Song of the Dragon Read online

  “I need no reminding of Chythal,” Murialis spoke loud enough to cover the chimerian’s words. “You and your vagabond traveling companions are still reveling in your tiresome mortal existence only because of the bonds between your Lady of the High Council and my most generous self. Show him, Ethis. I will be amused.”

  “Might I suggest . . .”

  “You may not,” Murialis frowned, and as she spoke, storm clouds gathered over the transparent dome above their heads. “Oblige me.”

  Ethis paused and then bowed, spreading all four of his arms out graciously. “At your service.”

  Drakis wondered for a moment just what it was he was supposed to be impressed by; he had fought alongside chimera—and occasionally against them—for as long as he had gone to battle. His training in the arena had taught him all about their telescoping bone structure that allowed them to vary their size and, at the same time, made it nearly impossible to break their bones in combat. He knew, too, of their ability to alter the coloration of their skin so that they could blend into their surroundings and be more difficult to see on a battlefield. As he watched Ethis’ form shift, it was all familiar to him, and he wondered if he would have to work up some feigned astonishment in order to please the mercurial Murialis.

  But the transformation continued beyond anything Drakis had experienced before. The bone-plates of Ethis’ face began to shift, and the muscles over the skeleton shifted their positions. The normally translucent skin began to change texture and color. Flaps appeared in the skin, seeming to shift with the chimerian’s slightest move. Ethis grew shorter, his second set of arms disappeared as his shape became more human.

  Drakis gasped, uncertain whether it was from horror or wonder.

  Ethis stood before him . . . in the perfectly modeled form of Mala.

  “By the . . . the gods!” Drakis sputtered.

  The chimerian Mala walked up to him, speaking in a slightly husky rendition of the human woman’s voice—an honest sadness in her expression. “I’m sorry, Drakis. It was the only way I could get us through alive.”

  Drakis kept his eyes fixed on the counterfeit woman as though seeing some terrible vision from which one cannot look away. “Ethis? How . . .”

  “It’s rare among our kind,” the pseudo-Mala said with a rueful smile. “A very few of us can alter our shape radically and hold the new form for extended periods of time. It takes effort, a great deal of training and discipline. Hair is the hardest to form; clothing from skin folds is perhaps more challenging still. It’s also a rather lonely existence—we are considered freakish by most of our own kind—but the High Council in Exile makes good use of turning our curse into their blessing. They call us the ‘Shades of the Exile,’ and we can go places in the world, perform the bidding of our Lady Chythal and . . .”

  “And none would ever suspect the chimera?” Drakis finished.

  “Something like that,” the false-Mala said through a pout as she took another step toward Drakis, near enough now to touch him. “It does allow us to get far closer to our targets than they might otherwise allow. And anyone will tell any secret to the right companion. Still, I am glad that you and Mala were having problems when we arrived.”

  “Why?” Drakis said, finding himself leaning in toward the woman.

  The false-Mala reached up with her hand and held Drakis back.

  “Because you’re a good friend, Drakis, and I’m not that kind of girl.”

  In a moment, Mala melted in front of him, expanded, faded, and became the four-armed Ethis.

  Drakis leaped backward with a sharp cry.

  “Oh, that was wonderful,” Murialis clapped atop her throne. “We stage dramas for ourselves from time to time—just for our amusement—but that was far better than I could have produced. Bravo, Ethis! And your performance was refreshingly honest, Drakis of the Prophecy.”

  “Queen Murialis,” Drakis said with growing exasperation, “I’m not this . . . this man of any prophecy!”

  “Oh, I don’t care whether you are or not, boy,” Murialis said with delight. “It doesn’t matter either way, really. All that matters is that other people think you could be this great legend destined to bring about the fall of the Rhonas Empire. Fear and doubt are like weeds growing between mortared stones; given enough time, they will destroy the strongest wall. If what Ethis tells me is true, then you’ve already planted those seeds whether you think it’s your destiny or not. It is up to us, now, to help those seeds along a little.”

  “Your Majesty?” Ethis prompted.

