When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Aradma shifted her awareness away from the faerie soul-sight. As she did, she caught a glimpse of that divine golden light she saw in priestly magic. She did not know why no one else could see it—not even wizards, druids, or other seelie—and she didn’t know what it meant.

  She always found it around divine magic, both in those whom she considered good and evil. The first time had been when she invoked, and then rebelled against, a vision of Soorleyn the Moon Goddess, nine years ago on the island of Vemnai. Rajamin had postulated that the vision might have been demonic, but Aradma saw no difference in the gold light between the Vemnai’s unbalanced worship of Soorleyn and Rin, and the magic of Rajamin and the balanced pantheon of the Light. This was the first time, however, that she had observed it on something unquestionably demonic. The gold light wrapped around Anuit and then connected in a line to her servitors. It expanded through each demon, forming a polygonal lattice of matrixed light, almost as if the demon’s bodies were constructed of the subtle substance. Then it faded again as Aradma returned to normal consciousness.

  Arda and Anuit were finishing their grapes.

  “What are you doing here?” Aradma asked.

  “We came to find Kaldor,” Arda said.

  “Me as well,” the druid replied. “He’s no longer here, is he?”

  “He left a note,” Arda said. “He’s gone south to Surafel.”

  “Then we must follow,” Aradma replied.

  Anuit frowned.

  “I intend to,” Arda affirmed.

  “I must warn you,” Aradma said. “Valkrage went mad.”

  “What do you mean?” Anuit asked.

  “When the Shadowlord slew Klrain, he channeled so much power that he broke the very mountains. He destroyed the Black Dragon and everything else around him. Eldrikura’s and Archurion’s bodies were in those mountains, and they perished. I have seen the charred bones of Klrain, Archurion, and Eldrikura. Valkrage was an elf, but he had been possessed by Eldrikura’s spirit. When her body finally died, the last spark of her being within him died, too. His personality disintegrated, and he started using his magic to destroy Artalon. We had to kill him.”

  Arda frowned.

  Anuit shook her head. “That’s disturbing. As if it couldn’t get worse.”

  “I know it’s hard to hear this,” Aradma said, “but we have to find Kaldor. If he’s going mad, then he will be just as dangerous, and we cannot allow that.”

  “That’s not right,” Anuit muttered.

  “No, Aradma’s right,” Arda said. “It’s not justice. It’s mercy. But if the Dragon is dead, wouldn’t his power die with him?”

  Aradma nodded. “But they—all of them—were still wizards. He would be a High Wizard in his own right. Valkrage too remained a wizard to his end, a mad wizard armed with the Dragon’s magical knowledge.”

  “You only found three sets of bones?” Anuit asked. “You never said anything about the Green Dragon.”

  “That was different,” Aradma explained. “Graelyn is dead, but her life force endured. Her spirit shattered, and its sparks live on in me and all my kind.”

  Anuit folded her hands in silence.

  “We came here from Astia,” Arda informed the elf. “There are things we must share with you.”

  “Yes,” Aradma remembered. “Hylda told us that she had sent you. Count Markus has asked for a peace meeting. King Donogan has agreed.”

  Arda grew still. “That is not wise.”

  “Why?”

  Arda recounted their trip through Astia and her encounter with Tulley in Astiana.

  “I’m sorry to hear of Danry,” Aradma said. “I did not know him, but Attaris has spoken of you both in his stories. He will mourn his loss.” She turned to the sorceress. “Arda mentioned that you used your succubus to trick Danry into giving away vampire weaknesses. Tell me of those.”

  “Some we already knew,” Anuit said. “The sunlight, fire, and decapitation seem the only ways to make sure they’re dead. And of course blessed water. But we didn’t know that wood through the heart paralyzes them.”

  “Really!” remarked the druid. That would be useful.

  “And they seem to be limited by the land of their sovereign. They can’t sleep without touching the soil of their homeland.”

  Aradma leaned forward, letting her chair’s front legs come to rest again on the floor. She propped her elbows on the table and finished the last of her grapes. “What sets the sovereign borders?”

