Bloom of Blood and Bone

by R J Hanson

“Yes,” Silas said undaunted. “Of course! You’re a real, speaking dragon! That’s incredible!”

  “You’re not afraid of what I could do to you with just a breath, just a thought?” Isd’Kislota said.

  “That would be foolish,” Silas said. “You have clearly been trapped here for… I’m guessing now, so don’t hold me to this number… perhaps two thousand three hundred years? No, no, sorry. I didn’t take into account the Founding Years that some Great Men texts speak of. Two thousand eight hundred years. Am I right?”

  “I have slept for many centuries,” the black dragon said. “Time is a tool for the short-lived. Time is…”

  Isd’Kislota paused when Silas ran and made an incredible leap to stand next to his head on the huge black metallic lump. Silas peered out the gaping aperture of the unnatural crevice and laughed.

  “You can see the stars well enough, and I have no doubt you possess an excellent knowledge of the heavens,” Silas said in an excited, almost schoolgirl voice. “You can calculate, I would guess, down to the decade, when you were trapped in here and how long you’ve remained.”

  Silas began his next sentence, but stuttered. He felt the intrusion then, a needle prick in the stone of his mind-room. Curious, Silas sent his mind through the small hole and accessed the black-green landscape that was Isd’Kislota’s mind. Images of a warm bed in his rooms at House Morosse came to him. Silas began to climb toward the great dragon’s mouth. He was very sleepy. Images came to him of his mother, Lady Helena, draping a blanket over a drowsy young Silas. Thoughts of the comfortable couch in his father’s study next to a warm fire…

  Isd’Kislota had made a mistake. Isd’Kislota, who had been intruding minds when Bolvii was a boy, made a mistake. Even in his weakened state, and even given Silas’s remarkable mental faculties, the young physician would have been easy prey for the old drake. The needle prick was only a distraction to draw Silas’s defenses while an odorless and invisible cloud drifted into the mind-room to search Silas’s memories.

  Isd’Kislota’s expertise on this battlefield was unmatched, and he had accessed the memories he would need immediately. There was no time for perusing, for the dragon must act quickly to keep this treasure close and secure in the trap. He accessed home, father, mother, and then inserted them in scenarios virtually guaranteed to have Silas marching into the ancient drake’s mouth.

  Isd’Kislota did not know what horrors Silas had suffered at the hands of his father on that very couch. Even dark Isd’Kislota’s heart could not fathom the disinterest, the absolute lack of empathy, Helena had for her second son. These mistakes shined a light on the trap so jarring that Silas actually physically stumbled to the side.

  “My, that was close,” Silas said out loud as he returned to put his mind-room in order.

  He thought to himself then that he must make it a mind-Keep. He sealed his inner thoughts with conjured lexxmar and set Shezmu on watch.

  “Are you satisfied to remain here thus?” Silas asked. “You would eat me instead of making use of me?”

  The great old dragon sighed heavily, and Silas heard the ragged sounds of a deep wound in that breath.

  “It has been many years since I had anything that wasn’t snake or rat,” Isd’Kislota said. “I am pinned, as you say. To shove the meteorite would cause the upper half of this mountain to shift and fall; this rock would then finish the process of killing me. With my breath, I could melt away great portions of the mountain, but not enough to escape. I would only succeed in suffocating myself with my own caustic fumes.”

  “So, why wait here?”

  “There will be a sorcerer someday,” Isd’Kislota said in his deep and gravelly voice. “There is a gem in the Blue Tower that can heal me; Drakestone is its name. It is tied to us all, although there are not many of my number left. We all know it and where it is at all times. Someday one of their number will seek me out and extract me from this prison. They will no doubt want some service or fealty, but what is a century or two.”

  Silas was surprised to hear the old drake go on, for all he’d read about them indicated they were not given to fits of loquacious behavior. Silas assumed it was likely the loneliness of this remote prison overcoming the initial feelings of hunger in the dragon’s dark heart.

  “This gem, it’s the only thing that can heal you?” Silas asked as the wheels in his mind began to turn.

