolani citizenry lived in vast cavern complexes. The buildings she could see largely consisted of shelters for the various flocks and herds raised on the tundra.

The whirlwind set her down gently on the balcony, then swirled tightly into a slender column. She bowed her head graciously. “Thank you, kind sir.”

With barely a sound, the column of ice convulsed and then dissipated.

Smiling, Isaura entered the open arched doorway. Her skin tingled as she passed through the threshold spell that retained the castle’s heat. A few flakes of snow fell from her shoulders and hair, but only the most hardy hit the stone floor. Those that did melted quickly, then evaporated.

She stopped three feet inside the threshold of the grand chamber. It extended on into darkness far ahead of her, easily three times as long as it was wide or high. To the right, in the middle of the wall and opposite the main doors, stood a hearth tall enough for a man to march through and wide enough to accept a whole company. A fire raged therein, bathing the woman standing before it in undulating light.

The woman stood easily as tall as Isaura and had the same slightly pointed ears. Her hair was golden, however, matching her gown, in contrast to Isaura’s snowy mane. Clean-limbed, though heavier than Isaura, the woman had a calm elegance about her that appeared to quiet the riot of flames in the hearth. The fire continued to burn hot, but the flames slowed, twisting and floating like silk on a light breeze.

Isaura smoothed her gown and raked fingers back through her hair. She allowed herself a smile and the barest flash of strong, white teeth, then approached the other woman. “Mother! You’ve returned from the Southlands. Did you succeed?”

“Yes, daughter, I did.” The woman looked over at her with blue-green eyes alive with reflected firelight. “I have some of what I want from Draconis, but a puzzle as well.”

“A puzzle?” Isaura wrinkled her brow. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, my child; do not frown like that. Yours is a face too beautiful to be marred with worry lines.” The woman raised her right hand and beckoned. “Come closer, Isaura. You will help me solve this problem, then all will be well.”

Isaura’s heart leaped in her breast as she moved to her mother’s side. She did know that the Empress Chytrine was not truly her mother. Chytrine had adopted her when she was just a babe, since she had been abandoned by her mother, and of her father there was no record. Her bastardy had not concerned Chytrine, however, who took her in and raised her as if her own, giving her every appropriate benefit as a child legitimately born to the throne.

“I do want to help, Mother. Please, I will do anything I can.”

“Of course you will, child.” Chytrine smiled in a kindly manner, but the smile died quickly, bespeaking concerns that only an empress could bear. “In the south, daughter, they vex me. They slew Anariah in a cruel trap. They lured him into it by using decoys, and linking them to the real fragments of the DragonCrown. The imitations were not good, but Anariah was young and not schooled in lesser magicks. He was unaware of the danger until too late.”

Isaura closed her eyes and lowered her head. Anariah had been a golden dragon with which she had only a passing acquaintance, but he had been one of her mother’s favorites. He had first been drawn to Chytrine because of the one fragment of the DragonCrown she had possessed before the fall of the Fortress Draconis. She told him of her plans for the re-created crown and the dragon allied himself with her cause, becoming a fervent supporter of Chytrine’s campaign against the south.

“Oh, Mother, you have my deepest sympathy.”

“Of course, yes, child. You are most kind.”

The pressure of a finger under her chin lifted her head and Isaura opened her eyes. “I can imagine he was very brave.”

Chytrine nodded solemnly. “He was. His dedication to our cause never wavered. Anariah never hesitated in the cause of liberating the DragonCrown from the southern tyrants. Their possession of it imperiled his kin, even himself, but it was not for dragonkind alone that he acted. He fought to stop the rot of the south from poisoning us.”

Chytrine’s hand fell away and she again gazed into the fire. “Oh, daughter, you have no idea the corruption of the south. This is my fault, and you must forgive me. I have kept you here, in our land, to preserve you. There are times—and I do not mean this as criticism—that you are so sensitive.”

“I know you only want the best for me, Mother.” Isaura smiled. “I am quite content to be here in your realm.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? Whenever I travel to the south, I long for it, not just because I hate the oppressive heat, but the stink, the moisture, the way things grow and drag on you.” Chytrine frowned. “You see, Isaura-sweet, the world of Aurolan is simple and it is the way it was meant to be. It is cold; it is unforgiving. Weakness is dispatched in favor of strength. Here we live in accord with the dictates of the world, as it should be.

“But there, in the Southlands… Oh, Isaura, you would not believe it. They think they can harness rivers, diverting water into fields. They build dikes to steal land from the sea, then wonder why the sea shatters the dikes and reclaims its property. And then their cities…”

Chytrine shook her head slowly. “Our people reside in caverns, in living rock. We find a space within which to exist, but in the south they use rock to wall away space, to make it smaller. They are so afraid of the world that they encyst themselves in these festering artificial caverns. Here, when something dies, it is harvested, rendered, every bit of it used for the common good. Our nightsoil is collected and feeds our gardens. Nothing is wasted, but there, they pour their chamber pots in the streets. Dead animals lie in the gutter and vermin crawl about, fighting over corpses and worse, getting into storage houses, eating until they are corpulent. And if they are found out and killed, are they eaten? No, just discarded in the streets to feed a new generation of pests.”