  “Sovereignty in the human realms always flowed through the Nine Thrones,” Arda answered. “The thrones were established by Athra’s authority. Her runewardens crowned the first kings and queens. Even Artalon had no sovereignty in and of itself. The Stag Throne had never given itself over to Athra’s authority.”

  “So the Shadowlord wasn’t sovereign?” Anuit used the derogatory name for the God-King.

  Arda’s head tilted. “Not technically, but effectively, yes. The Shadowlord bent the Nine Thrones to his will, and his sovereign law flowed through them.”

  Aradma realized it had grown dark. The other two hadn’t noticed and kept talking. “We’ve lost daylight,” Aradma said. “It is dusk now. Almost night.”

  Both Anuit and Arda’s eyes widened in surprise. “We won’t get back to Erindil before nightfall,” Arda stated.

  * * *

  The sun retreated from the sky, and Sidhna awoke in the isolated cell beneath the tower. Something immediately felt different to her. She sensed a presence high above her in the upper apartments.

  “Kaldor,” she said, licking her lips in hatred.

  The Archdragons had violated mortal life by possessing incarnations. Had they not done so, those vessels would have lived normal lives, and history remained unmolested. Mortal life would have been better off had there been no dragons in the world.

  Her people, the sidhe, had ruled Ahmbren before dragons were even known to exist. When the Archdragons emerged for the first time, all mortals worshipped them and their dragonflights. When they withdrew from the world once more into dragonsleep, the bronze dragons remained behind. Archurion decreed that no dragon should interfere with mortal history, but they were never good at following their own rules.

  The bronze dragons circumvented Archurion’s decree and magically adopted the form of tiny people, diminutive in size so as to not appear threatening. They lived as mortals, and their children were born as mortals. Thus, the gnomish race came into being.

  The gnomes built Artalon, giving humans a city that galvanized their civilization. They rebelled against the Imperium, and eventually Artalon became the seat of the Darkling Empire until their sorcerer-king awakened Klrain from dragonsleep, and Archurion sunk the city beneath the waves as punishment.

  The Archdragons came back for their Champion, and she and two other mortals, Kaldor and Valkrage, suffered for it. They had been conceived naturally from mother and father, just like any other mortal. The Archdragon’s dreamwalkers attached themselves to the souls of the developing fetuses, psychic parasites in their mothers’ wombs.

  The dreamwalkers remained hidden as the minds of the children developed. Then in puberty, they started to reveal themselves. She remembered when she had first become aware of this other Presence within her, and it had terrified her. The Green Dragon wanted to subsume the elf’s being, for their psyches to merge into a new person.

  After the initial shock and fear that she might be going insane, she went through a time where she felt honored. She welcomed the Dragon’s presence in her mind, even though she knew she would lose herself in Graelyn’s being.

  She had fallen in love with Aaron, even though Graelyn’s heart yearned for the spirit of the Gold Dragon inside Kaldor. Graelyn did not dominate her, but allowed her to pursue, and be used by, Aaron before he turned his affections to Valkrage. To Valkrage!

  Aaron could almost be excused. Almost. Valkrage knew better, ignoring the claim of her body on Aaron’s heart. That was when Sidhna understood the violatio
n of self-sovereignty by the Dragons. Valkrage would never have blithely ignored her feelings in such a way. His personality must have been annihilated by Eldrikura’s spirit inside him.

  In anger, she had resisted Graelyn’s presence. The Green Dragon punished her for it, and instead of simply dominating her mind as Eldrikura had done to Valkrage, Graelyn withdrew her life force. Sidhna had been suffused with the spirit of the Dragon of Life for so long that the essence of her living being imploded in the vacuum left by Graelyn’s wake, and she had become an undead revenant.

  The goddess Malahkma understood the innermost desires of Sidhna’s heart, and transformed her from the rotting, living corpse she was into a beautiful, deadly instrument of vengeance. Malahkma’s serpents had bit into Sidhna and filled her with the goddess’s unending desire, and the elf became the mother of the vampire race.

  In another time, she would have felt pity for Kaldor. He was a victim of Archurion’s lies, just as much as she had almost given in to Graelyn. But unlike Valkrage, Kaldor had chosen to submit to the higher power, and for that he would suffer.

