Dragonforge

by James Maxey

  Chapter Three:

  Mad in the Timeless Dark

  The Burning Grounds lay in the shadow of Shandrazel’s palace. Winged dragons honored their dead by cremation, releasing the spiritual flames that remained trapped within the body. In the aftermath of the battle of the Free City, the pyres of the Burning Grounds had burned every night from dusk to dawn. Tonight, Vendevorex, the sky-dragon who had served as Albekizan’s wizard for fifteen years, would be placed upon the flames.

  A choir of sky-dragons sang, their eerily high voices echoing the ephemeral nature of flame. Jandra stood stoically at the base of the pedestal of logs on which the wizard would be burned. A human female sixteen years of age, Jandra had been raised by Vendevorex almost as a daughter. He had trained her in his arts. She alone knew the secrets of his powers, although there were many more secrets he had carried with him into death.

  Beside her stood Pet, a human male nearly ten years older. Jandra didn’t welcome his company. Though Pet was hailed by other humans as the leader of the rebellion in the Free City, Jandra knew that the true Pet was a shallow opportunist. Even now, standing next to her, he was living a lie. Everyone believed Pet to be the legendary dragon-slayer Bitterwood. Pet looked the part of a hero: tall, broad-shouldered, square-jawed, with long golden locks and pale blue eyes. He’d been trained in the theatrical arts, and could deliver inspirational speeches at a moment's notice, summoning grand words from among the countless plays and poems he’d memorized. But behind those lovely words, Pet was, she knew, a coward and a scoundrel.

  Pet placed an arm around her shoulders and pulled her near as a band of earth-dragons carried the coffin that held Vendevorex’s remains to the Burning Grounds. It was a gesture of tenderness that surprised her. She would have preferred to watch the cremation alone, but, as he gently rubbed her shoulder with his strong hand, she found herself welcoming the consoling touch. Perhaps he was capable of compassion and empathy after all.

  “I can only imagine the grief you feel,” he whispered.

  “I feel numb, mostly,” she whispered back. “Everything in my life turned upside-down so fast.”

  “I know,” he said. “Hopefully things will turn again, for the better. Shandrazel genuinely wants to improve the lives of humans. You and I are well positioned to be granted considerable power in his new world order.”

  Jandra stiffened. “I’d rather not be discussing politics now,” she said.

  “I understand. Sorry.” He gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze.

  The earth-dragons walked up the wooden ramp toward the top of the piled logs.

  “I don’t want power,” she said. “I just want Vendevorex back. I miss him. I wish I hadn’t been so mean to him in the weeks before his death.”

  “I don’t think you were mean,” said Pet. “Just confused. He gave you good reason to be angry.”

  “I know,” she said. “But I’ve barely slept since he’s been gone. I just keep running the words I should have said over and over in my head. I keep imagining the things he still had left to tell me.”

  The earth-dragons lowered the coffin onto the pine logs. The new high biologian, Androkom, climbed onto the platform to deliver his eulogy. Androkom was a young sky-dragon, still in his twenties, the youngest dragon ever to hold the post of high biologian. He looked weary. Since the fall of the Free City, multiple funerals had been held each night, and all required his presence.

  Pet took Jandra’s hand as the earth-dragons pried open the lid of the coffin. Many days had passed since Vendevorex had fallen. He’d been placed in the coffin as his body began to decay, but it was customary for a dragon to be cremated with his body exposed to the open sky.

  “You know,” Pet whispered, leaning closer, “perhaps you shouldn’t sleep alone tonight. You could stay with me.”

  Jandra rolled her eyes. “Are you trying to seduce me at a funeral? Have you no self control at all?”

  “I assure you, my self control is legendary,” he said, with the hint of a grin. “I was merely trying to comfort you. The fact that you interpreted this as seduction perhaps reveals something about your unspoken desires?”

  She would have slapped him, but it wasn’t the appropriate setting. At least one human at this ceremony should possess a sense of decorum.

