by Sarah Ash
Birds, bright-feathered and raucous, darted about the liana-festooned trees. “Now to find this Serpent Gate.” Eugene wiped the back of his hand across his forehead. It came away glossy with sweat.
He took the rubies from the velvet pouch and held them aloft. The droning pulse grew louder; he could feel the jewels vibrating faster, stronger . . . The slender column of fiery light intensified, burning so brightly that even in the light of the merciless sun, its flame could clearly be seen.
“And it points deep into the heart of the jungle.” Eugene gazed at the thick-tangled vegetation, perplexed. “It could take a couple of days to hack our way through. Damn it all, Linnaius, why didn’t we think of this?”
“I’ve come prepared,” Linnaius said, removing a phial from his robes. It contained grains that glittered a dull blue in the sunlight.
“Is that the new firedust from Azhkendir?”
“The same.” Following the beacon’s path, Linnaius began to scatter a trail of grains from the phial into the jungle.
The busy chatter of tree creatures began high overhead; Eugene spotted little monkeys with dark eyes staring at them from the overhanging branches. How Karila would love to have a pair of the pretty little creatures with their curlicue tails and white ruffs of fur!
Karila. He had set out on this journey without even bidding her farewell. If he perished here, so far from home, how would she remember her negligent father? Would she ever forgive him for abandoning her?
Why am I thinking such morbid thoughts? When I’ve opened the Serpent Gate, I’ll be invincible.
Linnaius emerged from the undergrowth.
“I advise a strategic retreat,” he said, making for the sky craft. He lit a firestick and tossed it toward the little trail of glittering grains. Eugene crouched down behind the sky craft.
There was a deafening explosion. The sky turned white and the shore beneath them trembled. They were flung forward onto ash-covered sand. Although Eugene had shut his eyes, the light scored blinding brightness through his closed lids. When he opened his eyes again, he could hardly see.
“In God’s name, Linnaius, that stuff is dangerous!” He sat up, the rubies clutched in one hand, brushing sand from his clothes. His ears still jangled with the force of the blast. “You could have blown us both to pieces. You could have destroyed the Gate—”
As the drifting grey smoke slowly cleared, Eugene saw that a path had been blasted right into the heart of the jungle. Blackened tree stumps were all that remained of a grove of trees. An eerie silence had fallen. The pretty monkeys were gone, incinerated, he guessed, along with the bright-feathered birds. But ahead he could distinguish the remains of great stone buildings, all fallen to ruin and covered with centuries’ growth of creepers and vines.
“Look.” The ruby beacon pointed to the ruins.
“These must be the temples to the Serpent God Nagar,” Linnaius said.
They crunched across the carbonized remains of trees, feeling the heat through the soles of their boots. Here and there little tongues of fire still licked at the charred branches. The choking smell of burning caught at the back of Eugene’s throat. His dazzled eyes watered, yet still he followed the bloodred beacon emanating from the stones in his hands. And then he felt the stones begin to judder, straining at the metal casing that bound them, as if they were striving to burst free.
Looming up out of the far-distant trees, he saw it. Untouched by Linnaius’s blast, it still towered above the fallen temples at the top of a stone stairway. And it was just as Gavril Nagarian had painted it: an archway of writhing winged serpents, carved out of grey, volcanic rock, dominated by the terrible blind head of Nagar himself, fanged jaws gaping wide as if to swallow whole his human sacrifices.
Eugene halted. He had conversed with the spirit of Artamon and he had crossed the ocean by sky craft, but nothing could have prepared him for this, the culmination of his plans and dreams.
Linnaius was gazing up at the Gate in awed silence.
“This must be the sacrificial stair,” he murmured, “leading up to the gateway through which the priests sent their victims as sacrifices to Nagar. Until the day they summoned one of his daemons into this world—”
“It’s high,” Eugene said, standing beneath the archway and assessing the best way to climb it. “How ironic if I came all this way, then fell to my death before I had accomplished my goal and replaced the Eye?” He slung the velvet pouch around his neck and grasped hold of one of the stone tails, testing for a foothold.
