The Dragon Lords: False Idols

by Jon Hollins

  “No!” she heard herself shriek, more at the impulse to burn than at the woman who was stepping away from the wall to block her passage up the stairs. She pushed bodily past, sending Afrit staggering, and started up the stairs.

  “I have to warn you!” Afrit called after her. “You can’t go up there!”

  Quirk kept her head down. She did not trust Afrit. Ferra had gotten his information somewhere, and no one had showed more interest in her than Afrit.

  She could hear the young professor running up the stairs after her. “I don’t know what I have done to offend you,” Afrit was calling inanely. “But you can’t. You mustn’t.”

  Suddenly a new fear gripped Quirk. That Afrit was there to delay her intentionally, to buy someone else time. Was Ferra up there now? In her rooms?

  She redoubled her pace, made the top of the twisting staircase, looked down the long wooden corridor. It was dark, and smelled musty, the far wall truncated as it reached the slope of the eaves.

  Men were at her door. Three of them. Two had the bulk of soldiers, or whatever sort of all-purpose thug Ferra hired. The third wore robes and was stooped, fiddling at her door.

  This time Quirk let the fire rise in her of her own volition. She felt her palms growing hot.

  “Get the fuck away from my door.” She cursed not for Ferra’s benefit, but for her own, to pump the boiling blood through her system faster.

  The two heavies turned. The robed figure straightened abruptly, started striding toward her. Quirk set her feet.

  And then stopped, caught off guard.

  It was not Ferra.

  “Chancellor?” she said. The head of the university was walking toward her, a stern expression on his face. “I didn’t … I’m sorry. I … What can I do for you?”

  Chancellor Trillidunce was a tall man with an athlete’s build, belying the fact that he was in fact one of the foremost experts on empirical law in the country. She had seen him debate with the skill and grace of a fencer. It had been he who had agreed to house a rabid wastelands wastrel who had burned and raged her way through a hundred lives before her sixteenth birthday. And while he had never taken a personal role in her recovery, he had always existed in the background of her life—a smiling benefactor; the university’s own kind god.

  Now he looked ready to launch a thunderbolt.

  “Is it true?” he said without preamble.

  Quirk felt her brows furrow, even as her gut lurched. She had absolutely no idea what Trillidunce was talking about. There were too many things he could mean. Behind her, she heard Afrit make the top of the stairs. Gods, she did not want that woman observing this.

  “Is what true?”

  She was trying to picture the still lake. To become its surface, smooth and calm. It was about as much use as pissing on a forest fire.

  “That you’re writing this filth?” He reached into his sleeve, and for a moment Quirk had the absurd idea he was going for a knife. Flame pulsed inside her skull.

  Trillidunce pulled out a sheaf of papers, flung them at her. Her own flyers piled about her feet.

  She felt Afrit stepping down the corridor toward her. “Can we talk about this in my rooms?” she said. Trying not to snap at him. Trying not to plead.

  “Search her,” snapped Trillidunce.

  “What?” Quirk managed to say, but then the two university guards had her by the arms, were pinning her against the wall. One held her, while the other ran his hands lightly over her frame.

  Burn him. Burn him. Burn him.

  She closed her eyes, breathed slowly through her nose.

  “If we find nothing on you,” said the Chancellor, sounding as if he was speaking through gritted teeth, “then we search your rooms. If we find nothing there, then you may talk.”

  The guard’s hand went up her sleeve, fastened on the sheaf of papers she had hidden there.

  BURN HIM!

  This is my home …

  The guard ripped the latest set of pamphlets free from her grasping hands, shoved them toward the Chancellor. He looked them over, quivering with silent rage.

  Back at the stairs, Afrit turned and ran away. No doubt gone to report to her secret masters.

  Trillidunce looked up from the flyers. “So it’s true.” His voice was flat but there was cold fury in his eyes.

