Flight of the Dragon Knight

by D. C. Clemens

  “What?”

  “Odet, it would almost be cheaper to let Etoc go to war with us than assure such an agreement.”

  “Ugh, I explained this to you before I-”

  “And our financial advisors explained to me what the ramifications are for such a deal. You’ll make us an economic vassal to Caracasa rather than the other way around.”

  “I realize all that, but it’s not really about the deal, Beatrice. It’s about Etoc learning of it, forcing them to consider the consequences beyond just losing. Ugh, well, hopefully the deal is still large enough to give them pause. What’s the latest from Voreen?”

  “Their goal remains to thin us out using tactics fit for pirates. They attack any merchant vessel without a convoy and flee at the sight of true confrontation. We can’t protect every ship, so we’ve had to cut back on trading with most of Niatrios until Voreen decides to give up or one of us takes a more direct approach.”

  “I see…”

  “Stop that.”

  “Stop what?”

  “You’re biting your lip and staring off at nothing. You looked exactly the same before getting your Brey Stor idea. I still don’t know why I agreed to let you go.”

  “Because you liked the idea of me taking father’s responsibilities while you took mother’s, which means I’m doing everything I think father will do.”

  “But many of our advisors are saying you’re risking too much too quickly. Oclor will only act brasher if they win a major battle against an army made up of Brey Stor soldiers and our own. A bolder Oclor means they’ll work harder to consolidate their dissipated navy and then we end up with a two front naval war.”

  “I know everything you know, Beatrice. More so. I wouldn’t possibly risk so much if I didn’t think it would work.”

  “But we can win prolonged wars, Odet. We’ve done it before. If our enemies can’t hold our lands, then their trade lines begin to hurt worse than our own. A quick war we can lose.”

  “History is why I believe they’ll be unprepared for us to act more proactively this time. It even helps that both Oclor and Voreen waited so long to attack. I don’t know why they waited, but it gave us more time to prepare. It’s made me even more confident about the measures I’ve taken… and will take.”

  “There it is! You plan on instigating Voreen further, aren’t you?”

  “It’s an option.”

  “A risk filled one.”

  “All our options are risk filled, which is why we separated responsibility in the first place. We can’t do this alone. Just as Mom and Dad never did, and right now I’m the dad in the relationship. Let me think about all the dirt, blood, and war… and belching, philandering…”

  Beatrice shook her head, trying to hold back a smile. “And spitting? Don’t forget spitting.”

  “Yes, lots of that.”

  “You certainly reek of a man… Very well, we’ll keep doing it your way, but the first sign of a setback and we take safer measures.”

  “Agreed.”

  The trace of a smile shrank, then turned into the trace of a frown. “There’s something else. Elisa’s behavior has only gotten more… erratic since you left.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, first she stayed in her room all day, acting quite dour. Then I heard she took up fencing and prana training. The last piece of news stated that she’s now been running to and fro, looking determined in whatever new pastime she’s found. I feel awful that I can’t keep up with her, but she doesn’t want to be near me as I work, and she’s already asleep by the time I become free. Please, find out how she’s doing before you go off again. Remind her that her sisters love her dearly.”

  “I will. Do you know who she’s training with?”

  Beatrice turned and asked Captain Savoy, “Who did you say Elisa had been training with?”

  “Lieutenant Rowland Polack, Your Highness.”

  “Ah, that’s right. Odet, please go see the lieutenant if Elisa is not in her room.”

  I nodded as Beatrice sat on her throne again. I was about to go before I remembered something. “Hey, what did you mean by amending my sense of fashion?”

  With smiling eyes, she said, “We’ll talk later. I have people waiting. Captain, please call Lady Merriweather back up.”

  With little choice but to let it go, Bell and I left the hall and went to find Elisa.

  My youngest sister was not in her room, so I hurried to the palace training grounds. The grounds encompassed a big patch of dirt between the inner and outer walls. The dirt patch lied alongside the large western barracks that housed many of the High Guardsmen. Father and I often trained here together as others watched on or trained nearby. Gods, I pray we could do so again.

  I asked a group of sparring soldiers if they had seen Elisa and the lieutenant. A shirtless man pointed to two men sitting against the inner wall. As many men tended to be while training, they were shirtless. On seeing me approach, both resting men stood up.

  To both, I asked, “Lieutenant Polack?”

  The late twenty-something man with shoulder-length brown hair bowed. “Aye, that be me, Your Grace.”

  “You’ve been training Elisa?”

  “When the little lady wishes it.”

  “Has she wished for it recently?”

  “Not for the past three days.”

  “Do you know why she stopped?”

  “Not at first. She did well enough as my student. She listened and did not talk much. No complaints when she couldn’t get something right. It was hard to read her, but I thought she was enjoying the training. Still, something did seem restless about her.”

  “But you found out why she stopped?”

  “Aye. She asked me one day if I ever went to see the royal seer. I told her only special people like her are allowed to see him anytime they wanted. She ran off right then and there.”

  “The royal seer? Then she’s with Tascus?”

  “That would be my next stop, Your Grace.”