“Take care, I beg you, highness!” cried Linnaius.
“I’ve always enjoyed rock climbing.” Eugene, sweating in the heavy humidity, clung tightly to a snarling serpent-head and pulled himself farther up. “I used to go bird-nesting when I was a boy—”
His foot suddenly slipped off a scaly head and he dangled from his fingers, his breath coming fast. The volcanic fumes were making him a little dizzy. The rubies, swinging to and fro in the velvet bag, burned hot against his chest.
Closer to, the daemon-serpents stared at him with a terrible malevolence. He managed to get his feet firmly back under him, but as he climbed on, he began to think he could hear voices whispering slanderous obscenities. They hissed that Astasia had been unfaithful to him; that Linnaius was in the pay of the King Enguerrand; that Gavril Nagarian had declared himself rightful emperor in his absence . . . And from far away, he heard a rumbling that juddered up through the ground, making the ancient archway shiver.
“Highness!” Linnaius called, far below. He sounded agitated. “Make haste, I beg you!”
Eugene reached the top. He straddled the arch, face-to-face with the giant head of the Serpent God. He needed both hands to free the rubies from the velvet bag. Good balance was essential. The empty eye socket was filled with dirt and lichen; he scraped it away before leaning forward and lifting the pulsating stones, still bound together with golden wire. Slowly, and with painstaking care, he inserted them in the hole.
Nothing happened. The rubies glowed, reddening the ancient grey stone.
“Come down, highness!” cried Linnaius. There was such urgency in his voice that Eugene obeyed. Climbing down was less easy than climbing up. He scraped his hands on the daemon-serpents’ spines and scales; he bruised his legs against the wing shafts and carved claws. He jumped the last few feet, landing heavily on the cracked stone of the sacrificial stair.
Nagar’s carved daemon-face glared balefully at them from one glowing eye of flame. Still nothing happened.
“I’ve failed.” Eugene sat down on the cracked stones and wiped his dripping face on his sleeve. “So there was only enough energy left in the stones to light our way here, but not enough to open the Gate.”
He was too hot, too exhausted by the climb to feel any disappointment yet. “Maybe it’s all for the best. Maybe it’s wiser not to meddle in—”
“Wait.” Linnaius held up one hand. “What’s that sound?”
Eugene could feel the rumble of vibrations through the weathered stone. He stood up. “An earthquake? Or is the volcano about to blow?”
It was growing darker. Smoky fog began to issue from Nagar’s maw, billowing out until the archway was filled with swirling darkness. And in that darkness, the red eye burned ever more intensely, a daemon’s eye, fixing its unblinking gaze upon them.
The earth shook with such violence that Eugene was thrown to the ground.
An intense light suffused the cloudy smoke, as luminously bright as Drakhaon’s Fire and growing stronger—as though some unimaginable power was fast approaching. A roaring gust, as though of some elemental force, whipped the mists to a whirlwind of spinning dust.
One of the stone dragon-daemons on the Gate had begun to move, to uncurl itself from the tangle of twisted, contorted bodies. Grey stone shimmered and bloomed with iridescent color.
Eugene pushed himself up onto his knees.
It was alive.
He saw it stretch the scales of its glittering body. Wild tatte
rs of flowing hair, gold and copper and malachite green, streamed down its back. He glimpsed its great, hooked wings as it furled them behind its back. Powerful wings. Drakhaoul wings.
And now it turned its dazzling gaze on him. Wide, slanted eyes stared into his, fierce and cruel. It was a summons he was powerless to disobey.
He rose to his feet, began to move toward the glittering creature. He opened his arms wide, as if to embrace his daemon-shadow. But it was like walking into thick smoke; all was dark and confusion.
A fluttering sensation began deep in Eugene’s mind. He clutched hold of his head with both hands.
“Help—me—” Eugene could hardly enunciate the words. The fluttering had become a spinning spiral of light. Sick with the pain, he pitched forward onto the weed-covered ground.
“Dra—Drakhaoul—” he whispered—and lost consciousness.