  She looked back to the platform. Androkom was staring down into the coffin, looking confused. The earth-dragon pall-bearers were all shrugging, looking equally bewildered.

  Jandra ran to the platform, up the rough-hewn logs that served as a makeshift ramp.

  “Jandra,” Androkom said, looking spooked as she approached. “I’m sure there’s some logical explanation—”

  “What?” she asked, drawing near the coffin. She looked down into the long wooden box, expecting to find the worst.

  Save for a few blood-encrusted feather-scales, their sky-blue hue shining amid the shadows, the coffin was empty.

  Pet chased Jandra as she bounded up the stairs to the tower. She proved remarkably swift for someone wearing a long black dress more appropriate for mourning than running.

  “Jandra, wait!” he called out as she scrambled up the steps. Jandra had grown up in the palace and knew all its shadows. Pet worried that if he lost sight of her he wouldn’t find her again.

  “Leave me alone!” she shouted as she reached the top of the stairs.

  Pet followed her into a star-shaped room. The room was large, built on a scale to accommodate a sun-dragon. The chamber was empty save for a bed, a wardrobe, and a few other pieces of furniture sitting within one of the arms of the star. The human-sized furniture in the midst of the giant open space looked lonely. Jandra ran toward the bed, falling to her knees as she reached it. As the foot of the bed sat a heavy oak chest sealed with an iron lock. Jandra grabbed the lock with shaking hands.

  “What’s so urgent?” Pet asked as he drew closer. “If Ven was alive enough to get out of his coffin a week ago, he’s probably still alive now.”

  “He was dead!” she snapped as the lock clicked open. “We both saw him die!”

  “He was magic. He could cure the sick with his touch. He survived a gutting by Zanzeroth! Why is it so hard to believe he came back to life?”

  Jandra threw the lid of the chest open. She dug her hands into the carefully folded garments inside, tossing them wildly around the room. The light from the lantern by the bed glinted on something silver. Jandra lifted it from the chest—a skull cap. Pet had seen it before. It was the head gear Vendevorex had always worn.

  “Pet,” she said, “it’s too complicated to explain right now, but Vendevorex and I don’t control magic. Vendevorex didn’t believe in magic.”

  “He could set things on fire with his mind,” Pet said. “He could turn invisible! You turn invisible! How can you say it’s not magic?”

  “Vendevorex trained me my whole life and I never figured out how to do half the stuff he did,” Jandra said. “I can’t explain our powers to you in five minutes, or even five hours. Ven used to say that ‘magic’ would be acts that violated physical laws. We don’t have supernatural powers. What we have is possession of an advanced technology that looks like magic to those who don’t understand it. Vendevorex controlled that technology with this.” She held up the skull cap. It was beaten and bent in the aftermath of Vendevorex’s violent end. “If the skull cap had been gone, I might have believed he was still alive. Since it isn’t, someone stole his body.”

  “Why would anyone do that?” Pet asked.

  “Maybe they thought he was supernatural and there’s some power to be derived from possessing his bones. It was probably humans. They believe the dumbest things.”

  “Hmm,” said Pet. “Might I remind you that you’re human?”

  “Am I?” Jandra asked, sagging back against her bed, the skull cap resting in her lap. She looked very small in the oversized room. She normally projected a defiant strength that Pet found irresistible. Now, the tragic events of recent weeks had finally caught up with her. She lo
oked like a lost little girl, with no hope of ever finding her way home. Pet wanted to take her hand, but knew she would only see it as another attempt at seduction. Which it could lead to, he supposed. All women succumbed to his charms eventually. She sounded on the verge of tears as she said, “Why am I only comfortable around dragons? Why does every human I meet make my skin crawl?”

  “Do I make your skin crawl?”’ he asked.

  “You especially,” she said.

  These weren’t words Pet was used to hearing from young women. “You know, I’m the reason humans won their little uprising in the Free City. They rallied around me. Now I’m going to be standing up for all of humanity in this conference Shandrazel is holding.”

