The Veiled Dragon

by Denning, Troy

  A prickling chill ran down Ruha’s back, and a terrifying possibility occurred to her. I have seen your mercy, she thought. And you have seen my magic. Go away, or it will be you who begs quarter.

  The witch waited a moment for Cypress’s response. When none came, she breathed a little easier. If the dragon had been able to read her thoughts, her chances of surviving the coming battle would have fallen to nothing.

  Ruha sheathed her dagger, then burrowed into the ylang blossoms. She crawled toward the front of the cargo box, taking care not to jiggle the wagon. As she moved, she summoned the incantation of a fire spell to mind. She doubted that she could trick Cypress into swallowing a chestful of oil vapor again, but neither would it take such a huge explosion to destroy his new body. A smaller blast, properly placed, would prove sufficient to annihilate him.

  The witch was only halfway to her goal when something jolted the wagon. She heard the zip-zip of oilcloth being ripped; then a flickering yellow light of the spicehouse’s oil lamps filtered down through the ylang blossoms. Already uttering her incantation, Ruha lifted herself out of the blossoms and, expecting to feel the dragon’s claws driving deep into her flesh at any moment, thrust her hand over the sideboard.

  The flames shot off the wicks of half a dozen different lamps and streaked into the palm of her hand, gathering themselves into a hissing, sputtering ball of fire. She whirled around, ready to slap the scorching sphere into Cypress’s empty eye socket or beneath his arm, or anywhere that would channel the explosion into her attacker’s vital areas.

  The dragon was not there. He stood three paces away from the wagon, the dark voids beneath his brow fixed on the fire in Ruha’s palm. From his talons hung the remains of the shredded tarp, arid she could see the tip of his tail flicking back and forth behind his head. He made no move to attack.

  There’s no need to burn down poor Tang’s spicehouse, the dragon said. Step out of the wagon. Give me that silver I smell and answer a single question. I promise, your death shall be mercifully quick.

  Ruha felt as though the fire in her hand was cooking her bone marrow as far down as her elbow, but she made no move to throw the fireball. Without being properly placed, the blast would do no more than melt a few of the dragon’s scales. Besides, as much as the searing heat grieved her, the sphere could cause her no real damage until after it left her hand.

  “I have known enough pain in my life not to be frightened of it,” Ruha said. “If I am to die, I do not particularly care whether it is quickly or slowly.”

  As the witch spoke, she stepped over to Cypress’s side of the wagon. To her surprise, the dragon moved neither away from the fireball nor forward to attack. Ruha might have been able to reach the dragon with a good leap, but he would have time to turn away and, in all likelihood, impale her on his long talons. If her plan was to succeed, she had to draw him closer.

  “You may ask your question. Perhaps I will answer, or perhaps I will not.”

  You will answer, Cypress promised. And you will step out of the wagon.

  “Why is it so important that I leave the wagon? I can answer your question from here.”

  In the black depths of the dragon’s empty eye sockets appeared two dirty yellow sparks. When we met the first time, was it happenstance? As Cypress asked his question, the sparks lengthened into gleaming lines, then began to flicker at the ends and thicken into stripes. Or did someone tell you I would be there?

  “Who would have told me that?” Ruha wanted nothing more than to hurl her fireball at the dragon and run for her life, but she forced herself to stand fast. If Cypress had not attacked by now, then it had to be because he was afraid of destroying what was in the wagon. The witch tipped her hand so that the fireball was precariously close to slipping from her palm, then added, “And stop what you are—”

  You will not drop the fireball!

  The yellow stripes shot from Cypress’s vacant eyes and joined together, becoming a long-fanged bat of amber light. Ruha brought her hand around, placing the fireball between herself and her attacker.

  Stupid Harper! Flames will not save you!

  The bat emerged from the fireball, its wings blazing and its eyes glowing with rabid fury. Ruha reached for her jambiya, and the beast was upon her. Instead of raking her eyes with its tiny claws or sinking its fangs into her throat, it appeared inside her mind, a flaming creature of the night, flitting across the starry sky high over her memories of Anauroeh’s purple-shadowed sand dunes.