  “Why are you doing this?” It made no sense to her. Trillidunce had a brilliant mind. For more than three decades he had fostered the Tamathian University’s long history of academic brilliance and helped forge the place into a modern intellectual and financial powerhouse. He had a magpie’s eye for valuable minds, gathering them up regardless of appearance, or political leaning.

  “Because I will tolerate a lot, Bal Tehrin, but I will not tolerate …” He sputtered for a moment. “Filth!” he finally spat.

  He was literally frothing with rage, she realized. Only just holding it together. And the flame inside her quailed for a moment at that realization. That anything, let alone her, could have inspired so much rage and hatred in someone. Maybe before … back when she had been Hethren’s tool. But now?

  “You would censor me?” She couldn’t believe it. Not even as it was happening.

  What in the Hallows was happening?

  “Censor you?” Trillidunce was still stuck a thought behind her. He had a look of horror on his face. Not, she thought, that he had been accused, but that it was she who had accused him. That someone as low and craven and her should dare. That was what had held him up.

  “You can publish whatever filth you want, Bal Tehrin.” Her name was a stain upon his tongue. “You just can’t do it here.”

  “What?” She didn’t understand. She was too caught off guard to process what he was saying. She struggled against the hands of the guards holding her to the wall, but they didn’t release their pressure.

  “You are no longer a professor here, Bal Tehrin. You are no longer housed here. You are no longer spoken of. You are excised from this university. Your possessions will be burned, your rooms scrubbed. Your students will be told to forget your teachings. You do not exist to us. You are nothing to us.”

  And like that, fire died.

  “What?” Quirk managed. “What?”

  But Trillidunce wasn’t listening to her. “Get her out of here,” he said to the two guards.

  And so they did. They dragged her down the corridor by her arms. Dragged her down the stairs and past the courtyards. They dragged her past staring, whispering students. Past the classroom where she had taught her first class. Past the lecture hall where she had received a standing ovation after her first talk about the dragons of Kondorra. Past the spot where, unable to contain her excitement until she was back in her room, she had opened her first invitation from the Emperor. Past the sunny spot in the corner of a courtyard where she had composed most of her first folio. Past the temple of Knole, where she had discovered the first peace she had known in seventeen years. Past the corner where she had conceded a kiss to a student ten years her junior and discovered that it meant nothing to her. Past the spot where she had lost her temper in an argument about the vestigial thumbs of Fanlornian Murk Apes and almost roasted a professor alive. Past the spot where she had tentatively started to carve her name into the stone of the college with a knife, and stopped after the letter Q because it felt like sacrilege, and she realized that this was now her home. Past the place where Trillidunce had told her that she could move her things up into the abandoned garret she’d been bothering him about. Past the gatehouse that had seemed so forbidding and cruel when she had first been taken across it. Past Tamper, the old doorman, sitting there, nodding to himself with a look of grim satisfaction on his face.

  And then she landed on the street, in a pile of her own limbs, and tears, and confusion. Around her, pedestrians were shying away, staring down in confusion and mild disgust. Not a single expression of pity met her there on the street.

  She looked back at the university. Tamper was pushing the door shut for the fi
rst time she could remember. The guards stood behind it, hands on thick black coshes tied to their waists. When had the university guards started carrying those?

  She stood only slowly, staring at the uncaring wood of the university door. And she could … could … what?

  She couldn’t burn it. Even if the fire was raging in her, she couldn’t burn it. It was too precious. She loved that wood. Even in this moment as it rejected her. She loved that institution with everything she had. And it was lost to her. She was a widow. This was grief.

  She stumbled away. She had to get away. That was all she knew in this moment. That she couldn’t even look at the university. She had to … to … to … She didn’t know. She couldn’t know. The wound was too fresh in her mind.

  She wandered. She found herself facing the south wall of the university. She walked away, cursing at herself. She ended up at the blank east wall. The city had become a labyrinth, the university her own personal lodestone. She could not escape.

  “There she is!” A rough shout that only punched through her confusion because it was so obviously aimed at her. She reeled round as if she had been in her cups all day.

