by Alison Baird
“The new bride, Majesty,” the Loänei said behind them, in his smooth obsequious voice.
A deep voice spoke from the dais, sending a shiver of recognition through Ailia. “It would appear I am seeing double,” it said. “Are my eyes at fault, Erron, or do I see two women where you announce one?”
The man stooped and drew up the girls’ veils from their faces. Quickly Ailia reemployed her glaumerie. “The chosen bride is this maiden, by name Mai; her companion, Lia, also seeks the honor of being brought before you. If you do not want her, Majesty, she can be a servant.”
Ailia and Mai looked about them. The throne hall was all of dark green marble, and lit by huge lamps that hung on gold chains from the ceiling. Gold-plated dragons were twined about the pillars that supported the roof, their eyes of glowing red venudor seeming to glare upon the people below. The crimson carpet ran down the central aisle and ascended the dais at the far end. Upon this dais was a throne, also of gold, fashioned in the likeness of four dragons—two formed the armrests, and two reared up to make the back of the throne. It was made in imitation of the Emperor’s Dragon Throne—a sign, perhaps, that the Loänei considered themselves the Empire’s rightful heirs. Behind it a doorway was set in the wall, with heavy red curtains to conceal what lay beyond. The splendidly robed people assembled all around turned and stared at the two girls. Like the Loänei man they were tall and graceful, with finely sculpted features.
But Ailia’s eyes were riveted on the occupant of the throne.
Mandrake was resplendent in regal attire, a wide-sleeved black silk robe under a red mantle that hung down and pooled like blood upon the dais. Both robe and mantle were richly embroidered with dragons in thread-of-gold, and on his head was a circlet of gold in the form of a ruby-eyed serpent biting its own tail.
Mandrake ignored Mai. His eyes were on Ailia, and their golden gaze was piercing: she felt it penetrate her hastily imposed glaumerie as a sunbeam lances through a mist. Swiftly he rose, and for an instant stood tall and straight, facing her. The ruby flashed its fire at her, like a challenge. Then without a word he turned and swept through the red curtains behind the dais.
Dropping her illusory disguise, brushing aside the protesting attendants with a single burst of power, Ailia sprang onto the dais and rushed after him.
17
The Dragon’s Lair
“O GOD OF THE GLASS,” intoned the high priest of the fisher-folk, “hear our petitions!” The young man bent his sun-bronzed torso in reverence, his necklace of jungle flowers swinging low. Before him the magical crystal, still attached to a fragment of console from the downed star-ship, gleamed dully in the light of the tall standing torches erected in a circle about it. “Will we catch many fish, Spirit of the Glass? Will the Dragon King, who rules the world’s waters, give to us of his bounty? Will we be in any danger from sea serpents or orcs?” There was a flicker, and scenes of nets filled with fish appeared within the crystal’s depths. The priest prostrated himself upon the sandy shore.
The other villagers, in their various attitudes of abasement, paid no heed to Auron and Taleera standing quietly behind them. The Loänan and T’kiri wore their human forms, plainly clad so as not to draw attention. They watched as the priest bowed once more, and all the people stood: the women, along with the children and the elderly, streaming toward their lamplit huts while the men gathered their nets and headed for the little slant-sailed fishing boats.
“Now, Auron!” whispered Taleera as soon as the boats had passed beyond the outer reef. “They’re all gone.”
The two guardians approached the globe. “Tell me!” said Taleera urgently. “What became of your passenger, oracle? Is she alive, did she survive the wreck of the flying ship?”
There was no response from the sphere. “It is no use,” said Auron. “The power that is within the crystal obeys the laws of the Archons. It may not spy on one being for another—for any reason.”
Taleera exploded. “It’s not spying! It’s a matter of life and death! She might have drowned, or been captured.” She turned to face Auron. “Well, what are we to do? We cannot reach out to her ourselves, by calling mind to mind. He, or one of his servants, would overhear us. And if she is in hiding we might betray her location to Mandrake. She would respond when she felt our presence, and call out to us, and then he would have her.”
