DragonThrone02 The Empire of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  “All I ever wanted was to be free. My life was my mother’s first, because she bore me for her own reasons; then it was Valdur’s because I was meant to be his tool; then the Tryna Lia’s, because one day she would take it from me; then Ana’s, because she saved it. I have belonged to many different people in my time, but never to myself. Until now.” He leaned over the parapet, his long tawny- colored locks dancing like flames in the night-breeze. “This is an evening for flying,” he said softly. “Do you ever wish to take the Loänan form, Ailia?”

  “Yes, I have,” she confessed. She had yearned for the power and the majesty, the freedom of flight, the superior strength that would come with a draconic body. To be a dragon was to fear nothing.

  “I long for the day when I can set this human form aside forever, and with it every last tie to the miserable mass of humanity.”

  She looked him in the face. “It’s not your humanity you hate, Mandrake, it’s yourself. You can’t be happy in any kind of body unless your soul is at peace.”

  “Ana again,” he said curtly. “I had hoped it was the real Ailia I was talking with.”

  He turned abruptly and walked away from her, leaping up onto the parapet. For a moment he stood there, poised upon the edge. Then she caught her breath as he raised his arms and flung himself outward, as though he were diving into a pool. There came a sound of wings beating on air far below, and she saw the red dragon soar up into the moon-hung sky. Within minutes he had vanished from her sight.

  Ailia remained at the parapet, her heart beating fast. He had shifted his shape in order to show her that his powers had returned: that the iron wound had healed. To show her that her one advantage was now gone. Another day had passed without success; only one more remained to her.

  DAMION STOOD IN THE THRONE ROOM of Yanuvan. His hands were shackled, and armed guards stood behind him and to either side. He paid no heed to them, nor to the ornate splendor of his surroundings, but gazed steadily at the figure before him on its golden throne, with its jewel-encrusted garments and the sunburst symbol blazing on the wall above its head.

  “He rode his horse directly to the gate of Felizia, explaining to the soldiers who he was. They bound his wrists at once and brought him to Yanuvan,” the captain of the royal guard reported as servants and courtiers alike stared at the captive. Damion said nothing, and his gaze never left the king. Of all the emotions he had expected to feel, pity had not been one. But that was what he felt at the sight of this man, this thing of matter in its resplendent finery, believing that it could live forever and control the world in which it dwelt. Was Khalazar’s mad desire not the dream of every human being? Who did not long to defeat death, to command the hostile forces of nature and render them harmless? And it was all in vain, splendid raiment and throne and temporal power notwithstanding. The figure before him suddenly became pathetic, its trappings of royalty and godhood sad and futile. A mist came before Damion’s eyes, blotting it out.

  “Ah, now you weep!” gloated Khalazar, leaning forward. “You believed yourself very noble coming here—did you not, Damion Athariel? Laying your life down for your fellow rebels. But now that you are here, you understand what is to come. You have not saved them, and you have doomed yourself. Go on—mourn!”

  “It is your fate I mourn for,” Damion told him quietly.

  “Mine!” Khalazar bellowed, springing up from his seat. “You dare! Weep for me! Stop!” he screamed, lunging at Damion. “Stop, I command you!” He struck the young man’s face, making him stumble back.

  But, strangely, there was still no fear in the prisoner’s eyes. Those eyes! So cool, so impassive, with their strange unsettling color, the hue of sea or sky. Khalazar seemed to glimpse infinite depths in them, and knew a moment of unreasoning terror. “I am the God-king!” he shrieked into Damion’s face. But the cry sounded hollow as an echo. Before those calm unwavering blue eyes, all the magnificence of his throne room was reduced to nothing; all his triumphs and conquests were rendered meaningless. This man pitied him, and by so doing reduced him to something pitiable. For that the scoundrel must die—but not now, not yet. He must not only be killed, but also defeated and humbled. He must cringe in fear before the God-king, and own him master.

  “Take this criminal, and beat him,” Khalazar ordered the guards. “Then put him in a cell. Let him have neither bread nor water. We will starve the insolence out of him.”

