Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 5-8

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  “Tor can open the door,” the other voice said. Zin by her deferential tone. I’d never noticed how much like her sister she sounded. Their tones were always so different, and her voice was slightly higher. “Maybe if he gets better, he can open it up again and get us out of here.”

  “Or maybe it will kill him! You don’t know how they make these objects of power, Zin!” Zyla’s voice was a low growl until it broke at the end. “The things they do ...”

  “Don’t I?” Zin’s voice sounded absent, but there was an edge to it. I could tell even with my eyes shut tight that she was shying away from the memory of the night when the two of us had almost been made into objects of power – our souls sucked out of us to be used for their magic.

  Someone shoved a bracelet over my wrist and the burning pain vanished, eaten up by the magic of the healing bracelet. A second set of hands wrenched it off again, but those few seconds had been enough to heal the magic injury of whatever Shabren had done to me.

  They needed me. My head felt so heavy and the pain throbbed hard behind my eyes, but I forced them open.

  Above me was the strangest pattern, like a woven tapestry of green and brown ropes. Light trickled – green and gold – filtering through the gaps between the threads. I blinked and the threads grew clearer. I almost gasped aloud.

  I was lying beneath an enormous tree. A tree so large that my vision was filled entirely by layers of branches and leaves, crossing each other, weaving one over the other, layer upon layer upon layer. And those were only the layers I could see. Above them, who knew how far this tree might stretch?

  It could fill the world.

  Along the branches, in an indiscernible pattern, small glowing lights like miniature suns glowed in bright orbs. Their colors varied. Some were purple, some white, some yellow, some blue. Perhaps there were more colors higher up. I felt drawn to them. Perhaps I should climb the tree and seize the orbs. The branches were thick enough. Some were thick as a man. Some looked as thick as a house.

  I wasn’t thinking clearly. But it was hard to think clearly when your world was full of pain. It was nicer to sit and stare at a tree. I let my mind run along the branches, tracing their lines, not thinking of anything else at all.

  “Maybe he can at least talk to Saboraak,” Zin insisted. “If he is healed enough to move.”

  “We should pull him over there. Maybe he needs to be close to her.” Zyla’s face suddenly filled my view. “He seems to be awake.”

  “We shouldn’t move him,” Zin was firm.

  Zyla frowned. She was lovely when she was frowning. I had a vague memory of being married to her. I remembered three small children with impish grins, their chubby hands grabbing her skirts and tugging at her hair. Wait. No. That had just been a vision used by the Ko’tor’kaen to torture me. Or test me. Or both. I still liked the memory, though. I remembered that tough exterior melting at the right words from me and those firm, frowning lips softening to kiss me. A man could tolerate frowns if there were an equal number of kisses. But no ... wait ... there had been a reason not to trust her.

  “Traitor,” I gasped.

  Zyla’s face twisted angrily. “I’m no traitor you hay-haired fool. What do you think spies do? Announce themselves? Say, ‘I am here to learn your secrets and cause your downfall. Now, what are they?’ No. We go undercover. We get information. We spy!”

  I coughed. Speaking hurt. “Silver eyes.”

  That was my evidence. My proof that she was more than a spy. She had participated. It was only the participants – the people actually sucking the souls out of others – who got silver in their eyes and when it became too much, it burst out of them.

  She shook her head. “What does that have to do with anything? To get information I had to go undercover. I had to be near them when they were – Hey!”

  I sat up and grabbed her throat. It was small in my hand, but I pulled her down to the ground, down to my level. My shoulder and chest were screaming in pain. I’d certainly broken my collarbone. My back flared in pain, too, as if I had been burned, and that dull throbbing of concussion still filled my head. I shoved the pain aside, pulling her to where I could see her. No time for pain. But there was time for answers.

  Zyla grabbed my wrist with both her hands. I wasn’t choking her. I was just making sure I had her attention.

  “Your eyes are silver.” I coughed violently but kept my hold on her. It was hard to breathe.