The Aurolani Empress’ eyes blazed. “I have insulated you from that, daughter, for it causes my stomach to churn. I hate telling you of it, and I would shield you forever from it, but circumstances will not permit this.”

“Why? What is happening, Mother?”

“Many things, Isaura, many things.” Chytrine reached into one sleeve of her gown and produced a green-and-gold gem set in gold. With a flick of her free hand, the empress summoned a small table, which flew across the room and tottered for a moment beside her. As it settled, she placed the stone on it.

Isaura recognized the first fragment of the DragonCrown that had been liberated from Svarskya before her birth. Her mother had possessed it since then, and wore it on occasion. Isaura had always liked the stone because of the play of colors through it. There were times, when she was just a child, that she had imagined the stone winking at her like some jeweled eye.

Chytrine’s hand again emerged from the sleeve and held a yellow stone. The fire’s light created a luminous cross that shifted through the gem’s face. Chytrine set it down on the table, then brushed her fingertips over it.

“That one is from Draconis, Mother?”

“Yes, it is the first we recovered. We found its duplicate and used that to trace the original. We also found a duplicate of the ruby and it led us to this.”

Chytrine’s right hand dipped into the left sleeve and produced a gold-bound ruby that, at first glance, appeared to match the others in terms of workmanship and setting. It even radiated power, though on a more muted scale than the other two. Still, had she not been looking for the differences, Isaura was uncertain she would have noticed them with a casual examination.

She held a hand out. “May I?”

“Yes, Isaura, this is the puzzle I want you to help me with.” Chytrine gave her the ruby, then looked down and stroked her fingers over the yellow stone. “Tell me what you think of it.”

Isaura let both hands enfold the stone, then clutched it to her bosom. She closed her eyes and lowered her head. She forced away the sound of the fire and any sense of its heat. She willfully isolated her mind from all physical sensations and focused on the stone. Isaura felt resistance at first, then suddenly blasted past it.

“Oh!” She gasped aloud and recoiled, her hands opening. The stone dropped toward the floor, but before it could hit, a wave of sorcery caught it up and lifted it into the air again.

Isaura immediately dropped to her knees. “Forgive me, Mother.”

“Child, I am the one who needs forgiveness. I did not warn you.” Chytrine gestured fluidly and the ruby floated to the table. “What did you feel?”

Isaura concentrated. “Several magicks, Mother. It is linked to the True-stone, and strongly. There is a spell there that would take any magick seeking the stone and convert it into energy that feeds the link. It is as if tugging on a string here rings a bell further away. This decoy would call all the more loudly when searchers neared the Truestone.”

Chytrine smiled. “Yes, that spell was quite interesting and rather unexpected. And of the magick that created the fragment?”

The young woman frowned. “That is difficult to get a sense of. It is a very complex spell, because the duplicate really does carry with it some of the resonance of the original. It combines elements from four different themes of magick, but that’s not the most interesting thing. It seems constructed along the lines of a human spell, but there are elven and urZrethi elements in it. What is it?”

Chytrine shook her head. “I do not know, save that it indicates that the Southlands have a new champion, or the potential for one. It would be too much to hope he had been slain at Draconis. He is out there, I can feel it.”

Isaura glanced up, her eyes widening with horror. “Is it the Norrington, Mother?”

The Aurolani Empress arched an eyebrow. “What brings the Norrington to mind, daughter?”

“Only my concern for you. Nefrai-laysh said he had seen the Norrington, and that you had sent Myrall’mara to destroy him. I know you do not want me to worry about you, but I do. I cannot help it. I fear for you because of him.”

Chytrine strode to her and raised a hand to caress Isaura’s cheek. “Pet, you need not worry. This Norrington is but a pup. He will come to see reason as his father and grandfather did before him. There is danger, however. I need someone I can trust to help me deal with it. You, Isaura, shall be my agent.”

“Yes, Mother.” The girl’s face blossomed with a smile. “I won’t fail you. Whatever you need done, I shall do it.”

Chytrine took Isaura’s hands in her own. “I know you will, child. You must listen very carefully. You know there is a chance that events will cost me my life. Yrulph Kirun knew as much and groomed me to carry his mission forward. I must prepare against that eventuality, so I will send you south, that you may see the conditions there for yourself. You will know what I have told you is true.”

“I already know that, Mother. I know it in my heart and mind.”

“Isaura, dearest, you know better than to assume that untested ice is strong. And though you accept every word I have said about the south, what you see will make the urgency of my mission that much more clear to you.” Chytrine nodded slowly and gave her hands a squeeze. “Soon enough, daughter, you shall repair to the south and see for yourself. Once you are finished there, I shall have more work for you. With your willing aid, this coming winter shall be the Southlands’ last.”