Dragon God (The First Dragon Rider Book 1)

by Ava Richardson

  “Yeah, I guess you could look at it like that,” Dorf agreed, before suddenly frowning, and giving me that same look that the others gave me. Wary, and watchful.

  “Okay, out with it, Dorf. Why are you and everyone else acting funny around me?” I said. “Is it because of the mountaintop?” In the two days since my punishment and our first collective lesson, I hadn’t told anyone how come I had come down from the mountain alive, and seemingly full of vitality. Let them think that I do have some magical Gypsy blood! I thought savagely.

  “The students think that you’re bad luck,” Dorf said, uneasily.

  “What?” I almost shouted before remembering that I wasn’t angry at Dorf at all, but at the monastery all around me. Just like at home, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking, knowing that it was petulant, and feeling childish and ashamed of myself for letting myself be bothered by it. My brothers would often joke that they couldn’t take me hunting or out on campaign ‘because of my Gypsy blood’ and that I would bring bad luck to them all. It was a common complaint across the Three Kingdoms it seemed, that Gypsies were bad luck, and that we would be bad for business, bad for any voyage by boat, that we could sour milk if we stayed under the same roof – all ridiculous, superstitious nonsense that my uncle played up and used for his advantage, but to me had only highlighted how differently everyone viewed me. And how I would never be a true Torvald if they thought that.

  “Well,” Dorf hemmed and hawed, but my stern glare made him tell me in the end.

  “They saw the Abbot, and the prince himself single you out on the mountaintop, and they think that means that the monks don’t like you.” Dorf winced.

  “They don’t,” I muttered sulkily. “All they can see is my hair color.”

  “No, that can’t be true,” Dorf said slowly. I could tell that he was trying to cheer me up. That he didn’t feel the same about me as the others. Maybe he hadn’t been avoiding me like I’d thought. “They deal with dragons every day. I’m sure they don’t care where you come from…” Dorf said.

  “Then why do the students think that I am unlucky?” I said, hating myself for how whiny it sounded, even to my own ears.

  “Oh,” Dorf hung his head. “Yes, well–there was Greer,” Dorf said uneasily.

  “The Quartermaster? What did he do?” Ever since that man had set eyes on me he had taken a personal disliking to me. Why? I couldn’t even begin to fathom it.

  “He has let it be known that treachery to the Abbot or to the Abbot’s guests will not be tolerated, and Terrance has started to tell everyone that they must be talking about you disrupting the lesson, not his gasping and head shaking.”

  The Abbot’s guests. That must mean Prince Vincent, who had now changed his reason for being here from ‘official demonstration of magic’ to ‘royal visit,’ really was trying to consolidate his power and secure his position as the sole benefactor of Draconis Order. “What?” I shook my head. “But this is madness! I’m a nobody. I’m the younger son of a warlord, not the child of one of the Princes of the Three Kingdoms. What have I done that would make anyone think that I was a traitor?”

  “Terrance is the son of Prince Griffith, remember?” Dorf said. “And Char is the unrecognized daughter of Prince Lander of the North,” he said slowly and clearly. “If anyone is scared of being accused a traitor, then it’s those two. Terrance, and probably Char too for all I know, need to divert the suspicion away from themselves if they want to remain in the good books with the monastery and the Abbot. It doesn’t matter if you actually do anything treacherous. They can always make something up.”

  “About me?” I shook my head, apparently in outrage, but mostly in fear. The terrible thing was – they were right. I was trying to get information for my father and Clan Torvald, but that was only because everything that my father had brought me up to believe was true. Lord Vincent was no true prince. It was clear from how he’d acted on the mountaintop that he didn’t care for the people underneath him. If thinking that made me a traitor, then I guess that’s exactly what I was. Not that I was going to go around advertising that fact.

  “I know, I know – but that is just what they think.” Dorf sighed. “The other students don’t know you as I do.”

  Do you, though? I tried to grin. Would Dorf Lesser still like me if they knew what I really came here to do?