“We shall just have to hunt for her then. We might look along the shore, and try to find her track or scent-trail. She must have come ashore not far from the wreckage.”
“Auron.” A little quaver had entered Taleera’s voice. “We don’t even know if she did come ashore.”
Auron turned toward the globe. “Can you at least say that, eidolon? Can you tell us whether she lives? Light the crystal if she still lives!”
There was another flicker in the globe, a pause in which both their hearts seemed to stop, then a pure white radiance filled its depths.
They left the shore and village and rejoined Falaar, who was waiting for them deep within the jungle. Taleera shifted back to her own avian form. In the dusk her feathers glowed like an ercine’s with a fiery luminescence. “We must hurry!” she shrilled, raising her wings. “I feel certain that she’s in terrible danger!”
Falaar’s great aquiline head tilted to one side. “I would not have her come to harm. The Stone is of little use without the wielder.”
“The Stone!” Taleera screeched. “Is that all you care about? Where are your feelings, you great ungainly thing?”
“Friends, please! Enough of this, we must find Ailia quickly!” Auron remonstrated. “This world is fraught with danger, and our transformations may have alerted Mandrake. He is very sensitive to sorcery. We must go on to that city at once!”
“It is thy belief, then, that Her Highness is there?” Falaar said, ignoring the still-fuming firebird.
“It is my hope. For she lives yet, and being human—at least in part—she would naturally seek out the safety of her kind rather than remain in the jungle.”
“That means taking human forms again,” declared Taleera. “How tired I am of it! But I daren’t let them see me in my own shape: they would shoot me for the pot, most likely, or for my plumes.”
“I cannot alter my form at all,” confessed the cherub with reluctance. “I have not the art.”
“Then you must remain here in the jungle for the present,” said Auron. “We will call on you if we need your aid.”
AILIA RAN UP THE SPIRALING FLIGHTS of a narrow stone stairwell. She could not see Mandrake, but the sound of his footsteps came from high above her. He was not fleeing—she felt no panic from him; he could surely escape her with ease by using his sorcery. It was almost as though he wanted her to follow him. But where? Was he leading her into a trap of some kind?
At this thought she slowed her ascent. But even as she debated the wisdom of going on, there came a last turn to the stone steps, then the cold light of moons and stars above her. She emerged from the coils of the stairwell onto a broad platform atop a tower, surrounded by four jutting pinnacles. The tower from her vision. He was there, at the far end. He had not taken dragon form, not tried to flee by air. He stood with his back to the parapet, watching her, and waited until she had approached to within ten paces before he spoke. “I grow weary of retreating from the Nemerei. This is my home, and I intend to defend it this time.”
Ailia stood still. She had forgotten the extraordinary power of Mandrake’s voice, the deep rich resonance that reminded her of a bronze gong. He must not know I am afraid, she told herself. However afraid I am, he must not sense it . . .
“So fight me if you wish. I hear your powers have been well honed and trained by the Loänan. A good thing for you, if you are still as squeamish as I recall. You can kill, now, without bloodying your hands, or risking any injury to yourself.”
He was trying to taunt her into attacking first. She felt anger from him now, and fear too: under his calm exterior seethed a volatile admixture of emotion that the
slightest provocation would ignite into violence. He had come here in order to fight for his life, choosing the place for their duel. The scene before her was very close to the one in her vision. Had he had a similar vision, perhaps?
“I don’t want to fight you, Mandrake,” she answered. Did her apprehension show in her own face or voice? She thought of Damion and her other friends, and her voice grew firmer. “But I don’t want any more people to die because of this prophecy—if it is a prophecy. If there must be a fight, then let us limit it to our own two persons, and not sacrifice whole armies and thousands of innocent lives.”
