Dragon's Tongue: Book One of the Demon-Bound

by Laura J Underwood

  Alaric gasped and opened his eyes.

  Fenelon’s face hovered over him, drawn into a grimace. His red hair was disheveled. That he had pulled on a robe in haste was apparent, for it was quickly tied and hung unevenly open to reveal a bare chest.

  “Horns,” Fenelon said and sat back, pushing his hair out of his face. “Do you always have such lively dreams?”

  Dreams? Alaric felt tears streaming down his cheeks, and one side of his face smarted. His throat was raw, and he shook his head unable to gasp out a single answer as the pressure that had been pinning his shoulders was released. Cautiously, he sat up, wiping his face and bowing his head in shame when he realized there were others in his chamber. Horns, what had he done to cause all these folk to come here…

  “Are you all right?” Fenelon asked. He pushed Alaric’s hair back, seeking to catch his gaze.

  Alaric closed his eyes. His memory was still full of pain and fear, and the taint of blood and magic folded as one. He heard Fenelon whisper instruction and then murmur, “All right, everyone, out. I’ll handle this…” A shuffle of bodies faded in the distance. Gentler hands took hold of Alaric then, pulling his chin from his chest as though he were five. He almost expected to look up and find his father as he opened his eyes once more.

  “Come on, Alaric,” Fenelon said. “You’re safe now. Was it a dream?”

  Alaric nodded. “Sorry…” he whispered.

  “Do you want to tell me about it?” Fenelon said and grinned. “After all, if you’re going to keep waking me and my household every night by singing The Ballad of Ronan Tey and then screaming like a dock whore who’s been stiffed of her fee, I’d like to know why…”

  Alaric blinked, unable to stifle a small chuckle. “Do I sing as well in my sleep?” he asked, trembling as a chill took his limbs.

  “Well, I will admit it sounded like a fairly passionate rendition,” Fenelon said. “Come on. Let’s get you over by the fire. Mistress Nora’s gone to fetch some tea to soothe your jitters, and then you can tell me about this dream.”

  Alaric nodded, allowing Fenelon to help him from the bed. A blanket was tossed around his shoulders. Fenelon guided Alaric over to the hearth, then waved one hand at the lowering fire and whispered, “Loisg” to feed new life to the flames. Alaric settled into a barrel chair, and soon enough, Mistress Nora returned with tea that smelled sweetly of blackberries and sage. Alaric drank deeply of the warmth that settled comfortably into his soul. He leaned back as Fenelon poked at the fire.

  “Well?” Fenelon said.

  Alaric took a deep breath and frowned. He opened his mouth to speak when someone whispered, “Remember not…”

  “I…I don’t remember…”

  “What?” Fenelon turned and looked at Alaric. “You just said you were dreaming…”

  “I know…but…” Alaric shook his head. “It’s as if what ever dream I was having…just vanished…”

  He stared into his cup, unable to make himself look up now, for the fire of embarrassment burned under his skin. He probably thinks I’m as cracksie as an old loon…He was beginning to wonder himself.

  Fenelon seated himself in the other chair and sighed.

  FIFTEEN

  The carriage stopped just after the dark hour to trade horses at a post inn. Tane had dozed off earlier, but Vagner could not. This small body felt every jostle and jolt of the carriage as it stumbled over every rut and stone in the road. Sleep was impossible, and while demons did not always need sleep, Vagner was tired and hungry.

  Back at the inn, before they set off, he’d been presented with a charred bit of rabbit lavished with cooked roots, and some bread and cheese and ale on the side. Demon appetites found these things repulsive, and Vagner said so. Still, Tane ordered the demon to eat, and Vagner took mouthfuls and chewed, but as soon as Tane’s attention turned elsewhere, Vagner would spit the mash into a linen napkin. Later, the demon dumped the mess under the table, not the least bit concerned about what the innkeeper would think when he found it.

  When the carriage lurched to a halt, Tane awoke and yawned. “Stay here,” he said and got out to oversee the changing of the animals as well as stretch his legs.

