by Arthur Slade
“A reply?”
“Do you have a reply?” it said again. “Speak the reply now.”
“It wants you to say something back,” Brax said. “So if you have any words for that dunderhead of a Wodenite, now would be the time to speak them.”
“Right now?” I asked.
“Yes. The spell bird is in front of you. They must have found a spell caster of small skill. Send back a message.”
“Who’s Thord?” Dyn asked.
“A friend,” I said. “A classmate. Someone I know.”
“Do you have a reply?” Irritation was clear in the sparrow’s voice. “Or do I have to sit on your shoulder all day?”
“Eat the bird,” Brax said. “Just eat it.”
It honestly looked like it would try to peck out Brax's remaining eye. “I—I have a reply,” I said. “Here it is. Are you listening?”
“Yes. Speak now.”
“Uh. Hi, Thord, it was good to hear your voice.” Both Brax and Dyn were staring at me, hearing every word. No privacy. Well, it wasn’t like I was going to whisper sweet nothings to Thord. Not in front of these two. Not ever! “That is… um… bad news about the emperor. And I hope your family found shelter. Thanks for asking about me but I am safe.” I wasn’t quite certain, under the shadow of Dreki, that my statement was true. “Right now, I am safe. And far away from the war. And from Ellos. And I hope you and Megan can stay safe, too. I miss… uh… I miss you um… two. Hope to talk someday soon. Brax says hi. Um, goodbye.”
“I didn’t say hi,” Brax snorted. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“You didn’t mention me,” Dyn added.
I had no idea what to say to either of them.
“Is that the end of your message?” the sparrow asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Am I released to return this message?”
“Yes, Yes, please.”
The sparrow dipped its head in a bow, then glared at Brax and tweeted about six short angry tweets that I assumed were swears and took to the air, disappearing into the smoke and ash around us.
“What an impertinent little dung ball with wings.” Brax puffed out a bit of smoke with his words. “I hope an owl makes a slow meal of it.”
“You know what it said?” I asked.
“Of course,” he answered. “I’ve hated those things ever since one led me to the cave where you found me.” I’d forgotten that little detail. “But I guess it’s not the bird’s fault. They still have inflated egos for such tiny flyers.”
I decided it was best not to make any comments about inflated egos. “But war has started. My friends are in danger.”
“War always comes to you mortals. It’s your greatest hobby. Your greatest entertainment. So one more war is nothing new.”
“But Thord and Megan are both in great danger now,” I added.
“No, they aren’t,” Brax said. “I disagree entirely.”
“And why would you say that?”
“If the emperor is concentrating on killing all the Wodenites and in turn taking the other kingdoms, then he won’t have time to hunt your friends. He doesn’t have your brother anymore, so dredging up assassins is even harder and his resources are too thin. This is the best result for your friends. Chaos is a lovely cloak.”
“That sounded almost poetic," I said. "Did you just make that saying up?”
“Actually, I read it in Bartum's Revenge. The same book you hit me with and dropped into the ocean. You’d know that line if you hadn’t done that. Anyway, you need not worry about your friends. They will survive. They’ll only be threatened if Emperor Sargon defeats all the realms. Then they’ll have no place to hide.”
“I should be there," I said." With them.”
“But you’re not. You have an oath and a job here. They are…. Well, not grown-ups… but they can take care of themselves. It is time for you to take care of me and to fulfill your oath. Come now, we’ve dallied enough.”
And before I could say another word he charged ahead down the path. Dyn and I followed.
15
A Word of Power
The smoke and ash thickened so it was coating my arms, legs, face and drifting in my hair like soft stifling snowflakes. Dyn struggled to walk and was turning a mottled gray, but somehow managed to keep pace. Above us the sun, made dull by the ash, cast light on us and our path, but I was certain there would be no way for anyone to spot three shadows through this smoky landscape.
Dyn let out a long, ragged and bubbly cough and though he tried to suppress it with his hands, it echoed.
“Tell him to stop coughing or I’ll kill him,” Brax said.
All I could see was the tip of his tail, but his gruff voice carried well enough. I didn't even try to pretend he was kidding. The closer we came to Dreki the more his anger surfaced. I could only imagine which memories were coming up for him.
That is, I could only imagine them because he hadn’t told me.
“You aren’t coughing,” Dyn said. He held a gray and wet handkerchief over his mouth.
“No,” I said. “I don’t know why.” I guessed it had something to do with my eye and Brax’s blood and whatever was in my body. Because my human eye was watering, but my dragon eye saw through the smoke.
A large shape emerged in the distance, blocking out the sun. As we moved toward it, the shape grew clearer. We were approaching a small cliffside. The heat was getting to me. Dyn had admirably stifled his coughs, but did so by intermittently holding his breath, which caused him to stumble.
I caught him, slipped a hand over his shoulder and helped him walk until we reached the blank wall of rock.
A smooth cliff face towered above us, with only a small ledge about thirty feet up.
“This looks like a dead end,” I said. “Unless you expect us to climb that.”