  “Once, long ago, the gods would have,” Isd’Kislota said as his great eye closed and looked back over thousands of years. “No more. Our decision to remain loyal to our riders cost us the love of the gods.”

  “I have a mistress, a very powerful mistress who knows the Blue Tower and the wizards there,” Silas said. “What would you trade for your freedom?”

  “What would you ask?”

  Chapter XII

  What’s THE Omen?

  The moon shone bone white on the great marble stones of Split Town. This city, like Moras, had been a metropolis serving as a beacon of civilization and law in the times before the Battles of Rending. However, when the gods were so moved to anger, the large city was split in two, the southern half hurled over two hundred leagues south.

  Yet, many of the structures from the original city, Dunewell had no idea what name it bore in the days of its glory, were still serviceable or had been restored to a degree of soundness worthy of a Keep. Dunewell regretted the moniker of Split Town for a city of such an august history.

  Seeing the moonlight on the white stones caused a pang of homesickness to retch in his upper gut. He had spent many years in Tarborat and had never missed his home so keenly as he did at this moment. Perhaps it was knowing what many thought of him there that hurt him so.

  That’s pride, Whitburn thought/said. Be careful of it.

  That statement was the first real evidence of something Dunewell had suspected all along. Champions were not all-knowing and wise. Champions were not free of their own follies and could succumb to emotion just as any man or woman.

  Perhaps in your experience thoughts like that were pride, Dunewell replied in thought. And I don’t dispute that I have sinned my share. But, in this case, it is not pride. I wonder how many in that city lost some measure of hope for their future when they were told I was sought as a criminal. I wonder how many hearts turned from the law, from order, upon hearing the stories of my ‘betrayal.’ I was trained that soldiers watch their commanding officers, much like children do their father, and their own moral codes are molded by that officer’s actions. I bore that responsibility when I put on the Silver Helm. I bore that responsibility when I put on the cloak of an inquisitor. Now, in some measure, I have failed them, and I am ashamed.

  Dunewell felt, actually felt, Whitburn smile.

  You are correct in your assertion that I too committed the sin of pride, Whitburn thought/said. My sins of pride and vanity caused the fall of… Well, many died, and many more were hurt because of my sin. That does not make my assessment wrong, though. You believe you should have been able to stop the corruption of Moras and show the people a victory of good over evil. No doubt that would have been best for all. However, you were but one man, working alone. You assume too much responsibility, and that, in its own way, is pride. I merely caution against it because I know well the danger it poses.

  Dunewell nodded and stepped down the gangplank at Jonas’s prodding. Ivant’s Folly wasn’t a ship known to those of Split Town and thus had no troubles docking with the other reputable vessels.

  Dunewell walked with his hands bound before him with a cloak thrown over the ropes to conceal the fact that he was, or appeared to the crew of Ivant’s Folly, Captain Noon’s hostage.

  “I’ll send a runner with coin once the deal is done,” Jonas said in his Capt’n Noon voice over his shoulder to the crew. “That tricky cheat may try to have me followed, so I’ll make my own way back. If the runner shows with the coin, then know that all is well. Take that coin and get yourselves north to Gallhallad. Don’t go straight back to the island. Sta
y a few days in Gallhallad and resupply. I’ll see you boys back at the island before too long.”

  “Aye, aye, Capt’n,” came from the few crew members who had come above deck to see the pair off.

  Jonas prodded Dunewell down a side street and, when just out of sight from Ivant’s Folly, gestured for him to duck into an alleyway. Jonas produced a dagger to cut through Dunewell’s bonds, but Dunewell twisted his wrists and ripped through the ropes with ease. Jonas nodded and led the way to a large marble chimney that made up the back wall of a nearby kiln-house.

  “I know something of secret passages,” Dunewell said, looking at the back of the chimney. “But, don’t you think putting a Cully Door in the chimney of a kiln-house, fires hot enough to bake bricks, is a little dangerous?”

  “Yes,” Jonas said simply as he pushed and then twisted a deceptively secure stone. “I think it’s so dangerous that no one would look for one here.”