  “Thank you, lieutenant.”

  We retraced our steps back inside the inner wall, keeping an eye and ear out for Elisa in case she showed herself first.

  The seer tower was a slender structure on top of the palace temple. A little glass dome topped it off, making it glitter in the sunlight. After greeting the head priest—a kindly old man whose legs could no longer support his dwindling body—Bell and I climbed twenty feet of stairs to reach the beginning of a forty foot high spiraling staircase within the tower itself. I considered myself fit enough to run all the way up, but that’s when I was well rested. I thus climbed the stairs at a regular pace. Bell, being her ever supportive self, asked me whether I wanted her to carry me.

  “No, Bell. I’m quite all right… Tell me, did you ask that as my friend or as my bodyguard?”

  “Bodyguard, Your Highness. My own children won’t get such an offer once they can walk on their own.”

  “Is that so? I suppose I can imagine you being tough on a boy, but based on how you treat Elisa, you’ll melt around a little girl.”

  “She’s an isolated case.”

  “We’ll see.”

  On reaching the last handful of steps, I told Bell to wait outside the doorless room. I took a couple of deep breaths before entering the threshold. Bordering the circular wall of the room were varisized candles, many unlit at the moment. The few that were gave off a fruity scent as they heated a brew inside little bowls hanging from metal perches. The sunlight pierced through the glass dome, but much of its heat was held back by a second layer of curved glass under the first. A shelf with books stood at the opposite side of the entrance.

  At the center of the room was a low, short-legged table. With his back to me, a man with long, long blonde hair sat on his knees by this table. With a full-length robe of red silk flowing out from his neck to the floor around him, it was difficult to see what he was doing. The sound of a scraping quill revealed his present action. Black cushions lied between his legs and the stone floo
r.

  “Seer Tascus?”

  With a voice moths might find too quiet, he said, “Little Lady Astor is due to return soon, Your Highness.”

  “Why is she returning?”

  “I asked her to obtain a crow’s feather for me before evening fell. If you wish for further explanation, I recommend taking a seat so we may speak face-to-face.”

  Indeed wishing for it, I strode to the table and sat in front of him. With this new perspective I could see the eyepatch over his right eye. An infection had taken the sight and beauty of his dazzling blue eye as a child. The infection was not natural, but the result of a seer’s secret training. Many seers lost their sight either partly or completely during their training, often in vain. The thirty-four-year-old Tascus earned his place as a royal seer after his predecessor declared him worthy. Clair died days later.

  Like his voice, Tascus’ face had a kind complexion, though his eyebrows did always look a tad stern. When I had made myself comfortable, the seer stopped writing in his small tome. Even if I wanted to read what he had been scrawling, the tiny letters he used prohibited such a venture.

  “Why did you ask for a crow’s feather?”

  “Your younger sister needed a purpose, so I have given her errands these past three days.”

  “Errands? You should have told her to return to her training.”

  “Training with spell and sword requires that body, mind, heart, and soul all walk the same path. The little princess is split among many paths. Her body wishes to become stronger, and her mind is angry at the present queen while her heart aches for the last.”

  “She’s angry at Beatrice? Why?”

  “I can presume she feels that her sister is attempting to replace her mother, just as she replaced her as queen. The young mind is, understandably, troubled by such a notion.”

  My head shook and my shoulders slumped. “Gods, if-”

  “Princess, if I may… Elisa is confused about her anger. Guilt consumes her more than the ire, and isolation consumes everything else.”

  “That sounds even worse than I first thought.”

  “Indeed. The unsolicited grip of isolation can be harsher on one’s soul than anger, guilt, and confusion. However, I believe it easier to remedy.”

  “How? With mother gone, our father still countless miles away, and her sisters under the demands of war, I fear, well, I fear many things… and now I have to fear my sister’s…” I took a breath. Then a longer one. “What easy remedy do you suggest employing, master seer?”

  “My precarious link with time has given me considerable sway over the girl at the moment. I will soon use it to tell her something Clair once told me. Your presence will only strengthen my words.”

  “What did Clair say?”

  “Patience, Your Highness. Seers loathe repeating ourselves.”

  “Non-seers don’t enjoy it either… Or was that a joke?”

  As if not hearing me, the seer went back to writing.

  A few minutes later, when I was about to ask whether I could ask what he was scrawling, the seer asked, “Do you want Elisa to sit beside you when she arrives?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Then do not speak to her. Acknowledge her, but act as though you are here for a vision. Doing anything more will make her defensive.”

  “All right.”

  “If you want her to embrace you, leave as soon as our business is done.”

  “How will-”

  “She is here.”

  Two seconds later and I heard Bell formally greet Elisa. My sister responded with a couple of mumbled words. It required a great deal of self-discipline to trust the seer’s words and do no more than nod at the sweet, confounded girl. She looked so much closer to her teens since I saw her last, but she mostly just appeared out of breath after running up the stairs. Her left hand held a big crow’s feather. The rest of her wore a lilac lace vest over a white blouse that blended seamlessly to her double-layered skirt.

