“Careful!” Neill said urgently, as half of the spine fell away. The book had already lost most of its pages to time, and even as I tried to leaf through what remained, more of them tore and curled, dissolving into fragments.
“Dammit,” I swore, stopping my examination of the document at the only patch of surviving sheaths of yellowed and stained paper. “There’s writing on it,” I murmured, trying to work out the thin trails of the black spidery writing. It was dense, and filled the page like some species of spreading lichen. The only breaks visible were the ones left for strange symbols, carefully inked in, but now having lost all of their color and vibrancy.
Was that the crown? Or just another circle? “They look like some of the symbols that we were studying with the Abbot,” I whispered.
“Do you think that it was written by the old queen herself?” Neill said.
“I don’t know.” It felt spooky to hold it in my hands, wondering if it had belonged to the very woman who had ordered this place built. “There – I can just make out…” Some of the words were intelligible, written in the same tongue as we read and wrote nowadays, but with stranger, dialect words. I attempted to read the passage out loud.
“Tayke the mightiest of the dracos, but none (Higher? Older? Younger?) than three summers. The broode matriarch should be calmed, and the King of Dracos should be appeased… Gather the bloode of the chosen dracos, and…”
A shiver ran over my body. Did that really just say what I thought it did? I looked over at Neill for confirmation, and yes, he had heard the gruesome practice. I couldn’t stand it, I could feel the anger mixing in my belly with a deep disgust. I forced myself to read to the last legible word of the passage.
“…the bloode should be poured, sunwise, over the chapel stone, and the bones of the creature pounded until they crack, and ground until fine. Thys powder will prevent disease and maintain health, and the correct meditations in the dracos-blessed chapel will inspire visions, and magyckal powers…”
“By the stars.” I closed the book, my hands shaking as I did so. “They killed the baby dragons, and somehow they used their bodies and blood to power their magic. What monsters were they?”
What sort of monsters are they? I added silently. This had to be the secret that the Abbott was hiding. “The Order used dragon blood, and baby dragon bones, to power their magic.”
“I heard the Abbot negotiating with Zaxx over which younger dragon he would be allowed to kill, that night in the cave by the side of the Dragon Monastery,” Neill breathed, blanched in horror. “I managed to tell myself it was something to do with the Order being curators or guardians. I never in my wildest nightmares imagined this…” he said. “But they are still doing it. Otherwise, why would the Abbot be negotiating which dragon to have killed? They must be. That must be the secret of the dragon magic!” Neill looked pale with shock.
It all made sense, making me feel queasy and unwell. “But why do I have the power then?” I said, before my heart seemed to freeze. “Have they been feeding us dragon blood? Powdered dragon bones, in the hope that some of us develop magical powers?” I felt myself start to wretch and dry heave as my fear wanted to expel from my system any trace of the horror.
“I don’t know, Char,” Neill said awkwardly. “With you, things might be different. You heard yourself how Feodor called you one of the old dragon friends. Maybe only some people develop the magical powers, and some people are closely aligned to dragons naturally?” He looked confused and as sick as I was. “But there are only a handful of people at the monastery with any magical talent,” Neill suggested, “you said so yourself.”
“Me, Maxal,” I agreed.
“And we know that Jodreth and the Abbot can use magic,” Neill whispered. “I think the monks don’t know what causes the magic, but they know this… concoction prolongs life, at least. Remember that we thought that the Abbot himself might be hundreds of years old?”
Another sick shudder running through my body. I had called the dragon crater not a sanctuary before, but a zoo – now it was starting to look a whole lot more like the worst sort of farm. Zaxx the bull was even allowing it. He was even helping the Abbot get rid of the dragons that he doesn’t like. It was horrible.
“The other students and the dragons have to know about this. We have to get them to listen to us.” I said, sighing heavily and my breath sounding ragged and scared. What could you do against people who would murder innocent young dragons? Who would rip them from their mother’s clutches, and out from under the brood mothers?
