Telamba sent an arc of burning red lightning toward Rajana, but she blocked the attack with a curtain of misty silver energy.
She was drawing on the power of the dragon’s tear, and grinning as she did so.
Damn it.
Ivrian pushed away from Jeneta and lurched in from the upper ring. Rajana, startled by the sudden movement, spun and raised a glowing hand, ready to defend herself. It was the only opening Mirian expected she’d get, and she charged.
The spellcaster whirled, mouthed a spell and lifted a hand to shield herself—the same one she’d lifted months before. Except this time fingers of glowing mist were there in place of the ones Mirian had sliced away. They held back the blade as Mirian brought it down.
A wicked, curved knife fashioned from shining light formed in Rajana’s other hand. She punched it toward Mirian’s chest.
Mirian sidestepped. The dagger skimmed through her shirt and into her left shoulder with a cold so intense it burned. Mirian gasped in agony and staggered back even as a muscular shape dashed past her.
Telamba. Snarling, he raised a short, curved blade. Before he could swing it home, a coruscating blast of energy hurtled from Rajana’s palm. It lifted him bodily and tossed him away like detritus.
Smiling, Rajana drifted backward above the floor, caressed by a rippling blue cloak of energy.
Mirian sprinted after, reaching Rajana as she soared through the archway and out to the walkway that circled the temple. Hearing her footfalls, Rajana turned, smiling wickedly, the dragon’s tear a silvery-white glow in her hands.
Mirian slashed at her but the Chelaxian laughed and flew a foot backward into the air.
The mist swirled and whipped and flashed beyond Rajana, occasionally flowing low enough to reveal straining treetops or the heights of domed buildings.
“There’s nothing you can do now!” Rajana told her. “I am a goddess! Kneel to me, Mirian! Kneel to me and beg for me to spare you!”
There, low in the bushes just to Rajana’s left, something crept along on its belly within the rolling mist—Jekka, with his sword staff. He must have escaped through one of the archways.
Mirian had to buy just a little more time. “If I kneel,” she said slowly, “will you spare my people?”
Rajana laughed. It was a strained sound, as though she were unaccustomed to it. “I may, or may not. I haven’t decided whether I shall be a benevolent goddess. It will depend upon my mood. And my mood will depend upon how those beneath me comport—”
Jekka’s spearpoint emerged from Rajana’s chest and she dropped to her knees with a groan. But she was not yet done. Her fingers splayed and mist lashed up like whips to strike the lizard man. They wrapped his limbs and twisted them, flung him broken into the side of the building.
Mirian swung hard and sliced deep into Rajana’s right arm. She cried out and the dragon’s tear soared off into the mist.
Yet still Rajana had life within her. She struggled to one knee as Mirian raised her sword. Her eyes burned with hatred. “Before I die, I shall take—”
With her first stroke, Mirian cut halfway through the woman’s neck. The second sent her head rolling away into the mist. Rajana’s body collapsed with a sickening thump.
Mirian dashed to Jekka’s side.
Her brother was worse than she’d feared. He struggled to rise on one arm. The other was twisted and broken.
“I can’t feel my legs,” he told her. His speech was slurred, and Mirian now saw a slim chip of stone embedded in his forehead. Blood trickled down the side of his face, delineating scales usually too small to notice
She gasped, reached for him. She knew he didn’t like to be touched, but she grabbed his hand.
“Do not worry, my sister,” Jekka said softly. “I hoped to go to my people. Now I will.”
“Not you…” Mirian gripped his cool reptilian flesh in her hands.
“When you have your children,” Jekka said, “you will tell them of your brother?”
“Oh yes.” Mirian’s eyes burned with tears. “Jeneta! Damn you, Jeneta! Get over here!” But had the healer even survived the collapse of the dome? And even if she had, these wounds were beyond her skill.
There were footfalls from behind Jekka, but it wasn’t Jeneta. She looked past her dying brother to find Ensara panting there, Ivrian leaning heavily against him. The writer’s hand was raised and she stared in sudden shock as the dragon’s tear floated through the air and into his palm.
