Warrior

by Bryan Davis

  But she couldn’t. And the girl in the flames kept smiling that stupid smile. The real Koren’s legs stayed put. The dragon who had stripped away every façade continued drilling his blue stare into her eyes.

  She clenched her fists. Oh, to be free of this dragon’s influence! To go back to Madam Orley and just be Koren, a simple slave girl who hauled olive oil and honeycombs for Arxad. She was happier then—as ignorant as a prancing lamb in the hills, but happier.

  Taushin’s voice returned, still calm, still soothing. “The battle is over, Koren, and you are mine. Fret not. As you exercise your gifts, you will grow stronger and more confident. I will have need of no one else.”

  The blue light faded. The drilling force drew back. As the flames subsided, her passion did, as well.

  Koren took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. That was better. The awful feelings had gone away, at least for now. Yet was this quick sense of relief more of a curse than a blessing? Had she become so much of a slave that her shame of captivity was too easily lost?

  Finally able to move, she took a step closer to him. Her legs wobbled, but not too badly. “So … is the attachment complete?”

  Taushin hesitated for a moment. “Complete enough for my purposes at this time.”

  “You said you won’t need anyone else. What about Zena?”

  “Do you think she is absent for no reason?” He laughed gently. “No, my Starlighter. You will take her place at my side. She has served our interests for a very long time, but she is old and nearly blind. She is no longer of use to us.”

  “But —”

  “You need not worry about her. Her allegiance will triumph, and she will bow out with grace and honor. You will see.”

  “Speaking of seeing …” Koren cast her gaze upon the doorway. “Can you see through me now?”

  “It is a glorious sense, my Starlighter. I see the room’s exit, but it is rather dark in comparison to the fire you were looking at moments ago.”

  Koren nodded. “You are learning about lighting differences quickly. It must be difficult taking in all this new information.”

  “Difficult? No. Delightful. And I will be able to see through your eyes no matter where you go. This is a union that I will never want to dissolve.”

  His words tightened her throat. Never want to dissolve. At first it sounded awful. But why? So far, being the new king’s eyes wasn’t too bad. Maybe they could set the slaves free after all. It wouldn’t be the worst situation—to rule a free world alongside the king of the dragons, assuming he was as good and noble as he claimed to be.

  As her own thoughts sank in, the chained girl flamed again in her mind. Koren shook her head hard. No! Stop thinking like that! He’s a monster! Evil! Hang on to what you know to be true! Don’t let his mind influence you!

  “We are here.” Above, at the railing, Zena looked on with Petra at her side. Although the fourteen-year-old slave stood almost as tall as Zena’s shoulder, Zena fawned over her as she might a little girl or a cat, petting her hair with long strokes.

  “Excellent,” Taushin said. “Will you be able to fit her for a cloak?”

  “I can have one ready soon.”

  Forcing herself to smile, Koren waved at Petra. With both arms pressed against her sides, Petra lifted a hand and offered a weak wave in return, but her face contorted with terror. Wearing her long work smock and tunic, she trembled and flinched with every touch of Zena’s hand.

  “Take Koren and prepare them both for the invocation,” Taushin said. “I want them to be clean, groomed, and cloaked in Starlighter splendor.”

  “Will you have Koren climb the bell rope?” Zena asked. “Or are you strong enough to fly her up here?”

  “Take her through the legacy passage.”

  Zena stared openmouthed for a brief moment. “The legacy passage?”

  “She is one of us now. There is no need to hide anything from her.”

  “I will be down in a moment.” Zena and Petra walked away from the railing and out of sight.

  Koren looked at Taushin. With his neck extended as he returned her gaze, he seemed to be more mature now, even handsome as dragons go. His scales reflected the firelight, making the black surfaces shimmer like obsidian crystals. His snout displayed smooth lines without a hint of imperfection, giving him an air of nobility. Was he growing at a faster rate than other young dragons? Could that be part of the prophecy?

  A door opened at the back of the theater’s stage area. Zena appeared, hand in hand with Petra. “Come,” Zena called. “There is a stairway here.”

  Petra broke free and ran toward Koren.

