…
The crown’s preference for staying out of the affairs of other kingdoms suits my purposes perfectly. There are those in the court who would have Thorania challenge Balenol for its continued exploitation of Kyonans. Not surprisingly, they thought at first that I would be an ally.
Fools.
What interest do I have in stopping the slave trade? Slavery was an indignity I was forced to suffer, but it is not who I am. I am the daughter of a Kyonan nobleman. The failure of the pathetic resistance has showed that I cannot return to my old home, but I can reach a position approaching what I deserve here in Thorania.
I have no desire to see this kingdom involve itself. I do not want to see Thorania come to the aid of either Kyona or Balenol. Does Balenol deserve support? They are barbarians and snakes. And is Kyona any better? They say that the Kyonan prince has stopped the trade, but where was the armada coming to rescue those of us stuck in Nohl? No one ever came.
Kyona has betrayed me as much as Balenol has, and I want nothing more than to see both kingdoms pay for what they have done. And as for those still in slavery…if they have been too stupid or too weak to free themselves, they deserve no help from Thorania either.
Lucy could feel her expression growing sour as she read. It was hard to believe someone as open-hearted as Haydn could ever have believed himself in love with this woman. Even as the thought occurred to her, the familiar name made one of its rare appearances, near the back of the book.
I wish Haydn could see me now. Would he be impressed by all I have achieved, or would he still lecture me on the dangers of bitterness? All his talk about forgiving Kyona for failing to come for us still makes my blood boil. He was smart, and strong, so how could he be so blind in some ways? I think if given half the chance, he would even have argued that we should forgive Balenol.
And where did that get him?
I am weak enough to hope that he survived. But what kind of a life would it be, hiding in the jungle? He should have stayed. He could have had a part in our success here.
But he probably wouldn’t even want that. He made his choices, and I made mine.
Lucy shut the journal with a snap. She had read more than enough. She replaced the book exactly where she’d found it, closing the desk as silently as possible. She certainly had a more accurate picture of Rasad’s ancestor than he had given her with the selected entry. But she didn’t see how it helped her figure out what Rasad might be up to now, or where Cody was.
She cast her eyes around the room. There were several doors leading off Rasad’s receiving room, most of them standing open. Some doorways didn’t even have doors, just colorful swaths of gauzy fabric hung over the opening. Lucy could see just such a doorway on the other side of the space, a glimpse of Rasad’s bed visible beyond it. She turned her gaze away quickly, uncomfortable at the reminder of where she was.
Her attention was drawn to the door next to the writing desk. It was closed—in fact, it seemed to be the only door that was, except for the one leading back to the main corridor. Lucy tried the handle tentatively, and found that it was locked.
Her nerves and excitement mounted in equal measure. She examined the lock, then returned to the writing desk, searching through drawers for a suitable implement. She selected a carved letter opener, casting an anxious glance around the still-empty room before setting to work.
The absent Cody would be proud, she reflected, to know that his effort in teaching her to pick a lock hadn’t been wasted. Of course, he’d probably also be annoyed that she was taking this risk, but he wouldn’t exactly be one to talk.
After several minutes of focus, the lock gave way with a satisfying click. Lucy swung the door open, hesitating only a moment before slipping inside and closing it behind her.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
She found herself in a small, airless room. The walls were polished stone, like the rest of Rasad’s Bastion, and there was nothing to make the space remarkable except for the locked door.
There were no decorations in the room, and no windows. The only light came from a torch burning in a wall bracket. If Lucy didn’t know that she was on the ground level, she would have thought she was on the way to a dungeon. There was even a small draft of cold air coming from the opposite direction from Rasad’s suite.
Following it, she found a narrow opening on the far side of the room. The corridor beyond was only obvious once she reached the doorway, and she noticed that it sloped down after all.
Her heart pounded faster in hope. She had seen a dungeon in her initial tour of the place, but was it possible there was a second, secret one attached to Rasad’s chambers? Would she find Cody imprisoned down there?
She hurried down the pathway, in and out of the small pools of light cast by the torches on the wall. She had become so convinced of her theory that her disappointment was sharp when she emerged into another room. There was nothing dungeon-like about the space, except for the lack of windows. In fact, if there had been some natural light, it would have been a very pleasant study.
It was certainly large for the purpose, but there was no doubt that it was Rasad’s study. There was a desk in one corner, with a simple wooden chair behind it, and papers stacked neatly on the surface. There were also long benches around the walls, many of them littered with parchments as well. Lucy pushed her disappointment away. Whatever Rasad did here, it was clearly something he didn’t want known, so she must be on the right track.
Glancing around, she noted that not all of the benches had papers on them. Some had other objects. Strange powders in brass scales sat next to potions in glass vials, and a small bowl of some kind of animal scales rested on a narrow bookshelf. A peculiar mixture of smells caught her attention as she approached the bookshelf. They were as unfamiliar—and as pungent—as the exotic scents of Thirl’s markets, but nothing at all like those spices. When Lucy drew alongside the assortment of powders, the smell almost seemed to burn her nose.
