When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  The priestess noticed Oriand for the first time. She dropped her rune necklace and placed her fingers to her lips in a gasp. “Matriarch!… Oriand. You are exiled. Your penalty was death for your crimes should any of the Vemnai see your face again.”

  “No, wait!” One of the green-furred men stepped forward. His wide almond eyes blinked at her, and his fluffy mane puffed wildly from his head in blond tufts. Oriand thought she recognized him. Even more strange, however, the priestess actually listened to him.

  Couraime has made changes, Oriand realized. In spite of herself, she kept gazing at Tallindra’s ring. How can I please her again?

  “You know the law, Ghiel,” the priestess said.

  “These are strange times,” Ghiel responded. “The Matriarch will want to see what has become of her.”

  The priestess sneered. “A slave of a sidhe bitch.”

  Tallindra did not react to the bait.

  The priestess frowned and then stepped aside.

  “Lady of the sidhe,” Ghiel gave a slight bow. “Please, follow me, and know that even though this one is exiled, our Matriarch will not be pleased to see any troll on one of your leashes.”

  Tallindra regarded him for a moment. Then she took her ring from her hand, and before Oriand could stop her, she threw it to her feet and ground it beneath her heel. It shattered like glass.

  “No,” Oriand protested. She fell to her knees, scrabbling at the pieces. No, no. I have to feel that again. I didn’t know how empty I was. I have to know what it feels to be loved again…

  Tallindra knelt beside her, taking her elbows and gently raising her to her feet. “I’m sorry, Oriand. Nothing can forgive what I have done to you. The Black Dragon is coming.”

  So empty…

  The pools of Ghiel’s pupils narrowed ever so slightly.

  “Come with me,” he said.

  “First…” Tallindra responded, reaching around Oriand’s neck. She uttered a word of magic, and the slave collar opened. She unsheathed a fine dagger and cut it away from her dress’s collar hem. Then she undid the slave rings and let them fall to the ground. “There,” Tallindra said. “She is no longer a slave.”

  Ghiel raised an eyebrow. “I think it would have been safer for her if she was. But, no matter. Come.”

  They followed him to the Matriarch’s tent.

  The Matriarch sat there on an ebony branch throne among her supplicants, its black frame contrasting her creamy cyan skin. The wood had been polished until it gleamed almost as much as the Obsidian Throne in Vemnai. Couraime fixed her gaze on them, meeting first Tallindra’s eyes and then Oriand’s.

  Their ways might have changed, Oriand thought, but the power of the Matriarch has not.

  If Couraime was startled by her predecessor’s appearance, she didn’t show it. She turned her attention to the sidhe instead. “At least they send a woman,” she said.

  Men are more free, and their wives may be free to love them, but even yet they are not equal.

  Tallindra too betrayed no reaction. “I beg your consideration,” she said.

  Couraime folded her hands on her lap. “Well, you have my attention. I’ve never known a sidhe to beg before, much less to a troll.” Then she cocked her head slightly to the side. “If I remember correctly, you are the sidhe who spoke of Tiberan ten years ago at the start of the war. Is this not so?”

  All eyes in the room stared intently at them. Their breaths had softened, waiting to hear what would be said.

  “It is,” Tallindra said, “and it is his word who sent me here.”

  “He is, or was, my husband,” Couraime stated.

  At that, Tallindra gave a slight gasp.

  Couraime smiled. “You didn’t know. He was given to me by our… our Matriarch.”

  Tallindra looked briefly at Oriand, and for a moment all the troll could think of was the crushed ring as she remembered the ache of loss in her heart. Oriand looked away.

  “My people won’t listen to me,” Tallindra said. “In all our years of war, your people seem the most unbound by expectations.”

  “That is because we do what is correct, each thing according to its own time,” Couraime replied. “Because of Aradma, and Oriand’s folly to challenge her, we have learned to see nature in a new light. It is not guided by prophecy. It is guided by correctness.”

  Oriand frowned. She could hear the roots of Aradma’s teachings, but they were still twisted. Nature is the truth of things, Aradma had said. But it didn’t sound the same coming from Couraime’s lips.

