The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  "I swear on the sacred name of the First Healed One!" Toriovico said, twisting his fingers through the appropriate, complicated gesture.

  "Even as I did," Father said, and his expression was both wry and sad. "Now I shall reveal unto you the truth. That first Healed One was a liar and a conniver. Our heritage is as false as the painted mountains on a stage set."

  "What!"

  Even as Toriovico uttered his startled exclamation, he glanced at the swelling just visible through the light blankets. Had the tumor driven his father mad?

  Father saw his son's expression and shook his head.

  "No, Torio, it is not the illness making me talk this way. You can find the same information written down in a locked and sealed bookùa book that will not open for you until you are confirmed as Healed One, a book whose pages will be blank for any but you. Ironically, that book may be the only true magical artifact in all of New Kelvin. It began its life as the First Healed One's book of spells, but he blotted out the spells and employed it for this purpose instead.

  "My last duty as Healed One is to tell you first what you will find there so the shock will not be too great. There have been newly anointed Healed Ones who have learned the truth only from the book. In at least one case the knowledge drove the reader insane."

  Toriovico knew the list of past Healed Ones and thought he knew to whom his father referred. Happily, or unhappily, the Third Healed One had not died until several years after his mind broke. There had been no provisionùeven within the complexities of the New Kelvinese code of protocolùfor replacing him. Much knowledge had been lost before the Third Healed One had died in an attempt to take flight from one of the highest towers of Thendulla Lypella.

  Toriovico wanted to ask questions, but Father was clearly tired and in pain. With his dancer's eye for the body and its pulses, Torio saw that this conversation was costing the old man a significant segment of his remaining life.

  "Tell on, Father," Toriovico said, squaring his shoulders and trying hard to look braver than he felt. "I'm listening."

  "It begins with the Burning Death, Torio. You've heard the stories, of course."

  "A terrible plague," Toriovico said, saving the old man's breath. "No one was safe from its touch, but some scholars say that it burned more heatedly in those who possessed skill or talent in the magical arts.

  "That is why," Toriovico volunteered, eager suddenly to show his father that the position of Healed One would be filled by one who had attended to his lore, "the Founders left. They sought to escape the plague so that their knowledge and power would not be lost to us. Before they left, they set a seal against magic over the land so that the Burning Death would find nothing upon which to feed.

  "Of course," Toriovico went on somberly, "the Founders never returned, so the plague may have been worse in the Old Country. Neither our Founders, nor any of their kin, nor any of the Founders of any of the colonies have ever returned, and we, who have the desire to seek them out, lack the harbors we would need for a fleet.

  "The First Healed One was too ill to depart with his kin," Toriovico continued in response to his father's encouraging nod, "so ill that his death was watched for by those who attended him, dreading the event, for when he breathed his last, so would the magical arts vanish."

  "But he didn't die," Father prompted.

  "No," Toriovico said, slightly puzzled that his father wanted him to continue with a tale as familiar to all New Kelvinese as their own names. "He didn't. He recovered, though he remained weak and fragile. Still, he was not too weak to father a sonùthe son who is our own direct ancestor. Moreover, he dictated the tomes of lore that we rely upon to this day. He established the thirteen sodalities, designed the arrangement of our current government, and instigated many of our most valuable rituals and customs."

  "And why did the First Healed One do this?" Father asked.

  "Because he wished us to remain faithful to the magical arts," Toriovico replied, astonished. This was something the smallest child knew. "Even in the earliest years of the Burning Death reports reached our land about how our neighbors were reacting to the departure of their own founders. We heard how those books and artifacts that had not been taken by their owners were being wantonly destroyed. We heard how surviving practitioners of the sorcerous arts were being slain.

  "The First Healed One wanted us to possess an advantage when his associates returned from the Old Country. He felt that if we trained and practiced the forms of magic, we would be readier to use them. Therefore, we would have the advantage over our neighbors and become a great empire."

  Father sighed and shifted uncomfortably in his bed. Again Toriovico held the goblet for him, wiping away the little drops that dribbled unnoticed down the sick man's chin. When he had swallowed enough, Father said:

  "That was a good account, Toriovico, free of much of the embroidery and fancy that has sprung up in the last centuries. However, much of it is as false as a Waterlander's word."

  Prepared as he was for this, Toriovico still felt a chill. Protest would be foolishùFather would not waste his dying breaths on a lie.

  "The First Healed One, according to his own accounts, which you will be able to read when I am dead," said the Healed One with brutal bluntness, "was a sorcerer of the lowest rank, not a great power as he has been represented since. Doubtless this is why he survived the Burning Death. The disease did, however, maim him as history has it and what talent remained to him was quite small.

  "The Healed One," and Toriovico knew his father now spoke of this long-ago sorcerer, not himself, "despite some of the stories about him, was a practical man. He firmly believed that his associates would return, probably in no more than a decade. He saw the chaos that was springing up around our borders and resolved that he would preserve our kingdom intact. This meant giving the survivors a reason to bind together.

