Song of the Dragon Read online

  Soen slowly knelt down on the platform, his hands indolently picking at the debris marring its once polished surface.

  Phang spoke with care. “How . . . how are we going to track them in that?”

  Soen’s eye caught something on the platform, and the shadow of a smile tugged at this lips. He picked up a trampled flower and examined it carefully before he stood. Soen thought for a moment longer, then spoke.

  “We can’t.”

  Jukung managed to push himself upright again. “Then . . . then that’s it. We go back and report to Mistress Ch’drei.”

  “No,” Soen said, shaking his head. “We continue.”

  “Continue?” Jukung repeated in disbelief. “You just said we cannot track them through . . . through this.”

  “Look,” Soen said, pointing with his first two fingers to the far limits of the enormous field. “There are four other portals functional. One of them leads farther up toward Hyperia, the other three back toward Ibania. So far our prey has continued farther from the heart of the Empire.”

  “But which one do we take?” Phang asked.

  Soen considered then spoke.

  “All of them.”

  Qinsei, Phang, and Jukung all stared at the Iblisi.

  “We can’t be sure which one they took, but if we explore each of them separately, we might choose the wrong path and set ourselves back more than we already are,” Soen said. “But if we each follow a separate path on our own—each of us looking for signs of our prey—then we’ll cover them all much more quickly. We’ll each take a different fold, then return here before nightfall. If one of us does not return, then we’ll all know which path to follow, and we’ll take it and continue the hunt.”

  “It breaks the Quorum,” Qinsei said, obviously disapproving.

  “If we don’t recover these bolters while we can,” Soen said, “there may not be enough Quorums in the Empire to stop them.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Togrun Fel

  “TWO DAYS we’ve walked . . . and thisis our prize?”

  Mala sputtered, unable to decide whether to laugh or weep.

  “Aye!” Jugar said with pride, his eyes flashing in the light of the setting sun. “Partake of the sanctuary offered by the dwarven gods and glory in its honor! Few mortals have been privileged to enter the confines of the Togrun Fel!”

  Drakis looked again and remained unimpressed. The hill was no taller than any of the others extending to the southeast. It did, he had to admit, have a rather precipitous exposed face on its southern side, but the carvings in its surface were altogether worn and crumbling, in such bad states of deterioration that it was difficult to get any idea of what they were meant to depict. Indeed, he had not even noticed the carvings until they were nearly at the base of the cliff itself. Mossy grass overhung the top edge of the rock face, the gods of nature trying to hide the scars that the dwarves had made.

  The tears of the Dead are of dust now . . .

  The breath of their life now stopped . . .

  Their voices though still . . .

  Are calling your will . . .

  Drakis reached back and rubbed at the aching in his neck. The field pack he was carrying was heavier than he expected. “It’s a tomb.”

  “Aye,” Jugar nodded, his widely spaced teeth grinning in appreciation.

  RuuKag let out a great chuff of disapproval. “He wants us to hide . . . in a grave?”

  “Better to hide temporarily in a tomb than to take up permanent residence,” Ethis said, folding his four arms in front of him as he inspected the entrance. “Still, I would have expected better craftsmanship from the dwarves. Even the entrance looks more like an accident than an intention.”

  “Are you blind, sir?” The dwarf huffed. “But that is the craft! Togrun Fel is not a dwarven tomb, though it was constructed by them and, might I humbly add, with the greatest of their arts in stone. It was wrought in honor of the friendship once joined between the Fae Queens of the Hyperian Woods and the Nine Dwarven Kings and the great sacrifice they and their dryads made near this very spot. This was back in the Age of Fire, when all the world was set ablaze by the elven conquests and the humans stood shoulder to shoulder with the dwarves and the faery against their onslaught.”

  Drakis raised a questioning eyebrow at Jugar.

  “Well,” the dwarf sputtered. “Perhaps not exactly shoulder to shoulder as the dwarven shoulders were always considerably lower than those of the humans, but I speak metaphorically. Even so, this is a place of dreaded power for the elves. Were it not for the special keywords to which I alone am privy, this innocent looking portal would blast us with the power of the gods themselves were we but to dare pass its threshold unbidden! Fear not, my good companions, for though you would suffer the most painful of curses otherwise, I shall . . . I shall . . . where are you going?”

  Drakis turned to follow the dwarf’s gaze.

  The Lyric stepped quickly through the portal, her lithe figure swallowed almost at once by the darkness. Peels of her bubbling laughter echoed from within.

  “Nasty dwarven curse, that,” Ethis said in flat tones.

  The dwarf sputtered. “But I . . . I don’t . . .”

