Gods help me, she thought, wiping her eyes, concentrating on breathing through her mouth, though it was little better, has poor Pirakos lived in his own filth all this time? Her stomach did another slow flip.
She took a cautious breath, shallow and experimental. The stench of excrement was nearly overwhelming, but, worse yet, under it she could smell festering flesh and old, rotting blood. She breathed through her mouth again, sickened. Morlen had been right; Pirakos’s chains had dug into his flesh as a rope knotted around a young tree is covered by the growing wood. The thought of his agony made her knees tremble.
Still, there was no gain in standing here. She shuffled a little further into the cavern.
Something caught Maurynna’s foot; she stumbled. In catching herself, her foot came down heavily on a lump that splintered with a dry crack and threw her off balance. She staggered and fell.
Her hand came down on a round rock. But when her fingers closed over it, they slid into two openings. Holding her breath, Maurynna explored further.
It wasn’t a rock. It was a skull. A human skull.
“I must see how my brother fares,” Tefira insisted. “I know which way he went. Even I’ve learned the ways through this badland. I listened when the scouts talked, studied the maps they scratched in the dirt. I—just never learned where the slave camp was.”
Raven knew it was dangerous. Worse, it was useless. Unarmed as they were, they could give Shima no aid. But neither could he gainsay Tefira’s right. This was a matter of kin. So he nodded sharply and said, “So be it.”
Tefira was off like a racehorse. Raven scrambled after him, only his long legs enabling him to keep up with the boy. Up and down and around they ran, dodging boulders and prickly plants, until they reached a ridge. There they hunkered down among the rocks so that they wouldn’t stand out against the skyline. Below them, the earth formed a rock-strewn hollow. Raven cleared a space of some sharp stones and laid down on his stomach, careful to keep his head in a patch of shadow so that the sun wouldn’t flame in his hair.
“See the path that runs just below the ridge on the other side? I think Shima will make for that; it leads down to a maze of trails that the Jehangli won’t go through if they can help it. Sometimes our young warriors hunt there. We can reach it from this side as well.”
Tefira did not, Raven noted, say just what the warriors came to hunt. He suspected it wasn’t rabbits.
“Here he comes!” Joy and relief flooded the boy’s voice.
Raven saw Shima crest the ridge and slither down to the trail. One moment all was well; the Tah’nehsieh ran along the path like a mountain goat. The next, Shima was tumbling down the slope in a cloud of dust.
Then Raven heard the faint sound of shouted orders and knew that the soldiers would be there any moment.
“Thank you for letting Yesuin ride with us again,” Linden said, reining Shan alongside Dzeduin’s horse as they rode on the banks of the Black River.
The Zharmatian shrugged and smiled ruefully. “Since Yemal’s not here now … . It just seems cruel, making him stay in Ghulla’s tent all the time. Even she enjoys riding still,” Dzeduin said, glancing over at the ancient Seer, who kept up easily with the group.
Lleld said something to her, gesturing to Jekkanadar and Otter, and the Seer burst into cackling laughter.
“How old is she, anyway?” Linden asked.
“Old. Very old. I don’t think she’s changed since I was a child.” Dzeduin shivered. “I don’t ask how she does it. I don’t think I want to know.”
They rode on a little longer side-by-side. Then Dzeduin burst out, “I wonder when she’s going to tell Yesuin—she won’t let me do it.”
“Tell him what?”
“That Xiane Ma Jhi—the emperor, the one who saved his life; his friend—is dead. She said he needs to find Zhantse in Nisayeh first.”
Linden looked over at Yesuin, who had joined the laughing group in their joke.
“Poor beggar,” he said.
It happened as he jumped over a small crack in the dried ground. Shima’s foot came down on a loose rock and he tumbled down the slope in a painful tangle of sharp little stones and sand. He fetched up at the bottom of the basin with a painful thump that knocked the wind out of him. His head spun.
He sat up, shaking his head, then took stock. Bruises, yes; scrapes, yes—even a deep cut or two. And a bump on his head that hurt like blazes. But there was nothing broken or even sprained.