She’d known Ivrian had some natural magical aptitude, given the ease with which he’d used the magic wand, but for him to command this level of power …
Ivrian’s eyes filled once more with mist.
The teardrop settled into Ivrian’s hand and he looked down, his face like a theater mask of tragedy. He raised his hand and a coil of mist rose. This time, though, it touched Jekka gently, like the caressing hand of a lover. It brushed his forehead, lingering there, and the stone splinter faded in glowing sparkles. The mist then shifted to wrap Jekka’s torso and arm.
Her blood brother’s glazed expression cleared and he sat up, flexing a perfectly shaped arm that had been a bent and devastated wreck only moments before. Mirian, at a loss for words, gaped in joy, helping Jekka to stand. She looked to Ivrian, but the writer had turned to consider the mist across the face of the sea, and the reefs that loomed behind it. The light of Golarion’s sun streamed down, setting the rubies embedded in the distant lizard heads aflame. The mist clung to the buildings and trees that swept down toward the ocean, concealing much but revealing tracts of jungle or pavement as it slowly shifted.
Mirian laughed in joy. She clapped Jekka’s shoulder, then threw herself at him and held him close.
“Ivrian!” Ensara cried.
Mirian spun.
The pirate captain supported the young miracle worker, now slumped and limp.
Mirian released Jekka and hurried forward. “Is he all right?”
Ensara bent his head to Ivrian’s face. “He’s breathing.”
Mirian bent to examine Ivrian’s as well, and saw that his slowly blinking eyes were normal now, or at least free of sorcery, for he didn’t look like he could focus. She lowered him to the stones, now almost clear of mist, and heard a sharp intake of breath and scrabble of sandals as Jeneta sank down beside him.
Mirian started to ask where she’d been, then saw that her left arm was caked in blood, and that her cheek was swollen. “I think he’ll be fine. What about you?”
“I took a tumble. I’m all right.” She knelt beside the writer, her eyes huge with worry.
“Check him over,” Mirian ordered, although Jeneta obviously was planning to do just that. She really was going to have to be told … but not just now.
Mirian stepped away, her eyes shifting briefly to Rajana’s motionless corpse.
Ensara drew up beside her, nodding at Ivrian as Jeneta pressed hands to the white ruffled shirt wrapped about the writer’s chest. “You think he’ll be all right?”
“Are you a praying man, Ensara?” So far as she knew, Ivrian hadn’t been physically harmed. But he’d had that sorcerous thing inside of him, and he’d wielded vast magical energies. Who was to say how fine he’d really be? She could only hope.
With concerted effort she shifted her attention to Ensara. “What happened to your men in the dome?”
Ensara’s expression darkened. “Some of them got out. A lot of them didn’t. The gods must have meant me to survive.” He wiped blood from his brow. “Maybe they needed me to guide Ivrian up here so he could save Jekka.”
“Who knows what the gods want,” Jekka said. “I think, sometimes, that they laugh at us. But I thank you for bringing Ivrian.”
Ensara nodded wearily. “I heard Mirian calling. I couldn’t see Jeneta, but Ivrian said he thought he could help, so…” His voice trailed off as Jeneta sat back on her heels.
“Jeneta,” Mirian called, “is he going to make it?”
“He seems all right, just exhausted.”
The mist was dissipating at last, burned away by the warming rays of the sun. Here and there little pools of it still lay among the ruins like gray shadows. And she could see sailors on the decks of the ships.
Ensara bent to examine the dragon’s tear, but refrained from touching it. Mirian sank down on one knee beside him.
A significant fracture showed along the artifact’s base and trailed along almost to the point. She wondered if that had happened through overuse, or when it had been dropped.
“That thing’s a blessing and a menace,” Ensara said. “I see why Rajana and Telamba wanted it so bad.”
“Now I see why everyone wants it,” Mirian replied.
31
THE MUSIC OF THE TEAR
IVRIAN
The lizardfolk were everywhere. Small green ones danced in lines. Four aquamarine ones sat around what looked like a flaming pie, and a huge frilled fellow with red and yellow spots tapped the shoulder of another seated on a flying blueberry. It was all very strange until Ivrian blinked again and he understood he was looking at a wall. The lizardfolk weren’t moving; he was. Or at least he felt like he was moving. He rolled from his side to his back.
