Bloodstone

by Johannes, Helen C.

  She could tell him a Wehrland lion had led him, but he’d already blanched on learning the name of the place. Instead, she said, “What do you know about this place?”

  “It’s the Dragon Keep. Every child knows that.”

  “I don’t,” Gareth said. “What dragon?”

  Pumble stared across the fire at the boy. “Why, the Last Dragon. Don’t you know the tales?”

  Gareth shook his head.

  “Well then.” Pumble released his charm to rub his hands together. “Rees always gets in first with telling the story, but I know it just as well. Let me see...” Chin on fist, he pondered, then his voice deepened, and he looked not like a pear-shaped man in floppy hat and stained tunic, but a master of the art as words Mirianna had heard from every storyteller who’d ever come to Nolar wove their timeless spell…

  “In Shadowtime the world was dark and violent, and the Krad ravaged the land. The people clung together for comfort and protection, until Kiros and his sword cleared the fertile bottom land, the forests—even the broad, high plain—of the beast-men, destroying their camps and hovels. He set in place the Stone Dam at Herrok-Eneth, separating the good land from the evils of Beggeth and bringing forth Dawntime.

  “For many ages of man, the plains and the valleys and their waters lay at peace. Then the Dragons came, and the Black Mages with them, and together they plunged the land into Dragontime. The winged lizards breathed upon the grain in the fields, the pastures, the forests, and the land burned with a creeping flame while magic crackled like lightning in the summer sky.

  “It was a time of horror and fear, and the people despaired. At last, Koronolan raised the Sword of Drakkonwehr and the Hero Mages rallied to its shining. They drove the Black Mages against the walls of Beggeth and smote them with magic and sword until the earth quaked and smoke covered the sun and night lay on the land for a full cycle of seasons.

  “When dawn returned, Koronolan hurled the Last Dragon deep into the earth, and the land heaved over it, and the Wehrland was born beside the walls of Beggeth. Dragon’s blood, raining from the sky, became stone, and Dragontime became Dragon’s End. The people rejoiced while Koronolan mounted a bloodstone on the Sword of Drakkonwehr and passed it to his sons and their sons ever after them, who would watch forever the resting place of the Last Dragon.

  “And that resting place, my boy,” Pumble said, spreading his arms to encompass the courtyard, “is under the fortress Drakkonwehr, the Dragon Keep.”

  Gareth had sat enthralled while his people’s history unfolded, but now the brows showing dark through his shaggy hair drew together. “If this is Drakkonwehr, as my master says, and it’s the powerful place you say it is, why is it a ruin?”

  Pumble lowered his arms and looked around in the twilight. “Um...so it is.” Then he brightened and leaned forward. “Well, there’s another story about that, you see.”

  “It’s about Durren Drakkonwehr.” When man and boy turned to her with expectant faces, Mirianna wished she’d kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to participate in a storytelling session, but she couldn’t sit still and let Pumble tell the boy a version that might’ve been perverted by Rees’s imagination. She’d already seen in Ar-Deneth how he’d twisted the tale.

  “He...” She rearranged her skirt over her knees while she tried to remember what Ulerroth had told her, what Durren himself had told her. “He’s the last Drakkonwehr. Years ago—before you were born, most likely—a mage came and tried to raise the Dragon he was guarding. He stopped the mage, but something went wrong and the Stone Dam at Herrok-Eneth broke and released the Krad into the Wehrland. They—they destroyed this place and everything in it.”

  Although she gazed up at a sky streaked with purple and gold, she saw none of its beauty. Instead, she imagined the horror Durren found in this courtyard at the end of that awful day. The closest she’d come to that kind of carnage had been their battle against the Krad days ago. She tried to compound that image, but her mind refused to comply. Even her attempt raised shudders from the pit of her stomach. How could he have endured? He was a warrior, but this was a massacre of unspeakable proportions.

  “But the dragon—” Gareth’s voice recalled her to the present. “He stopped the mage from raising it, didn’t he?”