He was silent for a moment, and she sensed uncertainty from him, as though her words were not what he had expected. And she felt something else: a familiar, jarring note of discord. Was he in pain? And then all at once she realized what it was. Iron. Somehow, someone had recently injured him with iron. It had weakened him, taken the edge off his powers. In any contest of sorcery she would hold a slight advantage, even though she was out of her own sphere. She could defeat him: it was possible. She had her ring, and the magical skill to use it: to force from the depths of its blue gem the energies that slept there, tear asunder the wall that divided matter and Ether and turn the resulting burst of power on him. As she thought this she knew a thrilling moment of pride and potency. Then she banished the exultation, suddenly repelled by it. This was not what she had come to do.
It was too late, though: he had read her thoughts in her face, and his own expression became colder still. “I should perhaps mention that your friends are now in my hands—or rather in Khalazar’s, which is the same thing. To order their deaths would be the work of a moment. Can you kill me quickly enough to prevent it? Shall we see?”
She nearly reeled, steadying herself with an effort. Damion and the others—captured! Was this true? Or only another of his lies?
Again he watched her reaction. “So: we are at an impasse,” he said. “Unless your friends’ lives are an acceptable price to pay for destroying me?”
“Why, Mandrake?” she asked at last. “What have we ever done to you?”
“I might ask the same question of the Loänan, and of all the Nemerei,” he said. “What did I do to deserve being hounded by them across the void? And when at last I found a home, far from their precious empire and its peoples—why did they still persecute me?”
Righteous indignation came to Ailia’s aid. “You deceived the people here—made them believe you are a god! And after they rejected you, you came back to enslave them again! Did you think the Nemerei would allow that to happen?”
He raised his hand. “One moment. I believe you are under a misapprehension, Princess. I came back here because it is my home. I want nothing to do with the people of Loänanmar: I didn’t invent that absurd religion, they did.”
“But you let them worship you as a god—they built a temple to you—”
“What if they did? Human beings must worship something: it is their nature. This castle is built upon a volcano, a former sacred site. When I first came here—long before the castle was constructed—I took to living in the cave deep within. The people caught glimpses of my dragon-form, and it reminded them of their former Loänei masters, and also took the old volcano goddess’s place in their imagination. Their adulation was no idea of mine.”
“But the Brides—”
“A different version of an old ritual: the volcano virgins, the human sacrifices these people’s ancestors used to throw alive into calderas as an offering to the goddess Elnemorah. Only rather than giving their lives, the Brides were simply presented to me—once every year, in the old days, to ensure rains and healthy crops. Though in this case, of course, the god could actually grant the mortals’ requests.”
They were circling one another now, eyes fixed on one another’s faces. “And those poor girls? What did you do with them?” she demanded.
If he would only give her a reason to hate him—confess to some hideous cruelty or barbarism, so that she might be able to summon the will to hurt him, to kill him . . . But he only shrugged. “It was a symbolic union, no more. The ritual over, the maidens became holy vestals serving in my temple. I saw no reason to interfere. I am not so very different from a god, after all: remote, indifferent, observing but not taking part in their lives. Let them worship that, if they wish. It is not as evil as volcano worship. And is it any worse than that Arainian cult that’s centered on yourself? You don’t believe in that lunacy about being a goddess’s daughter, do you?”
She could not look him in the face and deny it. He had thrown her charge back at her. “But I don’t demand any sacrifices,” she said, and even to her the protest sounded feeble and defensive.
He laughed without humor. “Now you split hairs. You have been playing god too, Tryna Lia. Though, to be just, you had no more say in your deification than I. You are no natural being, but rather the result of Archonic schemes—like me. Did your Archon mother truly love your father, or did she merely make use of him in order to create you? The truth is, even the Morugei are more human than you are, Tryna Lia. Perhaps I am a monster, but you are one too.”
She fell silent; seeing that his barb had gone home he added, “As for that cursed Archon gem of yours—don’t you realize what the Star Stone is? You know who owned it before you: the dark god himself!”
Ailia shivered, but kept her gaze steady. “I thought you didn’t believe Valdur was a god.”