He lay looking at a small domed ceiling gilt with more lizardfolk and their writing and hundreds upon hundreds of emeralds. None of the lizardfolk were actually dancing around food; they were pictograms carved amid a field of embedded gems.
Suddenly Telamba bent over him, the white skull painted on his face half washed away by sweat, his cheek splotchy with a purple bruise. His eyes bored into Ivrian’s own.
“You live,” Telamba said softly.
Ivrian tried to convey that he was as surprised as Telamba, but his voice came out in a mumble. Now that he thought about it, how had Telamba come through? He thought he’d seen him killed.
“I managed to escape,” Telamba said.
He still must be reading my thoughts.
“I am, Ivrian.” Telamba’s voice was low. “And do not fear, for now. I did not come to kill you. You are tied now to the tear in a way no human has been before. My god tells me you may be the one meant to wield it.”
Ivrian felt as though his wielding of it had been entirely up to chance.
“Chance, or fate? Or both, because of your character? You name a Bas’o as your sister and a lizard as your brother. You are no ordinary foreigner.” He loomed suddenly closer. “Know this, Sargavan.” Telamba’s voice was a dangerous whisper. “I shall be watching. If you wield the tear against us, Great Walkena himself shall turn his wrath upon you!”
Ivrian started to protest that he’d never wield the tear against anyone, that he was through with it, but his vision swam, and the lizardfolk on the ceiling danced once more, and he fell into slumber until another voice spoke beside him.
“You’re awake!”
It was only then he recalled a persistent shaking of his shoulder. Had his conversation with Telamba been a dream?
He looked up into the shining eyes of Kalina, her colors bright. She crouched beside him
Ivrian smiled easily. “We found the city,” he said. And then he felt bad, because, of course, Kalina and Jekka could not have been hoping for an abandoned ruin filled only with the dead. He was too tired to think straight.
“Jekka and Mirian have told me all about it,” Kalina said. “And I’ve made discoveries myself—”
Kalina was interrupted by a young woman’s voice, one vibrant with pleasure.
“I knew you would come ’round,” Jeneta’s voice declared. “The Custodian is here, and he’ll want to see you.”
“The Custodian?” Ivrian asked. Did she mean the ruler of Sargava? Maybe he was still hallucinating.
He heard the click of sandals on stone and then Jeneta passed in front of his view and toward an open archway through which sunlight leaked.
Ivrian took stock of his surroundings. He appeared to be lying on a cot—no, an entire bedframe—set up in what was surely some portion of the lost city of Kutnaar. A gray coverlet draped across his body.
“You are truly all right, Ivrian?” Kalina asked. “I poked you again and again, but you didn’t move.”
“I told you not to poke him,” Jeneta said, sweeping closer. She blushed as Ivrian studied her face and for a moment he wondered why.
“Oh,” he said. Right. “Thank you for tending me,” he said, for he had a vague memory of her looming over him again and again, sometimes with a cooling hand and sometimes with a cloth. He hoped she hadn’t been bathing him. Surely Mirian wouldn’t have been letting her do that.
As he heard voices drawing closer, consciousness returned with greater sharpness and some of Jeneta’s words registered more fully. The Sargavan Custodian? What was Ivrian wearing?
He looked under the coverlet, discovered he was garbed in a tan overshirt and black shorts. Ghastly, really. He tried to sit up, because he’d caught sight of his sea chest over there on the right … But he was too woozy to rise, and collapsed back against the pillow just as the Custodian emerged from behind the curtain held open by a curtsying Jeneta.
Baron Utilinus was a tall, handsome man clad in expertly tailored brown pants and matching vest. A starched white shirt with ruffled sleeves stretched over his muscular chest. He offered a smile, though there was no missing the concern in his eyes. Mirian trailed after, alongside an unfamiliar woman and two soldiers.
“Ah, Lord Galanor!” the baron said. “No, don’t try to rise. I was told you’ve been asleep for most of the last two days.
