The Empress and the Acolyte

by Jane Fletcher

  “When you’re ready.”

  “I’m ready now.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “What else do I have to do?”

  “We’re going to be fighting once we arrive. You need to get yourself suitably equipped. You can help yourself to anything you like.”

  Tevi wandered into the cave. In daylight, she was better able to evaluate the extent of the treasure that Shard had amassed. The piles were slightly smaller than she had thought, but not by much. Weapons and armour would be easy to find. Warm clothing might be more of a challenge.

  A chain-mail hauberk lay a few feet away. One of the thick woollen tunics worn underneath to stop the links chafing at the wearer’s skin was still inside. Tevi bent and picked up the tunic. As she did so, a collection of bones dropped out. A quick glance at the condition of the cloth told her that someone had not merely died, but decomposed in it.

  Tevi dropped the tunic and took several deep breaths. Shard was a dragon. Dragons killed people. The only reason that she had not been killed too was that Shard needed her help, and she should not have allowed herself to forget it. Tevi looked back over her shoulder. Shard was watching.

  “There should be some cleaner clothes if you hunt around.” The dragon was clearly unbothered.

  Tevi could not let the issue go so quickly. “Why did you kill this person?”

  “Why not?”

  “That isn’t a reason.”

  “How about, it was her time to die?”

  “That isn’t a reason either.”

  “Then I can’t answer your question. It was the way it was going to be. We dragons know this...or we should. That’s why I need you to sort it out.”

  Tevi faced the dragon. “Will us taking the talisman away mean that you can kill more people?”

  “More than what?”

  “More than you would if the talisman stayed here.”

  Shard rested its chin on its paws and seemed to give the question serious consideration. “I don’t think so,” it said at last.

  “Don’t you feel any remorse for the people you kill?”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  Tevi bowed her head. “Because I know I’ve caused harm to someone, and I worry that I didn’t do the right thing.”

  “That’s the difference, then. I also know that I’ve caused harm, but I know that what happens is right.”

  “Wantonly killing people can’t be right.”

  “Why not?”

  Tevi turned around. Talking was pointless. She was tempted to refuse to take any of the stolen loot, but if the dragon was right about there being fighting where they were headed, then it would be foolish and dangerous to make a stand on principle.

  In a short while she was fully arrayed. A bundle of clean clothing had been half buried at the back of the cave. In it had been another padded tunic and also a black silk shirt and leggings to wear beneath and stop the rough wool from scratching her skin. A mail hauberk of the finest dwarven bronze was too good and too rare to ignore. Somehow the dwarves could get bronze nearly as hard as steel, yet it would not affect her prescience like iron. Tooled leather boots reached to her knees, with matching gauntlets for her hands.

  Tevi wanted to keep the fur cloak for warmth on the journey. The lining was soft sky blue. When she found a silver embroidered surcoat that complemented the colour perfectly she hesitated. Was she being greedy? She pulled it on over the mail anyway and secured it with a jewelled belt. Tevi was sure that the original owners would rather she had the items than their killer.

  For a weapon, Tevi selected a well-made long sword. The scabbard and hilt had been decorated with engravings and inlayed ivory, but the blade was strong, unadorned steel. The blacksmith had not let artistry get in the way of the military requirements. The sheath of the hunting knife fitted on her belt. Tevi also took the long spear she had used to cook breakfast. On a final impulse, she picked up a shield, because she liked the woven geometric designs embossed around the rim. As these were in blue and black, they matched her shirt and surcoat perfectly.

  She walked back to the dragon. “Am I ready to go now?”

  “You don’t have a helmet.”

  “I never wear one.”

  “You should protect your head.”

  “I’m safer without one. I have limited prescience. It only runs about a second into the future and only gives me information about life-threatening events, but it still gives time to duck. An iron or steel helmet would block it out.”

  “Doesn’t have to be steel.”

