“You and Ben will both remove your shirts and bandages. Each of you will lie down in the grass. Then I will tie your hands and feet to a set of stakes.”
“Don’t much like the sound of that,” Hound said.
“Me neither,” said Ben.
“A necessary precaution,” Chen said with a helpless shrug. “During the process, the stalker will attempt to possess you. And it must for this to work—it must come to the surface before it can be banished.”
“Sounds fun,” Hound said flatly. “Then what?”
“I will apply a poultice to your wounds. You will drift into a place between sleep and waking for a time. As the medicine does its work, the stalker will realize that its taint is being drawn out of you. It will exert its will in a desperate attempt to remain in this world. That is when I will strip it from you and drive it from our realm.”
“We’ll get back to that last part in a minute,” Hound said, eyeing Chen suspiciously. “Why can’t we just let the medicine pull the taint out and be done with it?”
“The poultice will only remove the physical remnants of the infection. Magic is required to remove the rest.”
“So you’re going to use magic to get rid of it,” Hound said. “I thought you needed part of a dragon to do that.”
“Indeed,” Chen said, pulling a small amulet from under his shirt.
Frank leaned forward with a start. “Is that a dragon bone?”
“Yes,” Chen said, holding Frank’s eyes with his own.
“How?” Frank asked. “Where did you get it?”
Ben frowned in confusion as he examined the circular piece of bone hanging from a sturdy leather thong threaded through a hole at its center. The medallion was an inch in diameter and not more than a quarter-inch thick. Intricate runes were carved into every part of its surface.
“This is very old,” Chen said, holding it up and examining it as if for the first time, a look of wonder in his eyes. “It was given to me by my father as he lay on his deathbed.”
“But … how’s that even possible?” Frank asked. “Dragonfall was only seventy-five years ago.”
“You assume, like most people, that this is the first time the dragons tried to conquer our world.”
“Wait … you mean they’ve been here before?” Hound asked.
“Of course,” Chen said. “Where did you think all of the stories of dragons and magic came from? They brought war to our world at least once before, very long ago. A great civilization fought them and prevailed, but at a terrible cost. Humanity fell into darkness and ignorance for millennia.”
Ben’s mind reeled as all of the implications and possibilities raced around in his head, jumbled and confused. If the dragons had come to earth before, they could come again. Even if they were defeated, they would be back.
Chen seemed to read his thoughts, offering him a helpless, yet sympathetic shrug.
“We can’t win,” Ben whispered.
“Sure we can,” Chen said. “We did before and we will again.”
“But eventually, sooner or later, they’ll conquer the world.”
“Perhaps, but the future is not set. They will attack. They will wage their war of conquest and tyranny, just as countless human governments have done over the ages. And ultimately they will fail, just as every government that has risen under the banner of evil has fallen, just as the dragons fell into myth and legend. Evil can only prevail in the short term. Over time, it always fails.”
“Lot of good that does us,” Frank said, his eyes never leaving the amulet until Chen slipped it back inside his shirt.
“Shall we begin?” Chen asked, looking to Ben and Hound for their assent.
Both nodded with a half measure of certainty.
Chapter 16
The grass was cool but comfortable enough. The ropes tied around his wrists and ankles weren’t. Ben tried to ignore the pain, taking solace in the familiar blue of the sky. Homer lay down next to him, whining softly.
“It’ll be okay,” Ben said.
Homer didn’t respond except by whining again. Chen patted him on the head as he knelt down between Ben and Rufus, carefully cleaning their wounds, then disinfecting them with alcohol. Once he was satisfied that they were thoroughly clean, he went to his hearth and stirred the pot of ingredients that he’d been cooking for most of the day.
The sun was warm, diminishing the chill of the air and drying their wounds. After a while, Chen returned with a pot of foul-smelling brew in one hand and a basket in the other. He began with Hound, applying a thick coating of a dark green paste to his chest.
“Holy shit, that smells bad,” Hound said, turning his head aside.
Ben nearly vomited when the first wave of stench hit his nostrils, turning away as well and focusing his mind on other things in an effort to escape the unpleasantness of the moment. His efforts were met with limited success.
When Chen applied the poultice to Ben’s chest, it burned painfully. He clenched his teeth and renewed his efforts to detach from the pain.
Imogen brought Chen a pot of hot water. He dropped two thick cloths into it, allowing them to soak for a few moments. After wringing out the hot towels, he laid one over the poultice on Hound’s chest and carefully pressed it into place. Then he repeated the procedure on Ben.
The heat increased. Sweat began to bead on Ben’s forehead.
Imogen left and returned with a bowl of cold water and a cloth. She alternated between the two of them, gently pressing the cloth against their foreheads to help ease the fever rising within each.
A prickly wave of heat flowed from the poultice into Ben’s entire body followed quickly by sweat beading up and running down the sides of his chest. He started to feel trapped and helpless. Try as he might, he simply couldn’t pull his mind away from the heat. When Chen had first applied the poultice, Ben had assumed that the temperature would naturally cool, but it didn’t. Instead it just got hotter.
