by Dave Smeds
“That's the White Lady!” one of the admirals cried.
Then Gloroc dropped his burden. An instant later, the flagship of the Elandri fleet was surrounded by brilliant orange flame.
Oil! Gloroc was carrying receptacles of burning oil. There was no need to endanger himself trying to use dragonflame. He could stay at a safe height and simply bomb his target.
The flame around the White Lady fell away. The vessel was untouched.
A cheer went up from the tower top. Like most of the important ships of the fleet, the White Lady had a wizard aboard. Hers was Hecren, one of the best. He had set up a ward to protect her.
The Dragon seemed unperturbed to see that he had failed. He streaked back to the horizon, rendezvoused with his ship, and returned to the Elandri flagship with another fire bomb. His shot missed or perhaps was deflected off the edge of the ward, and fell into the ocean, briefly setting the waves alight.
Again, Gloroc paid little attention; he simply flew back to his supply ship. Keron saw his strategy and began to issue commands.
“Send more wizards to the White Lady!” he roared at a pair of the aides standing by. They gawked in surprise.
“How—how many?” one asked.
“Ten, if you can find them! Just hurry!” To others he yelled, “Send twenty ships after that Dragon's boat!"
They soon heard trumpets playing the song of attack. Sails began to rise, and men could be seen scurrying across the wharf and docks. Anchors rose. By that time, the Dragon had bombed the flagship three more times. Seeing the activity below, he increased his speed.
Nothing that big should move that fast, Keron thought. The only times when the Dragon slowed was to pluck the pots of oil from his ship and to rain his deadly gifts on the White Lady. He took careful aim now and never missed.
Hecren's ward was holding, but the ship was staggering in the water with each impact.
“Why don't they move?” asked one of the tower guards. “A moving target would be harder to hit."
One of the rear admirals explained. It was hard enough maintaining a ward over an immobile object. At this point, the wizard didn't need any more challenges.
Another fire bomb. Two. Three. Four.
“Hang on, Hecren,” Keron whispered to himself. He saw two separate dinghies speeding toward the beleaguered ship as fast as their oarsmen could row, a sorcerer riding in each. Another was nearly ready to leave the quay. The White Lady was now afloat atop a film of burning oil. Stray bursts of fire licked at her hull. The first dinghy paused at the edge of the area, daunted by the obstacle.
The Dragon arrived with another bomb. He dropped it. Both the container of oil and the ward exploded at the same time, engulfing the ship in a fireball. The men in the dinghies covered their faces against the heat. When the burst settled, the officers in the tower could see that their proud flagship was burning from prow to stern. Men, clothes and hair on fire, were leaping from her decks into the ocean.
None of them could keep the Dragon's laughter from their minds.
Keron gritted his teeth but would not take his eyes away from the carnage. Gloroc had made his point. The royalists could stay in their impregnable cities. Their ships, however, would have to ply the seas, where they could be destroyed one by one at the Dragon's leisure. Without the navy, free Elandris would have no supply lines.
The Dragon sailed gracefully to the northeast, his mirth audible until he was only a speck over the horizon. His ship had turned to run. Keron could see its lines; she was built for speed. Almost a dozen royalist ships were closing on her. They might catch her. The Dragon might protect her. It didn't really matter.
“Admiral Olendim!” a page called from the top of the stairs. “The king sends for you!"
* * * *
The king was in the royal observation dome, a structure at the top of the palace from which one could view the harbor, towers, and nearby ocean in all directions. It was made of the same vartham as the city's great roof and would resist even dragonflame. Pranter stood just inside the transparent walls, morosely watching the White Lady burn. Keron approached and waited quietly by his monarch's side.
Pranter was painfully thin. He no longer seemed part of the solid, real world, but rather a wraith somehow visible in the daylight. He couldn't walk without assistance, and even standing still, he wobbled. In one hand he clutched the scepter of Alemar Dragonslayer.