  The stone slid back a slim three feet to reveal a ladder descending down a shaft beneath the kiln-house and street. Jonas gestured to the ladder, and Dunewell stepped down it quickly. Once he reached the bottom, almost twenty feet down, Dunewell looked up, and Jonas dropped their gear down to him.

  Dunewell’s enhanced vision pierced the gloom around him with ease, and he scanned the small room and tunnels carefully. When he was satisfied they were alone, Dunewell took a lantern from a small table nearby and lit it for Jonas’s sake.

  That done, Dunewell took time to look around the small subterranean room and marvel again at Jonas and his network of lies and spies. There was a meal prepared on the table; cold beef, cheese, bread, apples, and a cask of peach cider along with place settings for two.

  There was a leather satchel hanging on the wall. Dunewell recognized the design of it immediately; in fact, he had been trained to do just that. It was of brown leather but had a distinct goat hide top flap of white, marking it as a healer’s bag. It was no doubt stuffed with bandages, at least one pair of scissors, a small flask of burning spirits, and a variety of healing herbs and mushrooms.

  There was a small closet carved into the wall of the marble room, which contained every style of clothing Dunewell was familiar with and many that he was not. There was also a shaving basin, razor, and mirror to the side of it.

  Dunewell also saw, with the use of Whitburn’s capabilities, a host of weapons concealed behind the clothing in the closet and in a false bottom of the small alcove. There were gaudy daggers that only a fop of a lord would wear, and there was a mace with blood and hair of some unfortunate person still clinging to the ridges and knots on its head. There was a rapier of mercshyeld placed next to a notched and punished battle axe of plan iron. There was an assassin’s garrote wound neatly next to a shield identifying the bearer as a King’s Knight.

  “I took the motto, ‘ever prepared, ever ready,’ to heart,” Jonas said from behind Dunewell.

  Dunewell, of course, was very familiar with the motto, for it had been drilled into his head since his youth. No Silver Helm was to walk into a place he did not know how to walk out of; no Silver Helm was to ever be found unprepared. Dunewell thought Jonas might have taken the motto to the extreme, though.

  Jonas handed Dunewell his gear and gestured toward the table holding their supper. Both took their seats and ate in silence. Each man, having been taught to do so by tutors and hardship alike, ate without pleasure and without pause. The sight of a Silver Helm sitting before a meal had unnerved many. The Silver Helm did not take pleasure in dining. The Silver Helm consumed food to maintain health and vigor and for no other reason. The speed and lack of emotion shown during any meal had unsettled many an onlooker.

  “From here?” Dunewell asked as he washed down the last of his food with a long drink of peach cider.

  “I have a place closer to the center of town,” Jonas said. “We’ll get properly cleaned up and squared away there. I can send coin back to Ivant’s Folly from there, and I can send word to the local criminal element about setting up a meeting.”

  “You mean the Shadow Blade that’s running Split Town,” Dunewell clarified.

  “I do,” Jonas said. “It is very likely that we’ll have to kill most of them and then torture the truth out of the few who actually know what’s going on.”

  “I won’t torture anyone,” Dunewell said. “It’s not right, and it’s not reliable.”

  “If it wasn’t reliable, I wouldn’t use it,” Jonas said. “I assure you; it is quite reliable when I do it.”

  “Let me be clear,” Dunewell said with an edge developing in his voice. “I will not allow anyone to be tortured.”

  Jonas looked Dunewell over again, making no attempt to disguise the fact that he was sizing him up.

  “No man, champion, or god will dictate terms to me,” Jonas said coldly. “I would throw out or kill any other man that said that to me at this juncture.”

  “Lord Jonas, for I believe you worthy of the title whether you wear it or not, you are a uniquely dangerous man,” Dunewell said. “Having said that, you cannot throw out or kill me.”

  A shadow of hazardous rage passed over Jonas’s face. Dunewell, for just a moment, thought Jonas might, at the very least, give it a try.

  “We’ll see how it shakes out,” Jonas said as reason overcame a frightening bloodlust that faded from his eyes.

