Dragonworld

by Byron Preiss

  * * *

  Two shadowy forms brushed the darkness. The first was young, the second old, but the dim light of the staircase did not betray a difference.

  “Hawkwind,” said the latter, “you move too quickly for an old man to keep pace!”

  The young man smiled. “You are no older than Monarch Ambalon was when he taught you how to govern Simbala.”

  The old man shook his head. “I am not my father, Hawkwind.”

  “The people say you are his equal, Monarch Ephrion.”

  “Nonsense.”

  “Even those who resent my presence in the palace do not deny it.”

  “Frah! They say I am an old man who no longer understands the meaning of his decisions.”

  The younger man laughed. “Perhaps they are correct,” he said, his eyes twinkling in the darkness.

  The white-haired man in the beige robe started to join him in laughter, but the sound was staccato, more like a cough than an expression of delight. “Perhaps they are correct!” he said. “How did you talk me into this excursion? I should have let you explore these back halls yourself!”

  The younger man helped him down the staircase. “I shouldn’t have brought you here,” he said, “but there are few who know the palace as intimately as you do.”

  “True,” said the older man. “There has been peace for so long that the Family has lost interest in secret corridors and staircases. I do not regret it.”

  “Nor I, Monarch Ephrion. It is just that I find it difficult to live in a place that keeps secrets from me.”

  “Perhaps you find the palace to be too much like yourself.”

  To this observation the young man did not reply. The pair quietly continued their descent toward a soft light at the bottom of the stairs.

  The younger man was named Hawkwind. He was tall and lean. His eyes, black as a starless sky, stood out starkly against a pale complexion. He was the son of a miner, and in his thirty-three years he had known both poverty and abundance. He walked with his shoulders back and head high. It was the posture of a hero, but few knew the modest heart behind the legend he had become. There were stories about him, about his bravery, and there were mysteries, too, for he had traveled to unknown lands and chased dreams that most shared only in childhood memories. His voice was deep; it inspired confidence in those who supported him and anxiety in those who did not. There was much anxiety in the Royal Family these days. He was Hawkwind, a common man, and the newly elected Monarch of Simbala.

  The older man was white-haired, soft-spoken, and eighty years old. His unsteady gait betrayed the effects of a debilitating stroke, but his eyes revealed a man who had lost little, if any, of the intelligence and compassion which had earned him the love of Simbala. He was Monarch-Emeritus Ephrion, the man who had selected Hawkwind as his successor, the first Monarch in centuries to look outside the Royal Circle for a person to govern Simbala.

  He gazed affectionately at Hawkwind. He remembered the first time he had seen the young man’s midnight eyes, and he remembered the feeling that had welled up inside him. In Hawkwind he saw the future of Simbala, a man whose love of life and people, whose sense of honesty and justice, could take the country beyond the problems of the merchants, the poverty of the Rayan, the discontent of the Northwealdsfolk and the pretentiousness of the Royal Family to an era even more beautiful than that of his own forty years in office.

  He had hoped that the opposition to Hawkwind would give way to a new excitement and a dream. His sister, Lady Graydawn, had supported Hawkwind; she alone of the Royal Family had given him wholehearted support. Ephrion had depended on the people for the approval of Hawkwind, and popular sentiment had indeed swayed the Circle. Yet the support of the citizens and the consent of his rebellious sister had not settled matters in the Family. There were still too many intrigues against the young man.

  Ephrion saw the window at the bottom of the high and narrow stairway. As he did, Hawkwind smiled. The old man took delight in the way the expression dispelled the ominous cast of the younger man’s features. The people should see him smile more often, he thought. It would help those who doubt my decision to understand it better.

  As they reached the window near the bottom of the steps, a cry pierced the silence, and with a great flapping of wings the hawk entered and settled on Hawkwind’s shoulder. The young Monarch braced himself, but showed no signs of discomfort at the bird’s weight.

  Ephrion arched his brow. “Uncanny. He’s found you once again.”