  "Magic had always been important in New Kelvin, more so than in many of our neighbors' lands, for the soil here is poor, though the mining is good. In all the colonies, magic was used to support the rulersùeven as armies and navies are used todayùbut in New Kelvin, magic was even more important. The Founders were all mages, their government was structured around magic. Therefore, the common folk were conditioned to obey, honor, and respect the magical arts."

  Toriovico marveled how his father seemed to grow stronger as he related the tale. He coughed hardly at all and his eyes shone with a strength that had been gone for many moons past.

  "You have related how the Healed One established our government, our lore, our rituals and traditions. All of that is trueùall but his reason for doing so. He did not wish to make us strong; he wished to make us weak."

  Toriovico couldn't stop himself.

  "What!"

  "Weak." Father smiled dryly. "That's right. He believed that his fellows would return and he wished to present them a kingdom intact and obedient. This would not be the case if we had reason to merge with another landùWaterland, for example. As long as we believed ourselves special, wedded to a destiny no other could share, that would create a border as real as any mountain or river.

  "Our government was set up in the same way. The sodalities serve a good purpose in keeping the arts and crafts alive. Indeed, many foreigners perceive them as little more than trade guilds encumbered by useless ritual and elaborate titles. In many ways, the Primes are as good a governmental system as any. The First Healed one knew he lacked the strength and energy to rule as an absolute monarch, so he established a government where his lackeys would take care of routine, but he and his descendants would remain the supreme authority.

  "However, not wishing the Primes to become too powerful, the Healed One made certain that each sodality would have one vote but three representatives, thus ensuring deadlocks and debates. The Dragon Speaker would be drawn from the Primes, assuring even more competition within those ranks. The establishment of the Dragon's Three meant there would be further maneuvering for position."

  Toriovico w
as shocked, as horrified as if his father had told him to slice his own throat. He no longer wondered that at least one of his predecessors had been driven mad upon learning this version of history. It was akin to knowing you stood upon stone only to learn that you stood upon air.

  "And my place in this?" Toriovico said, ashamed that he could not keep a quaver from his voice.

  "Is to maintain the lie," Father said bluntly. "Any who get close to the truth, you must divert. The First Healed One suggested many strategies for doing this. Other of our ancestors have added to his list.

  "That's something I forgot to tell you," Father went on. "The book I told you aboutùthe one only you will be able to read? You will also be able to write in it and your words will be safe from prying eyes. In this way generations of Healed Ones have been able to share their experiences with those who will follow. It is some comfort in a lonely task."

  For the first time then, Toriovico experienced pure and absolute isolationùa sense of being alone that had not left him since.

  FIREKEEPER ENJOYED LISTENING to Grateful Peace's stories, even though she frequently found parts quite difficult to understand. Wolves were storytellers by nature, a thing, she guessed, that must come from not having a way to write down their history and teaching. She wondered if some of her reluctance to learn to read and write came from this. Not liking the flavor of that bite, she spat it out and considered it no more.

  Wolves were listeners, too. As the perpetual pup in her pack she had heard some of the same tales over and over again. Warning stories about flooding streams or poisonous snakes, boastful ones about hunts that went right and hunts that went wrong. Stories of the past and of interactions with other packs and other Beasts.

  Peace's stories, with their sorcerers and magical artifacts, strange beasts and stranger battles, were of things so alien to the wolf-woman that sometimes she could not even shape her mind around them. She had seen shipsùthough never traveled on more than a bargeùbut ships that sailed through the air? What, when one came down to facts, was a griffin or a wyvern or a basilisk?

  Things with these names were depicted sometimes in paintings or tapestry, but she had noticed that artists never seemed to agree on the details. A wolf was a wolf was a wolf, but a dragon was not always recognizable as a dragon.

  Firekeeper might have asked Bee Biter, who was far more well traveled than either herself or Blind Seer, but the kestrel had vanished one morning and had not yet returned. Firekeeper wasn't worried. The kestrel was inclined to get impatient about the slow speed of human travel.

  Quibbles about the reality of Peace's various monsters did not stop Firekeeper from enjoying his stories, nor from discussing them at length with Blind Seer, who enjoyed them as much as she did. They both decided that hunting a griffin might be interesting, if one could get around the fact that the puma/eagle hybrid flew, but that many of the others sounded as if they were better avoided.

  "Why bother when there are deer in the forests and elk on the plains?" Blind Seer yawned.

  Firekeeper thought this question good enough to ask, and put it to Grateful Peace.

  "Why in so many stories," she said, "people go after monsters? Surely there were deer and rabbits then."

  Peace looked slightly surprised.

  "I had never thought about the matter," he admitted. "It is simply the way of the stories. I suppose it is because great heroes need great challenges. Since many of these are stories from the days of the Founders, who were far more powerful than we are today, I suppose they needed bigger challenges. And in some cases, the monsters were a threat to the homes of those who fought them."

  Firekeeper nodded, willing to accept this as yet another incomprehensible human prejudice, but Blind Seer was less willing.

  "I still think it odd," he. said, "that they simply didn't have the wisdom to leave such creatures alone. And the monsters weren't always a threat."

  "Maybe." Firekeeper offered, running her hands through his fur, "it is because these Founders were more like regular humans than Peace wishes to believe. I have seen how human hunters brag after taking a deer or even a pheasant, game no wolf would brag on. Maybe these Founders hunted to brag, not to eat."