His mind wandered into delirium, only occasionally returning to reality to hear Imogen’s soothing words and feel the bite of the rope around his wrists as he struggled to free himself.
He found himself back in the forest, facing the eyes in the night, rooted to the ground and helpless. Fear pressed in on him, surrounding and suffocating him with its insistent embrace.
The eyes began to move, slowly at first, and then so quickly that he could do nothing but watch them come, streaking through the fog. As the stalker crashed into him, the dreamscape vanished and he plunged into an icy darkness. It was so cold, so utterly devoid of light and so wrong that he tried to scream with unbridled panic, but no sound came.
It was as if he’d lost all form, all sense, save the awareness that he was alone in the cold dark. A fragment of a thought intruded into his misery, and it dawned on him that this was the true nature of the stalker’s realm and existence. In spite of his terror, Ben felt a pang of sympathy for the horrible creature. Even though it had hunted him and nearly killed him, he wouldn’t wish this existence on any being. It was little wonder that the stalkers would do anything to have form, to live in a world with light and warmth.
Then he heard laughter laced with incalculable malice … and the truth of the stalker’s intent became clear. It meant to banish him to this realm forever, trading places with his soul as it possessed his body. The horror of it was almost more than Ben could bear.
He struggled to free himself, the cold despair seeping into every recess of his being, overtaking his mind, will, and soul until he felt utterly lost and cut off from all hope. He clung to memories of his life, to thoughts of Cyril and Homer, to places where he felt warm and safe, but even those were little comfort in the face of such utter dissolution.
And then there was a glimmer of light, somewhere very far away. He willed himself toward it, but then it was gone. Brief hope fell into renewed despair. He tried to wail, but without form, he had no power to act. The loneliness was utterly complete.
The light flashed again. And a
gain, he yearned to reach out to it, to hold on to something, anything that could free him from this terrible realm, but he was impotent. His will mattered for nothing here. All he could do was experience the crushing cold and aloneness.
Terror rose within what was left of him, filling him with the thought that he might be trapped, doomed to experience this place of despair for all time, unable even to die. The thought filled him with a kind of panic that assaulted his sanity. Visceral fear invaded his psyche, overpowering his reason, shoving aside all remnants of hope and leaving him facing a horror that he had never even imagined could exist.
The light flashed again. He resisted the urge to hope in the belief that it was false, just a mirage created to shatter his sanity when it was cruelly ripped away from him. And it was. The void consumed him again. All sense of time faded, leaving only eternal darkness and unmitigated despair.
A shriek of primal rage brought him back to some sense of himself. Light flashed again, this time much brighter, followed by another plunge into the void. And then light flashed again, followed by a frantic, desperate struggle as the stalker fought to remain free of this place.
He felt its furious desperation as it tried to claw its way back into Ben’s reality. One final flash of light and he felt his entire being yanked from the depths of despair and darkness as if someone had reached into black water and pulled him to the surface. The light faded with his awareness … and then there was nothing save the solace of oblivion.
Imogen tightened her grip on Cyril’s hand as a tear slipped down her cheek. Ben’s howl of fear and pain filled the grotto. When he went limp, Hound renewed his unconscious fight against his bindings, wailing against some unseen torment.
Chen sat between them, legs crossed, eyes closed, one hand on each of them. He chanted in Chinese, repeating the same series of words over and over again. While his body was relaxed and his breathing was in time to his chanting, his face revealed deep struggle and concentration.
“I don’t know if I can watch this,” Imogen whispered.
“You don’t have to,” Cyril said. “There’s nothing you can do now.”
She shook her head slowly, her eyes never leaving Ben. “No, I have to stay,” she said quietly.
“Is this what magic looks like?” Frank asked, a mixture of wonder and fear in his eyes.
“Sometimes,” Cyril answered. “As I said, bargaining magic always comes with a high price.”
“Who’s Chen bargaining with?”
“He’s not. He’s using manifestation magic to undo a bargain struck by another. And the stalker is resisting.”
“Will they survive?” Frank asked.
Cyril nodded without looking away from Ben, worry etched into his face.
Homer came to Cyril and nosed his hand, looking up at him as if beseeching him to do something. Cyril scratched the dog’s head. “There’s nothing I can do,” he whispered sadly.
Suddenly, both men cried out in unison, their bodies tensing as they arched their backs with only their heads and heels on the ground. They froze in that position for several moments, shaking under the strain, before collapsing and falling still and silent.
Imogen shot to her feet, taking several steps toward Ben, holding her breath and putting a hand over her mouth, tears flowing freely. When Ben started breathing again, she crumpled to her knees and wept.
Chen stopped chanting and opened his eyes, rising wearily to his feet.
“The taint is gone,” he said. “Untie them and wrap them in blankets. They will sleep for many hours.”