Before I could come up with an answer there was something else that I knew that we had to do, however. Without saying a word, I re-wrapped the Great Crown and the grimoire back into their protective rags and set them beside me on the floor. Next, I carefully put the bones of the poor creature into the hole where the crown had laid, and carefully put the carved flagstone back over it reverently.
“I’m sorry,” I said to the bones, and to Paxala above. “But this will have to do as a burial for now.” I picked out two of the dragon’s teeth, giving one to Neill and holding the other between my thumb and forefinger, saving them from their crypt. “These we will take and bury on Dragon Mountain, so the long-lost soul of this poor creature can finally come home,” I said carefully, and Neill nodded. In the back of my mind I even felt the quiet assurance from Paxala above that this was acceptable. This was how we honored the sacrifice of the dragon that had gone before.
As I turned to regard the old queen’s Great Crown once more, a quiet rage filled me. My father must have known about this place, about these bones, and about what had happened here. How could he not?
I had never thought of my father as an evil man, but now I saw that he could be a cruel man if he wanted to be. Why didn’t he tell me about this crown here? Or this chamber filled with dragon bones? Was it because he knew I would be horrified? Or was there some bigger scheme he had in mind that required such secrecy? Well, it didn’t matter now. I was done sneaking around, and I was finished with pleasing anyone. There had been a terrible, dark, and evil thing performed here, and the old queen had conspired with the very Draconis Monks who were supposed to look after the dragons in their care. What was more, the monks were responsible for covering it up. Maxal and Dorf thought that not only had the Old Queen Delia lived for hundreds of years, but that there was a chance that the Abbot Ansall had himself. Weren’t we all told at the start of our initiation there that he had created the monastery with the help from Queen Delia? Did that mean that Prince Vincent, Prince Griffith – even my father was much older than I had imagined? I realized with a kind of horror that I had never actually asked how old my father was. He had always seemed to be somewhere around an athletic late forties, or so I had previously thought.
But the Abbot had known all about this. And, if he was indeed that old then he might even have stood right here beside the old queen. I felt like we had been lied to all along about the purpose of the skills we were learning at the monastery, about what the monks were actually doing.
“Neill? We are leaving. Now. And we are going to put an end to whatever this dark sorcery is,” I said, and even though I could not hear it, I felt the triumphant crowing of the Crimson Red dragon far, far above me.
PART III
THE RETURN
CHAPTER 18
A DRAGON-SHAPED HOLE
Creeping back out of the hidden chamber, we had made our way past the earthstar corridor and back to the door when something happened in my head.
“Char – are you okay?” Neill looked at me, and he was frowning even more than was usual. I wanted to ask him why his face had blanched in that nervous way, until I realized that I was slouched against the wall, and that my head was ringing. What was wrong with me? I felt feverish and nauseous, as if I might suddenly throw up.
“Char?” Neill’s hands were on my shoulders, holding me up slightly. “Is it the crown? The dragon bones? What is it?”
Dragon bones. As much as I
could, well, believe that it was that gruesome discovery that had me feeling sick, I knew that it wasn’t. As I concentrated on the source of my unease, I could feel it like a bruise in the back of my mind. Paxala. Where was Paxala? I couldn’t feel her in my head any more. Quite frankly, I hadn’t realized before that a part of my mind was ‘the dragon’ – and by that I meant that there was a part of me that always felt dragon-like.
I had thought that was just me, or that it was just normal. I gasped. I had always had a fascination for the winged creatures. I devoured every story that I could find about them, I would hunt the skies for signs of their passage. When I found the hatchling Paxala and started feeding her, it had been as instinctive to me as if I were one of those Great White brood mothers myself, fierce and loyal.
Now, I saw that was this part of me waking up. The part that was always hand-in-claw with the dragons, or with one particular dragon anyway.