  “Yes. He did that.” The Shadow Man—Durren Drakkonwehr—had told her he’d failed, but that wasn’t true. He’d done what he’d been charged to do. At least part of it.

  “So it’s still here.” The boy tapped the earth with his staff. “Somewhere below us?”

  Pumble nodded. Then with a chagrinned expression he thumped his forehead and spoke. “That’s right. It’s sleeping.”

  Gareth’s hair obscured his face as he seemed to study the paving stones. Mirianna itched to cut it for him. While the strands dangling in his eyes had to be uncomfortable, what troubled her more was when he bent, she couldn’t read his expression under the mop. Dealing with one being whose face she couldn’t see was difficult enough.

  “I suppose that’s why it’s so hot down there,” the boy said.

  Pumble raised an eyebrow. “Down where?”

  “In the deeper chambers,” she said before Gareth could elaborate. “They’re full of rubble and not safe. Especially when the Dragon takes a turn.”

  The two gaped at her. Mirianna uncurled her fingers from her skirt, hoping she’d diverted their attention. Somehow she didn’t think the Shadow Man wanted Pumble to know about the tunnels.

  “Don’t tell me it moves!” Pumble said.

  “Why haven’t I felt anything?” The boy frowned.

  Now what do I tell them? She licked her lips. “It happened when you were asleep. Besides, you don’t really notice the motion unless you’re up on the wall, but it shakes the whole place. That’s why it’s not safe to go deep into any chambers.” She wondered if her warning would penetrate the shock showing on Pumble’s face. He’d pulled his charm from his tunic and was mouthing words over it.

  Gareth, meanwhile, sat with forearms on knees and staff grasped before him. He rotated his staff between his palms, making a faint grinding sound on the pavement.

  She held her breath, suspecting he was about to ask another difficult question. Pumble proved easy enough to divert, but Gareth hung onto an idea like a dog with so few bones he was determined to chew every bit.

  “If Durren Drakkonwehr was the last of the Drakkonwehrs, why does my master call this place his home?”

  “Because...” Mirianna didn’t know why she felt compelled to explain. Perhaps to clarify her own mind, to come to terms with what she’d learned, to try to comprehend what had only days ago seemed incomprehensible, but now...

  They both turned in her direction, Pumble’s face white and glistening, Gareth’s head tilted in a sign of close attention.

  She gripped her knees. “Because it is...his. Home, I mean.”

  Pumble expelled a breath. His eyes expanded to the size of cups. “The Sword! That—that’s the Sword—” He gripped his charm in both hands and panted as if he couldn’t breathe.

  Mirianna watched him in alarm. When blue tinged his lips, she reached over and pushed his head between his knees. “Stay down until your head stops spinning.”

  “What sword? You mean that short sword in the pack?”

  “That—that one must be mine,” Pumble wheezed, stirring dust between his feet. “He’s...the Shadow Man is...”

  “Durren Drakkonwehr,” she said, hoping to stop his talking. If he keeled over too close to the fire, she and the boy together couldn’t shift him out of harm’s way.

  “But...if he was the last, and everything was destroyed, didn’t he die?” the boy said.

  She plucked at her skirt, wondering how to explain what any sane person, who understood nothing of magic, would say was impossible. “He didn’t die, like everyone thinks, but he got...damaged when he stopped the mage.”

  “Cursed—that’s what magic does, curses people.” Sticking out a hand, Pumble flashed his char
m. “You need protection.”

  She wanted to point out his little charm hadn’t protected him from being attacked by Krad or magically led to this place reeking with its own magic, but she held her tongue. “Anyway, now he has to cover himself and he stays away from people because—”

  “Because he can kill them with a look.” Gareth seemed pleased to supply an answer. “But if he’s really Durren Drakkonwehr, why does he call himself the Shadow Man?”

  “He doesn’t.” She remembered the moment she’d first glimpsed the fortress and learned the identity of the being who held her by a promise. “Other people call him that.”

  “Why does he let them? I wouldn’t want anyone to call me by some other name.”