  Drakis reached down wearily behind him and pulled Mala up from where she had collapsus to the ground. The House tattoo on her beautiful bald head was already being obscured by a fuzz of rust-colored hair emerging from her scalp. Her smudged face accentuated the exhaustion in her eyes. She looked hard, resentful, as she shrugged her own field pack higher on her shoulders, and he wondered for a moment what had happened to the bright face and the easy smile that he had seen so often in his dreams and his waking hours as well. She was so different now, so much less than he remembered, so much pain and loss, so common, so . . . real.

  Nine notes . . . Seven notes . . .

  The heart of the warrior is not his . . .

  It beats for another’s soul . . .

  They had awakened from both a dream and a nightmare all at once when the Aether Well fell with the House of Timuran. They had left their innocence behind and now, eyes opened, found the reality of their lives to be a nightmare, too. He no longer knew the woman whose hand he held with such unthinking devotion, but he held it just the same out of a hope for the shadows he had once believed were true. He was a creature of honor and of duty though he no longer understood what honor he pursued nor to whom his duty remained. All he knew with certainty was that he once loved Mala—if not the woman that he no longer knew, then the ideal of her—and that, for all he knew, was what his honor and duty were about.

  They stepped through the opening and nearly ran at once into a stone wall. His eyes were still adjusting from the light of the setting sun, and he could make out a glow to his left. He felt along the rock face, his right hand in front of him as he pulled Mala behind him with his left. The wall ended abruptly beneath his fingers where the glow was, and Drakis turned the corner.

  The warrior’s grim face relaxed into awestruck wonder.

  The entire stone hill was hollowed into an enormous dome surrounding a magnificent central fountain. Luminous waters cascaded from the top of the ornate spout, fashioned from the purest white marble to resemble the branches of a tree. The skill of its artisans insured that the water splashed in its descent to appear as the foliage of the tree, ever living and moving as the water fell down to where its stone roots gripped the floor of a wide, shining pool. The shimmering light from the surface of the waters played across the detailed carvings of enormous trees, hewn in relief from the encircling stone with intricate detail, their own branches interlacing in the dome above them. The movement of the light occasionally revealed figures in the carvings: faeries and sprites that seemed to form just at the fringes of his vision, nymphs that danced for a moment and then vanished, dryads that smiled back at him and then could no longer be seen at all. There were the unmistakable marks of age in the cavern, for it had long been untended, yet its beauty remained.

  Jugar stepped
up next to Drakis, his head hung in dejection. “I wanted you to see it in all its glory. There were gems, lad . . . gems as big as your fist and more gold and silver than a soul could see in a lifetime. But the tomb has been despoiled and its riches taken by thieves . . . oh, lad, I’m so sorry.”

  “You’re wrong, dwarf,” Drakis said in a whisper.

  “How then?”

  “The riches are still here,” he said with a gentle smile. Drakis stepped carefully into the enormous chamber, his eyes gazing in reverent joy at the wonders around him.

  “Welcome, my brave friends!”

  Drakis turned with some reluctance from the glorious, magical carvings on the walls toward the deep, sultry voice now carrying through the hall. It came from the shining fountain tree, and for a moment he wondered if the tree itself had spoken to them.

  The soaked form of the Lyric emerged from the nimbus of water. She had abandoned her field pack next to the pool. Now her wet dress clung to her body as she moved, revealing a strong and beautiful form that Drakis would not have supposed her to possess. She was transformed ; her narrow chin was raised in elegant poise, and she carried her chest high and shoulders back so that a regal curve formed down her spine. She held her arms away from her body and bowed gracefully until the tips of her fingers lingered near her strong thighs. Drops of the water sparkled and shone in the white bristles of her emerging hair.

  “I thank you all,” the Lyric said in a deep, sleepy voice. “Together we shall triumph. Together we shall be free!”

  Mala stepped out from behind Drakis, her questioning eyes fixed on the majestic form standing in the water. “Lyric?”

  “So you may have known me,” the Lyric replied, her head nodding slightly in acknowledgment. “But you have awakened me from my long sleep and freed me. The grateful thanks of my kingdom shall be yours!”

  “Kingdom?” RuuKag rumbled. “What kingdom?”

  “I see, you do not understand,” the Lyric said with slight condescension. “It is to be forgiven.”

  “Perhaps our good lady would humor us?” Jugar said with a smile although his eyes showed uncertainty.

  The Lyric raised her face in statuesque magnificence.

  “I am Murialis,” she said, her deep tones resonating in the hall. “Fae Queen of the Hyperian Woodland, lost these many years to my native lands, lying in forgetfulness until you, good friends, have freed me from my awful captivity. To you I offer the protection of my kingdom, sanctuary from your pursuers, and the grateful thanks of the woodland realm.”

  RuuKag gasped. “You’re . . . you’re a queen?”