  Hawkwind did not reply at first. He took a morsel of grain from a pouch in his robe and gave it to the hawk. The bird accepted it gravely, its eyes alert and unblinking.

  “We move in circles, Monarch Ephrion.”

  The Monarch-Emeritus grasped the younger man’s arm. “Do not be pretentious with me, Hawkwind.”

  Hawkwind smiled. “The hawk and I move in circles. We travel a path that brings us back to where we began.”

  Ephrion nodded. Whether or not this meant that Hawkwind would one day leave the throne and return to the mines, he did not know. At times the young man could be exasperating. Ephrion stepped forward and felt the firmness of a landing beneath his foot. Hawkwind, doing likewise, faced the wall in front of them.

  “Here?” he asked Ephrion.

  “Yes. Feel the temwood sill with your hand. You should find a deep incision. Meliphon, the architect of these hidden passages, designed them to be opened and closed only by those who have learned their secrets. When you find the incision, pull it to your left.”

  Hawkwind felt the door with his hand. He felt a thin horizontal line in the wood, and he pulled the section above it. The entire panel gave way, revealing the bright light of another room.

  “Monarch Hawkwind!”

  The two men entered an adviser’s antechamber. In front of them stood General Vora, Minister of the Army of Simbala, a rotund, bearded whirlwind contained in a uniform of military design—silk breeches, tansel surcoat, and silver tunic. To his right was Ceria of Shar Wagon, a Rayan woman and Minister of the Interior, adviser to Hawkwind.

  The room was small, but spectacular. The northern wall was a huge open window, providing Ceria, Vora, Ephrion, and Hawkwind with a view of the woods far below, where animals roamed freely behind the palace. A sweet breeze caused the curtains on each side of the window to billow gently.

  Directly in front of the window, framed by the curtains and the outer view, stood a throne, raised four shallow steps above the carved floor. Walking around this, Hawkwind extended his arm out of the window and with a muscular effort “threw” the heavy bird up into the air. Then he returned, nodded to the two Ministers, and took his place on the throne.

  He looked at Ceria, and fire leaped from his eyes to her face. She returned his gaze and smiled, a beautiful yet enigmatic smile. Her eyes were blue; they were not piercing like Hawkwind’s, yet they seemed to see to the heart of everything. They reflected the young Monarch’s dark gaze and turned it to light. To others, Ceria was a threat, an outsider. To Hawkwind, she was love.

  “Sire,” she said, pulling back the cowl of a simple red robe to reveal black hair curled at the sides of her head, “is it not the role of your Ministers to say when policy and rules are not in the best interest of our people?”

  “It is,” said Hawkwind, noticing a frown on Vora’s face, “but perhaps you could explain such matters to me, Ceria, rather than to my other advisers.”

  “You weren’t here. The General and I were simply rehearsing our respective stances, that we might be succinct for you.”

  “Succinct, she says!” General Vora laughed. “The day you put something succinctly, my dear, will be the day the sun rises and sets in an hour!”

  The woman gently bit her lower lip. “Monarch Hawkwind, I merely maintain that it is not necessary for our troops to remain on the flooded Valian Plains, when they can return home at night. To have them do so causes needless hardship and ill will. We are not at war.”

  “An army is an a
rmy!” the General said. “During maneuvers it is necessary that all preparations for battle be carried out. Otherwise they will be ill-set for attacks and hardship, should they occur. Now is an excellent time to train! Hawkwind has sent almost half of our troops to the Southland to accompany Baron Tolchin’s caravan. Putting the remainder through maneuvers provides them with rigors faced by soldiers on the road.”

  Ceria spread her arms in protest. “They are strong enough already, Vora. It would do us well to spend more time on the soldiers’ minds.”

  “Their minds? Meddler! This Rayan woman is insufferable, Hawkwind.”

  “Insufferable? You have the manners of a Fandoran, Vora! I am insufferable? I demand—”

  Ephrion spoke quickly, as if short of breath. “This matter is trivial, Lady Ceria. Our mines are flooded from the exceptionally hard spring rains, and the safety of our miners must be ensured. It is far more important to discuss this than the intelligence of Vora’s troops.”