“We see it all now so clearly,” Pranter said weakly. “The Dragon sequestered himself these past decades because he was maturing. We knew it would happen one day. Now the skies are his. Our doom is upon us."
“I'm not ready to give up yet,” Keron said.
Pranter smiled humorlessly. “We don't have much time on our side, boy."
“There is one chance."
The king raised one eyebrow high. “Oh?"
“We have to kill the Dragon."
Pranter chuckled. “I wish I was young enough to share your optimism. I have dreamed of that impossibility, praying that any moment your children would return from the desert, or some inspiration would be sent by the gods. But it has been two years. Your twins have died, Keron. All our hopes have died. It is time to cut our losses."
Keron swallowed. The taste of his own bile was bitter. He could not deny that he, too, had decided that Alemar and Elenya had perished on their quest.
Pranter tapped his scepter pensively. “The talismans must be taken to safety—away from Elandris. We may lose the country, but our heritage from Alemar the Great must be preserved. You are the man I trust most to execute the task."
At first, Keron was not sure he had heard right. “You're asking me to run?"
“In a way. Would you rather remain as head of the navy, and have to watch your ships turned to charcoal? I need you to continue the fight, and to do that, you have to find higher ground. It doesn't exist here."
“What of you, my king?"
“I am on death's doorstep. What point to make me a refugee? My body would not survive the journey. I will stay, where the loyal can rally to me, and keep the kingdom free as long as heart and body will bear it. That's how my life can best serve a purpose."
“I don't like abandoning you,” Keron said.
“Forget me. There is more than one dynasty or kingdom at stake here. I do not believe Gloroc will stop when Elandris is defeated. He is not like the dragons of old; he has lived among humans too long. He has learned ambition. In time he will want the world."
Pranter extended his arm, offering the royal scepter to Keron. The admiral hesitated.
“Take it."
He did so reluctantly. It felt alive; he could almost feel a pulse running down its handle.
“This is the one thing he fears—this and all the artifacts our ancestor left behind.” The speech made the old man's body shake. “We must keep the threat alive, or he will come to rule us all. Do this for me. Choose your own men and your own destination, and be gone. Be invisible. Be a threat."
“I'll prepare at once,” Keron replied.
* * * *
Nanth was in the parlor showing their youngest daughter how to embroider. Keron watched from the doorway for several moments before revealing his presence. Nanth was no longer the carefully crafted beauty of two or three decades earlier, and their marriage, a prearranged affair that had never been perfect even before Keron had encountered Lerina, had endured some unpleasant moments. But as she turned and smiled at him, it was hard to bring the lie to his lips.
“Val and I are going to the palace,” he said as he kissed her head and that of his daughter. “We should be back in a few hours."
He didn't return her smile, but Nanth wouldn't think that strange. There had been little to be happy about in the two weeks since the Dragon had appeared above Firsthold.
Keron met his son just outside their home. The boy was doing his best to hide his red eyes. Both of them had decided he should not try to bid his mother farewell; Val wasn't mature enough to put up a convincing façade
.
They set out for the palace. Keron's bodyguards automatically dropped into place behind them. The streets were lightly travelled, although it was barely dusk, normally a social hour. There was a strange pall about the city, a grimness. They felt unhappy eyes peering at them from upper-story windows. The ocean above, normally crystalline, was tainted by sediment.
Two blocks down they came upon the site of a looting. Someone had broken into the storeroom of one of Firsthold's best inns. The city militia were restoring order. A pair of men in uniform started toward Keron's group, recognized him, and turned away again.
It's beginning already. Keron had heard reports of fighting the previous night. Rationing had been put into effect the day after the Dragon's attack. The mood of the city was growing thicker. Keron's final project as admiral of the navy had been to send a huge fleet of ships to T'jet with the sole purpose of bringing back as many provisions as could be stuffed into the holds. There were more ships, with more skilled wizards aboard, than the Dragon could intimidate alone. He would have to rouse his navy. The ships, unlike Gloroc, would be vulnerable. The royalists could, at least, cause the enemy pain.