  A group of youths. Their heads shaved almost clean, except for “dragon tails” of hair plaited down their necks. They held wooden staves.

  Diffinites.

  “No,” she muttered. Not now. She couldn’t deal with this now. She was too off balance. And this felt timed. Ferra’s hand behind everything. The sly conductor to all events. She shook her head, trying to clear it.

  The Diffinites approached, whistling to each other, twirling their staves. “Not now,” she said out loud, thoughts still feeling sluggish. “Come back during my office hours.”

  They were laughing at her. A crowd was gathering.

  “Fuck off!” she screamed. And there were tears on her face. “Leave me alone!” People jeered. They crowed.

  The first stave caught her in the gut, doubled her over. She gasped as the world came into sharp focus. As the pain grounded her deeply and sharply in the now. Spit sprayed from her lips. She tried to stand straight, couldn’t.

  Another stave in the middle of her hunched back, knocked her to the floor. And she was angry. So very angry all of a sudden. That this was happening now, of all the times it could happen. And it was an absurd reason to be angry, some part of her knew, but it didn’t stop her anger.

  And her anger was always hot.

  Another stave, this one to her face. She felt her lip split, felt blood flow. She felt the heat of it on her face. She raised a shaking hand to her face, pulled it away smeared with red. She was gasping, her breath coming in short staccato bursts.

  The Diffinites pulled back, stood in a circle around her to admire their handiwork. She managed to get to her knees, sat back gasping, blowing bubbles through the blood streaming down her chin. She could see men and women standing around staring, half-fascinated, half-horrified, none of them doing anything except watching.

  One of the Diffinites, a woman who could be no more than twenty-two or twenty-three, stepped forward. She twisted, her stave grasped in both hands, poised to torque her full body weight into the blow she was aiming at Quirk’s face.

  Quirk didn’t even remember stretching out her hand. But the woman simply disappeared. There was no longer a torturing, leering figure in front of her. There was simply a pyre, a torch blazing against the radiance of the sun high above. Defying it.

  This is the gods, she thought. This is their lack of a shit for all your posturing bullshit. They reached down and they touched me. They gave me this power.

  The Diffinites were recoiling, confusion and horror raging through them, still not sure what was happening.

  Quirk set them ablaze one by one. She took her time. And gods, it felt good. Watching their eyes go wide as they realized what was happening, what she was doing.

  This is how you fight back, the fire whispered in her ear as it rushed up and through her. This is how you teach the world a lesson and bend it to your will.

  The last of the Diffinites was running, screaming. She stretched out a palm toward him. Around her, the other Diffinites were writhing, slowly going still. She exhaled slowly. Flame burst from her palm. A thick lash of it that raced out and filled the space between her and the running Diffinite. For a moment she could clearly see the thin yellow strands she wrapped around him in a tight embrace, then they blurred together in a yellow smear of fire. The Diffinite dropped and howled.

  Quirk let the fire die. Felt the cool air of Tamathia’s afternoon on her smoking palm. The screams around her were very clear.

  The screams.

  And then she realized what she had done. Then she saw the crowd staring, and screaming, and screaming, and screaming. She smelled the burning flesh.

  Again.

  Oh gods. Oh no. Oh what had she done?

  She sank to her knees, buried her face in her hands.

  There were footsteps. She heard a voice. “Come on. Come on. You have to get out of here.” Someone pulled at her arm. She ignored whoever it was. It was too much. Everything was too much.

  Then there were other footsteps, heavier, accompanied by the sharp clank and clap of steel. City guards. Whoever was pulling at her arm melted away.

  They struck her from behind, a short, hard blow to the back of the neck, and then she knew nothing more.

  10

  Alcoholics Go to Meetings

  The headsman’s block, Firkin decided, was not a good sign.

  That said, he really did have to hand it to the High Priesthood of Vinland. If anybody was looking for interior decorating tips on how to achieve the opulent dictator look, these were the guys to know. It made him think that everything he’d achieved in Kondorra was a bit paltry.