  “Insufferable!” muttered Vora as he left the room.

  Hawkwind sighed. “Ceria, you must learn to contain your thoughts.”

  “If my thoughts are correct, should I not speak them?”

  “Naturally,” said Ephrion, “but you must be more politic. Although our army is composed of both men and women, General Vora has too much pride to be challenged by an adviser as young as yourself. If you wish to change Vora’s mind, you’d best approach it more circumspectly.”

  Hawkwind broke in, his quiet tone soothing the charged atmosphere. He began reviewing the day’s events. “Minister Elloe will bring news of the closing of the Sindril mine. Then we shall leave the palace. Are all preparations completed for the appointment of Prince Kiorte?”

  “Yes,” said Ceria. “The ceremony will take place at the Dais of Beron. The Royal Family has been notified of the affair and they will all attend.”

  “Good. The event may charm Princess Evirae to some small degree.”

  “Not likely,” said Ephrion, as the door to the antechamber opened to reveal General Vora, his good humor evidently restored, eating a handful of crackleberries.

  “If Evirae had her way,” said the General, “she’d be giving the appointment to Kiorte herself. It’s no secret that Evirae wants the Ruby. Her parents would be happy to see her have it.”

  “General Jibron and Lady Eselle would be happy to see anybody from the Royal Family in the palace,” said Ceria.

  “Enough speculation!” Hawkwind rose from his chair. “General Jibron is entitled to his opinion, as is his wife. We shall see them soon enough, and you must both be cordial.”

  “It is not always easy,” said Vora.

  * * *

  “Hold fast to those ropes!” Kiorte cried. He ran across the docking area toward the trees. All about him was shouting and disorder as men tried to seize the flailing ropes trailing from the runaway windship. The strong wind whipped at Kiorte’s black hair and tore at the sleeves of his dress uniform—at times it buffeted him hard enough to make him stumble. But he did not stop.

  Behind him, on the gigantic flat stumps that were the launching platforms, the other windships’ balloon sails were being quickly furled. The gale had risen unexpectedly, and they were lucky, Kiorte thought, that just one craft had been torn free. Even that would not have happened if that fool groundfellow from the palace had not insisted on going aboard.

  The rear anchor had not been raised, and had become entangled in a tree at the forest’s edge. If not for that, the windship would have blown out over the strait, like the unmanned vessel that had vanished weeks ago. As it was, the ship hung, caught like a child’s kite, sails straining, half-inflated. It could pull loose at any second.

  Kiorte, Prince of Simbala, leaped up and caught the lowest branch of the tree, swung himself up and began to climb. Leaves lashed his face, and he scratched his hands on the rough bark. He could feel the tree swaying as the windship tugged against the anchoring rope. He could see it above him, the small boat beneath the giant sails, which flapped and boomed in the gale.

  The anchor had caught almost fifty feet above the ground. Kiorte’s brother, Thalen, and others were holding onto the other ropes; for a moment the ship hung fairly steady as the wind dropped. Kiorte reached a branch level with the anchor rope. He took a deep breath and leaped out, catching the rope. He hung there, high above them, waiting for the momentum of his leap to expend itself. The rope reacted to his weight by giving; for a heart-stopping moment he thought it might come loose from the tree. But it did not. Kiorte pulled himself quickly up, hand over hand.

  His arms were trembling from the strain when he finally grasped the wood railing and pulled himself on board. The boat was canted at a steep angle. The brazier, solidly mounted and shielded against the wind, was going full blast—the buoyant gas from the Sindril jewels was pouring into the flue of the sails. Kiorte saw the groundfellow, a minor palace functionary who, he had been told, had insisted on going aboard one of the boats without supervision to check its stocks. He was now sprawled in the stern, eyes wide with fright.