  “I’ll tell you why.” Pumble heaved himself to an upright position and mopped his face, now mottled a somewhat healthier pink and red. “Because it’s easier, that’s why. If some mage blasted you with a curse that made you what, immortal?—who’d believe you?”

  “Oh,” Gareth said as if Pumble’s words made perfect sense.

  They did, Mirianna thought, but they didn’t go far enough to explain why a being who couldn’t die was hiding out in a ruined fortress. Wouldn’t such a being be tempted to flaunt his powers? He could lead armies and suffer no ill effects while slaying countless enemies with a mere look. No one could stand against him if he desired to rule. If Durren Drakkonwehr had come down out of the Wehrland in his changed form, she could barely comprehend how her world might have changed.

  Why hadn’t he done all that and more? Why had he chosen to essentially crawl into a hole and withdraw from the world? Because he hadn’t died and was convinced he should have? Because he was no longer himself and was ashamed of, even afraid of, what he’d become? Because he didn’t want to be associated with a name, a reputation he’d failed to uphold? Because he held himself responsible for destruction he somehow should’ve been able to prevent? Which of these was true?

  Everything he’d told her suggested all were reasons he’d give her, if she asked. She wondered if the real reason was simpler. He was a warrior with a broken sword, but he carried that broken weapon with more grace than any man she’d seen. He had great power to do harm—he could’ve killed them all with a look when they happened upon him the first time—yet he’d hidden himself rather than confront them. And then he’d helped them find their way, even kept her horse from shying, when he could’ve remained hidden. And he kept the boy, not as a slave but safe, and the boy trusted him.

  She saw his shame, his pride, his heart-wrenching loneliness, and she understood at last why she’d been permitted to sit by a fire in a ruined courtyard with her father restored to her while the being, the man who was responsible, hid himself in the dark depths of the place. And she understood, at least a little, what he sought from her promise—Only your presence. Your companionship. At Drakkonwehr.

  He’d delivered on every part of his promise, but she’d given so little in return. She tried to swallow the lump filling her throat. Just because the idea terrified her was no reason to withhold what he asked, what she knew he needed more than anything.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Standing up, Mirianna smoothed her hair from her face with shaking fingers. “I—I’m going to take a walk. If my father wakes, give him more broth and this water. As much as he wants. And remember, no one but my father is to drink this water.”

  “Why?” Pumble leaned over the bucket and sniffed. “Dragon’s Blood! That’s foul!”

  Gareth chuckled. “That’s why.”

  She pocketed the cooled eggs. She was bringing them to him because the Shadow Man needed sustenance—that’s what she’d say if her nerve failed when he demanded why she’d come. Before she could change her mind, she walked away from the firelight and the voices of man and boy.

  Within steps, Mirianna found herself in a different world, one where night creatures sang and shadows pooled in doorways and arches. A few bright stars speckled the indigo claiming the sky like a slow tide. In concert, darkness crept into the courtyard, deepening in such increments she couldn’t detect the change until it settled like a gossamer veil around her shoulders.

  By then she’d entered the Great Hall where rafters arched into the night sky, casting jagged bars of black over the shadowy rubble underfoot. Between the bars, bits of mica in the tumbled granite glimmered like miniature stars to light her way.

  Mirianna crossed the open area, heading toward the chamber she’d found days before. She thought she knew the way, but a wall of unrelieved blackness faced her. Chewing her lip, she wished she’d brought a torch or candle, but she knew very well why she hadn’t. He lived in the dark, in the shadows she feared. To bring light would be to bring an enemy into his domain. If she meant to go to the Shadow Man, she’d have to go on his terms.

  She trod a few steps, feeling with her toes, probing the darkness with outstretched arms, fingers. Was this how it was for Gareth? This complete absence of sight? This blind fear of falling, of colliding with the unknown, of danger lurking a mere breath away? Her teeth chattered, but she clamped her jaw and planted her boot. Stones crunched under the sole, rolling her off balance, forcing her to step one foot across the other.

  When she righted herself, panic seized her. What if she’d turned herself around? Without something to touch, to trail her hand along, how could she know? She’d heard of lost travelers who’d gone in circles—and those poor souls had possessed their sight! How did Gareth manage?