  She dissolved into mist and flowed through the air gaps into the main halls of Taer Iriliandrel. She continued up the stairwell until she reached the top. She heard voices in the library.

  She solidified in the library’s doorway.

  She sensed the Dragon’s presence, but Kaldor was nowhere to be seen. Three demons stood quietly off to the side, watching three women who sat around the desk: a dark-skinned human, a darkling, and—

  The elf’s face raised in shock. Her eyes flared a bright green, and Sidhna’s eyes burned red in return. Unbidden, her fangs extended, and the souls of the two of them touched in understanding.

  Not Kaldor. Graelyn.

  * * *

  Aradma bolted up from the desk, knocking her chair back on the floor. Arda and Anuit started in surprise.

  The crimson-haired elf hissed, fangs extended. “YOU!” she thundered.

  Arda and Anuit both leaped to their feet and faced the door.

  Aradma recognized her. A strong surge of the Green Dragon’s memories came forward, and she knew the woman as Sidhna, the one-time vessel of her mother’s incarnation. Sorrow filled the seelie, and somehow she understood. Sidhna had been a revenant for the last thousand years. She was not made a vampire by the contagion. She was the source of the contagion, the first vampire.

  Sidhna seemed to sense Aradma’s feelings. “I don’t need your pity,” she spat and rushed forward.

  Anuit shouted, pointing at the enemy. “Go, Khiighun!”

  The hellhound leaped, meeting the vampire in mid-air. The impact of his body threw her back and they both rolled onto the ground. Khiighun moved to rend her head from her body between his teeth. He snapped his jaws, but Sidhna moved faster. The elven vampire thrust her arms into Khiighun’s jaws, planting her hand on the roof and bottom of his mouth. In one swift movement, she ripped the upper half of his skull from his body and discarded the hellhound on the ground in two pieces.

  Anuit staggered and clutched her chest. The other two demons vanished.

  Sidhna paid the two other women no heed, focusing solely on Aradma. “I will tear your heart from your body, Graelyn!” she shouted and rushed forward again.

  Aradma flung out her arms, and the space between them filled with thick vines, slowing the vampire. Sidhna tore through them. Aradma concentrated harder, channeling more Life through the soles of her feet, reaching down far below into Ahmbren. The vines grew thicker, with heavy bark and long thorns. They did not stop the vampire but Sidhna was slowed. No matter how quickly she summoned the dense foliage, she could not stop the vampire’s advance.

  “You cannot escape me, Graelyn!” Sidhna hissed. “Malahkma has elevated me above you all! I will consume you and all that is yours!”

  “Run!” Aradma shouted to her companions. “Out the hallway! She is beyond us!”

  Arda nodded and grabbed Anuit, hurrying her forward. The three of them raced from the library towards the upper balcony. Aradma manifested thick tree bark behind them, filling the hall with trunks of interlocking wood.

  They made it to the balcony and Aradma looked back at the hall. A thick mist flowed through gaps in the wood barrier she had summoned.

  The druid looked over the side of the tower. She couldn’t keep this up all night. With her remaining strength, she pulled a column of Life up from the ground, knitting a lattice ladder of ropy vines into a large, springy funnel.

  Arda had drawn her sword and stood with her back to the balcony’s edge, ready to defend herself against the vampire queen. Anuit’s face shone pale with sweat, and shadows ringed her eyes, yet she stood bravely beside the paladin. Her hands were readied, palms open and gathering strands of darkness until balls of black void swirled around her fingertips.

  The mist solidified, and Sidhna stood on the balcony with them. Aradma launched sharp branches, thorns the size of lances, trying to pierce the woman’s heart and paralyze her. Sidhna was too fast. She knocked the wooden lances away with her hands, shattering them to splinters with the force of her blows.

  Aradma knew that this would be the end if they stood and fought.

  “Follow the letter,” Aradma shouted to Arda. She would not say Kaldor’s name aloud.

  Arda blinked once.

  Aradma shapeshifted into the white leopard. She slammed her body into the two of them and knocked them over the side into the vine-woven funnel. She heard leaves rustle as the foliage gentled their fall to the ground a thousand feet below.