  Shard lumbered into the cave. The sounds of scrabbling followed. When the dragon returned, a winged helmet was in its mouth. It dropped the offering before Tevi. “This is made from dwarf bronze, like your mail. It won’t affect your prescience.”

  Tevi picked it up. “It’s not a good design.” She pointed to the flared wings on either side. “If you get hit over the head with a sword, you want it to glance off. These wings would give the blade something to catch on. A serious helmet is as round and smooth as possible.”

  “A serious helmet is also made from steel,” the dragon countered. “This is the best you’re going to get.”

  Apart from the wings, the helmet also had a crest in the form of spikes. The cheek and nose guards had been shaped to form an eagle’s beak. Whoever it had belonged to had clearly been mainly concerned with show. The inside was extra padded for comfort. Tevi smiled. If nothing else, it would keep her ears warm. She slipped it over her head.

  “Now am I ready to go?”

  “Yes.”

  Shard extended a foreleg. Tevi realised it was an offer to climb on the dragon’s back. A saddle, or something to provide a secure seat would have been nice. In its absence, Tevi shifted up until she was just behind Shard’s head. Here, the dragon’s neck was narrow enough for Tevi to grip with her legs. The backward-projecting horns between its ears could also be grabbed in an emergency.

  “Are you settled?” Shard asked.

  “Just about.”

  The muscles under Tevi bunched. For a second, the dragon held the crouch, and then it launched itself off the ledge. Treetops skimmed by beneath Tevi’s feet. The huge wings powered down, causing a wind that roared through the branches. And then, beat by beat, the dragon climbed into the morning sky.

  Chapter Twelve—Fire, Death and Destruction

  The thick sheet of cloud stretched unbroken from one horizon to the other, heralding the start of the spring rains. The sky to the south was already streaked brown. Before long, the downpour would reach her, though Jemeryl could not muster the energy to care. She lay on her back, staring at the grey sky. The sun was hidden, but the time must be somewhere in midmorning.

  The night before, she had walked until well after sunrise. Sticking to the road meant that she did not need to worry about direction. She would have continued walking all day, except she knew that she ought to rest. An isolated patch of thicket offered the best shelter available on the windswept plain. Judging by the small burnt circles from campfires, others had thought so before her.

  Jemeryl had not set up camp, just dropped her backpack and lay down between the bushes, knowing that she needed to sleep. But she had doubted that she would be able to, and she was right. The seething emotions would not let go. Eventually she drifted off for a few minutes, only to wake from nightmares filled with Mavek’s screams.

  Groaning, Jemeryl sat up and hugged her legs. She rested her forehead on her knees. Tears squeezed from beneath her closed eyelids. Tevi was dead.

  “Why don’t you eat something?” Klara’s voice jarred on her ears.

  “I’m not hungry.” Jemeryl felt as if she would never be hungry again.

  “Have a drink, at least.”

  Jemeryl gave in and pulled the cap off the water-skin. The liquid hit her stomach like lead, but it loosened the tightness in her throat. Her gaze travelled through the waving screen of branches to the road, thirty feet
away. She should get moving. Or she could stay where she was and rot. Both options sounded equally appealing.

  Images danced through her head: Tevi looking up from a book, her head tilted slightly at the interruption and an indulgent smile on her lips; Tevi walking through a doorway, shaking rain from her hair and stripping off her cloak; Tevi standing a few yards away, locked in conversation, unaware that she was being watched, until she turned slightly and their eyes met. Jemeryl summoned the more intangible memories: how she felt when Tevi held her hand, the warm, safe sense of belonging, the strength of knowing that she need never face anything alone. Except she did now.

  Another memory teased her—the last night Tevi had spent in Tirakhalod. Jemeryl remembered waking up on the floor with Tevi beside her. She recalled the happiness of watching dim firelight on Tevi’s sleeping face, and also the nagging fear squirming inside her. She had not wanted Tevi to go on that last mission. With hindsight, it might even have been her sorcerer’s senses giving her a premonition of tragedy. Why had she not acted on it? Why had she decided not to ask Tevi to change her mind?

