Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 5-8

by Wilson, Sarah K. L.

  Good points.

  “We need a different route up to the Castel guardrooms. Let’s try this way,” Zyla said, leading the way through the door and up a set of stairs. I followed her, glad she was taking the lead so that I could think.

  “How do you know where to go?”

  “All Castels are laid out in basically the same way. The lower tiers are for stables and cotes and storerooms. The more important the people doing a thing are, the higher the level that houses them.”

  “You aren’t worried about Eventen and Katlana,” I whispered.

  If the Dominion was this full of spies, then we were in a lot of trouble. We needed our sky cities and dragon cotes to be loyal and strong. Especially with Ko’Torenth posed to take over.

  “Of course I’m worried about them,” she hissed as we threaded our way through stairways and hallways. “But we don’t know how they got here so quickly or what they might be up to and we won’t until we see Captain Arendis. So, let’s hurry and get our answers.”

  We left the dragon levels, then the storerooms and stables and kitchens level.

  “The guardhouse should be somewhere here,” Zyla said as we climbed the next set of steps. “Any higher and we begin to tread into Castelan territory.”

  She burst through a door and we found ourselves in a walled courtyard with an open sky, trellises of vines and a babbling waterfall were surrounded by benches and flowering plants.

  “Pretty spot,” I muttered, but I was distracted when my mimic kicked a standing stained-glass window.

  His shadow foot went right through, just like the light that left red gleams as it passed through the crimson stained glass. It was a delicately wrought symbol of a spiral with a line through it. I hadn’t seen that before, and yet it pulled up a memory. Hadn’t I just read about that today?

  Spiral that binds in crimson revealed. Spiral that chokes in light displayed. Take warning all who heed the Light. Take courage to fight.

  Weird. But then, all the prophecies were weird. I still felt like I should be nervous about that sign.

  “Hurry, Tor. I don’t want to be found out of place,” Zyla said.

  It was strangely quiet in this Castel. Shouldn’t we have bumped into someone by now? A guard or a servant at the very least? The city outside had been bustling. Why was the Castel so quiet?

  There’s something wrong with this place, Saboraak said.

  Did she know what?

  It’s just a feeling. A feeling of something rotten. And now the dragons are too quiet. All of them except the Greens smell wrong.

  I felt it, too, though I couldn’t place it. Or maybe it was just me. Maybe there was something wrong with me after all the pain and difficulty I’d seen. Maybe I couldn’t handle pretty glass pictures or laughter or smiling Green Dragon Riders. Maybe, I’d gone mad from the pressure.

  I scratched at my headband. Dusk was settling on the Castel. We needed to be done our business before the moon rose. I could hide the golden crown in the day and Zyla and I could hide our arm markings at night, but my face signs would show in the moonlight.

  “Here we are,” Zyla said as we entered a huge room with long wooden tables. Benches lined the sides of the tables and a gaping fireplace on one wall was filled with ashes from a dead fire. Weapons and armor hung on the walls in decorative display and on racks for easy access. It did look like a guardhouse.

  “But where are the guards?” I asked aloud.

  Zyla’s forehead wrinkled with concern and her voice was just a little too high when she said, “I read this story in one of my father’s old books.”

  We walked toward a door on the other side of the room as she told the story.

  “It was a ghost story and I swear, this makes me think of it.”

  “Go on,” I said. It was getting dark in here now. There were windows, but no lit torches or lanterns and the last rays of the sun ran red.

  “Well, it was about a small village and a traveler visited it. In the daytime, the village was bustling and busy, but at night, it was a ghost town.”

  “It was full of ghosts?” I asked, trying not to look too nervously at the shadows.

  “No. There was just no one at all. The people were not real, just a magic illusion thrown over the town to lull people into a sense of security so that at night the real inhabitants could come out.”

  “And offer a dinner of beer and sausages and a warm welcome?” I asked hopefully.

  “Oh. They came for dinner, alright,” she said, her voice so spooky that I shivered.