  “What is your point?” Jandra asked.

  “Just that you are proving to be especially difficult to impress.”

  Jandra sighed. “If you want to impress me, figure out who took Ven. Or help me find the real Bitterwood.”

  “That crazy old man? What do you want with him?”

  “Things happened so fast the last time I saw him,” she said. As she spoke, the look of vulnerability faded from her features. Pet noticed that when there was something she wanted to do, she always summoned the strength to do it. “One second, I was trying to help Bitterwood find his lost family. The next, he was shouting at me to go away. I never got the chance to tell him something that he needs to know.”

  “Which is?”

  “Bitterwood thought his family had been killed by dragons. But I think his son, Adam, might be alive. He wasn’t listed in Albekizan’s slave records. I knew Bitterwood’s daughters, and they told me that their grandmother had taken their baby brother when the dragons raided their village. She jumped into the well to hide. They didn’t know if Adam survived the raid, but they knew he wasn’t taken captive.”

  “Don’t you remember how callously Bitterwood treated us?” Pet asked. “He left us to die. Why do you owe that monster anything?”

  “Bitterwood wasn’t entirely a monster. There was a little girl with us when we were captured. Her name was Zeeky. He treated her in a kind and fatherly way. And while you take credit for the victory in the Free City—a victory I believe you actually owe to Vendevorex—Bitterwood is the one who really won the war. He’s the one who killed Albekizan.”

  “And no one has seen him since,” said Pet. “Just because they didn’t find his body when they searched the river doesn’t mean he’s still alive.”

  “He’s alive,” she said. “I’ve asked around. Some of the people in Richmond saw an old man and a little girl riding an ox-dog west along the river. I’m positive it’s them.”

  “Assuming it was, if Bitterwood’s lived this long without knowing his son might be alive, he can wait a bit longer. Don’t go off chasing some man who doesn’t want to see you again. I need you here by my side, Jandra.”

  “Pet, I’m not going to sleep with you. Just give up.”

  “No,” he knelt in front of her, so she could better see his face. All his life he was acting, but now he wanted the masks he wore to slip away. He tried to project sincerity as he spoke. “I mean, yes, I’ll give up trying to seduce you. I want you here because you’re smart and you’re brave and you’re tough. Maybe you don’t feel like a human, but you’re a better human than me. I need you beside me at the summit.”

  “Aren’t you up to the job?”

  Pet took a long, deep breath, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “We both know I’m a fraud. You’re right—I did nothing to win the battle of the Free City. Two prophets, Ragnar and Kamon, rallied their followers to fight for me; they did all the work. And, you’re right about Vendevorex. We would have been slaughtered if he hadn’t shown up. My sole contribution to the battle was to stand before the crowd and look heroic.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “You do look the part.”

  Pet grinned. He couldn’t believe she’d finally given him a compliment! He returned to his attempt at sincere confession. “We both know I’m the worst person imaginable to have at that table. I’ve spent my life trying to please sun-dragons. I’m worse than a slave. I’ve lived as a sun-dragon’s pet.”

  Jandra shook her head. “I’m no better,” she said. “I grew up feeling like the daughter of a dragon. I’ve never known any human family. I’m told my parents are dead, but does that mean I’m all alone? What if I have sisters, or a brother, or even grandparents still alive? The horrible thing is, I wouldn’t know what to say to them if they found me. Look at my wardrobe. I dress in gowns with fabrics that resemble the scales of dragons. I braid feathers into my hair to look like the neck fringes of sky-dragons.”

  “A very fetching look, may I say,” Pet said. “You grew up in a palace. You can’t be expected to dress in burlap sacks.”

  “I know. But it’s my dreams that frighten me. In my dreams, I’m a dragon. I dream constantly of flying.”

  “Ah,” said Pet. He was bonding with Jandra at last, and he did know something about her particular condition. He reached out and took her hand, cupping it gently with his. “Dreams of flying are usually dreamt by women who are still virgins. They’re a symptom of sexual frustration. Perhaps—”

  “Perhaps if you leave right now I won’t slap you,” she said, jerking her hand away.