In the meantime, those left behind in this city, or any of the other communities of free Elandris, felt the noose tighten about their necks.
Keron and Val left behind the bodyguards at the entrance to the palace, walking in stony silence through side corridors to the king's chambers. The sentries admitted them, and they soon stood in a parlor rarely visited by any save the king, his family, and inner household servants. The king and a bald man in a captain's tunic waited at the rear of the room, near an alabaster statue of Miranda.
“Enret,” Keron said, clasping hands with the captain. His longtime friend nodded back.
To one side were almost twenty carefully assembled packs. Each contained a talisman of Alemar Dragonslayer. Most of them would be leaving Firsthold for the first time in more than a millennium.
One by one, the others joined them. Keron examined their faces as they assembled in front of him. Good men. The best that he and Enret could pick. He met their glances with compassion. Every one of them was leaving behind a wife, mother, sister, or child—loved ones who would have to guess at their man's fate. Only the king and the men themselves would know how they left the city.
Soon they were all assembled, but one. Enret noted the hourglass and coughed. “Should we leave anyway?"
“He has to go,” the king said. They waited a short while, and the last man appeared.
Keron rarely saw his cousin, Treynaf. The latter was an effeminate, dour man nearly as old as the admiral. He wore his hair close-cropped, like the ancient wizard-kings of Acalon, and was not popular at court, but he was able to activate the globe of Alemar, which he even now nestled in his hands. Pranter insisted that any who could use the talismans should accompany the party. That was why Val was present.
“What news, Cousin?” asked Keron.
Treynaf rubbed the crystal reverently. His eyes briefly glazed over. “I see a long swim,” he answered tonelessly.
That was hardly news. They couldn't risk travel by ship, nor would they stop at cities along the way, for fear that the Dragon would somehow pick up their trail. They would literally swim to the coast.
It was unfortunate that Treynaf was not more worthy of the globe's potential, Keron thought. He could have foreseen useful things, such as the Dragon's recent attack.
The king stood. The others bowed to him.
“Follow this man,” the king said, pointing his scepter at Keron. “He will be your monarch now.” With a trembling, unsteady hand, he placed the head of the scepter against the wall behind him. Double doors suddenly became visible and opened inward, revealing a narrow, unlit tunnel that smelled of stagnant air.
“May you all outlive the Dragon,” Pranter declared.
Enret took the lead, letting the others follow single file. At last only Keron was left with the aged, rightful ruler of Elandris. Pranter suddenly swayed, maintaining his balance only by placing his hand on Keron's shoulder. When he was steady, he handed the scepter to the younger man.
Keron took it reluctantly. As two weeks before in the observation dome, he thought he felt a throb of power within the device. He found it hard to look at; it was a thing he had never dared to hope to own.
“Take it!” the king insisted. “Stick it in Gloroc's eye!"
Keron nodded. The king turned and sat down. There was nothing more to say. Keron entered the tunnel, touched the doors as Pranter had instructed earlier, and watched them close. The light vanished.
They walked wordlessly down the passage, guiding themselves by touch. The tunnel was featureless—simply a flat floor, an arching roof, and smooth walls. The sound of their own breathing was fantastically loud.
Finally Enret called, “Wall here, Admiral."
Keron slipped past the others. The end of the passage was blocked. He touched the partition with the scepter. A massive door slid to the side, revealing an airlock on the other side, its contours made visible by dim phosphorescence.
The party filed in. There was nothing to indicate the chamber had ever been used. It seemed to be chiselled out of native coral and sealed by extreme heat, though there was no char. The only highlight was the broad, circular hatch in the center of the floor.
Keron sealed the opening through which they had come, and they put on their airmakers and vests. Two men opened the flood ports. The chamber began to fill with sea water. Keron sighed at the scent of free, honest ocean. As soon as the room had filled, they opened the hatch.