  Elisa didn’t know what to do at first. I think she wanted to run and jump into my arms, but then she remembered how I was among the people making her feel alone. Seeing my own subdued reaction as I sat in front of what could be an important meeting with the seer disorganized her thoughts further. It was Tascus asking whether she had the feather that gave her something to do.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Good. Place it on the table and have a seat. Your sister and I are almost done.”

  Elisa proceeded to follow the instructions. I worried she would choose to sit by the width of the table, but after setting her feather down, Elisa did come and set herself beside me.

  I was going to reach out and swallow her whole, but Tascus said, “My apologies, Odet, but the older the participant, the more diluted a vision becomes. It’s why a seer always prefers glimpsing destinies through minds unspoiled by knowledge of the world. An adult’s primary ambition are as fickle as the weather on a mountain peak, with each fickle creating new possibilities. This is why I cannot in good faith foretell the outcome of this war. Your main desire does not lie with it, it lies closer to home. This concern will muddle everything else.”

  Playing along, I said in a regretful tone, “I understand.”

  “While the war’s outcome is out of my grasp, your true concern has already been answered by my predecessor.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, no longer playing along.

  “When Clair chose me to succeed her, she told me the most notable visions in her memory. I also read what she wrote on them. One of the strangest occurrences came on realizing something unlooked-for in the seer world—a pattern. You see, visions hardly follow consistent rules within the same person and even within the same invocation. Often, seers are fortunate when our subjects symbolize themselves as human. However, three visions from three princesses revealed remarkable vividness to Clair.”

  “What were the visions about?” asked a captivated Elisa, who leaned on the table.

  “I’m afraid seers only say what they beheld to those who asked for the invocation. As you were but babes at the time, only your parents were privy to the information. I can say that in Beatrice’s vision, a younger sister was seen—her crystal shield as strong as her mind. This child held what she assumed must have been a doll wrapped in a blanket, but which Clair later believed to be a third sister. That third child unmistakably appeared in Odet’s vision. This one younger still, her hair darker, like her father’s.”

  “And my vision?” asked Elisa. “What did the seer see?”

  “In yours she once again observed the unswerving pattern repeat itself—three sisters seen as clearly as today’s sky. Every vision could not have been more different from the other, yet the destinies of each sibling were so inexorably tied to the other, that not even the fastidious nature of time could separate them. So, as far as I can tell, Princess Odet, no matter what catastrophe this realm heaves upon you, you can be assured that your sisters will be there by your side. Now, if you excuse us, Princess Elisa and I have our own affairs to straighten.”

  Remembering what he said earlier, I stood up and started to leave for the exit. Elisa shouting, “Wait! Odet!” stopped me.

  I had no time to look back before her arms squeezed around my waist. I bent down and tried making her into a diamond in return. When my attempt at gem-making failed, I separated us a little to look into her sandy brown eyes. Guising my true intention with a favor, I said, “I know you don’t like standing around in the throne hall, but Beatrice would like you to learn about tact and statesmanship front and center at least an hour a day. Won’t that be all right?”

  She moaned, but one I recognized as saying, “You caught me in a good mood, so I’ll do it. In reality, my sister said, “But it’s boring.”

  “And you think Beatrice and I find it thrilling? Besides, there are worse things than being bored.”

  “Ugh, I’ll think about it, okay?”

  “Good.”

  “Just don’t be gone s
o long next time. Oh! And you have to sleep with me tonight. Or will you be too busy?”

  “Not tonight. I’ll even drag Beatrice by the hair to join us.”

  “Don’t do that. Her hair is too nice. Drag her by that pearl necklace she likes. That thing is ugly.”

  I chuckled. “I’ll keep that in mind. All right, it’s time you get back to Tascus. We’ll be together again at dinner.”

  I left the tower immensely impressed by the seer’s faultless strategy to begin restoring Elia’s spirits. Had he foreseen this day? Or was he a better people person than he looked? Perhaps a bit of both. Perhaps all good seers needed to be a bit of both. All I knew to do was to thank the gods while in the temple. I gave an extra prayer to have the war end in an equally positive result.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  That night with Elisa and two hours of Beatrice felt as close to normal as I had experienced since mother died. I knew he would refuse gifts, but I had to find out if Tascus wanted for anything.

  The seer did indeed insist that nothing was needed as a thanks, but when I countered with another insistence, he became quiet for a minute. Then he asked for a bowl of baby carrots.

  “Really? Carrots?”

  “The stunted kind, yes.”

  “Okay. Do you want one every week? Month?”

  “No. A single bowl once will do fine.”

  “Are you doing this just to get rid of me?”

  “I would simply stop talking if that were my goal.”

  “I see. A bowl it is then. Has Elisa been to see you in the last two days?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you still going to make her run errands?”

  “These errands have a purpose beyond keeping her occupied, but that is between me and the little lady.”

  “You’re going to invoke her future, then?”

  “All I’m willing to say is that my job is to guide your family as best I can. Sometimes that merely means becoming a listener. Other times I beseech the gods for their insight.”

  “And what of the queen? Has she asked you about the war?”

  “Of course.”

  “And I suppose your answer to her is secret.”