  “Anyway, here we are: The Great Library of the Draconis Order,” Dorf said as he opened a small wooden door within one of the door panels of a large, twelve-foot double door, revealing a room of light and paper beyond.

  Well, I say room, but a more accurate term was probably a catacomb. Or perhaps cellar! We seemed to be underneath the monastery itself, as the ceiling and walls were crisscrossed with curving and vaulted stone arches, holding up the floors above it. The air was cool and dry, perfect I guess, for books (wasn’t that what the monk who had been stationed with my father had once told me)? It was also – surprisingly given how far underground it was – light.

  There were a few places where candles sat, but the light didn’t limit itself to those mere instruments. There were places high up in the walls where light shone down through small apertures, inside of which must be a complex system of brass plates or polished mirrors, as they lit up these almost clear, cut crystals like lanterns. They didn’t shed great beams of light, no, but they created a gentle light throughout the Library chambers. I was astonished.

  “Oh, another thing that the monks know how to make.” Dorf laughed when he saw my wonder. He himself appeared much more in awe of what was inside the room.

  Shelves taller than we were, extending as far as the eye could see, and forming a maze of books, each one carefully chained into position. Interspersed with these were scroll racks which looked very much like they must have been the wine racks at some point. We heard shuffling feet, and muttered voices, and I froze.

  “It’s okay,” Dorf whispered. “Monks use this place all the time, and we’re allowed to be down here—we’re studying, remember?” He gave me an encouraging smile. “You warlord families are so paranoid.” He shook his head, before the approaching footsteps rounded a corner in the shelves, and the person they belonged to suddenly appeared.

  “Maxal.” Dorf greeted his friend warmly, and I turned to see the little, nearly bald-headed spooky boy. He looked at me with large eyes, and gave me a silent nod, before greeting Dorf.

  “Dorf, pleased you both could make it, shall we get started?” Maxal spoke hesitantly and carefully, in a way that made me think that he had considered the shape of every word before saying it aloud. Despite Maxal’s clear friendliness, I did feel a twinge of jealousy at how close he was with Dorf already. Was it that I really wanted Dorf to be my friend?

  Pull yourself together, Neill! I heard my brother’s voice in my ears as I followed on behind. I wasn’t here to make friends, I was here to unearth secrets, and I started right away.

  “Maxal? Dorf? Were you two looking to begin scribing practice?” I asked, feeling lumpen and a little stupid next to them. Dorf nodded.

  “Could we, perhaps study history?” I tried.

  “Of course!” Dorf looked delighted. “I know that the dragon monks have an excellent history collection, don’t they?” he asked Maxal, who nodded.

  “It is one of the prime functions of the Order, or so my father told me,” the boy said quietly. “That and looking after the dragons.”

  “Well then, we could start at the History of the Raider Wars, that’s always fun, bloodthirsty stuff!” Dorf mimed someone waving a saber and almost succeeded in stabbing an entire shelf to death.

  “Woah there, Dorf the Deadly,” I said and laughed. “Couldn’t we start at something a bit more fundamental? How about the Dragon Order itself?” I tried to sound casual, feeling my heart race a bit at the ploy. This was my best chance to find the information I needed—that my father needed—if we were to protect our people from the whole kingdom being drawn into chaos and bloodshed by Prince Vincent.

&
nbsp; “Good idea, Torvald,” Maxal said, abruptly changing direction to delve deeper through the warren of shelves, turning first this way and then that. As we walked I heard a sound and looked up in surprise, expecting to see a tall and robed dragon monks, but instead saw a thin figure with platinum-gold hair, looking up at us in surprise. Char Nefrette! I blinked and looked down the aisle again, thinking to raise a hand to wave at least - but she had gone, and none of the others had apparently seen her.

  Char appears to get everywhere, it seems, I thought to myself, remembering how I had seen her heading through the Kitchen Gardens just the other day. But of course, she was a Scribe, wasn’t she? So it made sense she would spend her time in the Library.

  “Here we are,” Dorf said, pointing at a small plaza-space made of bookshelves, in the center of which was a long reading table. All of the shells forming the sort of room where stacked floor to ceiling with heavy volumes. I didn’t even know where to begin.

