Crown of Dragonfire

by Daniel Arenson

  I am old, and I am frail, Jaren thought. He was not yet sixty, yet he felt over a hundred, wearied by years of toil. He could not fight this battle as the younger ones could, yet they looked to him for guidance, for wisdom . . . for leadership. For gifts he didn't know that he had to give. Perhaps that was the folly of youth—that the young, when faced with hardship, looked to their elders for aid, not knowing that even the very old wished for a teacher.

  Yet Jaren was the only teacher they had now, and the young ones needed him. He would give them whatever guidance he could, would shepherd them through a storm he was not sure any of them could survive.

  He spoke softly. "This is a precious moment. This is a moment of sweetness, of family, of peace. Our family sits together, bound by love and light, though darkness surrounds us. Before we face that darkness, let us pray."

  He sang in a deep, rumbling voice as he lit candles on the table. He sang the old prayers of Requiem—songs of distant hills in dawn, rustling birch forests, blue mountains kissed with mist and sunlight, marble tiles and white columns. A song of dragons. A song of home. A song of their lost sky. The others sang with him as the candles burned, little lights shaped as the Draco constellation. The brightest candle he arranged to shine as the dragon's eye—Issari's Star.

  "Many small lights can banish even the greatest shadow." Jaren looked across the candles at his family. "And now a great shadow surrounds us. The cruel tyrant seeks Meliora in every corner of Shayeen and Tofet, and he will not rest until he finds her. He will seek our dear Tash too, a new daughter in our family. And he will continue to enslave the rest of us, to grind us down, to break us, to slay us. And now we must decide: how can we keep our lights shining in this darkness?"

  "We fight." Vale rose to his feet, nearly knocking back his stool. "We've collected and hidden two spears in this very hut. Other slaves have hidden weapons too. We rise! We march to the palace again, this time armed. And—"

  "No." Jaren shook his head. "We marched once. We lost too many." He lowered his head, overcome by the grief, the memory of the decimation. "We cannot face the enemy, not in human forms, not while collared."

  Vale slammed his fist against the tabletop. "Then we storm the ziggurat. We find the Keeper's Key. We—"

  "I already found it," Meliora said, voice barely more than a whisper. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a crumpled ball of crimson metal, and placed it on the tabletop. The edges of golden runes were still visible; most of the ancient symbols were hidden within the crushed, metallic embrace.

  Elory spoke for the first time, eyes widening. "The Keeper's Key! It's . . ."

  "Useless." Meliora sighed. "Many times I tried to use it on my collar, to no avail. With the key crushed, its runes won't work. Ishtafel crushed it in his palm." She nudged the crumpled ball across the table. "Try it on your collars. Perhaps you'll have more luck than I did."

  They all stared at one another, silent. Jaren reached across the tabletop first and lifted the broken key. The crimson metal was cold. Jaren had never touched ice before, but he imagined that it felt like this. Yet whenever his fingertips passed across what remained of the runes, he felt warmth. He had seen this key from a distance before—the overseers would use it when unlocking his wife's collar, allowing her to become a dragon and dig through the bitumen—though he had never come so close. Slowly he raised the ancient relic to his throat, bringing it near his collar.

  Elory gasped. "Father, the runes on your collar! They're glowing! They're . . . fading."

  Warmth surrounded Jaren's neck. The runes on the key too glowed, but then their light fizzled and dimmed. The collar remained around his neck.

  He passed the key to Elory, and she tried it on her collar, then Tash and Vale both tried on theirs. In each case, the runes only flickered, glowed softly for an instant, then faded to darkness.

  "There must be another key," Elory whispered. "Surely in the palace, there is another."

  "There is only one." Meliora returned the crumpled key into her pocket. "There was only ever one."

  "Then we fix this one." Elory nodded. "We'll heat the metal just enough, unfold it, return the key to its former shape."

  Meliora shook her head again. "We would only melt the golden runes, perhaps beyond restoration. No. I dare not try to fix it myself, for fear that I would damage it further. But . . . there is one who can fix this key."

  They all turned to stare at her. Meliora seemed to stare into nothingness, perhaps lost in memory.

