The Rite

by Richard Lee Byers

  For a second, Dorn saw the guard swelling into a winged and glittering shape, with a gold’s characteristic tendril “whiskers,” and a proud crest running almost the entire length of its body.

  As Kara reached the end of her spell, thunder boomed, and the lightning that was a part of her nature blazed from the clear blue sky. But after the climactic note, the wind shrieked on, strong as before, and hurled her on through the air.

  She began the counterspell once more. Lighting flashed and thunder roared in time with the melody. Dorn felt power accumulating around her, stinging his skin. Sparks danced and popped on his iron parts.

  It’s going to work this time, he thought.

  Then the great muscles heaved beneath her hide as she wrenched herself around in the air. A split second later, her ventral side smashed into a cliff face. As stones showered down and battered them both, Dorn understood that she’d twisted as she had to spare him the impact.

  He couldn’t believe it mattered. Surely the collision had stunned or crippled her, and they’d roll down the mountainside together, the long tumble bashing and grinding their lives away. But she pushed off from the escarpment, pounded her pinions, and took flight again. Even more miraculously, neither the impact nor the pain of her foreleg breaking and a shaft of splintered bone stabbing through her hide had disrupted the precise enunciation of her song.

  During the final phrase, the lighting burned so bright that Dorn had to hold his eyes shut, and the thunder boomed so loud it spiked pain through his ears. But then the whirlwind died all at once, as if it had never been.

  Dorn slipped his bloody claws from Kara’s hide, then, as best he was able, gave her huge reptilian body a quick and clumsy embrace.

  “This Nexus is no better a warlock than you,” he gasped.

  “I love you for saying that,” Kara answered, “but we were very, very lucky.”

  Below them, the gigantic gold spread its wings and leaped into the air.

  “I guess now we need a little more luck,” said Dorn, readying his longbow. “At least I can help with this part.”

  “Don’t shoot!” Kara said. “Not unless you’re sure he means us harm. That’s Tamarand, first among Lareth’s lieutenants. He doesn’t like needless killing.”

  “Unless the Rage has taken hold of him.”

  “He tried to wave us off,” she said, “so the whirlwind wouldn’t seize us. He wouldn’t have, if he were eager to see us dead.”

  “Maybe not.”

  Still, Dorn put an arrow on the string. He’d spent his life hating dragons, and even though he’d come to care for one in particular, that didn’t incline him to abandon his mistrust of the species as a whole.

  Kara and Tamarand circled one another.

  “Go away,” said the gold. “After much meditation, His Resplendence decreed that you and your fellow rebels are forbidden to avail yourselves of the sanctuaries. I’m not sure of his reasoning, but it doesn’t matter. You must depart, and weather the Rage elsewhere as best you can.”

  “I must speak with Lareth,” Kara said. “Afterward, if it’s his will, I’ll go and never return.”

  “You don’t understand. It will mean your death, and your companion’s too. I’m already derelict in my duty for not attacking you as soon as you quelled the wind storm.”

  “I must speak with Lareth,” Kara repeated. “If I pay for the privilege with my life, so be it. I was right, Lord Tamarand. The Rage has a cause, and a cure as well. My friends and I have discovered part of the remedy, and know how to obtain the rest. But I need the help of the dragons hibernating here.”

  The gold stared at her, then asked, “Can this be true?”

  “Yes,” said Dorn, “luckily for the rest of you. Because her discoveries are the only hope for you strutting, preening golds and silvers.”

  “Land,” said Tamarand, “and I’ll wake His Resplendence. I urge you to treat him with all the deference that is his due.”

  The two dragons spiraled down and lit among the rows of their slumbering fellows. Once Dorn swung himself down from Kara’s back and stepped away from her, he saw that the punctures his claws had made and the broken foreleg she cradled against her breast were scarcely her only injuries. The collision with the mountainside had scraped and bloodied the entire underside of her body. In contrast, the golden scales of the larger wyrm gleamed without a single blemish, a fact that made the hunter’s jaw clench in another spasm of dislike.

  “I regret,” Tamarand said, “that I’m no healer.”

  “We can attend to my hurts later,” Kara said.