  Her expression was all courage and defiance. “They’re gold. Always have been. Though I could see why that might confuse you. I doubt you’ve ever had much of either.”

  “With swirls of silver.” I coughed again. I didn’t have the strength to debate the details. “You were there when they killed someone. When they hung him up by the heels and drained his soul out of him.”

  I gasped from the effort of so many words and Zyla’s face went white, her expression stiffening.

  “It’s not easy to be a spy.”

  I let her go, sagging against my good arm and gasping in pain. Zin rushed to my side, her gentle hands lifting my useless left arm and gently raising it to my lap. She slipped something over my wrist.

  “You knew.” Rage filled me. While I had been saving Zyla’s sister, she had been assisting in the murder of innocents.

  “I learned things, Tor. Things that will save our land.” Her bottom lip was trembling as she backed up. Her hands were trembling, too. “I couldn’t have stopped it, anyway. There were dozens of them and just one of me. What was I supposed to do?”

  My eyes narrowed, and I leaned forward as I growled, “What I did!”

  “What you did?” She scoffed, but her expression was sad, as if it hurt her to fight me. “Make a big useless dramatic display? Become the center of attention for an entire nation not just once but twice? You don’t know anything about what they are doing. You’re the worst spy I’ve ever heard of!”

  “I know they’re making golems out of souls. An army of them to attack the Dominion!”

  She stood up so that she could look down on me as she spoke, her husky voice growing more bitter with every word. She vibrated with emotion – something deep and secret she was keeping hidden from me.

  “Oh, good for you, Tor. You know they’re making an army? Amazing! Do you know their numbers? Do you have a list of their allies both in Ko’Torenth and the Dominion? Do you know how they are going to transport the army? When they will attack? What weapons they have and how they are producing them?”

  “I know enough!” I said, forcing poison into my words. “I know who I can trust. You left your sister to be used.”

  She recoiled like she’d been slapped.

  “You left her to be made into a toy. And even when I gave you a second chance, you put her in danger again!”

  Zyla had gone deadly still. “You know nothing. Nothing.”

  “Why did you bring her to the Bright Redemption, Zyla? Why did you put her in danger again, when you came down to find me with Karema and that other man? Explain that! Explain why you thought it was okay to risk her life again after I’d rescued her! Explain why you didn’t run then with the precious information you’d gathered and your sister’s life! You had every reason to go and none to stay!”

  She was shaking now, her mouth working and no words coming out, but she didn’t have to speak. I knew the truth. I knew that she was selfish. That she cared for nothing but herself – and maybe Bataar. I still remembered the looks she’d given me when she thought I was him. She was selfish and awful and the worst of humans.

  It made me embarrassed to think that I’d liked kissing her. Embarrassed that my heart had raced at a glance from her. I wanted to spit the taste of her out of my mouth forever. But it lingered. Even now I could taste it again.

  She got a hold of herself, but her face was red and her whole body trembled as she leaned down, captured my gaze, and in a voice rippling with violence said, “You. I went there to save you, you idiot!”

  She didn’t wait
for me to move or speak. I couldn’t do either, anyway.

  Me? She came for me?

  Zyla, the great spy, was saying she revealed herself to save me? Did I dare to trust that?

  She spun on her heel and stormed away leaving me in a trembling, painful heap on the ground. I looked at Zin. Her eyes were wide, as tears streaked down her face.

  I tried to be gentle. I knew it was easy to break Zin. I hadn’t planned to put her in danger again. I’d planned to protect her and keep her safe forever.

  “Don’t cry. Please. It will be okay. I’ll take care of you.”

  I must have said something wrong because my words just made her cry more.

  Chapter Two

  THE PAIN WAS EASING a little. I pushed myself to my feet with a moan, gripping the wrist of my left hand with my right to try to keep it steady.

  Zin hurried to me and helped me gently ease my arm to rest in the buttoned front of my jacket.