  “Of course,” the demon muttered and winced, still not use to the dulcet whisper of the woman-child whose form he wore. He leaned back with his arms folded across the soft chest, and waited only long enough for Tane to move out of line of sight before throwing off the woolen cloak and quietly slipping out the other side of the carriage. Hitching the skirts up between his knees in the manner he had seen washer women wear theirs, Vagner sprinted for the nearest copse. There, the demon crouched and waited, making certain he had not been seen. So far, no one seemed to notice. Good. Satisfied his escape was a success, he made for the deeper woods that backed the countryside around the post inn and listened.

  Demon powers may have been firmly locked under Tane’s spell, but demon senses of sight, smell and hearing were as acute as ever. The rustle of a coney in the thicket had all his attention now. Vagner heard the pitter-pat of its small heart and smelled its warm blood. The demon started to drool. Here was a life, small though it might be, but certainly much more to a demon’s taste than something that had been killed, burned and slathered with a slimey mortrews of beets and carrots and turnips.

  Vagner crawled on all fours now, and though small stones gouged hands and knees, he was too intent on the prey to care. Perhaps he did not possess demon magic, but demon hunting skills were intact too. If he could just learn to ignore the discomfort…He advanced as a cat would. A step…pause…another…freeze. He could see the coney now. It fed on the seed grasses that grew in patches of open space. And it was not alone. A dozen or so of its cousins and kin were also present, long ears twitching. Little bodies would flinch on guard then resume feeding as though nothing were amiss. Alert little creatures.

  A step, pause, a step, pause. Vagner was but a few feet away, crouched like a fox in the shadows. Then he sprang and the conies scattered and rushed about in a panic that never followed a straight line. Vagner was fortunate. A fine fat one ran straight at him then veered, but before it could escape, he had it by the throat. All his weight broke its back as he landed on it. The creature jerked and twitched in his grasp, but was unable to alter its fate.

  Vagner snarled and sank teeth into the throat, tearing flesh and savoring the hot, coppery tang that spurted into his mouth. The teeth of this form were not as efficient as his fangs, but with effort, he was able to rip away the hide and flesh, and feed first on the lights and liver. He ate the brains from the skull and tore the body into pieces. Once the flesh was gone, he sucked the marrow from its bones…

  Predator senses went on the alert when a voice coughed, “Ahem…”

  Vagner spun, staying low and clutching the leg bones in bloody hands. Like a wolf, he snarled in defense of his prey. The figure that stood in the trickle of moonlight that found paths through the canopy of trees made no attempt to interfere. Tane merely folded his arms across his chest, revealing the talisman wrapped in bronze harp wire that was normally hidden by his robes.

  “What are you doing?” Tane asked.

  Vagner continued to crouch protectively over the scattered remains of the coney. “I was hungry,” the demon said, disliking the childish whine of his voice.

  “You ate at the inn,” Tane said.

  “That was dead and charred…I do not eat carrion that has been burned,” Vagner retorted. “I must have live prey.”

  “You eat my carrion well enough,” Tane said.

  “You give me no choice,” Vagner said. “I would prefer you left a little life in them to feed my needs…I will die without live prey, and then what good will I be to you?”

  Tane smiled. “Very well, monster. Finish your coney quick, and then go wash the blood from your hands and face. You look like some mad wild child from a Keltoran bogie tale.”

  Vagner grinned. It pleased him to know he could still look horrible. Maybe this form had cer
tain advantages…

  “I’ll go fetch you a clean dress,” Tane said. “You can bury that one in the woods. And the next time you want to go feeding, let me know first or I shall let you wear that form permanently and sell you to slavers…”

  Tane turned and headed back. Vagner sneered at the bloodmage’s back with even white teeth covered with blood and finished his coney before searching for water. He found a nearby stream, and a pool where moonlight turned the water into a mirror. The surface revealed a wild child covered with blood and tags of fur. Vagner grinned again, the plunged arms and face into the cold water to wash the sight away.

  ~

  “Mind shields,” Fenelon said, haloed in the sunlight that streamed through the upper windows of his conjuring room, which also served as his vast library. “I think we should start with those.

  “Mind shields?” Alaric said, looking up from the book he currently perused and copied from. “What are those?”

