Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 9-12

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  “We’re good enough to save your pathetic hide,” To’chris said, his dark eyes glowering.

  Gran Ti’wilren tsked. “We lost the older members of the Order when they attempted to prevent Apeq A’kona from removing the treasures of the Ancients.”

  “The golems?” I asked.

  Gasps sprang up from the young people around me.

  “He knows!” one of them gasped. “Can we trust him?”

  “Among other things. Like that nice ornament you’re wearing,” Gran Ti’wilren said, a glitter in her eye as she peered at the collar around my neck.

  “I didn’t choose the ornamentation,” I countered.

  “Did you know it is heartstone? With heart-metal for the hinge? In my day, we would have kept that hidden away – out of sight and out of mind. A small way to keep it from the hands of the ambitious. But now here it is, locked around the neck of a foreigner – the very reason the Order was started in the first place!”

  “You object to it being in the hands of a foreigner?”

  She laughed. “I object to it being used to imprison a foreigner. I object to campaigns that destroy lives and push out the boundaries of Ko’Torenth, leaving us vulnerable and subject to the consequences of such aggression. The ancients learned what folly came of such arrogance. The Ancient Order of Balance was formed to put away the misuse of magic and return power to the hands of the people – to protect everyone from the powerful ambitions of evil people. But look at us now? We are overrun with magic. We are so few left to stop so many. What will become of Ko’Torenth when their plans have succeeded?”

  “We’ll stop them,” To’chris said, raising a fist passionately. He reminded me of someone.

  “Me,” the mimic said.

  I ignored him, staying on task. “I didn’t realize that there were people in Ko’Torenth who objected to what was happening here.”

  “You didn’t realize?” her tone was sharper than it had been before. “You didn’t think that foreigners could produce good people?”

  “No! Of course – ”

  “Of course, what? Your ignorance is not an excuse for judging an entire nation.”

  “Sorry, I – ”

  Again, she rolled over my words. “You are marked. We can all see that. Marked with the sign of our Ko’roi.”

  “I thought that was only a Ka’vai thing.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Ignorant! Foolish! You are destined to rule us and yet you know nothing about our people!”

  “Ummm rule you? Bataar is always saying that a Ko’roi is not a king. That a Ko’roi is destined to sacrifice himself for the people.”

  She shook her head, exasperated. “What do you think a good ruler does? Every day is another sacrifice! Every moment, another choice to put the nation before himself.”

  I was stunned. I had realized that it was my job to take care of the Kav’ai. I had realized it was my job to stop the golems. But no one had mentioned this.

  “Have you not noticed your ability to use our most precious artifacts? The doorways? The golems? Anything made of heartstone or heart-metal is bound to our Ko’roi.”

  “I did notice that, yes. I’ve been trying to stop your rogue army from starting a war,” I put a little bite into my words. After all, I hadn’t been sitting around drinking tea and enjoying warm fires. I’d been out there fighting for peace!

  “Not our army! An army. It does not belong to the people of Ko’Torenth. It belongs to a few fools who think they rule us.”

  I looked around. “There are thirty-four of you here. And while I appreciate your help – ”

  “We came because Ty’nea asked us to. He was our leader before he was taken from us.”

  “Okay,” I continued, “While I appreciate the help that Ty’nea sent, it’s going to take a few more people than the ones in this room to turn this situation around. I mean, even if I manage to get back there and stop the war that’s begun. Even if I defeat every Magika there, and all the golems, and stop the Heads of House that are running around the Dominion now like dragons with their tails lit on fire – and remember, I’m just one guy and that’s a pretty tall order – even if I do all of that, I’ll still come back here and find what – thirty people who want to be ruled by me? And the rest will all be ready to tear me to pieces. Where do I register a personal rejection for this offer?”

  Gran Ti’wilren crossed her arms over her red-jacketed chest. “You don’t get to object, Ko’roi. When you have completed your duty, we will stand for you with your people, but it will be up to you to win their hearts.”

  “What, all of them?” I asked, both surprised and irritated. It wasn’t enough that I had to fight armies and suffer pain and almost die, now I had to charm an entire nation that I didn’t want? “I’m not sure if you’ve noticed but Bataar is the good-looking one.”

  “He is marked as your lieutenant.”

  “Yes, not that it’s done him much good.”

  “You can direct some of your power to him. Especially now that he wears the collar.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The collar. They linked you with collars. The fools!”

  “They said that the collar knocks people out and prevents me from accessing the power of the doorway.”

  She began to laugh. “Fools. All fools. The collar was precious not because it can prevent things from happening. It is precious because in the right hand it will amplify power. You should be able to feed him more power, greater power than you could before. Your own power will be greater.”

  “Right now, it’s blocking me from accessing anything,” I said wryly. “So, they do seem to have known how to make it work the way they wanted.”

  “Stop trying to reach around the collar and reach through it. Then it will amplify your power.” She shook her head. “Do they make you stupid on purpose? Young people!”

  I bit back the words that desperately wanted to rush out at her and instead tried what she suggested, reaching for the door above us through the collar instead of around it. I gasped when I could feel it – not just a small pull, but a pull like someone had grabbed me by the collar and begun to shake me. I stopped reaching, shock making my mouth fall open.