“Neill?” I said, terrified in a way that I hadn’t been even upon reading the Old Queen Delia’s macabre grimoire. “I can’t sense Paxala anymore,” I hissed. There was an emptiness in my head, and it was shaped like a Crimson Red dragon, my friend, and my confidante.
“Okay,” Neill said in what he must have thought was his ‘calming’ voice when in actual fact it was his ‘I am really, really alarmed’ voice. “We’ll head straight up to the roof of the Queen’s Keep. She must be there, right? Why would she leave?”
“She wouldn’t.” I shook my head, before instantly regretting it as the corridor spun.
“Breathe, Char, breathe.” Neill took my elbow and guided me back to the door that led out to the stone stairwell that ran through the keep like a main artery.
“Pax…? Are you there?” I once again reached into that dragon-shaped void in my heart, from which the feelings of sickness and nausea were emanating. Did I feel some sort of flicker of response coming back to me? Had there been an impression of a tail flicker? A thud of a heart the size of a dog? If it had been some impression of the dragon on the other side of the mental connection I had, then it was far away, and very weak. I tried to hurry, only to stumble and have to lean on Neill for support as we climbed.
CHAPTER 19
NEILL, JUST ANOTHER WARLORD’S SON
We did our best to climb as fast as we could, but it was difficult going, especially since Char needed my support to even stay upright. I stumbled on the stairwell and knocked my shins for the third time since we’d started climbing. By the time that we had past the ninth or tenth floor I had just stopped counting, trusting instead that the architecture would end eventually. From the way that my thighs and back was feeling though – it seemed that might not actually be the case.
I was worried – again, not an entirely unusual state of affairs. I think I must have spent the entirety of my life frightened up to this point. I was worried for Char, for the weird and sudden way that she had gotten ill, and for what she was mumbling about Paxala--that the dragon had somehow ‘disappeared’ from inside her head.
I had known that the two were connected, girl and dragon, but I hadn’t realized that it was this deep, this powerful. It made me a little scared because I had never encountered it before. I didn’t know what it meant. Was it a threat to Char, as it was making her ill right now? I didn’t know how to protect it, or whether it was something that I had to fight. I didn’t know how to help Char, or what under all of the stars would help her through this strange affliction, and that made me feel weak.
Too weak to help even your best friend, a part of me thought.
Stop it. I berated myself. Stop thinking like your brothers. They saw everything as something either to own or to attack. They were soldiers, through and through, and everything nearest to them was either a threat or an ally. I didn’t want that for me, or for my friends. I had discovered something else out there on Mount Hammal with Char and Paxala. Friendship. Fun, even. Another way of looking at the world that wasn’t all enemies and war and politics.
“Woah.” I caught Char as she wobbled again, almost bodily carrying her up the last remaining flights of stairs.
But Char had it no different from me, really, I thought. For all of our differences, from the rich keep that she grew up in to my simple, study leather jerkins, to the hours I had spent studying the weapons forms, and the hours that she must have spent learning history and art and dancing and whatever – we were still very similar, I thought. All of the people around her viewed her in the way that my soldier brothers thought about their armies. She was a tool on a chessboard. She was either a threat or an ally. She had to be used effectively.
Threats, danger and wars. Would it ever be simple for us? Why couldn’t we just be left alone?
“Neill…?” Char woke me from my dark, worrisome thoughts. We had reached the top – all that was above us was a door.
And even I, insensitive Neill, could sense the lack of angry dragon on the other side of that door. It wasn’t exactly a magical thing like Char’s, instead it was a complete silence that registered in the animal parts of my mind. No huffing. No scraping. No loud sounds of snoring, huffling, whuffling, whistling or snaps.