She noticed that there was a squat cabinet next to the bookshelf, its doors closed but not locked. She pulled one carefully open, peering inside. A gasp burst from her at the sparkling light that suddenly leaped out into the room.
She was mesmerized by them, but she didn’t dare to touch the crystals. There was a small row of the objects, half a dozen, on a shelf inside the cabinet. In shape they were uneven, jagged, although their sides were perfectly smooth. In spite of the golden hue of the light that danced out from their angles, the crystals themselves had a faint purplish color.
What were they? Lucy had never seen such objects before, but she knew without needing to be told that they were special. Perhaps even—she hesitated to think the word—magical.
It wouldn’t be the first time she’d heard of a magic object. All her life, her father had worn around his neck a rock from the Dragon Realm. It contained a powerful magic and gave him unnatural strength and energy, in the right circumstances. It had once had a counterpart, but she knew that had been destroyed long ago, and she had never heard mention of any other such talismans. Besides, her father hadn’t said anything about seeing crystals when he entered the Dragon Realm in his youth.
She drew her eyes from the crystals, looking for clues elsewhere in the study. Scrunching up her nose, she approached one of the scales filled with the mystery powder. There was something metallic about the smell. Again she resisted the urge to touch it.
Instead she picked up a piece of loose parchment on the bench beside it. She frowned as she tried to decipher the writing. The hand was firm and neat, but the contents were unintelligible to her. Equations and calculations were scribbled across the page, with the occasional phrase like, “explosive ratio”, and “finer powder”. She puzzled over the words, “scales from jaw” for a moment, but could make no sense of it.
She hurried back over to the desk, acutely conscious of how long she had already been in Rasad’s suite. A quick flip through the piles of parchment suggested that they would be much the same as the one
from the bench. A large bound volume drew her eye, covered by a neat stack of papers.
She pulled it out, handling it carefully. It was clearly ancient, the leather binding cracking with age. The gilded letters on the front cover were barely visible: “Dragon Lore”.
Lucy felt her eyebrows go up. Rasad had been studying dragon lore? Where had he found this tome? As far as Lucy was aware, no such volume existed anywhere in Kyona, and no other kingdom had as much history with the creatures. She opened the cover tentatively, afraid the book would fall apart when touched. To her relief, the words on the first page were still readable.
The dragon, the mightiest beast of legend: is it myth, or history? There is no definite answer. But it is worth noting that while dragons are believed by most to be nothing more than legend, still the legends persist, generation upon generation.
Do they have a basis in truth? Perhaps we will never know.
I have attempted to here collect all the information I have come across in my search that seemed to me credible. Some of it has no doubt grown in the telling. But for myself, I have no question that there is truth in these pages.
The unease in Lucy’s stomach grew. Whatever Rasad’s interest in dragons might be, she had a feeling it was nothing good. She opened the book at random, and the pages parted easily to a chapter about halfway through. She squinted at the title, her stomach flipping uncomfortably as she made out the words: “Dragon Alchemy: The use of draconic objects in magical experimentation”.
Lucy’s eyes scanned quickly down the page, the contents of Rasad’s secret study taking on more sinister meaning as certain phrases jumped out at her. “Although almost impossible to harvest, dragon scales are said to retain their magic even after separation from the host…most potent when reduced to powder…can be mixed with other substances…items dragons have touched, even the very land their feet have walked on…”
She shut the book with a shudder. She had never been comfortable with the idea even of her best friend possessing some kind of mysterious magic. The idea of Rasad harnessing such power was nothing short of horrifying. Lucy replaced the book under the papers, trying to make it look untouched.
Her hand stilled on the parchment on top of the pile. It wasn’t notes on experiments, like many of the other papers. It was an undated letter, short and to the point.
Rasad
Have followed rumors to their source, I believe. I am heading for a town called Arinton, in the east. Will update further in due course.
Scanlon
Lucy gasped, her eyes widening at the familiar name. Her mind reeled as she tried to understand how Rasad had come to be corresponding with the uncle she had killed, and what possible interest the Thoranian could have in the movements of the older Balenan man. She rifled frantically through the other papers in the pile, but no more letters from her uncle appeared.
She turned her back on the desk, her heart beating wildly as she once again surveyed the room. If she had still needed convincing, the information that Rasad had been working with Scanlon was proof enough that his intentions were not good. Her eyes fell on the bowl of scales resting on the bookshelf, and she ran a shaking hand over her face. She had assumed the scales to be from a fish, or perhaps some kind of lizard found in the jungles of the South Lands. But it seemed clear that they were something much more rare.
“Almost impossible to harvest,” the book had called dragon scales. And supposedly no one in the South Lands had ever even seen a dragon. So how had Rasad gotten his hands on a whole collection of scales from such a creature, even if he was working with Scanlon?