“Hwah!” he said as he lurched to his feet and limped off. “That was lu—Ouch!” He’d found a new bruise.
He scuttled across the bottom of the basin as fast as he could, intending to be over the far ridge before the Jehangli soldiers climbed the one he’d fallen from.
But the basin was wider than he’d thought, and the way was so broken that he was only partway up the other side when he heard the clash of armor. Ahead was a tiny “cave” formed by a tumble of boulders. Shima threw himself at it and wormed a way inside, fervently hoping there were no snakes hiding there from the sun.
He curled up, turning so that he could look back the way he came, the opening etched stark and bright beyond the darkness that sheltered him. At once his body began to complain. Shima ignored it, concentrating on breathing lightly so that he might hear the soldiers.
Let them take the path! he prayed over and over.
At first all he heard was a distant murmur of voices. Then, once again, his hearing played tricks on him.
“HERE! A TRAIL!”
The words clanged in his head. For a moment he thought they would shatter his skull. He moaned and clutched his head against the pain.
“WHAT IF HE WENT DOWN?”
Then it was upon him again, worse than ever. The Feeling thrashed within his chest like a hawk throwing itself against the bars of a cage.
OutOutOutOutOutOutOut!
Even knowing it was Death that drove him, Shima scrambled frantically for the opening.
Bones. The floor of the cavern was littered with cracked and shattered bones. Maurynna’s hands searched around her almost without her willing it. Her head spun; had the Jehangli priestmages fed Pirakos on criminals and those suspected of harboring a dragonsoul? She licked dry lips.
Gods, what that must have done to Pirakos, forced to eat human flesh. She prayed that the unfortunates were dead before they’d been thrown in. Her mind quailed at the thought of what terror they’d faced otherwise. Then she realized: these were the ones that got away, only to die a long, lingering death in the darkness.
She had to have a light; she’d been lucky before. Some of the fragments she’d touched were sharp as a spear. If she’d landed wrong … .
Cupping her hands, Maurynna called up a tiny flicker of coldfire, barely more than a candle’s flame. It cast the feeblest of glows.
Yet it was enough, with her dragonsight, to reveal that an arched opening lay before her, and that the cavern she followed curved away beyond it.
She stood up once more and held the coldfire cupped in her hands. What she sought lay beyond that arch, and seek it she must.
From nowhere a voice hissed through her mind like a wind of cold evil.
*Truuuuehuuuuumaaaaan.*
She walked through the archway as one bespelled.
Shima staggered as the harsh desert sunlight beat down on him. The brightness seared his eyes as if someone had thrust a torch into them. He groped his way along the rock-strewn ground, the Feeling driving him into the open. On he went, hearing the triumphant cries of the soldiers, but as if from a distance, as if they had nothing to do with him.
But they did, and part of him knew it and fought to get away. The war went on in his mind but his feet led him unerringly to the center of the basin.
He saw the Jehangli soldiers reach the bottom of the slope—and he could do nothing. The Feeling ruled him, devoured him, would kill him.
Spirits—no! This is madness! They’ll kill me—please let me go, he begged it.
On
e soldier’s arm drew back; Shima saw the sunlight blaze along the spearhead. In another instant it would bury itself in his heart. But there was nothing he could do.
For he—he was melting! Shima cried out in terror as the world faded, but there was no sound.
Maurynna went forward, step by slow step. Bones blanketed the cavern floor. She never knew at what point she became aware of the slow, heavy breathing. At first it seemed to be the ebb and flow of her own heart’s blood in her ears. Then she realized the sound came from without, but that it demanded her heart match its rhythm even as her feet moved to its time.