CHAPTER 34
Eugene lay on the worn sacrificial stone. It was as if he were gripped in the coils of some terrifying nightmare. He wanted to call out to the Magus to come to his aid, but his whole body was paralyzed, even his tongue. Time had stopped.
“I know you now, mortal. You are powerful.” A voice that smoldered with heat, whispered in Eugene’s brain. “You are Emperor. And yet you bear scars, inflicted by one of my kin.”
“Heal me,” Eugene managed at last to stammer out the words. “Make me whole again.”
“You are a warrior, Eugene. Your instinct is to fight me. But if I am to heal you, you must surrender your will to mine.”
The daemon-spirit knew him better than he knew himself. The instant it had entered his body, he had begun to resist it. Now he struggled to overmaster his own stubborn nature, to let the Drakhaoul take control.
A haze of heat burned around him, shot through with dazzling sparks of green and gold. The heat passed through his whole body like a cresting wave of golden flame. It felt as if every inch of skin were being seared away. He writhed in agony, sure he would be utterly consumed in its cleansing blaze. And then the dazzle died away and his sight gradually returned.
Slowly he raised his burned hand and gazed at it, turning it this way and that. The skin was smooth, unblemished, and the stiff pain that had accompanied every smallest movement had gone.
He gave a shout. “Look. Look at that!”
He sat up and put one hand tentatively to his face. His skin felt cool, soft, renewed. He moved his fingers up to his scalp, still feeling for scars. Not one remained.
“You’ve done it!” For months he had dreaded catching sight of himself in mirrors, windows, water. Now he longed to gaze at his reflection and see himself renewed.
“Highness.” He had forgotten all about Kaspar Linnaius until the old man came hesitantly toward him. “You—you have been restored.” It was the first time he remembered seeing the Magus at a loss for words.
Eugene stretched out his healed hand. “And this is all thanks to your dedication, my friend.”
Linnaius tentatively took Eugene’s outstretched hand in his own and pressed it. “Your highness honors me,” he said quietly.
Eugene felt a tremor of warning go through his whole body.
“One of my kindred is coming. I can sense him.”
“What do you mean?”
“The Son of the Serpent. The one who burned you.”
“Gavril Nagarian, coming here?” Eugene was not prepared for this encounter so soon.
“You restored Nagar’s Eye. It calls to him; it draws him back.”
“If it’s Gavril Nagarian, there is unfinished business between us.” Eugene got to his feet. He could feel the daemon’s strength pulsing through his veins. “And we shall be ready for him this time.”
The barren sides of the volcano rose up from the jungle, dominating the island, hazing the clear sky with wisps of smoke.
Gavril gazed down at Ty Nagar. It lay below them, just as he had seen it in his dreams, gleaned from his grandfather’s memories.
“Is this where he died?” he asked. “Zakhar Nagarian?”
They had flown for many hours without stopping and he was tired. His body ached now with the strain of staying in the air so long.
“He died here.”
“Why didn’t you save his life?”
“The mountain of fire spilled over. I tried to save him. The air was full of choking fog and ash. Then came the heat. It was a furnace, too much for a human body to withstand. He burned—and I fled.”
Gavril looked down at the volcano. It looked quiet enough—but he had read how unpredictable they could be. He had no wish to repeat his grandfather’s fate.
“Is there fresh water here?” His throat was so dry, he could hardly speak.
“I will take you to a clean spring.”
And then Gavril felt a tingle of shock go through him.
“My brother is free and he is bound to another human.” Khezef hissed. “Now it begins again.”
“Another human?” Was it possible that Eugene’s obsessive desire had driven him to such a desperate measure? Hadn’t he heeded his warnings? He had come to Ty Nagar in the hope that this would be their final parting, that Khezef would return at last to his own world.
Now he began to realize that this could not be their final parting. For if Eugene had become Drakhaoul, he would be forced to persuade Khezef to stay. How else could he defend his people?
“Water, first,” he said. With his thirst quenched, his mind would be clearer, quicker to plan a strategy. But as they flew lower over the ocean, approaching the island shore, Gavril could sense Khezef’s growing agitation.