  “I think I’ve heard enough of that ghost story,” I said, and I flung open the door.

  Chapter Fourteen

  IF THE MAN SITTING behind the desk was Captain Arendis, then he was not going to hear our message. Not now, or ever.

  I froze in the doorway as the heavy wooden door thumped against the wall. The man in the chair – if that was what that was – was manacled to the desk, his skin shriveled around his bones and his uniform hanging loosely over his skeletal shoulders.

  “We’re late,” I said, barely suppressing a nervous giggle. “He died of boredom waiting for us.”

  Zyla’s lips pressed firmly together before she jabbed me in the ribs. “Would you be serious for once, Tor?”

  “Who’s joking?” I said, worry twisting my lips. “This guy is dead serious, and I have a feeling that I might be, too.”

  I wasn’t worried about the moon rising and my tattoos showing anymore. I wasn’t worried about how to sneak through the sky city without being seen. I was worried that there might not be anyone left who saw us at all.

  “Do you think they took his soul for a magical item?” Zyla asked, pointing to a long thin tube running out from under the skeleton’s sleeve and to the floor.

  The desk was bare. The shelves on the wall held nothing but books. There were no suspicious looking items or glowing weapons, or ancient tomes. It was as boring of a room in a haunted castle as anyone could imagine.

  Was Saboraak hearing this?

  I’m worried, Tor. The moon is rising, and the dragons have quieted down completely.

  How quiet?

  I’m only hearing the Greens we flew here with: Tachril, Hyoogan, Nazscal, Elumans, Nelmper, Izhoedi. And they are all I can smell, too.

  “Should we look for the Castelan, do you think?” I asked Zyla. I didn’t want to admit that I had no idea what to do next.

  She was pale as a sheet, the white of the rising moon flooding through the window, bringing her ko to life, and throwing long dark shadows across the room. One bled out behind the skeleton in the chair, staining the wall behind it deathly-black.

  “Zyla?” I asked.

  “All those people in the city,” she breathed. “Hurrying, bustling, working.”

  Ice rolled down my own spine. I’d felt so excited to arrive here. Every bit of me had been anticipating some part of this city from the smells to the tastes to the sounds.

  “They can’t all be ghosts,” I gestured at the man in the chair. “Maybe this isn’t what we think it is.”

  Zyla stepped toward me and then abruptly flung her arms around me. I hugged her close. She’d better not think that I was the one who was scared. I wiped my palm on my breeches, hoping the fear sweat wouldn’t tip her off.

  “Let’s get out of here,” she said in a small voice.

  “I like how you think,” I agreed, offering her the dry hand while I furtively wiped my other palm. No reason to panic. Bad things happened, right? Didn’t mean they needed to happen to us.

  Are you trapped, Saboraak?

  No.

  Maybe you should get out of the cotes.

  And go where?

  Somewhere where you can see all around you without walls or anything in the way. Somewhere no one can sneak up on you from behind.

  As we walked through the long hall, I stripped weapons from the wall: throwing knives for all my sheaths and a fighting axe.

  “You can’t fight ghosts with metal,” my m
imic said, popping out of nowhere to examine the edge of a sword.

  Of course, he was there. No situation was so bad that it couldn’t be made worse by Shadow Tor.

  “Now, now, you know I might be useful,” the mimic said as Zyla pulled a polearm off the wall, holding it tightly in her spare hand. “If it comes to violence, you might need to let me out to play. All your best fighting ideas come from me.”

  I clenched my jaw.

  “Ready?” I asked Zyla.

  She nodded. “Tor?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know that I like to tease you and sometimes you just plain rub me the wrong way.”

  “Sure, sure,” I said. Did we really need to talk about my personality deficiencies right now?

  She bit her lip. “I just want you to know that I actually really like you. You think up the craziest things but you’re never afraid of anything. I just like being around someone who sees an upside to everything, who doesn’t ever let anything get him down for long, who refuses to admit defeat. You know?”