“Either Paxala is sleeping very deeply indeed, or…” I said, my heart in my chest as I turned the heavy iron ring, and with a creak we both rushed out. I didn’t want to say what the other option was, of course, not in front of Char. Maybe Paxala wasn’t finally gone, but had instead flown further than she was used to. She was still only a very young dragon, after all…
I had half convinced myself of the fact that I wouldn’t see any dragon up here on the straw-strewn roof, and that instead she would come to one of Char’s calls, or whistles, surprising us all with her new trick – but no. The Crimson Red was indeed here, half curled and half sprawled at the end of the roof, collapsed into her belly, with her tongue lolling out.
“Pax!” Char screamed, rushing forward across the flat tiles, but wobbling as she did so, stumbling, and falling heavily to her knees.
“Char, wait!” I called, my eyes taking in the details of the scene much clearer than she could at the moment. Paxala was breathing, shallow but insistent breaths. Her long, spiked tail flickered its hardened end weakly, and her mighty claws were tucked up under its reptilian belly as if to keep them warm. She didn’t raise her head to regard us, but her breathing snorted suddenly, and plumes of warm steam rose from the Crimson Red’s nostrils.
“She’s ill,” I said, as Char got to the dragon’s side and laid her hands on her belly. Even from over here it looked to me as if the dragon was sitting awkwardly, holding her belly gingerly.
“Well done, my girl! I knew it! I knew that the dragon would be able to call to you when it was injured.” A voice from the shadows of the fortifications called out. It was Char’s father, the Prince of the Northern Realm, Prince Lander.
“What did you do to her?” Char gasped, clearly not even well enough to feel properly furious. I hurried to her aid, making sure that I was standing at her side if she needed me to act.
The prince hadn’t been hiding in the shadows alone, however. He had brought with him half a dozen archers, as well as Char’s brother Wurgan who stood to one side, looking deeply troubled. At a nod from the prince, the archers stepped forward, their bows pointing down but still strung with arrows, already notched. What was he doing? This was his own daughter! I was stunned, my hands moving to my large belt knife and wondering what – if anything – I could do.
Char paid little attention to the archers or even to her family though. Instead, she cradled Paxala’s massive jaws, trying to get the dragon to open her eyes. This close to the Crimson Red, I would have expected to be bathed in a warm glow of the internal heat that the great lizard constantly generated. On our flight north following Char it had at first come as a surprise and then a welcome relief when I realized that I didn’t need to wear my cloak and thick woolens most of the time. But now, however, the fire inside of the dragon had subsided to a dull glow, and I shivered under the rising north
ern winds.
“It was the fish. Laced with Amorant’s Helper. You know the herb, don’t you my girl?” Lander was saying in the same sort of tone that my father would use for an unruly pup: stern, but not unfriendly.
“Thank god,” Char murmured distractedly.
He has no idea of the pain he is causing either the dragon or his daughter, I thought. Both physical and emotional. “Amorant’s Helper?” I hissed at Char. “What is it? Is it deadly?”
“It’s a mountain herb. Mothers use it to help with teething babies, and healers use it for fever. It sends them to sleep if you take a little, and unconscious if you use too much,” she said to me quickly, before raising her voice to demand from her father. “How much did you use? She can barely open her eyes!”
“Oh, I left all of that up to Odette and Lady Bel. You know, I’ve never been particularly interested in herbalism. But you can trust them – they know their way with herbs.”
Can we trust them? I looked at Char, who had gone pale, whether with fury or illness or fear, I couldn’t tell. Did Char get on with Odette? Wasn’t it Odette who wanted her married off against her will?
“Char – since you don’t want to marry Clans Chief Tar, and you don’t want to send this beast to attack our enemies, I decided to take the initiative for myself,” Prince Lander explained with false patience, as if this was a necessary bitter medicine that Char had to swallow for her own good. “The Three Kingdoms are at war. No one talks about it, but that’s what’s going on, under the surface. There are soldiers dressed as bandits crossing the borders between Middle and North every month now, and I, the Prince of the North and rightful king of the Three Kingdoms will not allow it any longer.”
Dragon Dreams (The First Dragon Rider Book 2) Page 17