  Surely getting Tevi to agree would not have been hard. After Yenneg’s stupid games with the love potion and Bykoda’s indifferent reaction, Tevi could not have been feeling much loyalty to the regime at Tirakhalod. Why should she undertake dangerous work on their behalf?

  Jemeryl scrabbled through the pack at her side and pulled out the sword and shirt she had claimed from Cluthotin. They were the only keepsakes she now had of Tevi, and she hugged them to her.

  If only she had tried to make Tevi stay. They could have left as soon as the council meeting started and been well on the road before Bykoda had been murdered. By now, they would be halfway to the Protectorate and safety. Tevi would be by her side, warm and breathing. Jemeryl’s face twisted in a grimace. If only she had made the right decision on that night.

  Without conscious thought, her hand travelled to the chain at her throat. This situation was the result of exactly the sort of mistake that Bykoda had created her talisman to rectify. Jemeryl pulled the talisman free from her shirt and let it swing before her eyes. The carved patterns on its surface seemed so much more evocative than the last time she had looked at them.

  Bykoda had been sure that the device was no longer safe. Bykoda had also understood how to work the thing but had not dared to use it. Jemeryl knew that her own chances of successfully altering the past were too small to risk. If the talisman ruptured, it would cause massive destruction. She would be responsible for the deaths of thousands of people. Her own life would undoubtedly be lost with them. But she would not be in pain any more, on her own, missing Tevi.

  And supposing it worked?

  Jemeryl rested her head back on her knees and sobbed. Until that moment, she had not fully understood the awful temptation of the talisman.

  *

  Once she had got over her initial apprehension, Tevi enjoyed the flight. Sitting on a dragon’s back, wearing a thick fur cloak, was definitely preferable to freezing in its claws. She knew that she was just a passenger, but the feeling of power was inescapable and exhilarating. The whole world lay beneath her like a giant version of the battle table.

  She tried to spot landmarks she knew, but everything looked different from the air. Shard was flying higher than the eagles. The contours of the land were lost, so that hills, rivers, and forests were little more than variations in colour. Also, as the morning progressed, Tevi had the growing impression that their route was purposely avoiding the region that she was familiar with.

  The circumstances of her journey to Shard’s lair meant that she had paid little attention to direction and had only a vague idea that they had headed north. Yet, on leaving the cave, Shard set off due east. After some hours, Tevi noted that their bearing had swung south. Then, with midday approaching, Shard again altered course and turned to the west.

  As far as Tevi could judge, and if she was right about the location of Shard’s lair, they would end up passing some way south of Tirakhalod. The impression was that Shard had made a wide detour around an obstacle, except Tevi could think of nothing the dragon could not have simply flown over. She even began to wonder if it was all part of the dragon’s perverse mentality, that they would travel in a huge circle and arrive back at the cave again that night.

  A blanket of low cloud soon cut off her view of the land and she lost all sense of progress. After another hour went by, Tevi was toying with the idea of asking Shard to land for a while so that she could ease her aching muscles and at the same time ask the dragon just where they were headed. She was about to speak when she noticed that they were descending. The featureless bank of cloud was getting steadily closer. Wisps of white curled up towards them, getting thicker, and then they plunged in.

  Tevi was disappointed to discover that the inside of a cloud was exactly like dense fog. She could see no farther than the length of Shard’s wings. Maybe the lack of visibility also disturbed the dragon. Shard dived steeply and soon emerged beneath the layer. The land below was flat, without trees or hills. Tevi spotted a mixed herd of deer and the shaggy cow-like animals that grazed the northern plains.

  A river meandered across the grasslands. They were now low enough that Tevi could make an estimate of its size. At last, Tevi was fairly sure of where they were. The river had to be the Kladjishe, thirty or so miles northeast of Uzhenek. Tevi frowned. Surely Jemeryl would not have abandoned her and set off for the Protectorate alone?

