by Scott King
Doug made a muffled noise while wiggling in his bindings.
"What is he saying?" Carter asked.
"He wants to say he recognizes the place. It is Dras. Homeland of the dragon clans." Atropos flicked her wrist, and their view within the light projection moved down the snow-covered sides of the mountain, over a forest, and then paused as a dozen or so dragons soared into and then out of view. "Medrayt used the Dragon Lotus to take control of the dragons."
"How?" Carter asked. "How can the same thing make Doug a dragon again and allow someone to enslave other dragons? That's too much of a coincidence, and magic doesn't work that way."
"Of course it isn't a coincidence," Clothu said. "We had to work very hard to lead things onto this branch."
"A coincidence!" Atropos scowled at him. "One more insult like that, and Doug won't be the only one hanging from the ceiling."
"I'm not..." Carter took a deep breath. "I wasn't trying to be rude. I was trying to understand."
"You are a kitten speaking to a lion." Lachesis seemed to sense his lack of comprehension and nodded. "If your understanding of magic and the nature of this world was a single drop of water, our knowledge would be an ocean."
"That still doesn't explain," Carter said.
"In time, you will understand," Atropos said with a hint of sadness in her voice. "For now, know that the Dragon Lotus has the ability to alter and restore a dragon's form. In Doug's case, it will turn him back into a dragon. In the case of the others, it will restore their minds."
"Why is this Medrayt doing this?" Alex said. "The lives he is destroying and the sense of terror surrounding the people is awful. Let alone controlling a sentient race like the dragons and forcing them to his will is wrong."
"People are dicks." Clothu rolled her shoulders backward. "What can you do?"
"What my sister means..." Atropos gave Clothu a disapproving look. "Medrayt wants your father to surrender Arwyn. Elene is the gateway to the west, and if it falls, so will the other kingdoms. By this time next summer, Medrayt could control all of Majerä."
"We can stop him... with the Dragon Lotus?" Alex asked.
"It is our hope," Lachesis said. "A magician armed with a single petal could free the dragons. That would end Medrayt's plans."
Carter now understood why he was here. He saw the path that brought him to Compitum. He was meant to be the magician who would free the dragons and save the world. "You planned this. I was supposed to turn Doug into a human so we would come here and so you could tell us about Medrayt. You want me to go with Alex. You want me to undo the spell!"
"We want lots of things," Clothu said.
"We see lots of things," Atropos added.
"We plan and line things up," Lachesis said. "What we want does not matter. In the end, it comes down to choice. You brought yourself here."
Doug made a smothered noise, and his body swung back and forth like a swaying chandelier.
"We can't hear you, but we know what you are thinking," Atropos said. "You did bring yourself here. Your choices. Your actions. Did we exert influence? Yes, but in the end, it was you. No matter what you leave here today thinking, know that."
Doug mumbled something else. Then something else. Then something that made the three mystical women wince. Lachesis nodded and waved her hand. "Then go."
The bands of light loosened, and Doug thumped onto the crystal floor. He climbed to his feet and turned his back to the group, as if he meant to leave.
"Where are you going?" Carter asked.
"I'm going to go eat a flower," Doug said. "I know now that I don't need you, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm done with the lot of you."
"You can't leave," Carter said.
"I can," Doug said. "I don't like knowing my whole life has been changed by meddling. I want nothing to do with any of this madness."
"What about your own kind?" Alex asked. "Don't you care that Medrayt has enslaved the dragons?"
"The problems of the dragons stopped being mine a long time ago." Doug exited the chamber without looking back.
"That could cause things to unravel," Clothu said.
"We knew he had authority issues." Atropos snapped her fingers, and the light projection faded away.
"For good reasons," Lachesis said.
16
Waking Dragons
Allsday, 23rd of Hearfest, 1162.111
Cooke held an open envelope flush against the tree and ran a razor blade across its bark. The idea was not to cut it. She needed to lightly scrape it to create a powder. If she cut the bark, it decreased the number of berries the tree would produce. Besides, shavings didn't always dissolve and mix properly.
She thudded the rim of the envelope against the tree. The dry brown residue inside fluffed up. She estimated that she had harvested maybe two ports, which should be more than enough. With a bit of water and sugar for flavor, dragon flight might be marginally bearable.
"Headmaster!" Devina's high-strung voice rang throughout the arboretum. "Headmaster?"
Cooke sighed. She had been back to Stobnyk Kol for less than a day, and she hadn't gotten a moment of peace since arriving. "I'm on the other side of the nightblade bushes."
Grey clouds hung above the glass roof of the courtyard, making the arboretum a bit darker than usual, but still, if the girl had opened her eyes, she should have been able to spot Cooke.
"He is awake." Devina's bare feet hustled across the terra-cotta tiled path. Everything was so urgent and rushed with the girl. "Mogul is awake."
"Calm down," Cooke said. "His bindings will hold."
"Yes, but his yelling it's..."
"The man lost an arm less than a stint ago and nearly bled out. He is allowed to yell as much as he'd like."
"Yes... but Headmaster, the first years are taking their quarterly exam."