  I didn’t know. I’d never really understood what she saw in me. I still didn’t see how any of that was a good thing.

  “Okay. Can we get back to Saboraak now?”

  She looked disappointed, pulling her hand from mine. I took a deep breath, pushed aside the sense of urgency that told me we should already be running, and took her hand back.

  “Hey,” I said, waiting until she looked at me. “I like you, too. You’re smart. Sometimes even smarter than me. And courageous. And you keep me guessing all the time.”

  She was smiling now.

  “So,” I said. “Let’s try to keep you alive so we can have more of these awkward conversations.”

  She laughed and I pulled her hand, jogging down the big room and into the corridor.

  “I think we should forget trying to get back to the dragon cotes and just get to a window so Saboraak can get us out,” I called as I ran.

  It sounded so simple, but these things were never simple. If I’d learned anything from Ko’Torenth, it was that. But this time I had someone with me more valuable than myself, and I wasn’t going to let a bunch of wispy ghosts snatch her away. Not now that she’d admitted that she liked me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  RUNNING DOWN THE ECHOING corridors without a torch lit or a servant to be found as the moon rose through the many narrow windows was a spooky feeling. I didn’t know where I was going, and every turn and shadow seemed to hide a hidden ghoul.

  I see movement below.

  Where was Saboraak?

  I’m circling the Castel, waiting for you to appear. Is there a window big enough for you? This is the strangest city I’ve ever seen. Not a lamp lit, or a guard posted. The Black dragons that were circling the city have all vanished.

  There were no windows wide enough for Zyla and me to squeeze out. Not yet. Our footsteps echoed through the corridors.

  What sort of movement had she seen?

  Something is flying ...

  I gritted my teeth and kept running.

  “Any ideas?” I called to Zyla. “We need to find a balcony or a window.”

  “Stop.”

  “What?”

  “Stop!”

  I skidded to a stop and she pulled me to one of the narrow windows.

  “We won’t get through there,” I was already saying, but she pressed her face to the opening, looking up and down.

  “There are balconies one floor up and a little that direction,” she said, pointing in the direction we’d been running. “Let’s find a staircase.”

  “That was good thinking,” I said as we ran on. My hand felt natural against hers, like they were made to fit together. It was telling a completely different tale than my hand with the axe. That one was sweaty and nervous.

  “You did say I was smart,” she replied. “Here’s the stairway.”

  We trotted up the steps.

  It’s a golden dragon! I’m going to call to him!

  Don’t! Saboraak? Don’t call to him!

  We crested the top of the stairs and ran almost headlong into Katlana. She held her firestick in one hand and her helmet covered the bottom half of her face.

  “Are you the one who killed this party? It’s completely dead down there,” I said, skidding to a stop a few paces in front of her. I could see the outline of a balcony through the two wide windows behind her. They were the only ones with balconies along the lengthy hall we stood in. The moon was level with the balcony railing, throwing black shadows from each rail and outlining Katlana in electric white.

  “This is beyond you, kid. And don’t think you can smart talk me. I won’t be keeping you as a captive. I saw what you did to Shabren.”

  “He was fine when I left,” I said glibly, trying to indicate to Zyla with a head nod that she should skirt around Katlana. She planted her feet firmly and held her polearm at the ready instead. I almost sighed. Tell her up and she’d go down. Tell her left and she’d go right. She had more than a mind of her own, she had stubbornness to rival the mountains.

  “You call drooling like a baby fine? We have to strain his food.”

  My eyebrows rose and the skin on the backs of my arms tingled. I’d thought things were bad for me after that fight. What had my mimic done to Shabren?

  “You saw me do it,” the mimic said from where he was leaning casually against the wide window in front of the balcony. “I told you that destroying his shadow would be a problem for him.”

  I hadn’t believed him. Not really.

  “I think drooling is better than dead. Shabren got off easy,” I said, circling as I spoke, trying to get toward the window.