  “Something you seem to lack,” Fenelon said with a grin. He pulled a book from the shelves and brought it to the stone table where Alaric worked. “They’re very useful, especially for protecting yourself from bad dreams.”

  Alaric grimaced. Even in the brightness of day, he sensed the dark images still haunted the recesses of his mind. He just wished he could remember them.

  He had finally managed to recall that they had something to do with Ronan’s death, but as to what…the rest was blurred shadows eluding him in the corners of his mind.

  Once Alaric mentioned that, Fenelon launched into a number of theories as to why the dreams came. “Ronan died two years ago,” Fenelon had conjectured, “and you were eighteen at the time. Had you seen him at all that year?”

  “Several times,” Alaric had admitted. “He was a regular visitor. In fact, he was at Gordslea Hold less that a fortnight before he died. He taught me a couple of new songs, and then he went off alone with Marda for a time. I remember feeling stung because he’d never sent me away to talk to Marda before.”

  “Did he do anything else while he was there? Give you or Marda anything?”

  “Well, he once gave me that psaltery I use, but that was several visits back. Oh, and he did restring the psaltery the last time I saw him, though I remember thinking the strings were just fine.”

  Fenelon took a hard look at the psaltery itself then shrugged. “Nothing out of the ordinary about it,” he had said, sounding disappointed. “How did you learn of Ronan’s death?”

  “Marda told me,” Alaric had said, fighting the wistful unease of old grief as he stared at the fire. “She came to me and told me she had felt his death… I…I remember crying not just because he was gone, but because I felt left out that he had not let me know of his death. But Marda told me I shouldn’t feel that way, and I should write a song to keep his memory alive. She gave me a melody Ronan had written down just for me, she said, though I didn’t understand why he hadn’t told me about it before. As soon as I started to play it…well, it was almost as though the words were already there in my head…”

  Fenelon had mulled this news with interest. “So Ronan Tey wrote the music for his own ballad before he died? But how is that possible?”

  Alaric had frowned. “I wrote those words, not him,” he said a little tersely. Though part of him then started to wonder. There were some things about that last visit that were vague in his mind…something he thought he should remember, but could not. “I do recall that when Ronan came by that last time, he was much quieter than usual. And when he went off with Marda, she seemed rather sad for days…”

  As if he already knew he was going to die and had told her so, Alaric thought, sliding out of those memories with a frown. And then he realized Fenelon was staring at him.

  “What?” Alaric said.

  “Just what sort of relationship did you and Ronan have?” Fenelon ventured.

  “I don’t understand,” Alaric said. “He was my teacher… my musical mentor. He taught me much about the ways of a bard because he said I had a natural talent.”

  “And how did you feel about him?”

  Alaric raised an eyebrow. “Well, I loved him…” He saw Fenelon’s brows twitch. “He was the older brother I never had.”

  “Were you ever…intimate with him?”

  “No!” Alaric said fiercely. “How dare you suggest such a…He was my friend and my teacher, and I’ll not have you suggesting there was something more to our relationship than…”

  “All right,” Fenelon said with a chuckle and reared back, holding up his hands. “I only asked because thought it might help us to figure out why you suddenly had this dream about his death.”

  “But you’re suggesting that I…I…I don’t know what you’re suggesting, but I don’t like it!”

  Fenelon laughed, his voice echoing throughout the chamber. “Relax, Alaric, I’m sorry I brought it up. Ronan was very good at keeping all his secrets.”

  “What secrets?” Alaric said.

  Fenelon leaned on the table so that he was eye level with Alaric. “I know more than half the brothels from one end of Ard-Taebh to the other and the women in those places like to gossip about their conquests. I have never once heard of Ronan bedding anyone, to be honest, even though he was a frequent visitor at those brothels. In other words Ronan Tey never slept with a woman in his life.”

  “Well, neither have I, up to this point,” Alaric blurted, then grimaced because Fenelon’s grin widened fiercely.

  “Alaric, what I’m saying is Ronan may have slept with boys…or rather, young men. And he would have been discreet about it since there are a few places in this grand land of ours where that sort of male bonding is frowned upon.”