  “The bracelet will help,” she said softly. She looked down shyly and then pulled the book of prophecies out of her pocket. “I have your book.”

  I took a long breath, trying to fill my lungs and manage the pain from breathing at the same time.

  “You should keep it. Seriously. You understand it better than I do.”

  “I memorized it.”

  My eyes widened. “The whole thing?”

  She blushed and looked away, but I didn’t take the book.

  “Hold onto it for me, will you? I keep doing dangerous things. I’d hate to lose it.”

  “You need it. And you might lose me.”

  She was still looking away, but I needed her to look at me for this part.

  “Zin.”

  Still too shy to look.

  I tried again. “Zin?”

  Her sidelong glance was enough.

  “I’m not going to lose you. I’m going to keep you safe.”

  She lifted her chin bravely. “And I will keep you safe.”

  I pointed to the bracelet on my injured arm. “See? You’re already doing it.”

  She smiled tremulously, and I gently took the book from her, stuffing it into a pocket.

  Okay. One fire put out.

  Now, where were we?

  We were standing on one of the massive roots of the tree I’d been lying under. The trunk was not far off – a wall of smooth wood encasing a rippling wood base. But tangled in the roots were dark lumps. Grass and colorful mushrooms sprouted up between the roots, but the crevices between them were few. There was no flat ground at all.

  I turned in a slow circle. The roots went as far as I could see in every direction, tangled over each other and around the lumps, layered one over the other like the weaving of a basket.

  I did not see the Door of Heavens anywhere.

  To one side, Kyrowat hunched over a sprawling Hubric.

  “Where is the doorway?” I asked Zin.

  “This is all there is.”

  “But you said I could open it if I was healed.”

  She looked at me with her huge trusting eyes. “Can you find it, too?”

  That was bad. There was no way out of this place – whatever it was – without a door. Not an easy one, anyway. The other doors had all taken us directly from one place to another. And it was possible that the doorway had also done that, but there was something strange about this place. Something otherworldly.

  Zin almost seemed to belong here. She settled easily onto any root nearby, plucking tiny flowers from the grass between the roots and idly weaving them into chains.

  I walked slowly to Kyrowat and Hubric. It was hard work. Every step jarred my collarbone, sending shooting pains through me. Oddly, my back was feeling better. Whatever damage Shabren’s magic had done was easing. My head felt clearer than it had in hours. Although that might be the air.

  There was something about the air here that cleared the head.

  “Can you help me?” I asked Zin as we reached Hubric. I pointed to my thick cloak and she helped me remove it and lay it over the old man.

  He didn’t look good. He was breathing but he was pale and sweaty. Kyrowat and I would have to go for help.

  Not a chance.

  Not even to save Hubric?

  I’m helping him stay alive. I’m keeping his mind clear. I won’t leave this place.

  “Zin?”

  “Yes?” She looked worried as she looked from Hubric to me. Her chain of flowers hung innocently in her hands.

  “I’m so thankful that you gave me Bataar’s bracelet, but I think I’ll be okay.”

  “But your arm – ”

  I cut her off, “Is a simple break, not a magical wound. The bracelet has already helped the magical wounds I had. Now, Hubric needs it. And he needs you. Will you stay here and help care for him?”

  She nodded and I slipped the bracelet painfully from my wrist and gave her a reassuring smile as she settled down on a root beside the old man.

  That was the best I could do for them. If they were near Kyrowat, he would flame anything really dangerous. And despite his cantankerousness, he wouldn’t leave Zin to be hurt.

  Now, to figure out what needed doing next.

  I should probably take care of Zyla, too, but I didn’t know where she was and I was still too angry and shocked to apologize – if I even wanted to apologize. I wasn’t sure about that yet. She was a traitor, after all, and I didn’t like the way my heart twisted when I looked at her.

  Next task – my dragon was here somewhere, and I was going to find her.

  Tor?

  I gasped. It was as if she had heard me.

  I did hear you.