  “I think I’ll have to go with you,” Gran Ti’wilren said with a sigh. “It’s clear that you’re no use on your own.”

  I ground my teeth. Better to lose a few than to let the words slip out that wanted to bubble up from my heart.

  “Yes, you won’t ever need to be alone again, Ko’roi. I shall see to that.”

  My mimic had no such restraints. He stood in the corner cursing until I could have sworn his face went blue.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I can’t stay here,” I said the minute that I began to feel my feet again. “My dragon is in trouble. I need to go back through the arch and rescue her.”

  “What you need is to gather Ko’Torenth under your rule so that when you defeat Apeq A’Kona and the Heads of Houses, then you can step up as our Ko’roi,” Gran Ti’wilren said.

  Around her, there were murmurs of agreement from the others in the room.

  “I’m not sure that people will take kindly to a foreigner swooping in and taking over their country. Especially if he’s the reason that their Heads of Houses lost a battle in a foreign campaign.” And I hadn’t even figured out how to defeat them in battle. Never mind what I would do after that.

  “We aren’t here because of our fresh young faces,” one of the women said from the ring of chairs. She was barely older than I was, with slanted dark eyes and full lips. I would have thought she was beautiful if I hadn’t been so busy thinking about how to get out of this mess in time to save Saboraak. “Each of us has ties to important groups throughout Ko’Torenth. Some of us are a part of merchant guilds or mining families. Some of us are the sons and daughters of the Houses who do not rule Ko’Torenth - not yet, at least. We haven’t been happy with our leadership for a long time. We’ve been waiting for a sign.”

  “And
now there’s a Ko’roi,” one of the young men said – he was younger than me and a little too bright-eyed for my comfort. “Just like in the stories! And just like in the stories you will unify us!”

  “I have a dragon to save and a battle to win,” I said, trying to ignore the fallen expressions around me. “I don’t have time for politics.”

  “The great leaders never do,” Gran Ti’wilren said comfortingly, and at the warm look on her face, I saw hope springing up in the faces around us again. What did I need to say to shake them back to their senses? I wasn’t the great leader of promise that they were waiting for. I was just a guy trying to stop a war. “The great leaders are too busy being brave and strong, defeating evil, overcoming magical opposition, saving the world. The hard work is for other people.”

  “Yes, it’s a real easy life,” I muttered.

  “It will be up to the rest of us to speak with our networks and raise support for the Ko’roi. It will be up to us to have a nation to hand to him when he has finished the work of saving it for us. And of course, he will be advised by the Ancient Order of Balance to keep him from excesses.”

  “Of course,” I said, barely able to keep from rolling my eyes. There was always someone to keep you from enjoying the things that you’d “achieved” and make sure that you still did all the difficult parts.

  Pins and needles filled my feet, but very soon, I’d be able to walk on them and the minute that I did, I would need to move. Saboraak needed me. And so did the souls trapped in the golems.

  “That is our hard work,” Gran Ti’wilren said.

  “We’ll need to show them something,” one of the young men objected. “We can hardly ask them to give their loyalty to a man they haven’t seen before. And we’ll need someone to deal with the golems guarding the Sh’drin Palace. They are still keeping all citizens out until Apeq A’kona sends further orders. The people are in chaos. The City Watch can hardly keep down the riots. We need someone to deal with that. It can’t wait.”

  All eyes turned to me.

  “I’m only one man and I have my own battle to fight,” I began, but a familiar voice interrupted.

  “You said these rings around our necks connect us, right?” Bataar asked, shuffling toward us with the help of the two women who had been tending to him. “Would your people accept me as his representative? I could help you with the golems and with restoring order to the city. I bear the marks.”

  He rolled up his sleeves a little higher to murmurs of agreement.

  “The last time you were my representative, you left the place I’d ordered you to keep safe,” I said, still not happy with any of this. I needed Bataar with me. Especially if I could give him some of my power.

  “We each have our role now,” Bataar said seriously. “Yours is to end the golem scourge and save the Dominion. Mine is to establish peace in your name over all of Ko’Torenth.”

  Bataar always sounded like someone in a story. Someone noble and right-minded. Maybe he’d get lucky and I’d die in battle and he could finally live the life he was destined to live as a King or a noble Prince or whatever it was they liked in Ko’Torenth – a Ko’roi perhaps. The worshipful looks that the young people around me were giving him only confirmed my suspicions that it was the perfect role for him.

  “You should be more like Bataar,” my mimic said, popping up beside old Gran and smirking at me. “Everything always seems to work out just fine for him.”

  “Sure, fine, okay,” I said to Bataar.

  He gave me a complicated salute with two arms crossed over his breast. “Remember the Song of the Dead, Tor. With it, you will shatter the Golem army, restore the dead to peace, and save us all.”

  “Sure, sure.”

  “And you’ll have to give him some of your power now before we get going,” Gran Ti’wilren said sternly.

  I almost rolled my eyes.

  “Anything else?”