Then she was past the turning and climbing up a wall into a cavern even larger than the one before, and shaped like a long, deep bowl, blackened in places. A narrow path, level with the entrance, ran around the the sides. At the far end were four pillars hewn from glittering quartz, their tops level with the path, each surrounded by a nimbus of golden light; in the center of the square they formed was a huge, oddly shaped rock. Two of the pillars were beyond the rock; but of the two that she could see, the heaviest chains Maurynna had ever seen led from their bases to the rock in the center. She walked along the path, looking down into the bowl and wondering at the strange scene, forgetting all else: her fear, the terrible stench of the place, the malevolence that flooded this hollow heart of the mountain.
Then, with a rattle of those cruel chains, the strange rock moved. A great eye opened, glowing red and insane in the light of the pillars as the huge head peered up at her. Long white fangs shone as Pirakos laughed silently, horribly.
*Thee are mine, girl.*
Tefira cried out as his brother dissolved into red mist. “Shima! Shima!” he screamed.
A quick glance at the boy’s terror-stricken face told Raven that Tefira didn’t understand what was happening to his brother.
But he did. And he knew what it would mean if the spearhead—cold iron—should pierce that mist: Shima would be unmade.
He had only the instant of the soldier’s surprise and hesitation to do something. Raven snatched up a heavy stone and flung it even as that moment’s reprieve ended and the soldier’s arm went back once more to hurl the spear.
Raven forgot to breathe as the stone hurtled through the air. Had he aimed true?
Jhanun arrived at his compound in Rivasha as leader of a much smaller force of men than he’d hoped for. Many troops were away fighting the Zharmatians and their lightning raids. He left the men outside the city for now, and rode in with just a few trusted men as escort. Before he did anything, he wished to pray to the Phoenix for guidance.
But when he entered his family’s shrine, he found the altar draped in grey, the color of mourning, and the steward of the house burning incense in a bowl the same color.
“Who’s dead?” Jhanun demanded.
The steward whirled around, one hand clasped to his breast. “My lord! You startled me!” He bowed, then said, “Didn’t you know, my lord? Your niece, Nama, concubine to the late emperor, is dead, and her unborn child with her.”
Jhanun could only stare at the man, unable to face the fact that his second plan had crumbled to dust.
Mistaking stunned silence for grief, the steward hurried to say, “But the empress honored her, my lord! She was given the honors of a noh, and her ashes placed in the altar of the imperial family. And it’s said that, while she’s here, the empress burns incense for Nama in the—”
“Shei-Luin noh Jhi is here? In Rivasha?” Jhanun demanded.
The steward blinked. “Shei-Luin Ma Jhi, my lord,” he corrected in mild reproof. “Yes—she and her sons are here.”
Her sons … .
He would never get control of his niece’s child now, to set it up as a claimant for the throne. But—
Her sons … .
With the swiftness of a tiger, Jhanun spun around and ran from the shrine.
*Come closer, girl,* the voice wheedled. *Come closer, let me see thee.*
Maurynna clutched her head. The syrupy voice slid around her mind, carrying with it hints of blood and violence, desperation beyond measure, the taint of madness, and a sick delight in it all. No, she said, I don’t trust you.
Yet go closer she must; how else to free him? She crept forward.
*Come closer, I promise that—* Pirakos threw back his head and howled as he fought against his chains. The sound slammed into Maurynna as it boomed and echoed in the cavern. She went to her knees, crying out at the pain in her ears.
*I will eat thy liver!* shrieked Pirakos in her mind. *I will tear thee apart piece by piece and scatter the foul bits to rot, truehuman filth. I will kill all the truehumans,* he raged as he hurled himself as far as his chains allowed. The shackles dug into the flesh festering beneath them. A sweet, sickening stench fill the air.
Maurynna vomited. Sick and shaking, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and huddled on the path as a maelstrom of thoughts and images and emotions raged through her mind.
… The caress of sunlight on her wings, the taste of the winds … .
Maurynna began crawling.
*I used to hunt rabbits when I was a youngling dragon, thee should know. I would catch them as they came out of their burrows.*
The voice slid around her mind, giggling insanely, poking at her, prying, howling in agony, carrying with it the seeds of madness. Most horrible of all was the mind she sensed within—the merest glimpses, but there—trapped and wailing in despair. She concentrated on moving opposite hand and knee, hand and knee, working her way along the path. Sharp slivers of rock cut her as she crawled; she welcomed the distraction from the mindvoice that babbled and bounced within her head.