  “Stop!” Zena ordered.

  Petra halted at the center of the stage, wavering back and forth between Koren and Zena. Her face twisted into a mournful expression.

  “Let her come,” Taushin said. “She is under Koren’s authority now.”

  Petra dashed ahead and ran into Koren’s arms. As the younger girl wept, Koren—nearly nose to nose with her—ran her fingers through her hair. “Shhh. It’s okay. You’re with me now.” She took Petra’s hand. “Taushin has given you to me. You’re no longer a slave. You have been set free.”

  Clutching Koren’s hand tightly, Petra’s lips moved from a smile to a frown, then back to a smile. Her blend of disbelief and joy was clear. How could a dragon, a member of the same species that had cut out her tongue, be the one who would set her free?

  They walked together and met Zena at the door, a panel without a knob or visible hinges. Oddly enough, it was too small for any dragon, except maybe a youngling like Taushin. Why would they have such a passage in the Basilica?

  When they entered, Zena picked up a lantern and pulled the door closed behind them with an attached rope. The passage, not quite wide enough for two to walk abreast, led straight ahead for about twenty paces before reaching a steep staircase leading upward.

  As they approached the stairs, the lantern’s light flickered on the walls’ rectangular blocks, revealing crumbling mortar and faded paint of indiscernible hue. Dark lanterns sat atop iron rods embedded in the joints, spaced apart by about three steps. A hint of rust colored the lanterns and rods. Apparently moisture had once visited this passage. But where could it have come from? It certainly seemed dry now.

  When they reached the stairs, Zena stopped and turned. “Take care. The steps are old and fragile. If you slip, you will likely fall.”

  She began climbing the stairs, raising and lowering her long legs slowly and gracefully. Petra followed and Koren trailed. With the lantern now shaded by Zena’s body, the steps were too dark to study, but the evidence was all too clear. This was obviously a human passage, and it was old, very old.

  She let her mind drift back to when she first tried to enter the Basilica. A cornerstone gave the date of construction: Starlight—2465. More than five hundred years ago. This passage had likely been here at that time, predating Jason’s story about when humans arrived on Starlight. Had he lied? Was he simply wrong?

  After about fifty steps, Zena pushed a door that opened into a square room with a low ceiling and only about four paces’ distance from wall to wall, again too small for dragons. When Koren and Petra entered the new room, Zena pushed the door closed, this time using a knob. “These are my quarters. I do not know yet where Taushin will provide lodging for you, but for now you will wash and dress here. I will arrange for meals a little later.”

  Zena reached into a shallow alcove and began searching through a pile of material on a shelf. “While the two of you groom yourselves, I will make a cloak for Petra.”

  Koren spied a basin, pitcher, and sponge on a small table in one corner. “Come, Petra. You wash first so you can be fitted for your cloak.”

  While Petra stripped off her clothes, Koren turned away. How strange this all seemed. With Taushin able to see through her eyes, she had to be careful about what she looked at. Of course humans were little more than beasts in dragons’ eyes, so the sight of an undressed slave meant nothing to
them. Still, it seemed appropriate to secure Petra’s privacy.

  A small table stood against one wall, supporting a glass sphere on a wooden base, three stubby candles, a mortar and pestle with crushed brown fragments within, and a porcelain dragon statuette with a long tail and shining blue eyes—probably Zena’s sorcery table.

  As Zena knelt, measuring a section of linen material with a long tape, Koren stepped closer. “May I help you? I can sew.”

  Zena looked up. A frown slowly transformed into a hint of a smile, making her appearance less ghastly than usual. “Why, yes, you may. I have to cut this sheet according to the pattern and sew the pieces together, so an extra set of hands will shorten the effort.” She returned to her work, her hands feeling for the edge of the material. “And a better set of eyes.”

  Koren knelt on the opposite side of the sheet. Zena’s comment seemed melancholy rather than spiteful. In fact, she appeared to be sad, resigned to the fact that her position of service was being usurped.

  As Zena pressed her finger on the tape, she leaned over, her nose within inches of the material. Koren touched her shoulder. “I’ll read the measurement for you.”