  Tallindra too seemed to be considering her words. “The Black Dragon is coming,” she said. “My people will not listen, but if we do not unite, we are dead. I intend to go to each leader in this war and ask the same thing: a truce. Let us join forces so that when the troglodyte armies come, we may have a chance by standing together.”

  Couraime didn’t seem to hear her words. She turned to the former Matriarch. “I’d heard rumors you were in the city, Oriand.”

  “Couraime,” Oriand replied, slightly inclining her head.

  The trolls around them gasped. “She is Matriarch now!” Ghiel hissed. “She may have opened our ways, but you will pay her her due.”

  “I’ve rejected Rin, and all the gods,” Oriand said proudly. “I will not grant you an honorific based on a lie.”

  Couraime raised an eyebrow. She seemed almost amused! “You have indeed changed,” Couraime remarked, “if you have turned away from Rin so completely. I’m to understand you’ve found a home with the Hammerfoldians?”

  “Yes,” Oriand affirmed.

  “And leading ‘Aradma’s Legacy.’”

  Oriand nodded.

  “How ironic.”

  Tallindra’s eyes darted from Couraime to the other trolls. Oriand could tell her frustration was rising. Part of her wanted to see Tallindra humiliated and turned away. Part of her wanted the trolls to kill her for what Tallindra had done through that slave ring. She felt alone in this tent, a feeling made infinitely more potent by the loss of the ring’s loving pleasure.

  Tallindra opened her mouth to speak, but Couraime held up her hand. “In its correct time will I answer.” Then she stood and walked over to Oriand. “Will you sit with me in the cloister tent? Will you speak with me again, as nature intended, free of slavery?”

  Oriand nodded. Her heart thudded at the promise of reconciliation. She glanced sideways at Tallindra.

  “And you?” Couraime asked. “You too must come into the cloister and bare yourself before the goddess as nature intended. If you would treat with us, would you sit as our equal?”

  Tallindra frowned in confusion but she nodded. Oriand suspected the sidhe didn’t understand that she would be shortly shedding her clothes altogether. High elves were modest to a fault. Oriand suppressed a grin at the thought of Tallindra’s impending discomfort.

  Couraime accepted their agreement with a slow lowering of her eyelids. She turned and exited through the back into another tent.

  Oriand followed, and then Tallindra. Once they entered the larger tent, away from the eyes of men, Oriand shed her clothing as was the Vemnai custom in the sacred places for women. She grinned openly when Tallindra gasped.

  “That’s what she meant, mistress,” Oriand said. “The Matriarch is the first among equals, but we are all equal in the cloister. Stand before us as nature intended, free of slavery, with peace between us, and they will truly listen to what you have to say.”

  Tallindra blushed furiously to the soft, rounded tips of her long ears, but she pressed her lips together and removed her skirt, vest, and blouse until she stood in her smallclothes.

  Couraime waited. Oriand raised an eyebrow and laid her hands over the tops of her bare breasts. “Do you see any smallclothes here?”

  Tallindra closed her eyes, flushing even deeper, but she nodded. “Very well,” she stated flatly and then shed the smallclothes so she too stood naked before them. Only Couraime and the other troll women wore anything at all, adorne
d with the jeweled necklaces and gold-chain circlets that fastened around their waists.

  “Come,” Couraime beckoned.

  In the center of the tent burned glowing stones, heated by active runes. An attending priestess poured water over them, sending steam into the air. Couraime and Oriand sat cross-legged, and other priestesses filled-in the circle in the same way. Tallindra followed their example, sitting on the other side of Oriand from the Matriarch. Where she had seemed so calm and sure of herself when they entered the troll camp, she now fidgeted uncomfortably, glancing around the circle at the other women.

  “Oriand,” Couraime began, “your exile has gone on long enough. If you accept my rule, you can come home to the circle.”

  Oriand stared at her. She hadn’t expected this. A mix of emotions flooded through her. Relief and anger. Hope and disgust.