  Ruha cried out, but she could not bring herself to flee the dragon, or even to turn away. Cypress was already inside her mind, and trying break contact with him was as futile as trying to escape an unpleasant memory by closing one’s eyes. The dragon sat motionless on the floor, his gaze pinning the witch in place as surely as if he had been standing on her chest.

  Her only chance of escaping, Ruha realized, lay in distracting Cypress. No sooner did she have this thought than a small brake of saltbush sprouted from the sands of her mind. The words of a wind spell rose from the brush like a swarm of sand finches. Cypress’s fiery bat streaked down to dive through the heart of the flock, scattering the syllables of the incantation before they could shape themselves. Ruha’s arm remained motionless, the fireball still burning in her hand.

  Cypress’s bat settled on the surface of Ruha’s mind and began to beat its burning wings. Clouds of hissing yellow fume curled from the tips of the fiery appendages and rolled across the dune-sculpted terrain. Wherever the haze touched, the sands themselves melted into rivers and pools of bubbling brown acid. The witch started to feel hot and limp, as though a fever had taken hold of her body, and her limbs trembled with weakness. For a moment, she feared she had guessed wrong about the dragon’s fear of destroying the ylang blossoms, that he merely wanted her to drop the fireball at her own feet.

  The bubbling brown pools inside Ruha’s head joined and became a lake. The bat dove into the acid, sinking its fangs deep into the throat of some naked thought that was writhing just below the surface of her mind. The witch saw Cypress’s lips curl into something that resembled a smile; then she felt her foot sliding across the floor of the wagon. She tried to stop, but no sooner had the thought taken shape than it dissolved into nothingness in the bubbling acid. The dragon had won control of her mind, and now she had to fight him not only for her life, but for the possession of her own thoughts.

  It occurred to Ruha that this was a battle not of strength or speed, but of imagination, and a rocky island of hope instantly sprang up inside her mind.

  Waves of acid began to lap at its shores, filling the air with hissing white smoke and reducing the isle to little more than a sandbar. The witch pictured the sand changing to granite. She felt a strange tingling deep within her stomach, then experienced a momentary burning all over her body, as though she had exerted every muscle at once. The little island hardened into dense stone and stopped dissolving, but Ruha felt her foot slide a little closer to the rear of the wagon.

  A deep-throated growl rumbled from Cypress’s throat; then the yellow acid inside Ruha’s mind began to churn and froth like a storm-tossed sea. Mountainous waves rose and crashed over the witch’s small isle, threatening to submerge it entirely. She envisioned the island erupting like a volcano, pushing its way higher above the surface and spreading immense blankets of molten stone across the lake. Again, she experienced a strange tingling deep within her abdomen, followed by a momentary burning over her entire body. She felt physically drained, as though she had been running for a long time in the scorching sun.

  You only anger me. Cypress’s voice broke like thunder inside Ruha’s mind, and she felt her foot touch the wagon’s tailgate. An untrained mind cannot prevail.

  The stars vanished from the purple sky over the witch’s growing island of hope. Spears of lightning stabbed at the summit of the erupting volcano, and a few hissing drops of acid began to fall on its slopes.

  Then, before Cypress could unleash the full fury of his storm, a pai
r of familiar forms came rushing across the spicehouse floor.

  “Cypress!” gasped Wei Dao. “What do you want here?”

  Prince Tang drew his sword and pointed it at the dragon. “You go!” Then he looked toward the door. “Guards!”

  Cypress glanced away from Ruha long enough to flick his tail at the approaching prince and send him crashing through the flimsy door of a spice bin. That instant was long enough for the witch. She envisioned her volcano bursting apart, flinging lava and ash in all directions. A tremendous wave of fatigue rolled over her body; then her island erupted as she had envisioned, pouring forth molten stone in such prodigious quantities that the acid lake completely vanished beneath its fiery blanket.

  Ruha felt control of her limbs return. Gasping for breath and trembling with fatigue, she slipped back to the center of the wagon. Her mind was not entirely free of its attacker, however. The dragon locked gazes with her again, and once more his bat figure appeared inside her mind, rising from beneath the sea of flaming rock like a phoenix reborn. An angry rumble rolled from Cypress’s throat; then the flaming bat transformed itself into an immense, black-haired cyclops. The brute floated down to the ground, then waded through the lava toward the witch’s volcano. He stood as tall as the summit, and his knobby hands looked powerful enough to crush stone.