A shiver ran through Lucy, and it took her a moment to realize that she wasn’t just unnerved. She was actually cold. The sensation was so rare in the South Lands that it distracted her. The corridor leading to this study had sloped downward, but not far enough for her to be properly underground. She looked around for the source of the draft, and realized that there was a wall hanging behind the bookshelf. Its design was faded and unremarkable, but it was conspicuous as the only decoration in the room.
She hurried toward it, ripping it back without hesitation. As she had suspected, it concealed another opening, and it was immediately clear that this one led to a deeper level. With one glance backward at the well-lit study, and a reassuring touch to the hilt of her weapon, she plunged into the darkness of the narrow tunnel.
She tried to hurry, but it was dark, and she had to keep her hand on the wall in order to keep her balance. The floor was uneven, and the walls were not polished like the rest of the Bastion. Whether this place was dug out later, or simply never intended for public view, she didn’t know.
After a few minutes of blind groping, she began to discern a dim glow ahead of her. She hurried toward it, trying to shake off the feeling of suffocation that increased with her descent. The only sound other than the scuffle of her feet was a quiet dripping from ahead, strengthening the impression of a subterranean cave. It was hard to believe that such a short distance behind her was Rasad’s well-appointed, luxurious receiving room.
The tunnel ended suddenly, and Lucy stumbled out into a cavern five times the size of the study above. Blinking off the blackness of the tunnel, she raised her eyes to the sight before her.
What she saw was so horrifying that for a moment she was paralyzed, unable to move, unable to think. Her gaze was riveted to the form before her, such a contortion of the creature she had seen in her dream-vision.
It was a dragon, no question. But it had none of the majestic presence of Qadir, who had been so overpowering even in dream form. It wasn’t just that this dragon wasn’t nearly as large as Qadir had been. It was something much more than that. In death, this mighty beast had been robbed of its glory, and the empty shell of the creature was more disturbing than Lucy would have imagined possible.
Unlike Qadir, this dragon’s scales were not black, but a shimmering blue, with shots of orange appearing at random. Lucy could picture that it would have been beautiful in life. Here, in Rasad’s hidden underground chamber, it was tragic, pathetic. Unwilling to dwell on the question of how Rasad had felled such a powerful beast, Lucy instead tried to figure out when the dragon had died. She knew that Rasad had been in Thirl, and before that in Nohl, for some time. But the carcass in front of her didn’t look at all decomposed.
She realized with amazement that the glow that lit the space came from the dragon itself. Even in death, some of its magic lingered. She frowned as she noticed some dimmer spots on its hide. Leaning closer, she saw with a rush of cold horror that there were multiple patches where the scales had been removed, displaying grayish skin beneath.
Said to retain their magic…most potent when reduced to powder.
Lucy stumbled back a step. The small bowl of scales she had seen in the study above didn’t account for a fraction of what had been stripped from this poor creature’s hide. What use had Rasad found for the other scales? What might he still be planning?
She turned, unable to bear the sight of the degraded beast for another moment. She raced blindly back up the tunnel, with no aim but to get out of this place of horrors, and reach the relative safety of her own room.
She emerged back into the study, panting slightly as she paused to catch her breath. Everything was as she had left it, but the stillness was suddenly broken by the sound of footsteps approaching up the corridor leading to Rasad’s main suite.
Lucy looked around frantically, her blood pounding in her ears, but there was no time to hide. A moment later Rasad strode into the study, his brow furrowed and his steps confident.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Rasad glanced up casually as he entered the room, his face freezing when he caught sight of Lucy, still breathing hard as she stood next to the bookcase.
“Luciana.” His voice was mild. “This is a surprise.”
Lucy didn’t answer, her mind blank and her feet frozen to the ground. Her hand, however, reached instinctively for her weapon.
The Thoran
ian’s eyes traveled from Lucy’s face to the wall hanging behind her, and understanding lit his features.
“Ah. It seems you’ve found your way to every corner of my private rooms.”
It was the familiar hint of amusement in his voice that snapped Lucy out of her stupor, spurring her into speech.
“I have,” she said boldly, making no attempt to hide the blade now clutched in her hand. “And I found some things that I think you’d better explain.”
“I am willing to do so,” said Rasad, eyeing her dagger with a raised eyebrow. “But shall we talk in my receiving room? It’s much more comfortable, after all.”
Lucy hesitated. She had half expected him to murder her on the spot and throw her into the cave with the dead dragon, so his receiving room was a pretty good offer. But still she didn’t move. What was his game?
“I don’t trust you.”
Rasad sighed. “I was afraid that was the case, and I’m sorry for it.” He glanced around. “I didn’t intend for you to see my experiments quite so soon, but I hope I can still change your mind about me.”
Lucy frowned, confusion battling with suspicion. “I saw what’s down there,” she said, gesturing toward the wall hanging. “So I’m not sure how you think you can convince me that you’re not mixed up in something you shouldn’t be.”
“I didn’t kill the poor creature, if that’s what you’re implying,” said Rasad, sounding shocked. He gave a small chuckle. “You can’t know much about dragons if you imagined that I did. They’re basically impossible to kill. Certainly no human could ever do it.”
Downfall of the Curse Page 31