  She ran towards the vampire, feinting a pounce. Sidhna grinned, planting her feet to meet the great cat’s rush. At the height of the leap Aradma shifted into the white falcon and flew into the sky.

  Sidhna roared and followed, dissolving into a column of flowing mist.

  Aradma flew north. She knew that Sidhna would stop at nothing to kill the last of the Archdragons. Kaldor had traveled south; Aradma would not follow.

  Her only consolation was that, as a falcon, the mist could never catch her. And she could keep flying until after the sun rose at dawn.

  17 - The Peace Summit

  Attaris sat for a quiet moment in one of Montevin’s courtyard gardens. It lay off to the side, away from the castle’s main trickle of nighttime traffic. The stars overhead shone clear through the sky, with the moon nowhere to be seen. Attaris liked the calm of a dark, still night in the garden. The early winter’s air was cold, but not so cold he couldn’t sit comfortably in his wool coat.

  His hammers lay fastened to his belt, as always, their runic carvings waiting to lend their power should battle require it. He was a runewarden of Modhrin, the Storm Lord and God of Craftsmen. Modhrin usually appeared as a dwarven warrior in the stories, although he occasionally wore the human form of a northman of Hammerfold.

  Attaris smoked a pipe as he sat in contemplation. Tomorrow, the wagon would leave for Kriegsholm, and the king would depart south again to Hearthholm. Aiella wasn’t happy about being left behind, but someone needed to run the city in the duke’s absence and keep the peace between Hylda’s paladins and Rajamin’s runewardens.

  Attaris did not consider himself a priest in Rajamin’s Church. Like Rajamin, Attaris had practiced the old ways in defiance of Imperial law. Attaris’ family had stayed true to Modhrin for the thousand years of the Shadowlord’s mandate to worship Karanos—and himself as Karanos’ incarnation.

  The dwarf could smell pine and mistletoe in the air. Sprigs of greenery now filled the halls and decked the walls to announce the Highwinter season. He shook his head. Even in those years when they had stood isolated within the Empire, Windbowl had seemed more carefree and warm on any day than they did at Highwinter now. He wondered when they would have a true holiday again, as they were meant to be had.

  Rajamin had brought the gods back to Highwinter. Windbowl did not worship Karanos, but they also hadn’t risked the Shadowlord’s attention by keeping the hearths lit for the Old Gods. Most people now welco
med a return to the old ways, even if the person who called them to it was a strange little ratling.

  Not that he had anything against ratlings. Most of them didn’t worship gods. Yinkle, Rajamin’s niece, explained to him once that they preferred to rely on reason instead and trust in their industry rather than put stock in an external force. Rajamin was obviously different and had dedicated himself to all of the Gods of Light. Rajamin’s faith had started with Geala, the ocean Goddess of Trade, but over the years that had changed.

  That seemed strange to the dwarf. He respected all the gods, but he only worshipped one of them. Being dedicated to a god was like a marriage. You only chose one, or only one chose you, and it was for life. Even in the old days, Attaris had thought that the temples were filled with a High Priest for each god, and devotees to each underneath them. That was how balance was achieved. However, Attaris hadn’t been there, so maybe the stories passed down to him through the generations were no longer accurate.

  Whatever the truth had been, Rajamin now claimed to represent all the gods and was able to invoke the power of runes from each of them. He taught his disciples to focus on one god—only Rajamin called upon all Ten. This made Attaris uncomfortable.

  Hearing footsteps behind him, he stood and turned. “Your Majesty,” he acknowledged with the expected honorific, taking a draw from his pipe.

  Having a king was new. Donogan had been a citizen of the Empire, but his family lineage had given him claim to the Throne of Hammerfold after Artalon’s collapse. Attaris had been born in Farstkeld, and his family allegiance was to the keld’s mountain king. Nevertheless, he was expected to honor the laws of any land in which he lived, excepting the Shadowlord’s Artalon. He considered himself a citizen of Windbowl, and when Duke Montevin had finally sworn his allegiance to Donogan, Attaris had just raised his eyebrows and gone on with the work at hand.