  “I don’t know what happened,” he began to babble as Kiorte slid down the steep deck toward the small cabin. “I must have accidentally touched the ignition handle on the brazier—the jewels began burning!”

  Kiorte swung himself up to the cabin’s low roof, where the brazier was secured. “You could not have opened the valve enough to soak the jewels like this!” he said, shielding his eyes and staring into the brazier. “What else did you do? Tell me!”

  “I . . . I saw they were burning,” said the official. He was a small little bantam of a man, with his braid and sash sadly askew and dirtied now. “So I . . . I tried to put the fire out!”

  Kiorte glanced about. In another corner of the stern he saw an empty water cask. “You idiot!” he shouted. “The Sindril jewels are ignited by water, not quenched!” No wonder the ship had leaped into the wind like a stallion stung by a bee. It was only because the deck was at such a steep angle, causing most of the gas to rise outside of the flue, that the anchor rope still held. Otherwise the windship would have shot into the air, up beyond sight, until the sails exploded, and that would have been the end of an expensive ship—not to mention the groundfellow.

  Kiorte dispersed the blazing jewels with a poker—the exposure to air quickly extinguished them. Then he climbed up into the rigging and tucked the ropes that opened the vents in the balloon sails. They began to deflate slowly. He returned to the deck, cut the anchor rope, and pushed the sinking windship free of the branches with a long clearing pole. Below, Thalen and the others pulled on the ropes, and slowly the windship was brought back to its mooring place.

  The official clambered shamefacedly to the ground and staggered toward the forest, clutching his stomach and muttering something about the inspection being completed. The Windriders watched him leave, some laughing, some looking disgusted.

  Kiorte vaulted over the railing onto the ground. As always whenever he left a ship, he felt a moment of sadness at being back on the ground. To be with the wind and clouds, to soar unhindered, above the highest trees, even over mountains—that was the beauty life held for him. He looked at the departing groundfellow with amusement. He had had an opportunity that comes to few outside the Brothers of the Wind—to fly, for even an instant.

  Thalen joined him as they walked across the sparse grass and dirt of the landing field toward the barracks. Several Windriders passed them, saluting the Prince and complimenting him on the brave rescue.

  “Who ordered the inspection?” asked Kiorte after they had passed.

  “Monarch-Emeritus Ephrion,” his brother replied with some impatience. “Perhaps there is truth to the rumors of his decline, after all. Or perhaps we should blame Hawkwind for charging him with the supervision of Simbala’s naval fleet. I dread to think how the North Shore flotilla will fare under his inspectors.”

  They entered the barracks, a dome-shaped building divided into four compartments, each illuminated by
light from a circular window latticed with fenestrals of horn. The brothers strolled toward a large cask. It was filled with kala juice, wine not being allowed to Windriders on duty. “I do not trust Monarch Hawkwind, as you know,” said Kiorte, “but I credit him for keeping the Monarch-Emeritus active. A man of Ephrion’s dignity must be entrusted with some affairs of state or he will simply waste away.”

  Thalen drew juice into a wooden cup. “I am surprised you afford Hawkwind the title of Monarch, brother.” He sat down on a bench and shrugged. “I can understand Ephrion’s virtual adoption of Hawkwind, as Queen Jeune died childless. But to choose a man such as Hawkwind for the palace, a miner who is not of royal blood, strikes me as the desperation of a Monarch with no legitimate heir.”

  “Desperation? Perhaps,” Kiorte said. “Yet even I admit that the presence of Hawkwind compares favorably with the possibility of my wife on the throne. But that is damning with faint praise. Hawkwind, for all his experience, is still outside our circle, and this makes him casual with his appointments. I wonder if he intends to fill the palace with outlanders and commoners. A distressing thought! He has certainly made an auspicious effort in that direction.”

  “Ah!” said Thalen good-naturedly. “Now the cloud in your sky takes shape!”

  “Not at all. I have nothing against the Rayan as people—but they know nothing of the complexities and nuances of government. For that reason, I think that making Ceria one of his advisers was a serious error on Hawkwind’s part.”