  “Uh… All of this is monastery history?” I said a little overawed.

  “All of it. Isn’t it wonderful?” Dorf fairly glowed with enthusiasm. I was instantly reminded of another saying of my Uncle Lett. Where is it best to hide a fish? I think that the original parable had something to do with poaching, or helping yourself to the bounties of the wilds, no matter what prince or lady of the manor says (as Uncle Lett would put it). But either way:

  “Where is the best place to hide a fish?”

  “Up your sleeves?”

  “No, because then you will smell of fish.”

  “I don’t know, where is the best place to hide a fish?”

  “Why, in the sea of course!”

  I had never really understood the Gypsy parable, but right now, looking at what must be easily a thousand books or so and not knowing which one (if any) had the answer to my questions, I think I understood what my Uncle Lett had been trying to teach me. I wondered if he was still nearby, if I could get a message for my father to him—but of course, first I needed to gather some information worthy of sending home.

  Eventually, however, after two hours of back-cramping hunched over books, and my eyes starting to water with all of the peering and concentrating I was doing, Maxal and Dorf unwittingly helped me to find a clue.

  Maxal had collected together what they called ‘Primers’ and ‘Introductions’ which were smaller, thinner books crammed with tiny writing that summarized the chapters of much larger books – sometimes seven whole series of grimoires. Maxal informed me that the problem with these smaller volumes was that they were often full of inaccuracies, and presented a lot of opinion instead of fact, but that they were a good place to start if I had no patience for wading through all twenty-three volumes of Mysticism in the Rule of the Queen Delia, even if Maxal said it was ‘truly authoritative’ – whatever that meant.

  No, I did not have the patience nor the time for such an undertaking. So instead, the two boys started to teach me a short history of the Three Kingdoms, and, as Maxal asked questions and Dorf argued this way or that – I found myself even learning something.

  It seemed that the Draconis Order was a relatively new invention—only a hundred or so years old. New enough in terms of the world. But its roots were in some very old traditions. There have been mystics and shamans coming up to Mount Hammal for hundreds of years, but most of them would get eaten. Only a very few would return with dreams or visions or even magical powers. They would talk of challenges and tests, of being hunted by the dragons until they could show their bravery, before being taught the ancient magical arts.

  But the Draconis Order itself was founded by none other than the old Queen Delia, the mother to Prince Lander, Prince Griffith, and Prince Vincent. Or rather, the primers said that the old queen gave an awful lot of money to Abbot Ansall at the time to have it built.

  “Wait.” I stopped the two boys in their discussions. “I get it, the dragons are old, the monastery is old, but Queen Delia and the Abbot really got it all going…” something didn’t make sense to me, and then I saw it. It was the dates. “But, that was a hundred years ago, I thought you said?”

  “Yes.” Both Maxal and Dorf nodded.

  “Well, how old was Queen Delia when she died?” I stammered.

  “Well, let me see…” Maxal started flicking through the books to find some dates.

  “One hundred and forty-three.” Dorf came up with the answer first. He was good with numbers like that.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked again. That was impossible, it had to be.

  “Queen Delia was one hundred and forty-three when she eventually died, and that must mean that Prince Vincent is in his…” Dorf tried to calculate, but shook his head. “She had her children late,” he settled for.

  “It says here in the chronology, very clearly, that Prince Lander, the oldest, was only born almost sixty years ago.” Maxal pointed out to the list of dates and names at the back of one of the books. “That makes Prince Griffith almost sixty, and the youngest, Prince Vincent, in his thirties, I think.”

  “But….” Unable to imagine it. “So, the old queen really was very old when she became a mother?” I said the obvious. “She never looked old on the tapestries.”

  “Some people are naturally long-lived,” Dorf said. “And besides, everyone knows that tapestries and paintings are meant to portray the queen at her best.”

  “Well, maybe,” Maxal said. “But it’s also an aftereffect of becoming a Draconis Monk. They get to live like their charges, much longer than is normal.”