  From the look in her eyes, he could tell she meant it. He stood up, stretching his back. “You can’t blame me for trying.”

  “Just leave,” she said, looking down once more at the skull cap. “I was actually starting to feel a little sympathy for you. I should have known it was only another seduction ploy.”

  Pet turned and walked across the vast and empty room. Flattery hadn’t worked on Jandra, lies hadn’t gotten him anywhere, and now the truth had failed. For a brief instant, a new and strange thought flickered across his mind: perhaps, if he wished to have her by his side, he should be prepared to accept her as a friend. Instead of constant attempts at seduction, he should simply value her for her fine qualities and welcome her into his life as an equal, or even a superior, rather than as just another conquest. He truly did want her to stand beside him at the upcoming summit. He honestly admired her courage and her convictions. He glanced back across the lonely room. She was standing now, studying herself in a full-length mirror. She was beautiful, slender and virginal, and once more had that vulnerable lost look upon her face. He wanted to say something, but couldn’t find the words. When he saw her again, he would work on winning her as a friend. Perhaps then she’d be easier to seduce.

  As the door to the star-shaped chamber closed, Jandra looked back over her shoulder. She almost felt like chasing after Pet. He wasn’t the best of company, but being alone in this room was painful.

  For as long as she could remember, this tower had been her home. Once, its walls had been lined with thick, leather-bound tomes and countless parchment scrolls. The interior had been a forest of tables covered with vials and beakers and magnifying lenses of the finest quality.

  “The world thinks of what we do as magic,” Vendeovorex had told her. “Their ignorance is an important source of our power. We do not manipulate supernatural forces. We move matter and light according to inalterable rules, using tools that must remain invisible to others.”

  In this room, she’d learned to understand the building blocks of the material world, and the countless ways these blocks could be pulled apart and placed back together. Using her “magic” was an art, a kind of sculpting on the finest scale imaginable.

  Of course, all of the tools of teaching were gone now. The king’s wicked brother Blasphet had taken command of this tower after he’d been released from the dungeon. He’d turned the room into a torture chamber. Earth-dragons had since cleaned, mopped all the dried blood and gore, and returned Jandra’s possessions to their former positions. Now her every step echoed in the vacant chamber. Moonlight seeped through the high windows, painting the marble floors with ghostly shapes. Not that Jandra believed in ghosts. Vendevorex had raised her as a strict mater
ialist, and had always been dismissive of the spiritual world.

  “There are indeed realities in this world that cannot be seen,” he had said. “We move through a world of fields and forces. We control machines too small for the eyes to discern. We are masters of an unseen world—but the invisible is not the same as the supernatural.”

  Jandra studied her face in the mirror. In her old life, when she’d looked into this same glass, she’d been staring at the face of a naïve and innocent girl. She’d been through so much since then. She’d nearly died. She’d felt her life slipping between her fingers in warm gushes. What’s more, she’d learned to kill. She’d heard the gurgling, wet gasping breaths of a dragon dying by her hands. She closed her eyes, and all the violence of the recent months washed through her mind. She’d learned to fight when she had no strength to fight. She’d learned to live for days in clothes caked and clotted with blood.

  She opened her eyes—and found she was still looking into the face of a girl, but a girl who was no longer innocent. She lifted her chin and studied the thin pale line where her throat had been slit. She looked with sorrow at her shoulder-length hair—once it had hung the full length of her back. She’d been forced to cut it to disguise herself. She brushed away the fringe of hair across her scalp that concealed the metal band she had once worn as a tiara. This was a smaller version of Vendevorex’s skull cap, a device that allowed her to communicate with the unseen machines that floated by the millions in the air around her. She’d changed her hair to hide it when she’d been a fugitive.

  She removed the tiara and placed it on the table.

  There was no longer any need to hide who she was.