  “Many of us loved you,” Couraime said, “and we believed in your way. We cannot find fault with you forever, when it is clear to us now that we embraced what you taught without question, and now you too have abandoned your old ways of thought.”

  “I have,” Oriand agreed hesitantly. She still wasn’t sure where this was going.

  “In your travels in the outside world, you have found that there are few like us. There are few who accept our ways, and I can only imagine it has been difficult for you to find a home. You have been lonely.”

  Oriand’s eyes slipped to the ground. She couldn’t meet Couraime’s gaze. She thought of the feelings of warmth and acceptance the ring had given her, and of the dizzying intoxication of being in love. I have been empty.

  “Aradma freed us,” Couraime continued. “She and Tiberan. He too left his mark on me. He opened my eyes to my love for my own husbands. And Odoune carried on Aradma’s example for a time. In the past, we believed that women should only love women, but what is natural for us is that most in the cloister love women and men.”

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement around the circle. Tallindra fixed her eyes on the ground, unable to meet any of their gazes.

  By now the steam filled the air, and each of them glistened in sweat. It was a familiar, if distantly remembered, sensation for Oriand, who had often led the sweat circle in her days as Matriarch. Tallindra, on the other hand, had never experienced a sweat circle.

  “There are a few like you,” Couraime added, “who love only women. And there are those like me who love our sisters but desire intimacies only with men. I am just as exceptional to the Vemnai as you are; we each have our natures. You have been alone. Come back to us. There are plenty of sisters who loved you once and would offer you companionship, and love, in accordance with your nature.”

  Oriand looked up at Couraime. The Matriarch seemed to be speaking earnestly.

  “Accept me as Matriarch, and you may come back to us,” Couraime finished.

  Oriand’s heart thudded. To be loved again. To have what Anuit and Arda have. She looked around at her former sisters and saw several with hopeful lights in their eyes. She felt the promise of hope and fulfillment and a joyful thrill that subdued her sense of loss over the induced slave bliss.

  But Oriand turned back to Couraime with sadness. “I am sorry,” she said. “To do that, I would have to call you Matriarch and acknowledge Rin’s role in our lives. I cannot. If I return to the gods, I betray Aradma’s Legacy, and even more, betray my own convictions.”

  “You would go with this woman, who kept you as a slave, and help her convince the other leaders to truce?”

  Oriand looked over at Tallindra. The high elf still stared at the ground, fidgeting with her knuckles as her long, soft ears drooped sadly. The troll woman hated the idea of spending any more time with the sidhe, but she believed Tallindra when she said the Black Dragon was coming.

  “Yes, I would,” Oriand answered.

  Couraime sat still for a long while, seeming to listen to something. Someone.

  Was that what I once did? Oriand wondered.

  Finally, Couraime nodded. “Very well then. You are no longer of the Vemnai, but you are no longer hated by us either. You are released.”

  Oriand closed her eyes, allowing gratitude to flow from her heart throughout her body.

  Tallindra looked up and met Couraime’s gaze. “And you, Matriarch?” the elf asked. “Are you to send us on our way?”

  “You’re in the circle,” Couraime replied. “Do not speak in sideways talk. Tell your sisters the natural desire of your heart.”

  Tallindra inhaled deeply. Then: “For you to put aside your differences with the other armies. To join our truce and help us persuade the others. Will you stand with us against the Black Dragon?”

  Couraime smiled broadly. “It is the correct way of things. The Vemnai will join alongside any who fight the troglodytes. Let it be remembered we were the first to join the Alliance of Artalon.”

  33 - The Machinations of Gods

  Athra stood on the ship’s deck, watching the twinkling nighttime skyline of Artalon. The sultan controlled the docks, and his galleon acted as her command center. He was a loyal worshipper, and she had promised him Surafel’s prominence in the new world order once the threat to the Kairantheum was dealt with.

  Sultan Tahim stood silently beside her even now. Loose-fitting clothes of royal blue flapped in the breeze, and his imp, a small bright yellow female, lazily reclined in the crook of one of his thickly curved darkling horns. He waited to be recognized, solid red eyes hidden in shadow.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “My lady,” the sultan replied. “My imp informs me that the King of Dis has been overthrown, and the Demon City is now cut off from her.”