  “I pray that’s so. I’ll take you to His Resplendence.”

  Kara and Dorn followed where he led, the crystal-blue dragon bard hobbling on three legs, the half-golem trotting to keep up with his companions’ longer strides, past one immense, coiled, motionless wyrm after another. They meandered to avoid clambering over the sleepers, but Dorn soon made out where they were headed. At the northern end of the depression, somewhat separate from the other reptiles, lay a gold even huger than Tamarand—perhaps even more colossal than Malazan.

  “It will only take a few moments to wake him,” Tamarand said.

  The words of power hissed and rumbled from his throat. For a moment, the air took on a greenish tinge, and Dorn’s ears ached as if he was deep underwater.

  Lareth groaned, the sound a bone-shaking rumble, and his yellow eyes fluttered open. He clambered to his feet and swung his head from side to side, peering about. He seemed confused, and Dorn felt a pang of foreboding.

  Then the gold’s gaze locked on Kara. His eyes burned brighter, the glow perceptible even in sunlight. He lifted his head and his throat swelled, kindling its fire.

  “No, Your Resplendence,” Tamarand cried, “please! I gave Karasendrieth permission to enter the refuge.”

  For a second, it looked to Dorn as if Lareth was going to attack anyway, but then the King of Justice turned his glare on his deputy.

  “I ordered you to kill anyone who overcame Nexus’s wards. Including the traitors. Especially them.”

  “With respect, Your Resplendence,” Kara said, “I disagree with your plan for surviving the Rage, but that doesn’t make me a traitor to my people.”

  “You’re a traitor twice over,” Lareth said. “Once for defying the decision of our conclave, and again for bringing a human here.” He sneered. “If, indeed, this gruesome mix of iron and flesh is human. Whatever he is, no outsider can know the location of the refuge. That’s the only way to keep it safe. Therefore, both you and he must die.”

  “I’m prepared to,” she replied. “But first I have a tale to tell.”

  “I won’t listen,” said the ancient gold. “I’ve wasted enough time attending to your folly.”

  “Please,” Tamarand said, “hear her out. She says she’s found a cure for the Rage, or at least is on the verge.”

  Lareth snorted. “No one can cure the Rage, because it isn’t a sickness. It’s simply an aspect of our nature. Your judgment is failing you, my brother, and in consequence, you’ve nearly failed our people and me. But you can redeem yourself. Help me kill the intruders as you ought to have done in the first place.”

  Dorn yanked his sword from its scabbard and came on guard.

  “Try it, then,” he spat. “Over the past few months, I’ve run up a nice tally of slaughtered wyrms. Blacks and greens. Ooze and magma drakes. It might be fun, adding a couple golds to the score.”

  “Don’t confuse us with dragons bound to darkness,” Lareth said. “We’re a different order of being.”

  “Well,” said Dorn, “that’s the question, isn’t it? Are you really any different from the reds and their kind, or do you just pretend to be? I used to believe all dragons were cruel and selfish. I had reason. Then I met Kara, learned how gentle and kind she is, and started to change my mind. But maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe she’s as much a freak among her race as I am among mine.”

  “Please, Your Resplendence,” Tamarand sa
id, “I can’t help but think it would indeed be harsh to slay these folk without even listening to their petition. Whatever her past transgressions, Karasendrieth came here in peace.”

  “Very well, Tamarand,” Lareth growled, “only for the sake of our friendship.” He glowered at Kara. “Speak your piece, singer, and I suggest you make it convincing.”

  “Thank you, Your Resplendence,” Kara said.

  For the next hour, she recounted the story of the rogues, their allies, and their investigations, and did indeed employ all her bardic eloquence to make the complex narrative as clear and compelling as possible. Tamarand’s eyes grew wide with wonder and dawning hope.

  But Lareth’s hostile, contemptuous glare never wavered, and at the end of it all, he simply snapped, “Now you stand thrice condemned. The third time for consorting with a vampire drake, as foul an abomination as ever stalked the world.”

  “What of the rest of my tale?” Kara asked, her musical voice as calm and steady as before.

  “Lies,” Lareth said, “or madness. It doesn’t matter which.”