  Queen Murialis leaned forward on her throne as she spoke. “The Empire will know that you are here—that much is certain. Not all of the Iblisi who were hunting you were taken; one left to the east carrying a second who was badly damaged, and, it has been reported to me by my own operatives, has returned in great haste to Imperial lands. No doubt his report will be interpreted against me—they will claim that I am harboring you and threaten to use it as a pretext for invading my kingdom. Of course, they have never really needed an excuse to invade my lands, but that is one of the peculiarities of the elves—they feel compelled to justify themselves to some trumped-up morality before they commit an immoral war. I never could understand why they didn’t just call it conquest without a lot of foolish justification and get it over with.”

  “Your Majesty, please,” Ethis urged.

  “It’s a long, sorry process,” Murialis lamented. “They will assume that I’ve granted you asylum. I’ll tell them I didn’t. They’ll accuse me of lying, which is right enough, and I’ll tell them I’m not—which is just another lie. Then they’ll threaten to invade my land ‘for my own good,’ and I will in the end either capitulate and hand you over to them—in which case they will have beaten me—or I will rush you across my border and claim with feigned innocence that you aren’t here at all—which, if they want you badly enough, may be what they’re after all along.”

  “Then might I suggest,” Ethis said, “that we could try to win the game before the elves know they are even playing. Don’t wait for the elves . . . send us out of Hyperia now. You remove their pretext for war and upset their plans all in a single move.”

  “I always like the way you think, Ethis,” Murialis mused. “Where would I send you? I’m on good terms with Chronasis to the southwest. You might make your way down to Mestophia.”

  “We might also go east,” Ethis considered, “into the Mountains of Aeria and then into the chimerian lands of Ephindria. The dwarf might then be of considerable . . .”

  “North,” Drakis said.

  “North?” Murialis asked with surprise. “Into Vestasia ? Why would anyone want to go into that backward swamp?”

  “Well.” Drakis thought for a moment before continuing. “Isn’t that what the legends say . . . that I’m supposed to go north?”

  Ethis frowned. “That might be a good reason not to go north. The Rhonas know the legend well and would anticipate such a move.”

  Murialis slapped both her open palms down on her knees at the same time and stood up. “So they might—but how can we resist twisting destiny’s tail? North it shall be, but we shall best them with speed. They may expect a move to the north but never this quickly. I shall make the arrangements at once. Thank you, Ethis, for bringing me such amusement! I knew there was a reason that I let you live!”

  “I am grateful, Your Majesty,” Ethis replied. “But do you not think that the Rhonas may invade you whether we are here or not?”

  “If they wish to invade my sovereign lands,” Murialis replied with a quiet smile, “then they will have to invent a lie in order to do so. I will not provide them the satisfaction of an excuse. And if they do come—let them come! The land itself shall rise up against them. Let us see how their Legions fare when the rocks themselves rebel beneath their feet!”

  Murialis stepped down to where Drakis stood and, leaning over slightly, extended her hand.

  Drakis glanced at Ethis.

  The chimerian nodded
.

  Drakis took the woman’s large hand and kissed it.

  Murialis straightened and smiled. “Drakis, I bid you farewell. Your journey is young. I go now to make arrangements for you and your companions to be tossed out of my kingdom at once. I trust you do not mind being such unwelcome guests?”

  “Your . . . Majesty,” Drakis said, “I believe I prefer it. Thank you.”

  Murialis smiled and with a nod vanished into fading embers and smoke.

  Drakis paused for a moment and then turned slowly to face Ethis. “This—‘trick’ of yours—who else have you done this to?”

  Ethis cocked his head to one side, his face once more the blank that was common to his kind. “Each in turn after we entered the woods. Murialis was long acquainted with me but did not trust the rest. It was the only way I could convince her—the only way she would spare your lives.”

  “Who are you?” Drakis asked. “Part of me remembers you as a faithful and long-standing comrade, but that I know is a lie placed in my mind by the Devotions. What is true is that I have no memory of you prior to three weeks ago. So, tell me: Who are you?”