  “Why haven’t we gone to Tirakhalod? Jem is most likely still there waiting for me.” Tevi leaned forwards to shout in the dragon’s ear, but Shard made no reply.

  Perhaps dragons found it hard to fly and talk at the same time. Questions might have to wait until they landed. Which, if Uzhenek was their goal, should not be much longer. At the dragon’s rate of progress, Tevi estimated that they would reach the city within minutes.

  For the first time, Tevi noticed people on the ground below. And they, in their turn, had clearly seen the dragon. Tevi watched them inch across the ground in what was probably a flat-out dash to escape. Luckily for them Shard was not currently hostile. Watching their pathetic attempts to flee made her realise just how little chance a normal person stood against a dragon—as if more example than Captain Altrun were needed. However, Tevi would happily have staked her life that Jemeryl would be able to blast Shard from the skies if she wanted. Which was in turn a worrying thought. Tevi could only hope that, if Jemeryl were waiting ahead in Uzhenek, she would not take any pre-emptive action against the incoming monster.

  The Kladjishe had etched a wide valley through the otherwise featureless plain. Shard’s path lay parallel to the river. The dragon was flying low, barely fifty feet above the brink of the escarpment on the southern side. Finally, Tevi spotted the outline of Uzhenek in a bend in the river ahead, although it was very different from the city that Jemeryl and she had passed through on their way to Tirakhalod. Back then, Jemeryl had told her that the ethereal towers and imposing defences were purely an illusion projected by Bykoda. The Empress was now dead and the citadel had vanished, but the surrounding slums remained.

  A mile before the city, Shard veered off to the left, away from the river, and then looped back, heading straight for the point on the valley wall that would be overlooking Uzhenek. Ahead of them the smooth field of grass ended in a ragged line where it dropped away to the flood plain beyond.

  Just before they were about to shoot over the edge, Shard made a sharp dive and landed. The sudden cessation of movement came with a thump. For the moment, Uzhenek was out of sight, although it could have been no more than a quarter of a mile away. The area was deserted. Anyone who might have been around had already fled.

  “You should get off here. No one should see that you were on me.”

  Tevi jumped down, pleased to be able to stretch her legs. She also had questions she wanted answers to. “Why? And where’s Jemeryl? You said you were going to take me to her.”

  “I said I
would take you to where she was going to be. Which I have.”

  “Why not take me straight to her?”

  “I can’t guess how to explain. Just wait for her and tell her what I’ve told you about us coming when you’ve sorted it out.”

  “But you haven’t told me anything.”

  “I’ve told you all sorts of things. You just haven’t understood.”

  “But—”

  Shard cut her off. “No. You will need to run to the city.”

  With a mighty beat of its wings, the dragon leapt into the air. Tevi was a fraction too late in shielding her eyes from the cloud of grit and grass. By the time she could see again, the grey sky overhead was empty, but she caught a glimpse of Shard’s tail vanishing as the dragon swooped over the edge of the escarpment. Tevi raced after, drawing breath to shout one last question. She reached the brink and looked down.

  Already, the dragon was far ahead, hurtling on towards the city. The people would be terrified. Tevi decided that she might as well follow the instruction to run, if only so that she could allay the inhabitants’ fears.

  Tevi launched herself down the slope. The need to watch her footing meant her eyes stayed fixed on the ground, rather than on events in the city, but by the time that she was a third of the way to the bottom, the first faint screams were carried to her on the wind. Why was Shard scaring the townsfolk? It had put her down where it said she needed to be, so why not go straight home now? Did dragons enjoy the fear they caused?

  The steep gradient levelled out. Tevi’s progress changed from bone-jarring bounds to an even run, and she was able to look up safely. However, when she did so, the sight made her stumble and fall to her knees.

  No more than a hundred yards away, the nearest huts were wrapped in flames. The twisting columns of smoke spiralling up into the grey sky were matched by others from more distant parts of the city. Blackened figures lay on the ground, some still moving.

  Remembered words echoed in Tevi’s head.

  “Wantonly killing people can’t be right.”