  “Can we be certain of that,” asked Tamarand “without a test? Karasendrieth claims she has a charm to quell the Rage. Very well. Let her cast it on me.”

  “I won’t have her laying a curse on you.”

  “I’m willing to risk—”

  “No!” Lareth roared. The bellow echoed off the mountainsides, and flame crackled from his maw. “The snake wants to cast me down, and destroy our entire race! She’s already subverting your loyalty. I can see it! But she won’t succeed in her designs. I rule here! I, Lareth, King of Justice, and now I’ll mete out justice to her and her creature!”

  He spread his wings.

  Dorn felt sick with dread. Lareth was mad. They couldn’t reason with him, and with Kara injured, her magic already depleted by the struggle to still the whirlwind, the hunter was grimly certain they couldn’t defeat the gold, either. But it seemed they had no choice but to try. Since Lareth was about to take flight, the hunter thrust his sword point-first into the ground and snatched for an arrow.

  Then Tamarand cried, “Abdicate!”

  Startled, astonished, Lareth rounded on him. “What did you say?”

  “Abdicate,” the smaller gold repeated. “You see insanity everywhere but festering inside yourself. But as your deputy, your comrade, and your friend, I must alert you, frenzy has you in its grip. I couldn’t bear to believe it, but it’s so. You must step down—for everyone’s sake, including your own.”

  “Thus making you King of Justice,” Lareth sneered.

  “I don’t aspire to your rank,” Tamarand said. “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “You lie,” Lareth said. “But I forgive you. I understand you’re not yourself. But speak no more of this.”

  “I must. If you won’t abdicate, then I challenge you for your position.”

  Lareth bared his huge ivory fangs. “No gold has ever perpetrated such an insolence.”

  “Yet the law permits it. As the keeper of our traditions, you should know it better than anyone.”

  “Fine, then!” Lareth screamed, spewing fire. “Have it so! I renounce you and I will kill you!”

  “We’ll see,” Tamarand said. “Let’s wake Nexus and Havarlan. The protocols require witnesses.”

  Nexus proved to be another huge gold, whose narrow eyes and an unusually full “beard” of fleshy tendrils gave him a look of sagacity. Havarlan, Barb—or captain—of the martial fellowship of silvers called the Talons of Justice, was a lithe drake with a number of vivid scars crisscrossing her argent hide.

  When apprised of what had transpired, both dragons were appalled.

  “Your Resplendence,” said Nexus, “Lord Tamarand, I beg you to reconsider. Surely we can find a better way to resolve this disagreement.”

  “It’s too late for that,” Lareth said.

  “My friends …” Havarlan began.

  “Too late!” the King of Justice snarled.

  Dorn edged up beside Kara. “Is it too late?” he whispered. “Now that Lareth’s distracted, can you dose him with the cure whether he likes it or not?”

  “No,” she said. “Perhaps Sammaster could, but my comprehension of the spell, my mastery of it, is incomplete. For me to cast it successfully, the recipient must consent.”

  “Then we’ve got to help Tamarand. He’s outmatched.”

  “We can’t do that, either. No matter how stealthy we tried to be, Nexus would likely detect it, and this is supposed to be single combat. If we meddled to influence the outcome, all these others would turn on us immediately. Probably even Tamarand would strive to strike us down.”

  Dorn felt angry and sick with helplessness. “So all we can do is watch, even though our lives hang in the balance?”

  “I’m afraid so.”

  Lareth and Tamarand stalked to the opposite ends of the cut then, with beats of their gleaming golden pinions, sprang up onto the rim. Nexus hesitated as if giving them one final opportunity to relent, then spat a flare of blue and yellow fire straight up into air. The duelists took flight.

  Each dragon climbed rapidly, striving to rise above the other, and quickly recited words of power. Lareth finished his incantation first. An oval of roiling reddish-purple light, or perhaps some otherworldly flame, expanded around Tamarand, engulfing him. It looked like a gigantic, demonic mouth opening in empty air.

  The younger gold screeched in pain, spoiling his invocation. He furled his wings and dived, evidently to escape the hovering magical field as quickly as possible.