He walked away to his house, a bit unsteadily, and vanished within. Cyril went to Ben and gently removed the bindings, wincing at the angry welts on his wrists. Imogen brought his bedroll and laid it down next to him while Cyril untied Hound.
After they’d rolled them both into their blankets and made them as comfortable as they could, Cyril looked around aimlessly and wandered away into the trees without a word. Imogen sat in the grass nearby and cried quietly. John brought her a cup of water and tried to comfort her, but she gently rebuffed him.
He sighed quietly and went into the trees as well.
Frank followed him. “Wait up,” he said.
John slowed his pace until Frank caught up.
“Does she know?” Frank asked.
John shrugged, not bothering to look at him.
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious.”
“I’m sure she has other things on her mind right now,” John said.
“And that doesn’t bother you?”
He shrugged again. “In time, all things will be set right.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Try me.”
John regarded him for a moment and shook his head. “Some things are better left unspoken.”
“What the hell is it with everybody? Everyone has a secret except me.”
John looked at him sidelong for a moment, a bemused half smile on his face.
“What?”
John chuckled mirthlessly. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
They walked for a minute through the trees in silence.
Finally, Frank said, “That was something else. Ben didn’t even sound human for a while there.”
“It was disturbing.”
“You’re a master of understatement,” Frank said. “What do you think of Chen?”
John fell silent for several steps. “He has a way about him. Can’t help but respect the man.”
“And he has a dragon bone,” Frank whispered, looking around.
“You picked up on that too?” John said, his sarcasm lost on Frank.
They walked on in silence until Frank stopped John with a hand on his upper arm.
“Don’t you think we could use that? I mean, given what we’re up against, we need it more than he does.”
John looked down at Frank’s hand until Frank let go of him.
“What are you suggesting?”
“Well, nothing really,” he said a bit defensively. “It’d just be nice to have some magic of our own, you know, to help us get Imogen’s baby back.”
John nodded soberly, turning back to the trail and walking away without a word.
Frank watched him go, his hand coming to his chin and his eyes searching the forest in thought.
Imogen sat at the table sipping tea while she watched Ben and Rufus sleep. Both men breathed deeply and rhythmically. Homer lay near Ben’s head, watching him intently, as if willing him to wake.
Chen came to the table, startling her.
“I didn’t hear you,” she said softly, quickly regaining her composure.
“My apologies. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
He poured himself a cup of tea, offering to warm her cup as well before taking a seat across from her.
“Will they be okay?” she asked.
He looked at them for several moments before nodding.
“The infection and the stalker are gone, but they’ve been through an ordeal that will haunt them, maybe for the rest of their lives. I cannot predict how they will react to such an experience.”
“This is all my fault,” she whispered, wiping a tear from her cheek.
Chen waited for her to look at him.
“You know that it’s not.”
“But it is,” she insisted. “If I hadn’t married Enzo, none of this would be happening.”
“Your father said that Enzo enlisted the aid of a priest to charm you. Is this not true?”
She nodded.
“Then this is not your doing. You could have no more resisted the priest’s magic than Ben or Rufus could have resisted the stalker’s.”
“But … I left my family for a man that I don’t even like, let alone love. I let him steal my baby, and then I led him to my father’s home. And now …” She gestured helplessly toward Ben.
“Listen to me,” Chen said, taking her hand and drawing her attention back
to him. “You are a victim of the wyrm, just as they are. Blame and guilt rest solely on the enemy and his minions. Do not volunteer to carry that burden for them.”
“I just feel so helpless,” she whispered, shaking her head and looking down at the table.
“How else should you feel?” Chen asked. “Your will has been usurped by black magic. You’ve been violated by a man who isn’t capable of love. Your child has been stolen and for all of that you’re being hunted by servants of the greatest force of evil to walk this world in many thousands of years. And none of that is your doing. You bear no blame for the things that have befallen you or your family.”
“But they’re doing all of this for me,” she said. “Ben almost died because of me. And my father is determined to rescue my baby no matter the cost. I don’t even think I could stop him if I wanted to.”
Chen chuckled softly, shaking his head. “You couldn’t. Your father is fiercely loyal to his family and friends. He will reunite you with your child or he will die in the attempt.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” she said, new tears on her cheeks. “I’m terrified that I’m going to get them all killed.”
“Don’t underestimate your father. He’s a resourceful man. Your enemy doesn’t fully understand who they face.”
She fell silent for a while before looking up at Chen intently.
“I don’t remember much from my childhood, but I do remember that people respected my father, revered him even. And then my mother and my sister were killed. After that, we took Ben and Frank and we ran.” She fell silent again, finally working up the nerve to ask the question. “Who is my father? Who was he then?”
Chen smiled sadly. “That is not for me to say. Trust that all will be revealed in time.”
“I figured you’d say something like that.”
He shrugged. “Who he was and who he is are one and the same. To know his heart is to know him.”
She sighed heavily, rubbing the remnants of tears from her face. “I just wish there was something I could do.”
The Dragon's Egg (Dragonfall Book 1) Page 16