  “No one that need concern you . . .”

  “But I am concerned,” Drakis stood his ground. “How does a creature who has such incredible abilities—who could be anyone—allow himself to be enslaved? You could have taken the form of an elf and . . .”

  “I did!” Ethis chuckled.

  “Then how . . .”

  “My own mistake,” Ethis said then shrugged his four shoulders. “It matters little now. My mission was to find Thuri.”

  “Thuri?”

  “Yes, the same Thuri you know from your Octian,” Ethis continued. “He had been a rather prominent leader of a rebellion that threatened the security of the chimerian High Council in Exile. I had been hunting him for over a year when I found him as an Impress Warrior in House Timuran. He had forgotten his past, of course, but I knew if I could get him away from Devotions long enough, he would remember what I needed to know. I came in the guise of a Fourth Estate Elven Guardian and applied to the Tribune for an appointment as a House Guardian.”

  “Tribune Se’Djinka,” Drakis urged.

  “Yes,” Ethis admitted. “I knew he had been a general some years back and hoped to use the story that I had served under him as means to gain his trust. He seemed to me, on our first meeting, to be ancient and feebleminded—and that was my mistake. It was all a game on his part. He laid a trap for me—literally a metal cage. The last thing he said to me before forcing Devotions on me was that he could remember the name of every warrior who had ever served with him. It seems he had never believed my story from the very beginning.”

  “And now you have told me a story, too,” Drakis said. “And I still don’t know you.”

  “How is that possible when each of us has barely had time enough to know ourselves?” Ethis replied. “Let’s find the others. Murialis always puts a good meal on the table for her guests, and as we are apparently bound for Vestasia, we should avail ourselves of her hospitality as much as possible. Vestasia is a wild land, and that part of our journey will be difficult.”

  “I don’t trust you.”

  “And you shouldn’t,” the chimerian went on, “but then I think that’s sound advice in general—don’t trust anybody.”

  CHAPTER 30

  Shift in the Wind

  CH’DREI SETTLED ONCE MORE on her throne in the heart of the Iblisi Keep and permitted herself a grateful sigh.

  It was an entirely familiar place, and she was thankful to enjoy it again. In her younger days she, too, had been numbered among the Inquisitors who ranged across the wide lands and seas wherever the influence of the Rhonas was extended and often far beyond. But age and the politics of the Imperial City had eroded her enthusiasm for distant horizons and new vistas. She preferred that the reports of such places came to her here in the center of political life. Better to hear of the open sky than to experience it; rather the world be brought to her than she leave her lair to see it herself.

  There were, however, those rare occasions when a journey beyond Tsujen’s Wall was required . . . as when the truth to be learned needed to be kept to herself and as few others as possible. This business with Soen on the Western Frontier was one such time. Yet whenever she was required to travel, she was comforted along the road by thoughts of this place . . . that all her journeys would end back here in the quiet darkness of her court deep beneath the ancient stones of the Old Keep. The darkness better suited her purposes and the decisions that she was required to make for the good of the Empire.

  It felt much like a tomb, she mused, and where better to bury the truth than with the dead?

  Truth, after all, was the province of the Iblisi. The Imperial Will had from its inception altered the public perception of its past. Lie upon lie was told in the interest of the greater good and the Will of the Emperor until any concept of the actual truth was becoming lost. Even the Imperial Family of the Rhonas had begun to lose track of which lies it had told on top of other lies, and too often real truth would surface to the detriment of the state.

  It was during the Age of Mists, Ch’drei recalled, that the Scrolls of Xathos came to the elves. The legends every elf knew by heart told of the great Rhonas, father of their Empire, wresting the scrolls from the gods in a challenge of wits and physical strength and founding the magic on which the Empire would be forged. Its epic tale made Rhonas the undisputed leader of the elves trying to conquer a land that was then called Palandria.

  But the truth was that the Scrolls of Xathos were bartered from a group of manticores who had no concept of their worth as they were capable neither of reading the scrolls nor of reproducing the magic even if they could read. They had stolen those scrolls centuries before from the chimera in Ephindria who themselves had stolen them from the humans of Drakosia beyond the Erebus Straits to the north.