  Damion offered no resistance as he was led away. Khalazar glared after him, his chest still heaving. He began to fear that he had lost face before his servants with his petulant assault on the prisoner.

  The Zayim must be slain, but I will not kill this one. No! I will parade him captive before the people of Zimboura—those fools who tried to claim he was an angel. I will show them he is no more than a man. And I will use him to entrap the Tryna Lia, as Mandrake said!

  JOMAR AND LORELYN HAD NOT been able either to eat or to sleep. Confined to separate cells far from the other prisoners, they had whispered to one another until a whip-wielding guard threatened to beat them if they did not desist. Having no doubt that he would follow through with the threat, they obeyed. On the first evening they had seen a gray-haired man in military dress dragged past their cell, head hanging. He looked rather like the general who had captured them. All through the night his tortured cries had torn at them, until at last he had fallen silent—forever, they were sure. If the Zimbourans could treat one of their own with such appalling cruelty, what fate awaited the rebel Zayim and his cohorts?

  “Jo,” Lorelyn called presently in a soft voice. “Someone’s coming. Do you hear?”

  Jomar lifted his head from the hard wooden bench on which he was lying. The footsteps coming down the passage were not the slow padding ones of the elderly keeper who brought their scanty meals of bread and water. It sounded to him like more than one set of booted feet. Soldiers. Now what? He sat up, staring as the men came in sight.

  Between them, his face bruised with blows and his shirt torn at the shoulder, stumbled Damion.

  Lorelyn gave a cry and ran to the door of her cell. “Damion! Not you too!”

  He smiled at her. “I surrendered, to save you. The king said he would set you free if I came to him.”

  Jomar stared. “That was the bargain—us for you? Don’t you know you can’t trust Khalazar’s word? He’ll just kill us anyway, and you too. You’ve thrown your life away for nothing!”

  “Not for nothing,” insisted Damion as the guards thrust him into a cell. “I can’t explain, but this is something I must do. Trust me.”

  “I knew it!” exclaimed Jomar despairingly as he and Lorelyn were pulled from their own dungeons by the guards and led away. “Battle shock. He’s gone completely mad! Now Khalazar’s got all of us.”

  “You mean Mandrake,” Lorelyn whispered back. “He’s the real power here. But what does he mean to do with us?”

  “Ailia,” said Jomar. “He wants Ailia. That’s what this is all about. If he—”

  But at that point the guards dragged them apart.

  20

  Victory Stroke

  IN THE MIDDLE OF THE rough path that cut through the jungle’s ferny growths walked two small and unobtrusive human figures: a short stout man with a long white beard, and a little sharp-featured woman with auburn hair. None of the other passersby paid any attention to them. Most walked at a brisk pace despite the heat, seldom glancing up from underneath the broad brims of their protective sun-hats. All of the traffic, the strangers noted, flowed in one direction.

  “Tell me, friend, does the city not lie that way?” Auron asked a man leading an ox-cart piled with belongings.

  “It does—but you may not wish to go there now,” the man replied. “We are all leaving.”

  “Why is that?” Taleera asked. But he only urged his oxen onward.

  The sky overhead was clear, but it had rained here not long ago: the red earth of the road was moist, and scattered with shallow temporary pools that steamed under the two
suns, visibly returning to the air. It had been a curiously localized deluge, for only a hundred yards or so down the path there had been no mud or puddles to be seen. Auron and Taleera continued on their way. Presently they came out of the trees into an open area: the jungle did not so much thin as end abruptly, turning into a waste of toppled trunks and stumps. Beyond lay fields, and the wood and stone structures of a large city, with a towered fortress watching over it from a steep hill.

  A group of shabby-looking men rested by the roadside, sitting on stumps and logs. “You don’t want to be going there,” one of them commented with a sour look as Auron and Taleera passed them. “There’s been a change of leadership in Loänanmar. No more Overseer: he’s packed his bags and fled.”

  Auron halted. “Who is the new ruler?”