  Katlana leapt forward, her firestick blazing across our path to the window, but not quite close enough to hit us.

  “Don’t even think about it. I know you want to get to that balcony. You’re going to have to go through me.”

  Saboraak?

  Her answer was instant. I’ll be there to catch you if you need me, but things are ... interesting ... out here. I am currently hiding.

  From what?

  Remember that gold dragon? The one you saw Eventen beside?

  Yeah?

  It’s possible that your suspicions about him were correct.

  I knew that guy was a creep! Could she at least get to our balcony? I could use the distraction. Maybe then Zyla could get out while I held Katlana’s attention.

  “So, you’re saying you’re our only obstacle?” I taunted Katalana. “You couldn’t have made it any easier.”

  “I’ll show you how impossible it is.”

  “How about a battle of the wits?” I suggested. “No need for a physical fight, right?”

  I thought she might be smirking under the helmet. “You’d be at the disadvantage.”

  “Then you’ll try it? I have this trick I do with three bowls ...”

  “No.” She advanced another step.

  I readied my axe. “Or perhaps a foot race. You look like a fast woman. It would be very fair.”

  “No.” Another step. We were almost in range of that fire.

  “Surely there’s some non-violent way we can settle this.” I turned to Zyla and whispered, “Run.”

  She shook her head at me, brandishing her polearm.

  “Someone needs to help Saboraak!” I hissed.

  She looked torn but she sighed and darted to the side.

  “Wrong way,” Katlana said. “There are no other balconies in that direction.” She turned back to me, though she could still see Zyla out of the corner of her eye. “And no, I’m not going to opt for non-violence. There are some in the city who did. They aren’t with us now.”

  “Who is ‘us’, exactly,” I asked. “Not Shabren, since he’s back in the world of fluffy toys and bibs. Who ran this operation, Katlana? Was it your brother?”

  She flinched.

  “No?” I was surprised. “No loyalty to your family?”

  “Decisions were made.” She lunged at me and I dod
ged to the side, barely avoiding the burst of fire that seared the air where I’d been. “In war people die.”

  Zyla darted in behind Katlana, using her lunge as a chance to get past her and hurry toward the balcony.

  “What war?” Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a dark shape descending on the balcony. Was it Saboraak?

  Not me.

  Zyla must think that was Saboraak! I wanted to call out to her, but if I did, then Katlana would spin around and set her ablaze.

  My heart was pounding in my chest and my head ached. I rubbed at the cloth over my forehead.

  “Don’t bother scratching. You and those marks will all be gone soon enough. At least House Akona is clever enough to know that those marks are a problem.” She began to quote and I recognized the words, “‘The day of walking legends comes. A Legend returned from the north to fill the breach, to stop the leak of souls and death of power. His sign the brand of smoke on skin.’ We recovered that when we took that book from Hubric. His little book of prophecies. And now here we are in the north of the Dominion and you know what, Tor?”

  “What?” I asked. Eventen leapt off the dark shape in the balcony and I gasped.

  Katlana risked a look behind her and then smiled. “Looks like my ride is here.”

  “At least that ends Prophecy Hour,” I quipped, dodging a second burst of flame and rolling forward, coming up with the axe and arcing it toward Katlana’s legs.

  She leapt backward, but she was on the defensive now and I pressed forward, hacking and cutting through the air, trying to snag a leaping leg or hurried arm. My axe cracked against her fire stick and painful reverberations rang up the blade and through my arms into my chest. My jaw slammed shut and I arched back from the pain – a mirror image to Katlana who was also arching back, her hand with the rod in it opening, fingers splayed out in pain.

  Axe and firestick fell to the ground. One glance was all I needed to see that both had shattered.

  Zyla cried out and I spun toward her in alarm. Her polearm slashed at Eventen. His look of shock sent a stab of smugness through me. See? Not everyone likes your smarmy charm, Eventen.