  “I am, RuuKag of the manticores,” the Lyric intoned solemnly, “Fae Queen of the Hyperian Woodland.”

  Belag nodded thoughtfully. “It is another sign from the gods. It begins, Drakis—do you not see it? It is spoken of old that ‘he shall meet with commoners and kings that the works of his justice shall be wrought.’”

  Drakis held up his hand before his maticorian companion could get any further with his religious discourse. “Jugar, we . . . I’ve never heard of such a queen. Do you know what she is talking about?”

  Jugar kept his eyes fixed on the imperious form of the Lyric in the water. “I . . . there is a faery queen that is said to rule in cold isolation in the great woods west of the Aerian Mountains. Her realm is closed to outsiders, however, and there are no tales—at least, none reliable—concerning the ruler of forest spirits and sprites. It is said that those who have ventured beyond her borders never return, having been ensnared by that mystical realm and brought into a sleep that lasts a thousand years.”

  “Who would have been awake, then, to tell the tale?” Ethis asked dryly.

  Jugar rolled his eyes. “These are indeed but tales, and I am, after all, a fool who is telling them. Entertainment is my business, not the chronicle of the ages.”

  Five notes . . . Five notes . . .

  A queen of the north . . .

  In hope drawing forth . . .

  “But such a queen,” Drakis persisted. “Could it be possible that Timuran somehow captured her . . . enslaved her?”

  Jugar screwed his left eye into a hard wink as he considered. “Stranger things have happened, lad . . . although I can’t recall any of them at the moment.”

  Nine notes . . . Seven notes . . .

  “But if she is who she says she is,” Drakis persisted, “then we have a chance at a life. If we can make it to this kingdom of hers . . .”

  “The Hyperian Woods?” Jugar laughed. “You are ambitious, lad! That’s full well sixty—maybe seventy leagues from here!”

  Five notes . . . Five notes . . .

  “But it is to the north, isn’t it?” Drakis pressed with urgency.

  “Aye, well, more west than north it is . . . but that’s more than two weeks on stout legs with nary a rest between. And it would be well to point out that most of that is open country—not settled land by any measure of the term.”

  “We’re provisioned,” Drakis countered as he unconsciously hooked his thumbs under the straps of his field pack, a plan forming quickly in his head.

  “Aye, partial field packs but that’s not for the length of two weeks!”

  “It will get us far enough,” Drakis continued. “We can take local game . . . we’ve done that before on the longer campaigns . . . and RuuKag, you weren’t always a gardener. I remember you in the work sheds . . . didn’t you work for the butcher for a time?”

  RuuKag’s eyes closed painfully, his long fangs bared. “Yes . . . I was a butcher once.”

  “There, then!” Drakis answered enthusiastically. “What about this water, Jugar . . . can we drink it?”

  “These are the sacred waters of the . . .”

  “Can we drink it?”

  “Well . . . yes, but . . .”

  “We’ll take our fill, rest here tonight and then set out at first light,” Drakis continued. “We’ll ration what provisions we have and then forage for the rest.”

  “The Iblisi will come for us,” the Lyric intoned ominously. “They will not give up a Queen of the Fae.”

  “Then all the more reason for us to travel quickly and to travel light . . .”

  “Stop, Drakis!” Mala interjected. “Just think for a moment ! The Lyric hasn’t said one believable sentence since we fled the master’s House, and now you’re willing to believe she’s a queen of some place we’ve never heard of?”

  “Jugar has heard of it,” Drakis replied, irritation creeping into his voice.

  “Jugar said that anyone who went in never came back!”

  “Look, if we’re going to survive and make any kind of life for ourselves, we’ve got to go somewhere!” Drakis heard his own voice growing louder with his frustration. “And if this faery place offers us asylum from the Iblisi then maybe I’d rather not come back from it!”

  Mala wheeled to Ethis for support. “And you! You haven’t said anything for a while. What do you think of this insane plan?”

  Ethis looked up as though returning his thoughts from a distant place. “What? Oh, I quite agree with Drakis. By all means, we should make for the Hyperian Woods.”

  “What?” Mala squeaked.

  The chimerian spread his four arms, then clasped them in two sets before himself. “The Iblisi surely will come for us. We are now considered—what is their term?—ah, yes, ‘bolters.’ They will have enough problems for a few days sorting through many others like us that have escaped from the armies—at least those who remain alive after the slaughter we’ve witnessed so far—but ultimately they will search us out. They cannot let us go free—no matter whether we have a ‘queen’ with us or not.”

  Ethis turned and focused his eyes on the Lyric standing with regal grandeur in the light of the pool. “We have run and must keep running. It seems that our hopes now rest with the Queen of the Fae.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Murialis

  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.