  “Yamosh is the King of Dis,” Athra replied. “Your imp is misinformed.”

  “No longer,” Tahim said. “He was challenged by a seelie man, and—”

  “A seelie did not unseat Yamosh from Dis,” Athra interrupted, with no emotion in her voice.

  “No, my lady,” the sultan sorcerer answered patiently. “Someone else. A third of the hosts of Dis were cast out, and its doors are now shut to my servitor.”

  Athra continued to think. “Dis is not my concern,” she finally said. She paid it no more mind. She would reign supreme over civilization on Ahmbren. The Demon City could be left to demons. She would rule the south, for the sultan had promised to outlaw the worship of anyone but her. In northeast she had secured her place as Yamosh’s consort. If only she could bring Modhrin and Rin around to her side. Rin’s opposition did not surprise her. Modhrin’s, on the other hand… he almost made Athra second guess herself. She had always looked up to him.

  In the deep south, past the civilized lands, even the orcs of Voldun would worship her. She had negotiated a future for the tribes where they would set aside their nomadic horseback ways and settle into city-states built around gladiatorial games. Voldun would be satisfied, and she would gain a whole new people.

  And yet, some gods opposed her. She hadn’t calculated on that when she had gone to the Celestial Temple. Modhrin, Rin, and Soorleyn. An odd alliance.

  How do I bring them together? And where the bloody hell was Keruhn? Her son had always been elusive, but he was notably absent since their meeting in the Celestial Temple. He should have been helping her.

  At times she was frustrated. She was certainly much less powerful bound in this mechanical construct, at least less powerful than she had been before Karanos had been born in Aaron. The ten-year stalemate seemed it would never break, and now ten years felt long to her. Physicality had taken a severe toll on her patience. Nevertheless, she did not regret leaving the Kairantheum. She was free of its domination now, and if worse came to worst, she wouldn’t suffer the same fate as the other gods.

  She remembered Klrain’s war on the people of faith from the First Age. Unlike biological bodies, her constructed mind allowed her to remember everything. Even the seelie didn’t have the full expanse of Dragon memories, as she had determined from her interactions with Seonna, Thorkhan’s light elf
mate. Strange that the orcs would allow her to rule. Thorkhan’s choosing to bed her elevated her over all the other orc women. But she had earned her place as a warrior, and in all the orc tribes only he had been able to best her fighting skill. Orcs were an honorable people, in their own lethal way.

  She brought her mind back to the present. The two of them were no longer alone. The Man in Black appeared before her on the ship decks. His impeccable suit blended into the shadows, and his dark eyes pierced through her.

  A mortal would be both terrified and mesmerized.

  He looked… worried. That’s unusual.

  “Athra,” Yamosh said, stepping towards her. “I can’t maintain my form long, I’ve not the energy.”

  They’re all wearied, she thought. So much faith spent so quickly. Damn Karanos—Aaron—for taking it from us.

  “I presume you’re here about Dis,” she stated.

  “I’m sending you my envoy,” he continued. “Make sure your people don’t kill him.”

  “Why would they kill him?” she asked.

  “Vampire…” And with that, he faded away.

  * * *

  “You share my sight,” Nephyr stated. The starry goddess glided over the glass disc of the Celestial Temple.

  Keruhn nodded. “Ever since I traded my eye for wisdom.”

  Nephyr fingered the moist eyeball hanging from her necklace between her breasts. “I wonder what you do with this knowledge. Even Daag has not seen this far.”

  “Daag exists in the utmost source of the Kairantheum,” Keruhn remarked. “At its center. He looks out in all directions, but he’s never turned inward to see past the Kairantheum’s root.”

  Nephyr stopped moving. “He has never looked upon the truth of his own being. He knows and sees everything, except himself.” Her fingers dropped from the eye, and she folded them over her waist.

  “You’ve been listening to that elf girl,” Keruhn replied with a slight smile.

  “I’d wondered what vision my gift of wisdom gave you when you traded your eye to me.”