  "Who, daughter?" Jaren said, reaching out to touch her hand. "Who can fix it?"

  She looked at him, eyes haunted. "He who made this key five hundred years ago. He who still lingers in a mockery of life, banished from our realm. He of whom the seraphim rarely speak." She shuddered. "The Keymaker."

  ISHTAFEL

  He lay on his bed, face aflame, grinding his teeth so hard they nearly chipped. He dug his fingernails into his palms, drawing blood. Every breath burned. All was fire. All was rage.

  You burned me.

  His fists shook.

  You escaped me.

  His hand rose, shaking. His fingers uncurled, dripping his own blood, and reached to the bandage on his cheek.

  "My lord!" said the healer, a young woman in white robes, her halo glowing. "You need to leave the bandage on, my lord, you—"

  He roared, swung his hand, and knocked her down. The effort tore through him like a demon, leaving him gasping for breath, coughing. His face blazed as if covered in embers. As the healer mewled on the floor, Ishtafel grabbed the bandage on his face.

  He tore it off with one swift movement.

  For an instant, silence.

  For an instant, nothing but cold, white shock.

  Then he screamed.

  He rose to his feet, stumbled across the chamber of healing, and stared into the bronze mirror on the wall.

  Slowly he began to laugh.

  A dripping, red welt ran across his face, rising from the left side of his jaw, crossing his cheek and forehead, and finally running across half his scalp. The mark of Meliora's flaming halo. As he laughed, the wound twisted, lined with blisters. A second wound glared from his chest, the stitched cut from her spear.

  "Yes, sweet sister," he said. "We are both changed."

  Meliora lurked somewhere within these walls—in Shayeen, the City of Kings, or in Tofet, the land of slaves. There were no gates that broke these walls; winged seraphim needed no gates.

  "Yet you have no wings, Meliora," he said, speaking to his reflection, to the halo of fire across his face. "You are trapped. And I will find you here. I will find you if I have to kill every slave in my empire, one by one, until you are mine."

  He stepped out of the chamber of healing. He walked through the halls of the palace, stepped onto a dark balcony, and mounted his chariot of fire. His wounds roared across him, and he grinned and grabbed the reins. Bare-chested, he soared. His firehorses stormed across the sky, and the city sprawled below him in the night. Somewhere in those shadows she lurked—the sister whose skin he would burn until nothing was left.

  MELIORA

  "The . . . Keymaker?" Elory whispered, eyes wide, leaning across the tabletop.

  Meliora nodded. "We do not like speaking his name in the ziggurat. He is a powerful wizard, ancient, a mystic being. His magic is so great they say it drove him to madness. With that dark magic, he made the key and the collars." She shuddered. "My family exiled him, fearing his power, fearing his madness. He lives far in the mountains, claiming dominion over a ruined fort."

  "A mystic being?" Vale said, frowning. "Is he not a seraph?"

  Meliora swallowed a lump in her throat. "I don't know what he is. He is never painted, never sculpted, never described in our ancient books. I never saw him. He was exiled centuries ago. But . . . I heard tales. Tales I dare not repeat. But though I fear him, I must find him. If there's any hope left to us, it's in his hands."

  It was Jaren's turn to speak. The old priest looked at her with hi
s sad brown eyes, his voice soft. "Yet how will we find him, daughter? The walls surrounding Tofet are high, and in five hundred years, only the hero Lucem has ever scaled them. Thousands have tried. Those are not good odds."

  Meliora nodded. Lucem. The hero of Requiem. A legend among the slaves. Meliora remembered that day ten years ago. She had been only a youth, seventeen, naive and scared. The entire city garrison had risen into the sky, seeking the escaped slave in the hills, deserts, and mountains around the city. Since then, Lucem had been an embarrassment to her family—the slave who had found a blind spot in the walls of Tofet, who had climbed, who had killed a seraph archer, who had escaped into the wilderness. Her family had never spoken of him again . . . yet in Tofet, he was still a hero, forever remembered.