  “I’ll pack while you work on it.”

  “You aren’t coming with me,” I protested. “If I can’t have the help of Bataar, then I need to do this on my own.”

  “Nonsense,” she said. “You’ll get a lot farther with old Gran at your side.”

  “Let me guess, you have a special kind of magic that will help us.”

  She winked. “It’s called memories, son, and mine are wide and deep. Now, concentrate hard and try to suck some power out of that doorway up above us and put it into the ring around your friend’s neck. He’s going to need it after we’re gone. Not too much, mind, or you might kill him.”

  She tottered off before she was even done speaking, leaving me clenching and unclenching my hands and trying not to lose my temper.

  “She’s going to be a real joy to work with,” the mimic said.

  Chapter Fifteen

  It was irritating how simple it turned out to be to channel power from the doorway to Bataar’s ring. It almost made me want to spit. If I had only known to draw it through the ring by reaching through it mentally, then Bataar and I would have been free hours ago – no frostbite, no debts to this Order that saved us, no almost dying.

  “You don’t have frostbite now,” my mimic reminded me. “Whatever that grease was, it must have had magical healing properties because your skin is fine – though you smell pretty ripe.”

  I ignored him, filling the ring with power. Hopefully, it wasn’t too much power.

  “You’re going to win, Tor,” Bataar said as I finished up. “I have every confidence.”

  Easy to say when he’d opted to stay back here.

  “And when you return, we will have solidified your place among the people of Ko’Torenth. Is there any message you wish for me to pass to the people as I gain their trust and support?”

  I frowned, “Tell them not to do anything I wouldn’t do.”

  Bataar looked worried. He was silent a moment before smiling and saying, “I will tell them to follow your model of courage and stalwart determination.”

  “There you go,” I said.

  When I’d finished, I was surprised to see Gran and one young woman standing off to the side waiting. Both were wrapped up in warm clothing and Gran carried a staff. The young woman was carrying a backpack almost bigger than she was.

  “This is Stef. She does my carrying,” Gran said, as if that explained everything.

  “We’re going to have to sneak through the enemy camp,” I said, barely holding back my irritation at this new development.

  “Stef has a coat and staff for you,” Gran said.

  Blushing, I took the coat and wood staff that Stef offered. “Thank you.”

  I busied myself with dressing in the coat and pulling up the hood to hide my bright face, while Gran spoke loudly. “My first husband – poor Daryn who died of the break-bone shakes – he was like that. All bark and no bite. I sure liked that man.”

  “Of course, Gran,” Stef said respectfully.

  I looked up, surprised when everyone in the room bowed to me.

  “No need for ceremony,” I said awkwardly.

  “We will gain and guard your land in your name, Ko’roi,” one of the young men said.

  “Erm. Thank you,” I replied, feeling my cheeks grow hotter.

  “Do you have any last requests of us?” one of the women asked.

  “Save a spot for a dragon city,” I said.

  They laughed. Well, they’d find out that I actually meant it if I survived the battle, and then they’d see who was joking, wouldn’t they?

  “Don’t die,” I added, again to laughter. I was in the wrong line of work. I should be paid to tell jokes instead of ... oh, wait, the joke was on me. No one ever paid me to do anything.

  Bataar turned to me unexpectedly, sweeping me into a massive bear hug. “Be careful, Tor. We’re all betting on you.”

  I patted him awkwardly on the back. “Thanks, Bataar.”

  I was starting to like him.

  I cleared my throat. “We’d better get going.”

  It turned ou
t that Gran actually could sneak. We snuck out of the secret lair into a back staircase and then up through narrow tunnels until we reached another hidden door that took us right back to the open tower and the slightly-glowing doorway.

  “Why don’t they guard this door?” I whispered but as it shut behind us I could see why. It blended into the rock perfectly. “And why didn’t you take me through it in the first place?”

  “The ropes were faster and we were in a hurry,” Stef explained. “The guards are at the base of the tower and they almost never come up here, but if they do they would know who we are and that would be a problem.”

  “We need to hurry through the doorway before they do notice,” Gran said. “We may have many on our side in the cities, but we aren’t organized yet and the guards are.”

  And now my hands were sweating despite the cold and my stomach was churning at the thought of walking back through that doorway. Had Ty’nea felt that way when he returned to the World of Legends?

  “He didn’t need to step back through,” my mimic said. “When he was done delivering his message I released him and his soul went back on its own.”

  Lucky. I never seemed to be done a task even when it looked complete.

  On the other side of that Doorway was war and pain and most likely death. I shouldn’t have been so hard on Bataar. I should have been happy that he was going to stay here and not go back to it. I should have been more expressive when I told him I was thankful.

  “One life to live. No do-overs,” the mimic reminded me.

  True. And it was time to run back into the fray and save my dragon.

  “Now you’re the one sounding like you’re in a storybook. Can we get this over with?”

  The mimic ducked into the doorway and, steeling myself, I followed.

  “Wait,” Gran said. “Pull on your power and fill up the ring like you did with Bataar. You might need it on the other side.”

  It was good advice and I took it. Maybe Gran would be useful after all.