  The result was that Lareth achieved the advantage in altitude. He climbed even higher and declaimed a second spell. Tamarand convulsed, floundering in flight. Watching from far below, Dorn couldn’t tell exactly how the magic had hurt the smaller gold, but it plainly had.

  Still, Tamarand shook off the pain and struck back with a conjuration or innate power of his own. A dazzling light exploded into being in front of Lareth’s mask, so painfully bright that, from Dorn’s vantage point, it was as if the sun had instantaneously shifted across the sky. He squinched his eyes shut and twisted his face away.

  When he looked again, through floating blobs of afterimage, Lareth was twisting his neck back and forth, casting about. Had the burst of glare blinded him? Not entirely, Dorn suspected, but Tamarand had also maneuvered to put the floating purple-red haze between them. The seething cloud wasn’t opaque, but to some degree, it veiled what lay behind it, and that, combined with the insult to Lareth’s eyes, seemed to have confused the elder gold as to the precise location of his foe.

  Hit him now, Dorn silently urged Tamarand. Maybe he won’t see it coming.

  But Tamarand didn’t attack. Instead, he cast what was evidently a defensive enchantment. His gleaming, serpentine body started flickering, present one instant, absent the next.

  Meanwhile, Lareth succeeded in orienting on his foe, then snarled an incantation that, for an instant, made the air above him curdle and twist into leering spectral faces. He brandished his forefoot, and a jagged bolt of blackness sprang forth and hurtled unimpeded through the smoldering cloud, down at Tamarand.

  Tamarand tried to dodge, raising one wing and dipping the other, but was too slow. Luckily, though, he disappeared just as the lance of shadow was about to stab him, then popped back into view a split second after it streaked by. Lareth roared in fury.

  The two dragons began to conjure once more, even as they continued to maneuver. Lareth plainly wanted to close with Tamarand so he could bring his greater size and physical strength to bear. But evidently he couldn’t safely enter the seething oval cloud, even though he himself had created it. Accordingly, the younger gold was doing his best to keep the magical obstacle between them.

  Tamarand completed an incantation. Lareth’s shadow surged up from the rocky, uneven ground below, swelled large enough to dwarf the immense creature who’d cast it, and stretching fantastically, reached for him with its claws.

  To Dorn, the effe
ct was terrifying, but Lareth seemed to pay it no mind, defying it, opposing its power with force of will, perhaps, and to good effect. The titanic phantom frayed into nothingness a moment before it would otherwise have seized him, and he had a normal shadow once more, flowing and wheeling across the mountainsides.

  Lareth snarled the final phrase of a spell, vanished, and instantly reappeared on the other side of the wound in the air, directly above his foe. Wings furled, talons poised, he plummeted—straight through the space his target had just vacated.

  The flickering had protected Tamarand again. But in Dorn’s estimation, it was an imperfect defense. Eventually, it would fail to snatch the smaller gold away at exactly the right moment, and an attack would strike him.

  Yet for the time being, it had given him the advantage in height. Popping in and out of view, leathery wings pounding and flashing in the sunlight, he climbed, widening the vertical distance separating him from his adversary. Lareth leveled off, wheeled, and gave chase.

  Tamarand angled his head down toward his foe and hissed. The sibilant sound was another sort of spell. Even though Dorn wasn’t the target, the magic made him feel groggy, sway, and stumble a step. Perhaps it was supposed to make Lareth fall asleep, but it had no effect on him.

  “No,” Kara groaned. “No, no, no.”

  “What is it?” asked Dorn.

  “The shadow spell simply induces fear,” said the bard, “and the hissing deadens the mind. Tamarand’s trying to win without actually harming Lareth.”

  “Is he insane, too? The king’s stronger. Tamarand can’t afford to go easy on him.”

  “I know.”

  Lareth spewed a plume of fire upward. Tamarand veered. The flame caught him visible and vulnerable, but only the periphery of the flare brushed him, blistering and blackening the end of one outstretched wing. Unfortunately, though, the evasive maneuver cost him a precious moment of furious climbing. His foe, a more powerful flyer, was rapidly beating his way up to the same altitude.