Cooke set down her razor blade and folded the envelope's flap to close it. Clearly she wouldn't be able to get anymore work done today. "If the first years are distracted by a bit of yelling, then we can always keep them as first years."
Devina's tiny mouth opened, and a wrinkle ran across her forehead.
"It's fine," Cooke said. "I'll deal with Mogul. Take the first years down to the longhouse and–"
"We have the forth years down there sparring today."
"My father managed to get every lord from each of the great houses of Caerkaldor into those halls. If you can't manage to fit sixty–"
"Eighty-nine."
"Excuse me?"
"With word of the dragon attacks in Arwyn, we have had an influx of students the past few months."
"Deal with it. If you still can't fit them, make them run the hill down to Demral. Most need the exercise anyway. A trek in the snow will do them good."
"Yes, Headmaster." Devina dashed out of the courtyard as if she were rushing to put out a fire.
Cooke stood. Her knees ached. Being old did not make life easy. Even more, the family estate she had loved so much as a child was now a hindrance. She never dreamed she would hate the blasted hills and stairs as much as she did now.
Taking her time, Cooke passed through the arboretum. The students were doing an adequate job watering the trees and plants, but they had a way to go in learning to handle the weeding. She would need to speak with Devina about that.
In the arboretum's atrium, she stopped to retrieve a heavy shawl from a wooden rack. She coiled it around her abdomen, up over her chest, around her neck and back down her back. The fabric felt cozy to the touch, and simply wearing it made her think back to the days when she and Devina's father would head into the city for hot cider.
The wind outside the arboretum was crisp and smelled like snow. She knew that by nightfall new flakes would be falling. Not that they didn't already have enough snow on the ground, but that was life in Brekka. Snow came early in Hearfest and stayed till at least Sowe.
Cooke buried her hands in her shawl and crossed Stobnyk Kol. The villa was abuzz, and it was nice to see the old home full o
f life. Instructors waved as she passed while students whispered and pointed with gaping eyes.
One girl who was maybe sixteen, hopped on one foot while trying to throw on leather sparring armor and bracers. She slipped on a stone step and rolled down half a flight of stairs. At the bottom, she got back to her feet and ran toward the longhouse. That kind of commitment or fear of being late couldn't be taught. Cooke would have to find out the girl’s name. For the most part, all the children looked like babies to her, and with the number of students who were expelled or died, she generally didn't bother with names until they were at least fourth years.
Black smoke billowed from the furnace at the metalsmith's shop. A cluster of boys and girls stood around watching the basics of how to stoke the fire and work it using a mixture of agyls and coal. They had to be third years, fifteen and sixteen year olds. She knew that due to the curriculum. A decade ago, they started teaching metal workings to the first years, but too many ended up with burns or serious wounds that hindered their fighting abilities. Cooke was all for weeding out the weak, but unnecessary injuries or death didn't make sense when the whole goal was to grow the Red Hounds.
Past the forge, flush against the wall to the villa, was the infirmary. It had once been a temple to The Silver Lady and was the only wooden structure in Stobnyk Kol. Although three-stories tall from the outside, it had only one main floor with high arching pillars cut in intricate designs.
A few students slept on cots. Two with burns, one with a puncture wound, and another with stitches. She had set up Mogul in a private room along the back of the infirmary, and before Cooke was halfway to it, she could hear his cursing.
The door creaked open, and Mogul's big ape eyes narrowed at her. Leather straps secured him to a stone table. He was topless, and white bandages covered his left shoulder where his arm used to be.
"'Bout time you showed," Mogul said in a slurred voice. "You bound me up like a wounded goat. Ain't right."
"You left me no choice." Cooke approached the stone bed. She loosened the leather straps bolted around Mogul's ankles. "You thrashed about when they carried you in. If you didn't hurt someone else, you were going to hurt yourself."
Cook unhooked the strap around Mogul's chest, and he sat up. With only one abnormally long monkey arm, he looked almost human again. Almost.
"What do you plan to do?" he asked.
"About what?"
"My missing arm."
"I can't do the impossible."
"You are the queen of concoctions."
That was true. To her knowledge, not even Owen possessed her mastery of mutating agents or the ways she could twist agyls. Still, she knew of nothing that could grow a creature's arm back, though that might be something she could look into. She thought of the number of soldiers wounded that, instead of having to lay down their swords and leave the Red Hounds, could keep fighting.
"There is nothing," Cooke said. "And we have been together long enough for you to understand that, when I say there is nothing I can do, I mean it."
"You have done it before. You fixed my lungs and saved me from that gultrak bite."
"And look at how that turned out." She brushed a hand across his long arm and stopped at the wrist to check his pulse. "Anything else I may try would not work or would make you even less human."
"I don't care." Mogul jerked his arm back. "I'm faster this way. The best fighting shape I've ever been in, but that means nothing without a second arm. I can't properly use my bo. I can't fire a bow and arrow or hold a long sword. You have to fix my arm."
"You will have to make do. We can always pull you out of service, and you can stay here teaching."
"I'd rather die than not be able to fight." Mogul spit on the floor and swung his legs off the stone table. He stood, lording over Cooke and walked out of the room. "Fix it or don't expect to see me ever again."