  "No," Meliora said. "We will not try to scale the wall as Lucem did. It rises too high. All its blind spots have been found since Lucem escaped, and many guards patrol its battlements. There are no city gates in Tofet nor in Shayeen, it's true; seraphim need none, able to fly above the walls as easily as any dragon." She smiled thinly. "But there is a river. The Te'ephim River flows between Shayeen and Tofet, forever separating our two realms. And only where the river leaves the city is the wall broken—two exits. Two ways we can escape."

  Vale grunted. The tall, dour slave gripped a spoon as if it were a sword. "Swimming won't work. Many slaves tried. I knew some of them. Good men." He groaned. "There are beasts in the water, reptiles with great teeth, smaller than dragons but hungry and vicious. Hundreds of them. Trained to feed upon the flesh of any slave mad enough to swim for freedom. And even if you made it past the reptiles, there are walls along the river too. Not as tall as the walls around the city, but guards top them too, armed with bows and arrows. Just waiting for a chance to shoot whoever the reptiles miss." He shook his head. "No, the river is death. I would sooner try to scale the wall as Lucem did than swim. At least we know one man who fled over the wall. No slave ever made it through the water."

  "Yet I am no simple slave." Meliora placed her hands around Vale's fist that still clutched the spoon, and she stared into his eyes. "I have the eyes of a seraph. I have no more wings, no more long golden hair, and my halo burns with red fire. But cloaked and hooded, nothing but my eyes visible?" She smiled thinly. "Yes. I think I could still pass for a seraph. I will walk to the city port—there are no walls there—and book passage in a boat. I will sail out of the city." She nodded and tightened her grip around his hand. "I will find the Keymaker."

  Silence fell across the hut.

  They all stared at her, eyes wide . . . all but Tash.

  Throughout the night, the slender pleasurer had said little, merely sat and listened. Now her eyes narrowed, and she rose to her feet. The candlelight reflected in her bracelets, earrings, and ring.

  "Wait a minute!" Tash said. "This won't work. This won't work at all."

  "It's our only hope," Meliora said.

  Tash shook her head wildly, her long brown hair swaying. "It's a useless hope! Look. Do the numbers. There are . . . what, half a million slaves in Tofet? Maybe more?" She nodded. "And even if you fix the key, that's just one key. Imagine you could get every slave to line up, one by one, and you started opening their collars. Imagine it took you . . . say, thirty seconds to open a collar. It would still take six months to open everyone's collars. Half a year! And that's assuming you could even do it that fast. Meanwhile Ishtafel would kill us all. The seraphim wouldn't give us six minutes to work, let alone six months."

  Vale grumbled. "At least it's some hope. At least we could get a few dragons flying before Ishtafel attacks."

  Tash groaned. "A few dragons who'd die right away! Think, everyone. Ishtafel killed thousands of dragons in Requiem. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. He's good at killing them. Just opening a few collars won't work. We'd all need to fly as dragons, together—all of us, the entire nation of Requiem, roaring fire at once, surprising the enemy. That's the only way we'd stand even a tiny chance. To do that . . . we'd need over half a million keys. A key for every slave, kept hidden, secret . . . then all used at once." Her eyes shone.

  Meliora winced. "According to legend, it took the Keymaker six days and nights to forge this key and embed it with dark magic." She sighed. "I don't think we'd have time waiting for half a million keys."

  "We don't need to wait." A sly grin spread across Tash's face. "I know some magical secrets too. There is a way . . . and there is a map."

  Tash took a round obsidian box from her pocket, the kind pleasurers kept spice in, and opened it. Inside, instead of hintan, was a folded piece of parchment. She unfolded it carefully, as if handling an ancient relic, revealing a crudely drawn map, showing mountains, rivers, and a coastline.

  "It's the world outside the walls," Elory whispered, staring in awe. "How did you find this map?"

  "The pleasure pits are the empire's hub of knowledge." Tash nodded. "Every man who comes into our den, who smokes our pipes, who drinks our wine, who moans under our kisses, his words are ours to collect. And we hoard that information like a miser hoards gold. This is a map to the most important, most magical, most sought-after treasure in the world." She pointed at a drawing of a ship upon an eastern coast, and her voice dropped to an awed whisper. "The Chest of Plenty."