  Ruha pictured the ground beneath his feet turning to quicksand, but this time she experienced no strange tinglings in the pit of her stomach. She felt only a dull, nauseating ache, then a searing wave of pain as the last of her energy drained from her muscles. The witch collapsed to her knees, so exhausted and enervated that she could not find the strength to rise. The cyclops stopped beside her volcano, then reached out and tore away a huge chunk of glowing stone.

  As I annihilate this mountain, so I annihilate your mind! the cyclops cackled. When I finish, your head will be naught but a smoking hole, as empty and useless as a spent sulfur pit!

  Ruha tried again to change the scene inside her head, but succeeded only in exhausting herself to the point that she almost dropped the fireball. The wagon rocked as someone climbed in behind her, but the witch could not rip her gaze away from Cypress’s empty eye sockets to see who it was. She thought about trying to drop the fireball before the dragon seized control of her body again. The resulting conflagration would kill her as well as the newcomer, but she felt fairly certain that destroying the ylang blossoms would also delay the theft of Yanseldara’s spirit.

  Prince Tang kneeled beside Ruha, holding several slender yellow leaves in his hand. His eyes appeared glassy and vacant, and he seemed to be chewing something. Cypress glanced away from Ruha and glared at Tang. Inside the witch’s mind, the cyclops stopped tearing apart her volcano. She was too exhausted to take advantage of her foe’s distraction, but she found herself free to look away from his gaze. A small company of Shou guards had appeared at the door and were cautiously advancing into the shadowy spicehouse, squinting at the dragon as though they could not quite believe their sun-dazzled eyes.

  Whatever the dragon said to Tang, Ruha could not hear it, but the prince’s response was short and angry: “No. If you want oil, you leave now—or I burn wagon myself.” Tang raised one of the slender leaves to Ruha’s lips, then instructed, “Chew leaf, wu-jen.”

  Ruha clenched her teeth and considered thrusting her fireball into Tang’s face.

  “Trust me. This no love potion. It is lasal. Leaf protects against Invisible Art.”

  Ruha allowed the prince to slip the leaf into her mouth and began to chew. The wail of a distant wind arose inside her mind, and the cyclops slowly turned toward the sound. Cypress glanced at Wei Dao, who immediately stepped to the wagon side and spoke to her husband in Shou. The prince responded sharply and pointed toward the guards, who were advancing on the unconcerned dragon with polearms leveled for battle. They seemed rather unsteady on their feet, and even from halfway across the spicehouse, their eyes appeared more glassy than Tang’s.

  Inside Ruha’s mind, the wail of the wind became a roar, then a howling sand cloud billowed across the boiling plain. Cypress groaned, and the cyclops turned to face the storm. The brute took a deep breath and began to blow, but his breath was no match for the fury of the gale. The sand blasted over him, and he vanished into the tempest.

  Cypress grunted, his empty-eyed head recoiling as though the storm had struck him physically. He backed away from the wagon, trembling and sputtering and madly scratching at his temples. Tang’s guards charged, filling the spicehouse with a tremendous clamor as their blades struck their foe’s impenetrable scales. Several of the blades snapped on impact, but most either bounced off or became lodged without causing any damage. The dragon lashed out with fangs, claws, and tail, littering the floor with the shattered bodies of Tang’s loyal guards.

  Finding herself completely in control of her own body—if somewhat exhausted and fuzzy-headed—Ruha rose to her feet and swung a leg over the side of the wagon.

  “No!” Wei Dao shrieked.

  The princess leapt toward Ruha, causing the witch to hesitate just long enough for Tang to grab her by the shoulder.

  “If you leave wagon, we all die.” The prince’s words were slurred, and he seemed to be having trouble focusing his eyes. “Only fear of burning blossoms saves us now.”

  “I know that.” Ruha scowled, struggling against the roaring storm in her head to remember why she had decided to throw the fireball in the first place. “But I must attack … while we have the advantage.”

  You have nothing.