“No more I do. But I am sure the tale of Valdur’s fall contains some seed of truth. Hasn’t your pretty Archon bauble already bound you to a life you never chose? I must say, when I heard you had fled your guardians I hoped you had finally rebelled and taken your freedom. But no, you have merely come here to do your duty”—his voice grew harsh, bitter—“and once that is accomplished you will fly back to your prison-palace and to the Stone, yearning to be enslaved again.”
She should have set aside her distaste for violence, she realized, and attacked him right away. It was too late now. His words seemed to penetrate her soul, reflect her innermost thoughts: she could not help but hear.
“Do you remember the glaumerie I cast for you?” he pursued. “I meant to return you to Mera in truth. You would have gone into the convent as you had planned, spent a happy useful life in library and scriptorium. But now it is too late. You are not the same Ailia, and you can never return to your former existence. Is that not so?” He made it sound like an irrevocable loss. “Yes—I know all about these things, thanks to the efforts of Lady Syndra, who overheard more than you ever knew.”
“If you know all, then why do you ask?” was all she could find to say.
“I want you to admit your feelings to yourself, out loud. Ailia, I cannot send you back to your Island home. That life is ended forever. But I can make you another offer. Stay here with me and the other Loänei. We will accept you as one of us, allow you to be yourself.” His golden eyes held hers. “Three days. Give me that long to convince you. And you, in turn, can attempt to convince me that it is you who are right. We will be very civilized to one another, and then”—he took a step toward her—“at the end of your stay, if neither one of us has converted the other, we will return to this tower and conclude what we left unfinished.”
He would be slightly stronger in three days, she knew, more able to fight her. But he was also offering her what she had come to Nemorah for: a chance to plead, to argue, to parley. She might yet avoid having to use her newfound powers to wound and kill. Ailia saw Ana’s sad aged face in her mind, heard again the sorrow in her voice as she spoke of the child she had saved. She had urged Ailia not to be weakened, as she was, by compassion; but how could one receive an offer of peace, and not take it? And there were her friends in Zimboura to be considered, too . . .
She held his feral golden eyes with her own. “Agreed,” she said. “But on one condition.”
The eyes narrowed in suspicion. “What would that be?”
“The young girl who was brought here with me—Mai.
I want her sent back to her home.”
He looked indifferent. “The Bride? I don’t want her. She is free to go. And so are you, for that matter. No one here can hold you against your will. Call on your keepers, if you like, and return home with them. We can always fight another day.”
“I will stay here,” she said.
“Very well.” His tone suddenly became courteous. “But it is late, and you must be tired. I will have the Loänei prepare a room for you.”
SHE WAS SHOWN BY HUMAN servants into a large, luxurious apartment, with intricate moldings on the ceiling and gilded furnishings. The Loänei must have been secretly restoring their old palace to its former state of luxury. Her aching soles sank into the soft pile of a crimson carpet. Through an open door she glimpsed the bedroom, the bed draped with fine curtains to keep insects out. Another door opened on a bathroom with a sunken marble bath. There were tapestries upon the walls, and vases so full of flowers that the air was heavy with their scent. An alabaster statue of a nymph danced motionlessly in a wall niche. There were bottles of fragrant unguents, perfumes, oils, gilded combs and brushes, a jewel box brimming with brooches and necklaces.
The windows looked down on the inner court, a pleasure garden filled with both ferny and blossoming trees.
Despite her luxurious surroundings Ailia was wary and afraid. If at the end of her stay she had not succeeded in turning him back to her side, they would duel to the death. The vision she had had could still come to pass: she had not managed to circumvent it. She took Damion’s silver dagger from its sheath at her thigh and sat gazing down at the blade. She would sleep with it tonight.
There was a pattering sound at the windows, making her look up nervously. The panes were streaked and glistening, the sky gray beyond. Mandrake, it appeared, had chosen to reward the bridal offering with rain.