  They all stared silently, and Meliora struggled not to laugh. The Chest of Plenty? She had outgrown believing in that artifact years ago.

  "Tash." Meliora spoke gently. "The Chest of Plenty is just a myth. Just a tale they tell children in the palace."

  "Not a tale!" Tash's eyes flashed angrily. "It's real. One man who came into the pleasure pit, he'd even seen the ghost ship from a distance, beached upon the shore. He swears he heard the ghosts who guard the ship, who guard the chest within. Imagine it, Meliora! A chest that can duplicate whatever you place inside it—food, coins, jewels." Tash's eyes gleamed like jewels themselves. "For years, I dreamed of finding the Chest of Plenty. Of placing my own humble jewels inside it, only to see them multiplied a thousand times. I would have enough money to live as a queen. To build a castle somewhere, to have servants, to . . ." Tash's cheeks flushed. "Well, I suppose that dream is rather childish. An impossible dream. But the Chest of Plenty is real. Thousands of men have sought it, dreaming of growing rich off a single gold coin, but I'm the only one who has a real map."

  Meliora sighed. Tash seemed earnest, excited, and she had saved Meliora's life. But how could Meliora believe this tale?

  "Tash—" she began.

  "Hush!" Tash glared at her. "I don't want to hear your doubt. The Chest of Plenty is real. It has to be real. It's real or . . . or all my dreams are meaningless. And I won't believe that." Her eyes dampened. "I won't! I'm going to escape with you on your boat. I helped you escape from your prison cell; you will help me escape from the city walls. You owe this to me. I will travel alone if I must, following this map, until I find the Chest of Plenty. Until I bring it back here and place your Keeper's Key within it."

  "No." It was Vale who spoke this time. The gaunt young man rose to his feet, staring with hard eyes.

  Tash glared right back at him. "And who are you to tell me what not to do? You're nothing but a—"

  "No," Vale repeated, voice hard. "You will not follow this map alone. I'll go with you."

  Everyone stared at him, silent. Tash gaped and rubbed her eyes. "You . . . want to come with me? You believe the Chest of Plenty is real?" She glanced down at her cleavage. "Or do you just believe this chest might be yours?"

  "I don't know if the chest is real," Vale said, ignoring the jab. "I don't know if the Keymaker is real. I don't even know if our hope is real or just folly. But I know that here, in Tofet, there is no hope. So I will seek it beyond the walls." He turned toward Meliora. "We're joining you in your boat, Meliora. You'll smuggle us out of the city. You will go seek the Keymaker, and you will fix the key. Meanwhile Tash and I will find the Chest of Plenty to duplicate that key half a million times." He clenched his fists. "Soon a nation of drago
ns will rise."

  ELORY

  For the first time since the slaughter, the decimation that had left one in ten slaves dead, Elory dared to feel hope, dared to let the veil of grief lift.

  Meliora will fix the key. Elory touched her collar, remembering the time she had begun to shift, had seen the buds of lavender scales before the collar had slammed her back into human form. Vale and Tash will multiply it, one for every dragon. Requiem will fly again.

  "So what are we waiting for?" Tash was saying, leaping to her feet. "Let's go. Now! Before Ishtafel burns down every hut to find us. Before the sun rises."

  When Elory glanced over at Tash, she felt her cheeks heat up. Memories of her brief time in the pit, of Tash's lessons, filled her with a strange, intoxicating feeling much like the spice's smoke. Here in the hut, Tash was all wildfire, but back in the pleasure pit, she had been like honey, her kisses and caresses awakening deep senses in Elory she could not forget. Elory had never loved another soul, not a romantic sort of love, but she had heard tales of romance, and she wondered if those feelings were akin to the ones Tash had instilled within her. Strangely, Elory missed the pleasure pit, missed the comforting shadows, the incense, the gentle touch of Tash's lips.

  She shook her head wildly. She had no room for such thoughts anymore. Those days were over, and a new path lay before her, a path of war.

  She rose to her feet too, and she approached the others, one by one.

  "Goodbye, Vale," she whispered, hugging her brother, then turned toward Meliora. "Goodbye, sister. I will pray for you. I—"