  "If they hunted these griffins and dragons," Blind Seer said, "then they had earned the right to brag indeed."

  Traveling north had been good for Blind Seer, shaking the heat-borne laziness from his brain. Still, like most wolves, he preferred to rest when the day was hottest. Last time he had traveled through New Kelvin he had taken to lying up during the day and catching up with them at his leisure. Here in more populated lands, with the party often staying in towns or villages at night, this had proven more difficult.

  Now when Blind Seer grew weary of the plodding pace he rode in the wagon, at first encouraging the horses pulling it to new enthusiasm for their task, though later, like all the party's mounts, they became resigned toùif never pleased withùtheir burden. Sometimes Firekeeper joined him, putting up with the jolts for the pleasure of sleeping with her arms buried in his fur.

  The horses weren't the only ones who were less than delighted by Blind Seer's presence. The New Kelvinese humans were unhappy, too. However, between them, Firekeeper and Blind Seer had evolved a plan to cope with this that, even many days into the journey, left them both shaking with laughter.

  Once or twice before, Blind Seer had posed as an enormous dog. Now, with Wendee's assistance, they constructed an impressively heavy-looking collar. At need, the collar could be attached to a leash of triple-braided leather.

  What no observer realized was that the buckle that fastened the collar was tacked into place with the lightest of stitches. Indeed, the collar itself was loose enough about Blind Seer's neck that he could paw it off over his head. The density of Blind Seer's neck ruffùand the fact that no one was interested in getting too close to himùmade the deception good.

  Firekeeper took delight in strutting about with the wolf "safe" on his leash. Blind Seer also enjoyed the game until one evening it turned ugly.

  The party had paused along the turnpike at a place that was too small to even be called a village, but was too large to be merely a coach stop. It boasted a large and elegant inn called the Mushroom Stanza, several stables and storage buildings, a station for a local branch of the New Kelvinese militia, and even a few shops.

  Peace explained that the location was fortuitously placed, a good stopping-off point for those traveling to many destinations within the kingdom. All the structures were of fairly recent construction, but like everything in New Kelvin the place sought to seem old and freighted with history.

  Had the weather been less foul, their party might have passed the inn by in favor of some other place or even camping in the open, but a summer thunderstorm had broken out that afternoon, turning even the well-tended New Kelvinese roads to shallow streams bottomed in slick mud.

  Moreover, Elise was sniffling and sneezing, possibly in reaction to some rather pretty yellow-orange flowers that grew profusely on the neatly tended verges of the turnpike. She rode on gamely, but her misery was evident.

  So was Doc's, especially since his healing talent seemed unable to do anything for this particular affliction except relieve Elise's misery a bitùand Firekeeper cynically thought this relief might have more to do with Doc himself than whatever magical gift he offered.

  Peace bullied the innkeeper into giving two rooms to the group. Had they not been foreigners, latecomers as they were they probably would have been expected to settle for blanket rolls in the common room, but that would have sent the rest of the custom scattering. Indeed, there were a few grumbles when the Hawk Havenese came out to dine, but no one actually insisted that they leave.

  Firekeeper didn't join the rest. Wet weather and all, she preferred to stay outside with Blind Seer. They'd been given a stableùreally more of a glorified shedùfor their horses and in that hay and manure-scented refuge Blind Seer bolted down a large haunch of venison. He was cracking the bone so they could
share the marrow when the bullies and their dogs came upon them.

  Firekeeper didn't much bother to count above ten, but she didn't need to here. There were six men and more than that in dogs. The dogs were ugly creatures with short dung-colored coats, thick skins, and heavy, blunt muzzles. They wore collars adorned with long spikes. Their masters were even uglier.

  Like all New Kelvinese these men wore some form of facial adornment. However, wet weather and general personal sloppiness had not been kind to their paint. Firekeeper thought that it had begun in strong colors: red, black, white, and yellow. Now it had all run together, the worst aspects of a puddled rainbow.

  The bullies wore their hair in the usual New Kelvinese queue, but where Grateful Peace's braid was as smooth as a coil of silk, these men's were ratty, bits of scruffy hair sticking out around the edges. Their robes were more of the same. About half of the group wore them kilted up, as if they'd forgotten to let them down after a day in the fields. These were the neater ones. The others hadn't even bothered to kilt their robes up at all and the hems were bordered inches deep in caked-on mud and manure.

  Firekeeper recognized the men and their dogs. She'd seen them several days before at a low inn, one so slovenly that Peace had refused even to check if it would grant foreigners shelter, though they had stopped long enough to draw water from the well to refresh both humans and horses.

  And wolves.

  The bullies had seen Blind Seer when he'd leapt from the wagon to drink at the horse trough. Even worse, their dogs had seen him and the dogs had been wise. They had cowered back.

  The men had not liked this at all. Firekeeper had met this type of human before. Whether it was title or weapon or some animal they owned, they thought themselves better than other people because they possessed something they could use to intimidate. They mistook cringing before that tool as a sign of quality in themselves. Lack of respect to the tool was seen as lack of respect to themselves.