  Cypress cast aside the bodies of two more guards, then pointed his long snout in Tang’s direction. The dragon was far from destroyed, but he looked as haggard as Ruha, and more than a few of his thick scales had been pulled or cut away. Tang called something to his surviving guards, who looked rather relieved and backed away.

  “But wu-jen is under my protection,” the prince said, speaking in Common.

  Your protection? This time, Ruha heard Cypress—though whether it was intended or an accident of his anger, she did not know. She is a Harper, sent to take Yanseldara away from me!

  Tang cringed at the dragon’s anger, but did not back down. “Nevertheless, while she remains in Ginger Palace, she is under my protection.” The prince glanced at his battered guards and nodded once. They leveled their weapons and took a single step forward. “If you do not agree, we finish this now—and you lose Yanseldara anyway.”

  “Are you mad, Husband?” Wei Dao cried. “Give him barbarian! She causes too much trouble already.”

  Tang glared at Wei Dao. “I hear enough from you, Wife. I am Prince of Shou Lung, and to call me mad is treason.”

  Wei Dao’s face darkened to an angry ocher, but she obediently lowered her gaze and mumbled, “Please to forgive outburst, Merciful Husband.”

  Cypress observed the exchange in silence, then pointed his snout in Tang’s direction. Why all this trouble for a barbarian, Young Prince? he demanded, still allowing Ruha to eavesdrop. Could it be you have fallen in love?

  “That is not your concern,” Tang replied. “I have ylang oil by evening. Please to bring Lady Feng, and we make exchange.”

  Cypress stepped forward, bringing his nostrils almost to within arm’s reach of Ruha. You are fortunate that I understand the power of love, Harper. Treat Tang well. You owe him your life.

  Ruha brought her fireball around. So exhausted was Cypress that he barely pulled his head away in time to keep her from stuffing the sphere into his nostrils.

  “I’ll treat Tang as well as he deserves, I assure you,” Ruha said.

  The dragon backed away and swung his snout toward Tang.

  The prince listened for a moment, then pointed to the door. “You bring Lady Feng. I see to wu-jen.”

  Cypress allowed his empty gaze to linger on Ruha for a moment, then turned away. With a weary beat of his wings, he lifted himself into the air and flew out the door. Tang waited until he was gone, then turned to Ruha.

  “Perhaps now
you understand wisdom of my actions.” The prince’s voice was smug and condescending. “Or do you still believe Cypress is destroyed?”

  Ruha shook her head. “I do not—but how could he have survived?” The lasal haze inside her mind was already beginning to clear, but it had not yet grown thin enough for her to understand what she had seen. “I blasted him into a thousand pieces.”

  “You destroy body, not spirit,” Tang explained, assuming a superior air. “Cypress is dracolich. He hides spirit inside gem—”

  “Wise Prince,” Wei Dao interrupted. “Cypress says she is Harper. Is it prudent to tell her so much?”

  By the scowl Tang shot his wife, Ruha could see that the prince wanted to impress her with his proscribed knowledge—and she wanted him to. The witch allowed an expectant gaze to linger on the prince’s face for a moment, then rolled her eyes and looked away, letting out a deliberately loud sigh of disgust.

  The silent put-down worked as no verbal upbraid could have. Tang’s face reddened, and he snapped at Wei Dao, “I decide what is prudent!” When the princess lowered her gaze, Tang looked back to Ruha. “Cypress hides his spirit inside gem. After his body is destroyed, he possesses new corpse and consumes old one.”

  “But the sharks ate his old one,” Ruha said, thinking aloud. “And that is why he smells like rotten fish now. He is eating the creatures that ate him!”

  Tang nodded. “It is impossible to stop process. Even if you burn old corpse and spread ashes, he can find them and swallow them. When he has eaten enough, he becomes dracolich again.”

  “How close is he now?”

  Tang shrugged. “It does not matter to you. For your protection, I must not allow you to leave Ginger Palace.”

  “Is that by Cypress’s command, or yours?”

  “By dragon’s—and he warns me you have no gratitude. He says you do not repay my bravery as woman should.”

  Ruha’s eyes narrowed. “And how is that?”

  The prince smiled. “Ginger Palace still has need of wu-jen. Our union would be most blissful.”