  “The old priesthood’s come back, with all their rules: do this, don’t do that. They’ve got all the power now, in the name of their Dragon King.”

  “Dragon King,” Auron repeated. He and Taleera exchanged glances.

  “That’s right. So you’ll not be wanting to go there, believe you me.”

  “I’m afraid we’ve no choice,” Auron said. “We’re looking for a friend of ours, who passed through there not long ago. You wouldn’t have seen her, by any chance—a young lady rather slight in stature, with long golden hair and violet-colored eyes?”

  The biggest and shabbiest of the men laughed and leered. “No, but if I had I’d know what to do with her. Your companion ain’t half bad-looking, either, but for that nose.”

  He lunged to his feet suddenly and seized hold of Taleera’s arm. At once she reached up with the other and struck him neatly across the face with her free hand. There was a distinct snapping sound and the man howled, putting his hand over his nostrils. Blood bubbled from them over his upper lip.

  “You little witch!” he snarled behind his hand. His companions all got to their feet.

  “I do wish you hadn’t done that,” muttered Auron in Taleera’s ear. “Now an altercation is unavoidable.”

  “Oh, shut up, old Worm!” hissed Taleera. “Let’s magic them and go!”

  He answered her in a frantic whisper. “No sorcery! Not while we are so close to him! Her only chance is if we remain undiscovered. How else can we get close enough to rescue her?”

  The men had moved in and encircled them. “What should we do with ’em, Rad?” one asked of the leader, who was still clutching his nose. “Let’s have a bit of play. We’ve had no fun since the Overseer left. The snake pit, then—or into the river for the guivres?”

  But even as he and his friends moved in, jeering and mocking, there was a sound of heavy footfalls from the green wall of jungle behind them, along with the rasping breaths of some enormous creature. Several cockatrices flew up screaming into the air.

  “You stinking louts!” yelled Rad at his men, turning to flee. “I told you we should have took the river! Now you’ve been and brought a lindworm on us with all your noise—or something worse!” Without another word exchanged all the men turned and fled after him.

  “Cowards!” Even in the face of an unknown peril Taleera could not resist a parting shot at their captors.

  The crashing noises in the undergrowth grew louder. The trees quivered, and leaves and fragments of snapped vine showered in all directions as the jungle denizen burst out into the sunlight, bounding on four clawed feet and flexing giant wings. It halted in front of Auron and Taleera, gazing at them with great amber eyes.

  They relaxed. “Oh, it’s you, Falaar,” the bird-woman said. “Well, thank goodness for that.”

  “I thought it best that I wait as near the city as possible,” the cherub explained, “so that I might come more quickly at thy call.”

  “Well, you have saved us the need of using sorcery this time,” said Auron. “And it is fortunate indeed those men left before they had a glimpse of you. They may not know what a cherub is, but they would have told the tale, and if Mandrake or his minions heard of it they would know a protector of the Stone is here. It would be best for you to go back and hide again, at least until we find the Tryna Lia.” He turned to Taleera. “Let us go on into the city.”

  “I will never go anywhere in this world again in human form!” declared Taleera. “At least, not if I can help it.”

  “Neither will I.” Auron shifted again, this time taking the form of a yellow-furred dog.

  Taleera grumbled: “All very well for you. I can assume no other forms.”

  Wait here, then, both of you, and I will see what I can learn. The dog turned and loped off toward the city.

  Within a few minutes Auron had reached the old stone gates. He stopped and stared at these, his hackles rising. The figures adorning them were not like the serene Loänan of the ethereal portals, but were carved to appear fierce and menacing, bristling with bared fangs and outstretched talons. Loänei work, he thought in distaste: these dragon statues were designed to fill human viewers with terror and awe. He padded on, through Loänanmar’s streets. To all eyes he was no more than a mangy cur, one of many that roamed the city. Even other dogs were deceived, for his very odor was authentic. One or two snarled and tried to fight him as he approached, but he easily evaded them and ran on. He had always found the canine form useful when exploring human cities. In human shape he might be accosted and questioned, but as a stray dog he could wander freely—though, remembering the fondness of certain peoples for dog meat, he always took care to make himself thin and unappetizing in appearance. The dog’s acute senses of smell and hearing were also very helpful, far superior to a human being’s. As he trotted briskly through the grim streets his nostrils worked continually, deciphering scents. He ignored most of them—though if any humans eyed him he would sniff around the rubbish in the gutters, for the sake of appearances.