“There,” Eugene breathed, shading his eyes against the glare of the sun. “There he is at last. Gavril Nagarian.”
The creature flying slowly toward them might have been a great seabird, were it not for the smoky glitter that emanated from its wings. And suddenly it seemed to Eugene that everything he had striven for was about to come to fruition here on Ty Nagar.
“He’s tired,” he said, “and we have the advantage of surprise.”
“Our fusion is new, unproven. It could fail.”
Eugene’s mind felt clean, pared of every extraneous thought. All that mattered now was the duel to come. It was time for Gavril Nagarian to pay for the damage he had wrought on Eugene’s troops, his fleet, his pride.
“You won’t fail me, Drakhaoul!” he cried.
“Highness, wait, I beg you.” Kaspar Linnaius came stumbling after Eugene. The merciless heat and the poisonous fumes were slowing him down, reminding him of his age and frailty. But Eugene either did not hear him or was not to be stopped, for he walked on toward the shore without once turning back. Linnaius reached the edge of the burned trees in time to see Eugene raise his arms wide to the sea.
A shudder ran through the Emperor’s body as a dark spiral of daemon-smoke enveloped him. Then Linnaius watched, speechless, as great shadow-wings unfurled from the Emperor’s back, and out of the smoke emerged a creature of terrifying beauty: a daemon-dragon with scales that shimmered jade-green, malachite, and gold in the sunlight.
You have found the power you desired, imperial highness. But you’ve paid a high enough price for it. And then, as he watched the green Drakhaon take to the air in a rush of wings that stirred up the ashy sand, Linnaius found himself wondering fearfully, “And now, where will it end?”
It was like a mirror image—his mirror image—winging straight toward them in a shimmer of smoke.
But the daemon-eyes that burned through the smoke, staring at him with naked hatred, were green as malachite. And Eugene’s eyes had been blue as the wintry skies over Tielen.
Gavril hesitated, hovering over the waves. Was this Eugene? And what did he intend?
A bolt of green fire seared the tip of his left wing. The malachite-green Drakhaon was on the attack.
“Gavril Nagarian! Do you know me now?”
“Eugene!” he cried back.
“The last time you attacked me, you had the advantage. Now we are evenly matc
hed.”
If only he’d taken time to rest a little, to find that spring and quench his thirst. Tired and thirsty, he knew that the Drakhaon Eugene could easily defeat him.
“Eugene, listen to me.” His voice rang out over the whisper of the waves, hoarse with emotion. “Don’t do this to yourself, to your people—to those you love most dearly!”
“You have bested me once too often, Nagarian.” The Drakhaon Eugene snaked around in the sky, gaining height. “Now we fight on equal terms.”
Shaft after shaft of green fire rained down on Gavril. Pain burned bright as he lost control of one wing and went plunging toward the waves. Struggling to right himself, he came about, concentrating all his energy on keeping in the air. And then he heard Khezef cry out, “Belberith, my brother! Don’t you know me?”
“Brother? What manner of brother leaves his own kin imprisoned in agony for years without number?”
“I’ve not come to fight you, Eugene!” Gavril cried. “I’ve come to end it. To send my Drakhaoul back through the Serpent Gate.”
The Drakhaon Eugene breathed another shimmering blast of green fire from its flared nostrils. Gavril swiveled, darting low beneath the sheet of green flame. Even as he winged away, he could feel the intense heat. The waves below him sizzled. Another blast like that could finish him.
“We must fight back. Brother or no, Khezef, we have to defend ourselves.” Gavril forced himself onward, trying to control the ragged rhythm of his wing-strokes. He could sense Eugene close behind, could feel the hot wind from his beating wings, the heat of his breath. One more searing blast from those flaring nostrils would send him down in flames. He would die, burning in agony, and not even Khezef could save him.
“You may not survive the next blast, Gavril. Belberith is powerful; even more powerful than I.”
“And now you run from me, Khezef, coward that you are.”
Gavril felt a surge of sadness overwhelm him. He could no longer distinguish between his own emotions and Khezef’s.