  “Really?” An idea started to form. So, is that the secret of the Draconis Order? That they can live for much longer than normal? “Does that mean Queen Delia was a Draconis Monk—er—nun?”

  But no one answered me because Dorf started stammering. “Wow, I, uh, oh geez. Um, I think that you should look at this.” He sounded creeped out by what he had found.

  It was the first volume of Mysticism in the Rule of Queen Delia, and there were block cuts and wood-printed illustrations throughout. Volume one of the twenty-three, it appeared, was devoted to the earliest of the Draconis Order beginnings, the ancient mystics and shamans who had come up to the dragon caves through the wilds, all on their own, and seeking knowledge. Dorf was pointing at an illustration of a man sitting cross-legged in a cave, with high features, a black cap, and a sort of line across the sand in front of him.

  “Okay…” I said, not following the connection.

  “Here.” Dorf flicked the page to a few chapters further in and another illustration, where there was now a crowd of people in a marketplace talking to a high-featured man with a black covering on top of his head, and holding some sort of staff whilst, in the air above tiny bird-like dragon shapes flew.

  “And finally.” Dorf flicked to the last chapter of the volume, where there were a large number of hermits being led by another with a black covering atop his head, holding a cane, and talking to a woman with a crown.

  “Who has a black cane and a skullcap?” Dorf asked.

  So that’s what that covering was, a skullcap. Why, it almost looked like… Abbot Ansall. My brain, fogged and slowed by all the hours spent reading, finally caught up with what Dorf was saying. “Are you trying to suggest that Abbot Ansall is over two or even three hundred years old? Surely, it’s just a family resemblance or something. I mean, Maxal here comes from a long line of Draconis Monks, right? Maybe this is just Abbot Ansall’s great-great-great grandfather?”

  “Look—” Maxal pointed to the caption of the illustration. Written below the figure of the man were the words Master Ansall.

  “Maybe it’s a family name, passed down through generations?” My mind refused to believe Abbot Ansall could be the same man as in the illustrations, that he could be so ancient.

  Dorf opened and closed his mouth, shrugging. “All I know is that a few nights ago I saw Ansall do impossible things.”

  “A few nights ago?” said a new voice, breaking through our studies. We turned to see none other than Cha
r standing there, her arms wrapped around a heavy set of books. “All I remember seeing was the Abbot showing off for Prince Vincent,” She said haughtily, and angrily, her eyes flashing at me in particular. “Maybe you boys should be a bit more circumspect with your studies,” she added.

  I wondered how much she had overheard of our discussion, and considered telling her. Doesn’t she have the right to know who her father is dealing with, sending her down here? I thought, opening my mouth before I was interrupted once more – but this time by the quiet Maxal Ganna.

  “We should be going. We’ve spent all morning down here, and I’m sure that the Quartermaster will be about ready to have us all mucking out the stables if we miss lunch.”

  Compared to the hours spent peering at books and trying to work out impossible riddles, I thought I might actually prefer to muck out the stables. At least I could visit with Stamper. But even as I followed the others back out of the Library and up the stairs, my head was ringing with questions I knew I needed the answers to.

  How did the Draconis Order and the Abbot get to live so old? What was the secret of their strange powers?

  Chapter 14

  Char’s Letter

  “Dear Father,”

  I instantly cursed myself for being so stupid, and crossed the words through with heavy black lines of ink. What was it my father had said? I bit the end of the quill that I was using where I had already stripped it of feathers.

  That I had to be circumspect. That I was here to make friends, but if I found out anything that was troubling or dangerous for the Northern Kingdom, then I must rush to tell him immediately.

  But maybe I shouldn’t even write ‘father’ because then they’ll know that it’s me sending this message to the Northern Kingdom? I wondered, and then sighed heavily. It seemed that I was going to be useless as a spy.

  It was another late afternoon between practices, and I had managed to steal a tiny bit of time to myself in the dormitory room and brought out my writing equipment. I had to tell father about what was happening here… Or what was happening to me? Surely, he would want to know that I had made friends with a dragon, and that I could even share minds with one?