  Why did she sound so faint?

  Come to me.

  Where are you?

  I scanned the area, but all I saw were roots tangled over one thing or another. I’d better move. Maybe I would see her out here somewhere. She’d better not be hanging by her feet from something or there would be people paying with their feet for any harm they’d done to her.

  I climbed gingerly over a waist-high root and into a tangle of other roots. My collarbone hurt. I clenched my jaw hard at the pain and pushed on.

  Over the next gnarled root, using smaller roots as steps and handholds. The pain with every climb left me breathless and gasping.

  Still nothing.

  Maybe I needed a better vantage point.

  I struggled up a mound of smaller roots covering something heavy and hard. They were so interwoven that it was hard to see what they disguised at all. Not to worry. Once I got up there, I’d be able to look for Saboraak. She had to be here somewhere.

  I stood painfully on the mound, scanning the roots all around me and gasping for a full breath, fighting at the steady shoots of stabbing pain that flashed in every direction from my broken bone.

  Where could she be?

  Saboraak? Any chance of a hint?

  I was missing that old girl. I couldn’t wait to climb up on her back again and fly off into the sunset.

  Well, you have half your wish.

  Her mental voice was so faint that I could barely hear her. If only I could see her somehow.

  Look down.

  I looked down. There was nothing but roots and more roots and more roots and ... was that an eye?

  Chapter Three

  I LEAPT BACK IN SHOCK, grunting when my collarbone flared in pain again. Ugh. That was going to get old fast. How long did broken bones take to mend? I was surprised Saboraak wasn’t already chiding me for getting myself in this sort of situation.

  Weak.

  I looked around nervously. Whatever had tangled her in roots could come back at any moment and tangle the rest of us up, too. I should have brought that axe instead of just knives. It was going to take most of the day to cut her free with those.

  Come closer.

  How did I get closer than standing on her back?

  Where I can see you.

  I climbed down carefully. Now that I knew it was my dragon under these tangled roots, I didn�
��t dare be too rough.

  Hang in there, old girl. I’ll get you free.

  I was nearly down. I swung past her great eye and clambered to what was sort of ground level. It was hard to tell through all these roots. Even her mouth was wrapped tightly in roots. I should warn Kyrowat. Maybe she’d gone into the dragon sleep before they did this to her. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to him. Although he probably already knew. Dragons talked, right?

  Closer.

  I leaned in close to her eye and found a patch of dragon scale about the size of my palm free of the cloying roots. I pressed a cheek to hers. She felt cooler than usual. Usually pressing my cheek to her scales was anything from uncomfortably warm to burning hot. She was barely as warm as I was.

  I fade. I spent my last strength calling to you in the world outside.

  Outside what?

  The arches.

  Shouldn’t the arches just take us to somewhere else in the world?

  Not the way you came in – or the way we did. I had meant to tell you before you went through them, but you came the right way on your own.

  What was the right way?

  There are two ways to go through the doors. One way is the way that the people of Ko’Torenth use them. That way serves as a direct gate from one to another. You’ve seen that before with me. They use them for many things – transporting large caravans or important dignitaries. As ways to move armies. Or to mine. Their mining is much quicker and more effective with such an efficient way to move the ore from the depths of the ground. Safer, too.

  Okay. Well, we could have guessed all of that. But what about this other way?

  It is a way that only Ko’Bearers may go.

  Not really. She didn’t have Ko on her arms. Neither did the girls, nor Hubric, nor Kyrowat.

  But you opened the Door of Heavens for them. You touched your symbol moments before you all went through.

  Sure.

  That told the door to open the other way. Only Ko Bearers may open the Door of Heavens that way – the real way.

  How did she know all of this?

  I learned it in Kav’ai with Bataar’s family. They tricked us and sent us through the door. It’s a long story. But to simplify: They are furious with Bataar for shirking his destiny and running away. They demanded that he fulfill his obligation to them immediately – and that started by entering the Door of Heavens the real way.