  Dunewell could clearly see the calm come to Jonas’s face, but that did not ease his concern. Dunewell had not observed Jonas travel from rage to reason. The transformation Dunewell had witnessed was from an angry man threatening murder to a rational man planning one.

  “We’ll see,” Jonas said again as he took up the lantern and began down the tunnel leading, as near as Dunewell could tell, to the northwest.

  “Shouldn’t we outfit ourselves here before we go?” Dunewell asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “This is just an emergency stash,” Jonas said. “We’ll find everything we’ll need at the other location.”

  With that, Jonas turned again to face down the tunnel and proceeded quickly away. Dunewell made a mental note to himself, for a man of his size, Jonas moved with almost complete silence through the dark.

  Thirty paces in, Jonas came to a stone wall that brought the only tunnel leading from the chimney to a complete halt. Jonas put his ear to the dead end and listened for several long moments. After a few moments of silence, Dunewell watched closely as Jonas manipulated a few key stones in the wall causing it to slide away almost without a sound.

  Dunewell, no stranger to underground travels given his time in the tunnels of Tarborat and in the channels of Moras, kept his bearings well. However, he quickly became lost in the twisting passageways of Split Town’s substructures. He still had a sense of true north, but retracing his steps would be almost impossible.

  After almost half an hour of walking, which had all been done at a brisk and constant pace, Jonas came to a halt at the foot of a ladder. Dunewell examined it, but it looked no different to him than any of the other two or three dozen they had passed along the way. Jonas looked in every direction around them, ensuring they were alone and unobserved. Then Jonas reached down and twisted the second from the bottom rung of the ladder, first to the left then to the right. Dunewell heard a Cully Door pop open and saw the wall behind them turned into another passageway. Jonas led them through, and Dunewell pushed the door closed behind them.

  This short, narrow hallway led to another ladder that Jonas took without hesitation. Dunewell followed Jonas up the ladder and emerged into the interior of a small room crowded with clothing. Upon exiting the small space, Dunewell saw that it was actually a large wardrobe that appeared to be free-standing, although obviously, it was not. Around him, Dunewell saw a lushly furnished office. Dunewell noted two large desks, one covered with maps, several bookshelves with several dozen accounting ledgers, two silk covered couches, several heavily cushioned chairs, a large potbellied stove, a copper bathing tub with a pump handle and spout mounted to it, and a variet
y of surveying equipment.

  Dunewell, using his second sight, also noticed an armory hidden within the walls and floor of this office that put the one in Blackstone Hall to shame. There were weapons from every culture and of every type arrayed within, most of which were enchanted. There was also a variety of armor concealed in this office, most of which bore the crests of different lords, ladies, churches, or regions of kingsmen.

  “The church would have you killed if they knew you were dressing up as one of their paladins,” Dunewell said, gesturing toward one of the suits of armor hidden in the floor.

  “Most in the church couldn’t count their bullocks and get the same number twice,” Jonas said as he removed the smelly rages of Capt’n Noon. “Bath and get some rest. I have a few arrangements to make, and I’ll get some sleep myself.”

  Dunewell eyed Jonas carefully.

  “I wouldn’t have burdened myself with your self-righteousness for all this time if I didn’t want you in the room when this happens,” Jonas said. “There are a few things you and I clearly do not agree upon, but you may give me an edge that I think I may need. Just remember, if we encounter Slythorne, you must act quickly to keep him from fleeing.”

  “So, we are on the same side once again?” Dunewell asked.

  “No,” Jonas said flatly. “We were never ‘on the same side.’ I am the only one on my side. You have your priorities and your oaths you must serve. For the time being, those pursuits also serve my needs.”

  “And the torture you’d planned for?”

  “If I believe it is needed, I will do it, and you will not be able to stop me,” Jonas said in that same dead tone. Jonas turned to walk out, stopped, and said over his shoulder, “and, since we’re being so honest with one another, be wary of the doors and windows. They are lined with lexxmar. I’m not sure what effect it would have on your champion friend but best not to tempt Fate.”

  Dunewell looked again with his enhanced sight and noticed the shadows around the door and windows. He saw it before, but it didn’t register then as possibly dangerous.