  Though, to be fair, these bastard priests hadn’t really given him the time to develop his themes in Kondorra. He’d still been preoccupied with the process of consolidating his power base. Before he’d had time to really grapple with the aesthetic of his rule, they’d come and stolen his nation from him.

  It had been three weeks since Vinland had annexed his fledgling nation. Three weeks that he’d spent on the road in a prisoner’s cart, hands and feet chained. He could not be allowed to remain among his people, he was told, lest he become a rallying point for resistance. Firkin had tried to explain they didn’t need to worry about that sort of shit. His whole using-a-servant-as-a-footstool thing seemed to be fresh in a lot of people’s minds. But they hadn’t listened. And, truth be told, spending three weeks out of his gourd in a wagon hadn’t been too bad. That was the nice thing about being captured and taken as a hostage of war by the Vinlanders, at least: not much food, but plenty of drink.

  But now, for perhaps the first time in his life, he found himself wishing he was perhaps just a hair more sober.

  They’d been passing through vineyards for days, drunken farmhands looking up from reeling through their fields to watch the procession of soldiers on the road, when finally the walls of Vinter had lurched onto the horizon. They had looked exactly like what they were—the efforts of the religiously inebriated. They slouched around the city, sprawling, exploding into tumors of creative masonry, then lapsing into sections that appeared to be little more than heaps of piled stones. Guards stood upon the wall, most of them fast asleep, snoring loudly, heads pressed to their poleaxes.

  Inside its walls, the Vinland capital was vast. An expanse of stone and mortar that boggled Firkin’s already well-boggled mind. He had been to Vinland a long, long time ago, had loved it even, but had not seen it in … what? Decades? When had he been here last? It all seemed very hazy. But he knew he had never conceived that the city could grow so large.

  The whole place stank of yeast and fermentation, stale beer and spilled vomit. It was a fetid, dirty, redolent city. His cart had rolled past men and women fighting, and singing. Street sweepers had waved brooms laconically at the tides of filth. A heavy, misty fug seemed to hang in the air. The light was diffuse and re
d. Every other building was a temple. Statues of Barph rose at every street corner. Preachers stood shouting the tenets of his worship, and pouring out libations into the mouths of worshippers slumped around them.

  It was so beautiful, Firkin had thought he might actually weep. He’d felt like he’d come home.

  And now this headsman’s block bullshit.

  He was still in his chains, on his knees now, in the highest temple of them all. A vast edifice of red brick, the same color as day-old vomit. The High Priesthood were assembled on a dais before him, sitting on gold-encrusted thrones, wearing robes of chardonnay yellow and claret crimson.

  “Firkin,” intoned one, and then stopped. “Wait … what’s his title?”

  “Do they have kings in Kondorra?” said another. She attempted to lean on the armrest of her throne, and missed. She swayed dangerously in her chair.

  “They have dragons,” said another, nodding sagely.

  “He doesn’t look like a dragon,” said the third.

  “Maybe he’s in disguise.”

  The fourth just stared at him.

  “Are you a dragon in disguise?” asked the first High Priest.

  Firkin looked around. One of the guards shook a spear in Firkin’s direction.

  “Answer his inebriatedness!”

  Firkin blinked. “No,” he said.

  The priests all nodded. All except the fourth, who was still staring.

  “That’s good,” he heard one of them mutter. “All be a bit fucked if we’d brought a dragon back here.”

  “Do we really need to know his title if we’re just going to kill him?” asked the third. “Seems kind of pointless.”

  “Yes!” shouted the second, waving her goblet around, while the poor servant attempted to fill it. “Of course we do. Protocol is very … it’s very … what’s the word?”

  They stared blankly at her.

  “Important?” Firkin hazarded.

  “Shut up!” screamed spear-enthusiast guard.

  “Oh hush,” said the second High Priest, flapping her hand at the guard. Then she smiled at Firkin. “Important, exactly. Protocol is important. It’s nice to have a prisoner who recognizes that.”