*But now they hide inside—dotheeseethem—and I can’t get in anymore, and they wait for me. They wait and wait, their fangs fierce and long and dripping venom. Waiting to tear me apart as—HATEHATEHATEHATE—I will tear thee apart!*
He can’t reach you, she told herself over and over again, the chains won’t let him get out of the bowl, they’re too short. Get to the spell stones.
And when she shattered the enchantment? What then?
It didn’t matter. She couldn’t think about that; she would not think of anything save the ground just ahead of her and how to avoid the worst of the stones. It was the only way. She crawled along the path, inch by painful inch, while the ravening Pirakos flung himself against his chains, her mind closed to all but the burden of forcing her unwilling body forward.
The journey went on and on; then, so suddenly it startled her, Maurynna knelt by the first of the spell stones. It was the one that bound Pirakos’s right foreleg.
Golden light washed over her. She raised her face to its gentle warmth, remembering what it felt like to stand beneath the sun. Before she could wonder if she ever would again, Maurynna drew the short sword from its scabbard. Gripping the hilt as hard as she could lest it turn in her blood-slick hands, she drove it into the nimbus.
*It is time! Thee must throw down the Stones of Warding!*
Linden halted Shan, shocked. The strange voice that had warned them of Taren’s treachery was back in his head. He wondered if he’d imagined it. Or if he were going mad.
But no, that couldn’t be; Lleld and Jekkanadar had also stopped, and both wore the same startled expression. Otter, Dzeduin, and Yesuin, on the other hand, had obviously not heard anything. They rode on a few steps before bringing their mounts to a halt and looking back, surprised.
But Ghulla reined her horse in, and sat watching the Dragonlords, smiling slightly.
“What is it?” Otter asked.
“Who—” Jekkanadar began at the same time Lleld said, “That’s the voice that warned us, isn’t it?”
“Yes. You agree, then, that it’s a dragon?” he said. He’d been certain of it, the other time he’d heard it, but what if it were a trick of the priestmages?
Lleld nodded. “Oh, yes; it’s definitely draconic—at least, I think it is,” she said with an uncertainty utterly foreign to her.
&n
bsp; So she’d had the same thoughts of trickery.
Jekkanadar said, “What, discretion at last, Lady Mayhem? Now I’ve seen everything.” His smile was wry. “But I agree. We can’t be certain.”
Lleld didn’t favor him with a glance. “But what does it mean by the ‘Stones of Warding?’” She looked over to Ghulla. “Do you know?”
The Seer nodded, still smiling slightly. “They’re an abomination, part of the enchantment that keeps the Phoenix prisoner against the natural order of things.
“There are stones, surrounded by temples, at three of the four quarters. They help anchor the power that keeps the Phoenix in Mount Rivasha. The focus is the northern dragon, held under Mount Kajhenral. That’s the place that only your soultwin may enter, Linden Rathan. But the others are important as well; unless all are cast down, the Phoenix may not be able to break free. It’s possible that the priestmages could summon enough power to hold the prison in place if one falls. They might be able to hold the Phoenix for a time even if three anchors of power were destroyed. Yet I think it would be for only a short time. All their power could not hold the Phoenix long once all the foundations of its prison were swept away.”
*Hurry! Thee must hurry! Thee endanger Maurynna Kyrissaean with thy delays. It will take time for each of thee to reach the Stones—time that she does not have to waste.*
The golden light exploded, hurling her back. Her head struck the ground so hard that stars swam before Maurynna’s eyes.
It was Pirakos’s roar that brought her back to herself. The truedragon threw himself against his chains with renewed fury. For one heart-stopping moment, Maurynna thought the links would give. But they held, tribute to the long-dead smiths who had worked them. She took a moment to thank them.
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