“There will be no climbing,” Brax said. He placed one of his palms on the cliff face and spoke a word I didn’t recognize. Perhaps it was from some tongue that only the dragons knew. The sound of the word made me shiver. Was it a language older than Oldtongue itself?
He danced back as if he expected something to happen, but nothing did. He put the same hand on the rock wall, added his other and repeated the word. Again, a chill went down my spine. But nothing else happened.
Brax drew in an angry breath, made fists with his hands, then pulled back his arm, looking like he was about to rake the mountain with his talons.
“You die now,” a voice said above us. “You die now, banished one.”
Sitting on the shelf of rock, having just landed there, were three ravens—though to call them ravens was perhaps misleading, because they were the size of large dogs. One of them could have easily carried Dyn or me away.
“No, I won’t,” Brax said, and without another word he let out a blast of fire that caught two of the ravens, immolating them in a heartbeat. They only had time to let out caws of pain and anger, then thudded to the ground.
The third raven had flung himself off the rock face and looped up into the air. In moments he was gone.
“The raven will carry his message to Dreki and all hellfire will be upon us,” Brax said. “Of course, I missed because my aim is off.” I knew he'd aimed this last verbal barb at me. “We have to get inside now or all is lost before we’ve even begun.”
“There’s a door here?” I asked. I let Dyn stand on his own. “Is that why you keep saying that word?”
“Yes, but it no longer opens to the word key. It is an ancient door.”
He spoke the word again and an outline appeared, cracking parts of the stone away.
“Yes,” Brax said. “Yes, it is working.”
But before the door became fully outlined, the glowing gold retreated and there was only stone. “No!" Brax shouted. "I have used this door since my youth. It has to work.”
He banged his talons against the wall, cracking stone, but the cliff face didn’t budge. He hit it with his other hand. Again and again. “No! No! I must get
in.”
“Brax,” I whispered. “Brax, let me try.” Then a little louder. “Stand back and let me try.”
“You? You?” He glared down at me and I tensed, because he’d drawn back his arm as if he intended to eviscerate me.
“Yes, me,” I said more courageously than I felt, and one part of my mind was asking, Are you stupid? Carmen. You’re being stupid. But some brave, tiny part said, “Me.”
He swept his talons in my direction but at the last moment made them curve, and he put his hand to his chest and treated me to a mocking bow. “Go ahead, little girl, just remember that in moments winged death will be here.” He stepped back.
I moved closer and, pretending I knew what I was doing, placed both hands on the wall. My vast list of magic words was only one word long, and it didn’t always work, but I knew it was a very ancient word.
“Enderos,” I whispered. The stone didn’t crack. The lines didn’t show. “Enderos,” I said again.
“It’s not the right word, Carmen Crow,” Brax spat. “You have failed. Step aside.”
But I didn’t step aside. I pressed harder and this time when I said the word, I thought of how the outlines had appeared. “Enderos." My dragon eye flashed with white light.
Bit by bit the lines appeared in the stone again. I didn’t move a hand, I didn’t take a breath, I just willed all that was inside me into that word, into the purpose of the word. The purpose was to open. To enter.
The lines connected and formed a door.
And quietly, without much fuss at all, the door opened.
I brushed off my hands. “I will accept your apology now.”
But I didn’t need one. The look of wonder and surprise on Brax’s face was apology enough.
16
A Need to Know
The moment we stepped into the opening, the door closed behind us, shutting off the outside light. But the walls of the tunnel themselves glowed with some ancient magic luminescence. No, to call it a tunnel was an insult, because the walls were straight and the ceiling flat. It was a hallway. Somehow the rock had been chipped until it was smooth. The passage was wide and we fit easily. They had designed the place for larger dragons. Brax was moving with urgency now, and both Dyn and I hurried to keep up.
"This rock, this construction, how could rock be made so smooth?" I asked.
"Again you are shocked by our architecture," Brax said. "But we are not simple dragons. These walls were cut by diamond-tipped talons, the rock made smooth by the flames of Crimson dragons. The ancient ones were particular about perfection, at least when it came to hallways, rooms and other structures."
"But it's magnificent. So—"
"Enough, Carmen. I don't have time to give you an architectural tour. Just try to keep up." With that, he went even faster, his talons clacking on the stone floor. I was soon sweating and it seemed the hallway would never end.
“They will not know which way I go,” Brax said and before I could question what he meant because the tunnel only went one way, it opened up into a great chamber with hallways leading in several directions. “They will not expect me to go where I go,” he added, choosing a hallway that angled down.
Dyn and I followed him. This corridor was small enough that Brax’s wings rubbed along the walls. We continued in silence for several minutes.
"I am still amazed you could open that door," Brax said. "Did your brother also have an affinity with magic?"
"Not that he ever told me about. And I don't really know magic. It seemed like the right word."
"What you did there was natural. It was instinct. Where did you get that word again?"
"From a book in the Red Assassin Library," I answered.
"And you read the word in a book and now can use it to open locks and doors? A thousand people could read that same passage, and none could use a magical word. And you do it naturally."
"I got lucky," I said.