  “You’re making that up,” Alaric said. “I mean…that’s physically impossible…isn’t it?”

  Fenelon laughed again. “I can see that a part of your education is going to involve a certain brothel I know of where the ladies are very clean and well trained in the aspects of educating young innocents to the nature of their sex…no matter what it may be.”

  Alaric’s face heated, and he quickly looked away.

  “In the mean time,” Fenelon continued, still smirking. “We should concentrate on teaching you how to shield your mind from the prying of others.”

  “And just what does one have to do?” Alaric asked a bit mumpishly.

  “Observe,” Fenelon said. He stretched across the table and put one hand to Alaric’s forehead and looked into his eyes. The warm touch slid into Alaric’s mind, presenting images of good food. Alaric smiled until something that was all fangs and claws came leaping out of the banquet, lunging for his face. With a yelp, Alaric tossed himself back. His chair suddenly tipped over, and he would have crashed to the floor. Fenelon’s hands snagged Alaric’s, giving the youth sufficient time to get his feet under him and keep from banging his chin on the book open on the table before him.

  “Mind shields are useful walls you can build in your head to keep out that very sort of thing,” Fenelon said and let go. “Granted, they are useless against someone like Etienne who is a powerful truth reader, but they can keep others from reading your mind and tearing your secrets from you.”

  “I have no secrets,” Alaric said, righting his chair and looking annoyed.

  “They are also useful in deflecting various forms of mental attack,” Fenelon said. “Magic isn’t all fun and games, Alaric. There are mageborn and bloodmages aplenty who would use their mind skills to battle yours. For instance, I could make you believe you were being devoured by flames, or that your hands were splitting open and crumbling, and you would actually feel that pain.”

  Alaric frowned. “So how do I make these walls?”

  “Sit down,” Fenelon said, and Alaric obeyed. Fenelon moved around the edge of the elaborate circle marked on his floor, calling on elemental energy to form an invisible barrier of stricturing. Alaric could feel the tingle of the spell wall as it closed around them and severed them from outside influences he had noticed
here and there in the keep. Once the circle was complete, Fenelon stepped around behind Alaric, resting hands on his shoulders.

  “First step,” Fenelon said. “Relax and let your mind fold into darkness. Clear it of all thoughts.”

  Alaric took a deep breath, closing his eyes as he sought to clear his mind as Marda had taught him. His awareness of his center of power grew as he did, revealing the golden heat that was the core of his mageborn essence.

  “Oh, no, don’t even think of that,” Fenelon’s voice whispered inside of Alaric’s head. “Put everything aside. Be nothing in your own mind.”

  Alaric took another deep breath and tried again. This time, he succeeded in making his mind a void…except now he could sense Fenelon’s invasion. The master mageborn’s essence poked and pried through memories like a thief… “Gee, an awful lot of stuff floating around in here…wonder why it’s so dark over there…”

  “Hey!” Alaric blurted. “Get out of my head!”

  Fenelon chuckled most wickedly. “This is a part of it,” he said, and his voice rang around in a mocking song. “Go ahead, close me out…hide your precious secrets from me if you can…”

  “How?” Alaric wailed, and realized he was looking around in his own mind at the quicksilver aura that was Fenelon.

  “Build walls.”

  “With what?”

  “With yourself…with me…” Fenelon whispered. “With whatever you can find. After all, you already know the spell for making walls of air or fire or earth…”

  Alaric took another deep breath. “Tog balla de…” he whispered in his mind and reached for elemental power. There was little to be found outside him, for the circle of protection kept them locked away. Alaric was forced to reach inside, but as soon as he started to draw from his own power and put up the mental barriers between himself and Fenelon’s essence, the master mage would tear them down.

  “You’ll have to do better than that,” Fenelon teased.

  Frustrated, Alaric tried harder, seeing a wall laid brick by brick in his mind. But every time he set them in place, Fenelon knocked them aside, invading Alaric’s mind with alarming clarity and sifting through Alaric’s memories. Anger rose in Alaric, and he was exhausting himself drawing the power from his own essence.