Cooke sighed. This was but one more thing added to the list of things that she needed to handle.
A black and silver female dragon came three days later for Cooke. It landed on the snowy hills outside of the walls of Stobnyk Kol. It was the fifth time a dragon had arrived to drop her off or pick her up, and still the students reacted. They rushed for their armor and weapons.
It was like watching children play dress-up. To think that these soldiers-to-be might become Red Hounds one day. It was sad to think that the future rested on their shoulders.
Devina barked a series of orders, and the fourth years took over. They were trained enough to at least do as told without acting foolishly on their own. They loaded the dragon with supplies, and when they were done, Cooke climbed aboard, all the while dreading the long journey north.
Dragon flight made Cooke sick. A solution of diluted zewik bark helped, but it didn't completely rid her of the vertigo or pressure around her eyes. It took an entire day, but Cooke was ecstatic when the dragon landed on the solid stone streets of Gwen.
Cooke walked through the abandoned city.
Her steps echoed off the peculiar curved buildings but did nothing to hide the heavy breathing of the sleeping dragons. She couldn't see them, and that always gave her chills 'cause she knew they were there. They were on the roofs, inside the structures, or the next street over, all waiting to awaken upon Medrayt's command.
She found Medrayt in the temple. She didn't know if it was an actual temple. The first time she had arrived in Dras was after the dragons had been brought under control, so she knew nothing of their culture, but to her, the high ceilings, engraved columns, and dais felt reverent.
"I've lost complete contact with Kane." Medrayt didn't open his eyes or look her way. He most likely was somewhere else seeing through the eyes of a dragon or dragons.
"Right to business?" She bent her aged frame forward, stretching out her spine. She was sure the small of her back was bruised, and in a day, she would be so sore she would have trouble walking.
"The situation is escalating quickly."
"The situation is what it has been."
"You met the boy and dragon. They are new players–"
"And they can wait," She approached Medrayt. He didn't look unhealthy, but he didn't look as fit as the last time she had seen him. Gone were his hard muscles, and his shoulders no longer filled out his tunic. Where his usually clean-shaven face should have been was a nest of whiskers that knotted into an unkempt beard. "First I want to know how you are doing. I see you've been eating this time."
He took a long, drawn-out breath and then opened his eyes. "The nonperishable wafers have made it easier for me to make the time."
"You are the key. Without you, we have nothing. You need to take care of yourself."
"I am..." He twirled a finger in his beard and gave it a tug as if noticing it for the first time. "I am doing my best."
"Do you think Kane is dead?"
"I do not know if Kane can be killed."
"Then let's assume that she is still on mission." Cooke sat next to Medrayt and stretched out her legs. "Do we send anyone else after Carter and Doug?"
"Is that the dragon's name?"
"It's what he called himself."
"I could send a few dragons after them, but I don't know if I can spare the effort. The next few weeks will be taxing."
"It's why I am here." It was a good thing too. This was the critical hour, and it was embarrassing to think that their savior smelled of piss and fermented eggs.
"Can we send Mogul after them?"
"He will need time to recover in Stobnyk Kol. He will be ready when we make our final move, and to be honest, he would be a bit outmatched."
"Owen's ward is that powerful?"
"More than you and me combined." Not that Cooke had much power in her, but Medrayt was probably second only to Owen himself. "With Doug no longer being a dragon, can his blood still be used to free the rest of his kin?"
"I don't think so, but there is no precedent for this type of thing."
"Kane is out of contact. Carter and Doug are for the
moment beyond our reach." She put a hand on his shoulder and felt something that was both crunchy and sticky. Getting him bathed, fed, and rested would have be the first priority. "What can we do?"
"We do as planned,” Medrayt said. “I start waking the dragons."
“How many can you control at once?”
"The most I've tried is twelve."
"And how many are there?" Cooke asked.
"Not counting the children, there is just shy of four hundred dragons."
"Then we have a lot of work to do if we are going to save this world."
17
The Former Servant
Ulesday, 27th of Hearfest, 1162.111
Gideon waited for Alex and Carter to ask a barrage of questions. Some were important, some weren't, and maybe a quarter were answered so that the the children understood. The Sisters gave Carter a flat stone with a spell carved onto its surface. The spell was long, a full sentence and the language looked like Urkish, but Gideon didn't get a good look at it so it might have been something else.
When readying to leave the chamber, Gideon felt it was time to tell Alex his decision. "I can't go with you to Kale."
"I know." She didn't sound upset or surprised. "You are going to Elene."
"You understand?"
"Someone needs to tell father. I could go, but what do I know about preparing for war or how to defend against an army of dragons. He needs you."
"Edgar will be furious at me for letting you go on your own."
"I'll be there," Carter said.
Gideon looked at Carter. Opened his mouth. Decided it was best to not say what he was thinking and turned back to Alex. "Any message you wish me to pass on?"
"Tell him I'm coming and will do what I can to save our people." Alex wrapped her arms around Gideon's waist and squeezed. "Tell him I love him and he shouldn't do anything stupid."