  He hung about inns and taverns for the most part, ostensibly looking for scraps but really listening in on conversations. He also paused briefly by the large temple in the city center, peering in at its door and listening to the chanted liturgy until a shouting priest drove him away. Mandrake, he gathered, ruled here as a sort of god-king: the very thought made him growl and bristle. Ailia, it seemed, had made no move against her foe yet. Then where was she?

  Weary hours of search yielded no answer. He was on the point of giving in when he turned down another alley and noticed a particular scent coming from the doorway of one inn. Ailia’s scent.

  He recognized it at once, and ran through the inn door into its main room, yelping as a large troll standing guard by the entrance made a grab at him. He dodged, darting under a table, and ran on into the kitchen.

  A young girl was in there cutting strips of meat on a board. The scent he had caught came from her. Was this Ailia herself in glaumerie guise? But he sensed no sorcery from her. He sniffed, his sensitive nostrils flaring. Yes, it was definitely Ailia’s scent. But how could that be?

  The girl, who was little more than a child, saw him and recoiled, crying: “Mamma, there’s a dog in here! A stray!”

  A grizzle-haired woman with gold earrings came in from the inn’s central court carrying a pot of steaming broth. Setting it down on the table, she stared at Auron. “Ah—poor thing! He doesn’t look like a biter to me, Mai. More likely he’s hoping for a handout. See how he’s sniffing at that meat!”

  It was not the meat, but the long filmy scarf binding back the girl’s hair at which Auron’s straining muzzle pointed. The Ailia-scent clung to the cloth. She too had worn this scarf, he was sure of it. The scent was fading, but she must have worn it a long time for the traces to linger so.

  “Poor fellow,” said the woman gently. “He looks half-starved—see how thin he is! You go into the dining room, dear, and I’ll just give him a scrap or two.” She turned toward the table again.

  The instant the girl was gone and the woman’s back was turned, Auron changed to his human form. He stood there quietly until the woman faced him again, the meat scraps in her hand. Her eyes widened, and the morsels
of food dropped to the floor.

  “Oh,” she gasped. “Where did you come from? You gave me such a start!”

  “Do not be afraid,” he soothed, smiling and holding out his hands in a calming gesture. “I am only looking for a friend of mine, a woman named Ailia.”

  She looked puzzled and a little wary. “I know no one of that name. You’ve come to the wrong place, I think.”

  “I am certain she has been here. Your daughter’s scarf—”

  “That scarf?” she said. “What of it? I made it out of a young lady’s petticoat.”

  “Lady?”

  “Well, so I liked to call her, though she was poor and rather plain. But she was a lovely kind-hearted girl. Where she got that gorgeous fabric I don’t know. Her name was Lia.”

  Lia. Star. Auron’s human heart began to beat painfully fast against his ribs. He stared into the main room. Now that he had human eyes again he could clearly see that the girl’s scarf was the same warm apricot hue as the chiton Ailia had been wearing when he last saw her. His dog’s eyes with their limited color vision had not been able to perceive the delicate shade.

  “You speak of her in the past tense. What became of her?” he implored her.

  The woman looked away. “We don’t know. The Dragon King’s priests called for a sacrifice, and my Mai offered herself. Lia went with her, to comfort her. Mai was released by the dragon-folk later; but we never saw Lia again. And that is all I know. I can barely speak of it—I’m that worried about her.”

  “I, too,” he said huskily.

  She looked at him, then held out a hand. “I’m Mag, by the bye. This is my place, and any friend of Lia’s is welcome here. There’s one companion of hers staying with us already.”