  Zena looked up and smiled again, this time even more pleasantly. “Very well. We will divide the work according to your eyesight and my experience.” Her dark eyes sparkled, a gleam Koren hadn’t seen before. “Perhaps I misjudged you, Starlighter. You are not at all like Cassabrie. I think you will be an excellent servant for the king.”

  As Koren bent to read the tape, Zena’s words sank in. They sounded like a gong—lovely in one sense, deep, clear, and penetrating, yet making her heart vibrate painfully. Was Zena mocking her? Or were her kind words a real expression of love? Either way, the statement clawed at Koren’s senses. Did she really want to be an “excellent” servant for the king? Maybe. Maybe not. Koren whispered the measurement, then added, “Perhaps I misjudged you as well.”

  A shout erupted behind Elyssa. “I see dragons!”

  The stall vanished. Elyssa spun toward Wallace, who had closed the book and was now pointing at the sky. “It’s a dragon patrol, and it’s coming this way!”

  “Can’t we hide in the trees?” she asked.

  “This part of the forest isn’t dense enough.” He scooped up the book and waved. “Come on!”

  As he jogged along a path that led deeper into the forest, Elyssa followed, dizzy from the sphere’s influence. It seemed that two boys led the way, each one carrying the old book, and they both staggered, apparently also affected.

  She closed her hand over the sphere and tried to focus, to join the two Wallaces into one. She would have to stop soon or else stumble and be caught out in the open.

  After a few more seconds, Wallace turned left and ducked into a thicket, disappearing in the midst of leafy branches and brambles. Elyssa stopped and looked up through the gaps in the canopy. From the direction they had come, two dragons flew toward her, each one carrying something snakelike and sparkling in its claws.

  Strong fingers grabbed her arm and jerked her away from the path. She stumbled into the bushes, landing on her hands and knees. Her fist held tight to the sphere, though the radiance continued to leak out. Wallace pushed fallen leaves over her hand, dousing the glow, and let out a long, quiet, “Shhh …”

  A sizzling noise, punctuated by pops and snaps, shot in from the path. Wallace flattened himself on the ground and hissed, “Stay down and don’t move a muscle! Don’t even breathe!”

  Elyssa turned toward the sizzle and dropped to her belly. A serpentine line of shimmering orange light slithered toward her. About three feet long and two inches thick, it avoided various roots and branches as if alive and aware, though it possessed no scales, darting tongue, or any other reptilian feature.

  Holding her breath, Elyssa steeled her body but kept her head up, still watching. The snake slid over her concealed hand and paused, as if sniffing her skin. She glanced at Wallace, who was lying on his back. A second serpent crawled over his face, covering his eye and nose as it continued a slow squirm down his chin and toward his chest.

  Elyssa’s serpent glided up her arm toward her shoulder. Its touch burned for a moment, then itched. When it reached her neck, it pushed under her collar and inched its way down her back. Every skin cell it touched set off an alarm. She needed to scratch … now!

  She bit her lip hard. Just concentrate. Focus on the creature, not the itch.

  Closing her eyes, she probed for the serpent’s mind. Did it even have one? Just as it began to slide out at her hip, she detected a weak signal—a simple, single-tracked purpose, like a call to anyone who looked upon it. Fear me. Hate me. Kill me.

  So that was it. These serpents didn’t detect movement, as Wallace had thought. They were sent to be killed. She reached back, grasped the snake by its neck, and held it aloft in front of her, looking straight at its blinking head. Still unable to locate any eyes, she continued to probe its mind, what little of it she could find. Its signal did nothing more than indicate its presence, but a dragon might be able to detect it.

  After lowering it gently to the ground, she uncovered her fist, rose to her feet, and looked at the sky while scratching the unrelenting itches. Barely visible through the gaps above, a single dragon flew away from the area, apparently unaware of their presence.

  “We’re safe,” she said.

  Wallace threw the snake to the side and jumped to his feet. “The itch was driving me crazy!” He raised a foot to stomp the snake, but Elyssa pulled him back.