"No. Magic isn't luck," he answered. "It feels like luck. It's in your blood and maybe, maybe somehow that explains why these dragony changes are happening to you. At least partly explains it. You'll have time to figure that out. Your work will soon be done and you will be free of me.”
“But I swore a year of servitude,” I said.
“I was just being mean when I added that to our contract. It won’t be necessary. I don’t keep slaves. I’ve always found that an abominable practice. No. Our contract will be finished.”
Not only were we going into the half light of this passage, which was darker than the others, but I continued to stumble in my own darkness about what he had planned for me. I steeled myself for a blast of sarcasm or fire before I asked, "Did you kill your sister?”
“Who told you that?”
“Dyn may have mentioned it as a rumor." I glanced to see he was far enough back to not hear me. "He said that is why you were banished.”
“I should eat him for spreading that story,” Brax said.
Dyn thankfully didn't hear that last bit either. “But why were you banished?” I asked. “I want to understand what has happened, why we are going… well, I don’t know exactly where we’re going. Or even what my task is.”
“To kill someone. You promised that, right?”
“Yes, I did,” I answered.
“And your word is your bond?”
“Yes, but that doesn’t mean I want to be blindly stabbing people Or... or things.”
Brax grew colder. “You will know what you need to know when you need to know it.”
It took me some time to decipher what he’d just said. “But I need to know now. You at least could answer my question.”
Brax sighed. “Yes, I killed her,” he said. “I killed my sister. But it was an accident. She… she was not meant to die.”
“What happened? I thought you killed a dragon prince.” The scar across his snout was clear even in this light. I remembered it came from that battle.
“Yes. But I killed two dragons that day.”
“Which dragons?”
“You are persistent, Carmen. Here, even at the end. Always persistent and poking at the wound.”
I had moved even closer to him so that I nearly rubbed against the side of the hallway. “I am not poking at a wound. I am uncovering the truth. Persistence is a positive attribute.”
“Fine, I will explain as quickly as I can.” He hadn’t stopped moving along the tunnel, and I had to continue to rush to be near enough to hear his words. "My father is the king of all dragons. He is still king. I am his eldest and before these events I was destined to inherit his throne. My sister’s name was Brenna. She was younger than me and she will always be younger than me. My father is, well, he’s a king and he has had a lifetime of making agreements, of bonding dragons and the various clans to him. And he promised my sister’s hand to the eldest heir of another line of Scythians named the Horda. It was a good match that bonded that line of Scythians to us, and Jaron was an intelligent and respected dragon. But he died in a clan battle. My sister mourned. Months passed and then one day at court, Jaron’s brother, Crux, demanded her hand in marriage. To keep the promise to the family. And…” Brax snorted. “And my father agreed.
“But I did not agree. I—I let emotion take hold of my thoughts. This was my sister. And I did not want her to waste her life with an unthinking snake. The thing is, she could fight her own battles but I… I was younger then. I was hotheaded. I challenged him to a blood duel. If he won, he would have her hand and my place in the hierarchy.
“He lost. It was a horrible battle though. And there were many wounds. Crux was a very, very powerful dragon. And, just as I was about to deal the death blow, my sister came in to stop me.
“But I was in a battle rage. I didn’t see her. I thought, I thought I was striking him. But I struck her and she died right there beside him. He died moments later, but not before laughing at me.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Yes, oh. That about sums it up. My father should have killed me.
He should have had me tried and trussed and eviscerated and fed to ravens or jackals. But he did something worse. He banished me and let me live with those memories.”
“Was he trying to be kind?” I said. “He’d just seen his daughter die. Perhaps he didn’t want to lose his son.”
“You don’t know my father,” he said. “He had her body encased in stone. Her soul stone placed in a locket.” I was about to ask what this meant, but Brax explained: “It is an ancient ritual of grief. And then he banished me. But that is not your concern. That is why we have returned.”
“But…” I went through my list of who his enemies were. There was only one reason to return. “You want to kill your father and take the throne?”
Brax let out a low laugh that echoed through the cavern. “You don’t know me at all, Carmen. After all the hours we’ve spent together, the conversations we’ve had, you still don't understand who I am. I would never want to be king. And my father, as much as we disagree on many matters, I would never kill him.”
“Then who is my target?” I asked. “Why am I here?”
“I have been planning this for a long time. I will tell you when it’s necessary. Now, my little assassin, keep your nose and your ears and eyes sharp.” As he said this, the hall opened into a larger chamber. “Anything can happen now.”
“Wise words,” a voice said. “You were always one for wise words. You’ll most likely die with them on your lips.”
I pulled up short along with Brax beside me.
The voice was coming from a nearby dragon.
17
An Inopportune Time
A Scythian dragon was leaning against the wall, in a calm, cavalier pose. As if it were an everyday occurrence to have another dragon and two humans marching down an underground passage.
“Kon,” Brax said. “Brother dearest.”
The moment he said that, the resemblance became clear. The dragon looked so much like Brax that it was disconcerting, though he was smaller and younger and had a sly sense of movement to him. I couldn’t discern whether the “dearest” part had been said with sarcasm.