They came out on the underside of a huge coral formation. Keron, the last man out, closed the hatch behind him. At a touch from the scepter, the spindle spun from the inside, restoring the lock. From this side, the hatch was a barnacle-encrusted circle of coral, perfectly concealed in the shadows.
The city was to the east, most of a league away. The magnificent vartham dome shone in the night waters. Their gazes lingered on her lights.
Keron signalled, and they set out, hugging the ocean floor against the remote chance that the Dragon had stationed observers near the city. They soon vanished into the murk.
* * *
XXXVIII
AS ALEMAR AND GAST MADE their way down the road at the western edge of the Ahloorm River, they unexpectedly ran into a large encampment of Zyraii. The group had settled under the canopy of a grove of hoeanaou trees, where they were feasting and drinking wine. They proved to be the Hysic, the smallest clan of the T'lil, in the midst of their migration from the river basin to the far parts of their range. Children ran out to meet the Hab-no-ken, followed not long after by the Hysic's sole Bo-no-ken and a party of elders.
“What is the occasion?” Gast inquired, after he had accepted an invitation to join the festivities.
“The siege of Xurosh has ended,” the Bo-no-ken replied. “The traders have sent their soldiers home."
Alemar took the wineskin that had been thrust into his hands and listened keenly, eager for news of Elenya. He had not seen her since he had originally left with Gast. They had visited the T'krt twice in recent months, but she had not been there. She was among the warriors who continued to defend the fort after the Zyraii had taken it.
“Yetem has become hai-Zyraii,” a very young Po-no-pha told him, apologizing almost in the same breath for not being able to remain at Xurosh; he had sustained a broken leg while storming the fortress. Alemar had noticed his slight limp. “He has shared blood with the war-leader."
The youth went on to describe the battle, particularly the attack on the southern keep, where he had received his injury. Alemar sat with him and the few Po-no-pha present and listened patiently. He had heard the story of Xurosh several times. He knew of Shigmur's death, of the poisoning of the well, and of Lonal and Elenya's desperate stand. Nevertheless, he enjoyed it for the social aspect, which he often missed in his travels with Gast, and he was proud of his sister's new honor.
It was late b
efore he excused himself and wandered to the edge of the camp. He stood at the edge of the jungle, bathed in the glow of Motherworld, enjoying the sensation of being surrounded by trees. He had never totally adjusted to the desert's overwhelmingly open spaces. Soon he realized he was being watched.
It was a woman. She was about Alemar's age, small, sturdy, and calm in her movements. She waited respectfully for him to acknowledge her, which he did.
“Would you look at my daughter? She is ill.” Something in her tone told Alemar that if he should decline, she would accept that gracefully and retire, but with the same observation he realized that she was not the type to summon him without cause.
“Of course,” he answered.
The girl, a four-year-old, was under a small awning, segregated from her family's tent for fear that her sickness was contagious. She was fierce with fever and had a rash across her chest and throat. Alemar frowned. He had not seen the symptoms before, but they matched one of Gast's descriptions. He could fetch the Hab-no-ken...
He decided against it, instead placing his palms around one of the little girl's hands. Within seconds he had entered a trance.
The girl's form seemed to become transparent. He could sense the functioning of each organ, the pulsing and coursing of her bloodstream, the amount of urine in her bladder. The source of the problem was immediately apparent. He could see the wrongness leaving the upper intestine and spreading throughout the rest of the body. He memorized the aura of the irritant and ended the trance.
“What has she eaten in the past two days?” he asked the mother.
“Millet, cheese, dates..."
“Any milk?"
“Yes, of course."
He gestured out at the spot where the sheep and goats had been penned. “Fetch a bit of fresh milk for me."
When she had returned, Alemar lifted the milk to his nose and sniffed. “Grass, water ... yolo weed."
“There's a great deal of it growing nearby,” she said. “The sheep won't touch it, but the goats don't care."