“He’s been very weak,” Jeneta added.
“But I woke him,” Kalina reported.
“And I see that you’ve been under very good care.”
“Um,” said Ivrian, wishing there was something more he could think of, but he was utterly perplexed. “Thank you, Baron.” Should he admit he wasn’t sure what was going on? And then another thought occurred to him. “Is Jekka all right? What about the rest of the sailors?”
“Everyone is fine.” Mirian smiled. “Thanks to you.”
“Jekka and Kalina have been made the lord and lady of Kutnaar,” Jeneta volunteered brightly.
The baron chuckled good-naturedly. “It’s their city, after all. And a scholar’s dream. Not that there aren’t some other uses for it as well, of course. Sargava can use the gems built into the city, make no mistake. But I’ve pledged to the Pathfinders that we’ll leave everything else intact.”
He bent down and patted Ivrian’s shoulder. “Earlier this year I learned you had hidden depths, but I never guessed you were a spellcaster.”
“Um,” Ivrian repeated, wondering where his eloquence had fled. “Neither did I, Baron. Speaking of which … where’s the dragon’s tear?” Had Telamba taken it? Or had that visit been a hallucination?
“Safe.” It was the unfamiliar woman who’d lingered silently behind the baron. Her dark eyes were alight with fierce intelligence. She was a thin, broad-nosed woman with umber skin, clothed in a simple green dress.
“Forgive me,” the baron said. “This is Elgia Matanis, my magical advisor. Your artifact has quite a crack in it.”
“Wielding it again may be dangerous,” Elgia said. “Using it while damaged may be what injured you.”
Ivrian shook his head. He didn’t think so. And he smiled at the thought of the raw, animal vitality that had shaken him to his very core the moment he touched the power at the tear’s center.
“I have some questions about the tear, if you’re strong enough,” Elgia said. “For instance, what techniques did you use to attune yourself to its power?”
“I don’t know. It just … called to me.” He put a hand to his head. He could still feel it, somewhere far away, like a distant melody borne on the wind. He turned his head, trying to seek it out.
“Baron.” There was a warning tone in Jeneta’s voice. “He’s still very weak.”
“I just woke him,” Kalina added helpfully.
“Yes,” the baron said. “Of course. Ivrian, Sargava is grat
eful to you for your service and sacrifice. We’ll talk more when you’re better rested.”
Ivrian nodded distractedly, for the words were drowning out the sound of the dragon’s tear.
Its music was very, very lovely, and he wished to hear.
32
HOMECOMING
JEKKA
The sun stained sky and water alike a burning scarlet as it sank, casting a shimmering pillar across the waves.
The moon was but a sliver to the east, glittering above soldiers of Sargava standing sentry in the ruins of his people. Over the last few days, four camps had sprung up and nearly half of Sargava’s small fleet had been deployed to protect the tiny island that had suddenly appeared just outside its sea lanes.
Much had transpired, but Jekka, who had long since ceased to brood upon the past, didn’t dwell on it. He did, however, permit himself to look toward the future just a little as a slim schooner slid into place at the end of a quay already thick with ships. He walked along the old stones as the gangplank was lowered, so that he was there when Charlyn descended in the company of the ship’s captain and two sailors.
The captain eyed Jekka a little dubiously, but Charlyn halted immediately and smiled at him.
“It is good to see you, brother to my sister,” she said in her high, clear voice.
“And it’s a pleasure to be again in your presence, sister to my sister.”
The captain cleared his throat and touched his hat brim. “What shall we do with your dunnage, ma’am?”
“My dunnage?”
“Her mate—I mean, husband—is stationed in the tents in the cleared section near the end of the quay,” Jekka said. “Ask the sentries on duty.”
“You’re one of them famous frillbacks, aren’tcha?” one of the sailors said, pointing.
“He is a lizard man,” Charlyn corrected, with all the icy disdain of the nobility, “and my kin, so you will address him with respect.”
“I didn’t mean nothin’, m’lady,” the sailor said, touching his head where a cap would have lain.
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