  But the truth would not make Rhonas a mythic emperor.

  So it was that early in the burgeoning Rhonas state nearly eighteen hundred years ago, it was decided that one group would be tasked with keeping the actual truth intact against those times when new lies had to be crafted in the face of reality. After all, a lie based on a truth is far more effective than one made up entirely of whole cloth. The truth—a powerful and dangerous thing—would be kept safely hidden from the general populace and often from the guilds and Orders of the Empire as well when it was in the interests of the Imperial Will.

  The Guardians of the Imperial Family—the Iblisi—were originally charged with this task, and for nearly two millennia they labored tirelessly as Keepers of the Truth and the touchstones of the Imperial Will. The histories were written and rewritten, torn down and written once again to shape the minds of the Rhonas elves to support whatever the current political climate wished to be true in the public heart. Yet through it all, the Iblisi remained the keepers of the true past and the black, violent, and immoral bloody treacheries that were the constant tempo of the real Rhonas histories.

  The Age of Frost, the Age of Mists, the Age of Fire . . . all were chronicled in gory, terrible detail and then buried here; buried for the good of the citizens of every Estate and the welfare of the Imperial Rule.

  Yet unbeknownst to the many guilds, Imperial Orders and ministries of the Empire—even to the Emperor’s own thoughts—was the deepest truth of all: that for many years the Iblisi were not as concerned with safeguarding the past as they were with avoiding destiny.

  The Empire was doomed; the Iblisi alone knew it, and they alone had any hope of preventing it.

  Prevent it, Ch’drei thought as she sat on her throne, at any cost.

  The doors opposite her opened with a terrible booming sound that echoed between the squat pillars of the hall. The Keeper smiled graciously at the figure approaching her with determined, quick strides.

  “Inquisitor Soen,” Ch’drei said through a smile. “How good of you to pay your . . .”

  “Keeper Ch’drei!�
� Soen angrily cut across the Keeper’s words. “Why am I here?”

  The Keeper drew in a breath before she lightly responded. “Why, my very question to you, Inquisitor . . . why are you here?”

  Soen ignored her attempt to blunt his anger. “Three weeks! Three weeks since we returned from the Hyperian Plain and still I’m kept in the Imperial City like some shackled animal!”

  “Hardly shackled! I would have thought you might have taken more time to recover from your journey . . . or at least reacquaint yourself with the pleasures of Rhonas.”

  “You know that the city holds no interest for me. My duty lies in Vestasia—not behind these damp walls.”

  “Of course,” Ch’drei said in purring tones. “But I have only begun to bend the Imperial Will over Murialis and your bolters. It could take weeks more before we can apply any real pressure on . . .”

  “Keeper, we both know that I should have left weeks ago,” Soen interrupted once more. “We cannot be certain that Murialis will hold them at all. I must leave at once. We dare not risk losing them.”

  “Calm yourself,” the Keeper replied. “Haste breeds mistakes, Soen . . . you of all people know that.”

  Soen seemed about to make a sharp reply but hesitated, his face relaxing slightly. “Indeed, you are right, my Keeper, but the circumstances dictate haste. I should not have returned so far as the Imperial City in the first place.”

  “Have a care, Soen,” Ch’drei said with an edge in her voice. “It was I that instructed you to return here.”

  “And in doing so have cost us both not only weeks of delay but the contact with the beacon stones that mark their path,” Soen countered. “I could have been in Vestasia reacquiring them by now if you had . . .”

  “If I had done what—bartered passage for you through the Imperial Folds? And just how would I have done that without giving the Occuran answers about the Provinces or the Myrdin-dai some report on the mess they are still cleaning up on the frontier? They only granted you and your Quorum access last time to find out why they had been made out as fools—they certainly would not have done so again without receiving their payment for your last adventure! You may be a great Inquisitor, Soen, but you know nothing about politics. One day you’ll trip over your tongue once too often, boy, and fall where no amount of craft can save you.”