  By the Dragon, she couldn’t make herself go another step into this...nothingness, yet she knew a wall stood here with an arch broken out of it. Her memory of the chamber was so clear, she could count every mouse bone and bit of fur scattered on the rubble below an owl’s nest. In the dark, though, everything seemed bigger, longer, farther away. She could go back outside, wait till morning, and have light for at least a little way into the tunnel. How much beyond the point where light vanished would she find him? The journey wouldn’t seem as terrible then, starting so much closer to the end. But that meant waiting hours yet, and going backward when she’d already come so far.

  So far? She’d come no more than a few steps into the chamber. She could easily go back and try again in the morning.

  When Mirianna looked over her shoulder for the glow of starlight that should be visible outside the chamber, she saw nothing. Warm air feathered her eyeballs, telling her she’d stretched wide her lids, but thick darkness enclosed her like a muffling cloak. She could see nothing, hear nothing, feel nothing except the internal quaking that had begun before she left the company of men and since spread to her limbs. To hold herself together, she made fists, but her body shook so, she feared she would shatter.

  Her nails bit into her palms, and the pain brought her a measure of control. After a moment, she managed to slide her right foot forward. Her boot sole flexed, but not on the level paving stones of the chamber, rather on the uneven pitch of a rough-hewn floor.

  The tunnel. She almost collapsed with relief. Somehow she’d passed through the arch without knowing, but at least this space was narrow. She and the Shadow Man hadn’t been able to walk side by side here. If she raised her arms outward, she should be able to contact wall. When her fingers touched nothing but air, she inched to the right. If she could just touch stone and not some disgusting tunnel creature, she could control the gasps sawing in and out of her mouth, keep her heart locked in her chest, stop the sobs that bubbled just behind her teeth. Screaming would do no good. She was just—

  There! She clawed the rocks with both hands and hung on, panting. The tunnel went only two ways—back up or down to her goal. There was nothing to fear. She’d come this far already. If she turned back, she’d have to cover the same ground in the morning. And she would cover it, wouldn’t she? She wouldn’t find a reason to hesitate, to put off doing what was necessary, what was right. Would she?

  She inhaled a steadying breath, but the clarity it brought raised gooseflesh along her entire body. No matte
r how her better sense pushed her to turn back, to take advantage of the morning light, she knew entering the darkness had committed her. She had to find the Shadow Man—or lose herself trying. Paralyzed with fear, she choked out a sob and dug her fingers into the wall.

  Trust.

  She recognized the soothing reassurance of the sound echoing in her mind. She’d followed that voice before, and it had led her to safety.

  No! It had led her into danger, to this terrifying place reeking of death and grief. If she hadn’t followed the voice, trusted the voice, she wouldn’t have walked into something that felt remarkably like the stone bowels of a hideous beast!

  Trust.

  The voice wrapped itself around her like comforting arms. A hint of lavender teased her nostrils. When she tried to breathe it, the scent dissipated, but her mind cleared. She stood on a threshold, at the brink of something she needed to cross, someplace she needed to enter. But to do so would be to step blind into utter darkness.

  I’m afraid. Can’t you show me the way?

  Trust your heart.

  ****

  The smelly man had fallen asleep after feeding Mirianna’s father more broth and water, but Gareth stayed awake, waiting. He laid his staff by his side and passed from hand to hand the stone he’d found. While his fingers stroked idly over its smooth sides, he concentrated on listening. Within minutes, the night creatures in the direction of the gate fell silent. He cocked his head, wondering if lion feet made more or less noise than the squirrels that hopped about where trees had grown up through tumbled rock. He heard a pebble rattle, and then caught a whiff of the scent that had filled his nostrils most of the previous night, the scent of warm fur.

  The air stirred, caressing his face with faint pressure as she glided through it—much more silently than squirrels—and butted his shoulder. Her whiskers tickled his nose, her purr vibrated along his skin, and he put an arm around her neck, nestling into her throat. She sat on her haunches, cradling him against her tall body while she washed his ear.