  “No. That’s what they want.” Elyssa nudged one of the serpents with her shoe until it slithered into the bushes. Its sizzle had died away, and its skin had paled, allowing its features to clarify. Now it appeared to be a typical snake. “If you kill it,” she said, “the dragons will come back.”

  “Is that a good guess or another Diviner’s trick?”

  “Not a trick or a guess. It’s a deduction.” She eyed the snake’s trail. A few particles of sand glowed in the shallow rut it had left behind. “What were those snakes coated with?”

  “The only thing I can think of would be mazerum.”

  “Wait a minute.” Elyssa wagged her head. The dizziness had returned, and the look in Wallace’s eye proved that he was losing his grip on reality. She gestured for him to follow, walked to a thick bush, and sat down, nestling close to the foliage. When Wallace settled next to her, she held her open hand over her fist. “Okay. What’s mazerum?”

  “It’s a glowing dye,” he said. “Once in a while, the miners find it while they’re drilling, and we use it for working in the dark until it stops glowing.” He cocked his head. “I saw you holding that snake. It looked like you were talking to it.”

  “Not really. It was more like reading its simple little mind. I think it was signaling the dragons. If you had killed one, the dragons would have known.”

  “Got it. Makes sense.” He set the book on his lap and rubbed a finger across the cover. “I think our next step should be to go to the cattle camp.”

  “My mind feels drained. Do you have a plan?”

  “Maybe. You see, there’s a rumor going around that someone made a refuge in the wilderness for escaped cattle children. If that’s true, it means the dragons have a hole in their security. I already knew it was possible to escape from the cattle camp. Not over the wall, though. Most of the children can’t climb the thorny vines that cover them. There’s another way, and Koren and I used it lots of times, but we always had to go back, because we didn’t have a choice.”

  “Why not?”

  Wallace shrugged. “There just wasn’t anywhere else to go. If we stayed out, we would have gotten caught and killed.”

  “If escapees made it to the wilderness, would the dragons search for them there?”

  Wallace shook his head. “The dragons use the camp to cull the herd, so they don’t mind slaughtering the few who try to escape. If one or two get lost in the wilderness, the dragons probably think they’ll just starve or be eat
en by beasts.”

  “The sphere’s glow hypnotizes dragons,” Elyssa said, nodding at her fist, “so we have a great weapon. Since we have no idea where Jason is, and we have some idea where the refuge is, we should aim for the better target. If we go to the camp, we can get as many children out as possible, and then search for a place to hide them.”

  “It’s not as easy as it sounds. We can’t strut into the camp and point a glowing marble at a dragon like it’s a spear. We might outwit a drone, but the guardian dragons will burn us to a crisp before we get close.”

  “Okay, you’re throwing a blanket over your own idea. Did you have something else in mind?”

  “Not really. I was just pointing out the dangers. I’m willing to try it, no matter what.”

  Smiling, Elyssa gave him a light punch on the arm. “The hero’s heart. I love it.”

  His brow lifted. “Then you’re willing to risk it?”

  “Just lead the way, warrior.” She tapped a finger on the book. “Do you think you can find a place to store this before we go?”

  “Probably. I wish we could see more of what it has to say, though.”

  “It takes too long, and we have no idea if it’s going to show us anything useful.” With Wallace’s help, she climbed to her feet, still a bit wobbly. “Let’s see what we can do at the cattle camp, and then … the wilderness.”

  twelve

  Koren stood near the front of the Zodiac’s portico, facing the street — Zena on one side and Petra on the other. As she looked at Zena in her usual black, form-fitting dress, herself in her dark blue Starlighter’s cloak with the hood pulled up, and Petra in a similar cloak, yet without the embroidered eyes, Koren felt a stab of dread. Their appearance probably incited many silent judgments from the lines of slaves filing into the outer courtyard, especially considering Koren’s new garments.

  She glanced at the sleeve of the dress Zena had provided, similar in cut and form to the old one, but black instead of white. It was also shorter, falling to her knees, just long enough to cover her short trousers underneath. With her lower legs exposed in front, her new black boots, lifted by a platform heel and laced in the back, rose to mid calf for all to see.