The Dragon of Despair

by Jane Lindskold

  "But when Doc make me to sleep and sleep," she said, and this time her glance toward Sir Jared held no resentment, "I realize that these dreams are not from my unhappy heart. Somehow, someways, this dragon is real and is talking to me. When I accept this, it can tell me things."

  Firekeeper sat up very straight and ticked these things off on her fingers.

  "One, as I say, somehow it knows that Melina wishes to free it. It wants to be free, but not as her slave.

  "Two, it knows that freeing of it is difficult thing. I don't understand all that dragon tells me, but somehow this Star Wizard made it one with living rock. Stories are not true that land here is hot and full of steam because dragon is bound in it, but it is because the land is hot and full of steam that dragon could be bound in it."

  She answered Edlin's half-voiced query before he could form more than an "I…"

  "No, Edlin, I not know how or why of this. I am not a wizard, nor is dragon. I am not even certain dragon is really a dragon, but is word we can use."

  Edlin looked as if he wanted to say more, but Peace laid a hand on him.

  "Let your sister finish her speech. Talking doesn't come as easily to her as to you."

  Edlin nodded and pressed his still swollen lips tightly together.

  "Three, though dragon not know exactly what thing is that will free itùfor it does not use magicùit is very aware of the price the spell-sayer will pay."

  The wolf-woman seemed reluctant to speak further, and Elise coaxed her.

  "Go on, Firekeeper. If we can find what this price is, maybe we can take the means to pay from Melina and so prevent her."

  Firekeeper shook her head.

  "You could take, but not without catching herùand if we do that then she not be problem. Price is this: One who holds dragon will age one year faster for each year dragon is held. Each year, then, is two."

  Derian, confident in youthful strength, looked concerned.

  "That's not too bad, is it? I mean, a young sorcerer could have control of the dragon for twenty years or more, then release it to someone else and still have a bit of time."

  Grateful Peace, thirty years or more older, was not so certain.

  "I doubt a young sorcerer could work the charm, but even if one such could, consider the price. He starts at twenty, twenty years later he is sixty. For an older man, the side effects of aging would begin to be felt much soonerùloss of vision and hearing, stiffness of joints, reduced vitality."

  Grateful Peace pushed the unbroken spectacles he had taken from his luggage up the bridge of his nose and stared at Derian as if challenging him to say the cost was light.

  Firekeeper broke in, her voice crisp with distaste.

  "That is cost for holding dragon," she said. "To command cost is three times thatùthree years for every one. And there is no breaking bond and handing it on. Link is for life. Even if dragon gets second master, first continue to pay."

  "Who would use it at such a cost?" Wendee asked, appalled.

  "Perhaps," Peace said with terrible gentleness, "only those who thought their lives were nearly ended in any case. The Star Wizard would have wanted the price to be allocated in such a way, otherwise the dragon might be released lightly."

  Sir Jared frowned.

  "Firekeeper, do you think Melina is aware what she is inviting?"

  Firekeeper shrugged.

  "I not know. Dragon did not say, but I think it not like this bond being forced on it. Right now it is prisoner. Then it would be slave."

  She looked sad.

  "For a long time, I not really understand slave, but now I think I do. That was last thing dragon could tell me, the difference between being bound by ties of the heartùas I am to my wolves and to some humansùand being slave who must do for those she hates."

  "What I still don't understand," Derian said when Firekeeper leaned back against Blind Seer to indicate that she was finished, "is why the Star Wizard and his people didn't destroy this dragon rather than binding it."

  Peace replied, "I can think of two reasons. One, they might have had the strength to bind it but not destroy it. Two, they were faced with a great dilemma. Here was power that could be harnessed again if the need arose. Remember that Kelvin's original raising of the dragon was tied in with an effort to forestall an invasion from Waterland. We have not been invaded from that directionùor any otherùsince."

  Derian persisted, "But if your stories are true, the dragon is terribly dangerous!"

  "And swords and bows and ballista are not?" Peace countered. "All weapons are dangerous. However, I understand what you mean. This bound dragon is a weapon meant to be used as a last resort. I expect that is why the cost to free it is so high. The Star Wizard desired that no one would release it without knowing what the price would beùand that it was a price that would be paid repeatedly, not just once."

  Elise asked, "Firekeeper, do you know if the price for commanding the dragon is exacted with every commandù'fly here' or 'burn that'?"

  Firekeeper shook her head.

  "I am not sure, but I think is more for a space of time, not for a command. One year of commanding cost three extra years of life. One year of holding but not using cost one extra year of life."

  "Maybe that's what Melina plans to do," Elise mused, thinking aloud.

  "One year of threat and devastation could do a great deal to solidify her as the real power in New Kelvin. After that, she's speeded her aging along, but after all she is only in her mid-forties. Her family is long-lived. Maybe she thinks that exchanging thirty or so years of normal life for fifteen or so of power is worthwhile."

  Grateful Peace looked unsettled and pale, as if his thoughts had gone down even darker roads.

  "And maybe Melina thinks she can get around even that cost," he said. "Melina has shown a great deal of interest in New Kelvin acquiring a harbor. Leaving aside the more usual benefits of possessing a harbor, what do all our legendsùthose of my land as well as yoursùassociate with the sea… with across the sea?"

  "The Old World?" Wendee answered. "You think she wants to go there?"

  "Why not?" the Illuminator said, suddenly weary. "Melina has shown herself hungry for magicùnot merely for power. Where else will she find magic now that she has learned that New Kelvin holds far less than she imagined?"

  Wendee, steeped as she was in the folklore of two countries, was quicker than the others to follow Peace's train of thought.

  "And what more wonderful find could there be than something that would slow or eliminate aging? The old stories are full of such thingsùor at least of the search for them!"

  "I doubt," Peace said, "that the means to rejuvenate lost youth are as common in reality as in the tales. Otherwise, the Star Wizard would not have thought aging such a stern price to pay to control the dragon. Still, we all have evidence that Melina is not one to be turned away when she wants something. Perhaps she has convinced herself that the means toward rejuvenation will be easy for her to find."

  Elise forced herself to be the voice of practicality though she suddenly felt very young and unsure.

  "You may be right, Peace, but if we can find a way to stop Melina before she finds the dragon then we will never need to deal with what she planned to do with it."

  "True," Peace said, and Elise was uncomfortably aware of the faintest of twinkles in his eyes. Did she seem like a child playing at general?

  She glanced at Doc, hoping for a touch of reassurance, but Jared was looking at Firekeeper.

  "Tell me," he said to the wolf-woman, "you said that this dragon wants to be free. Can we release it and then tell it we'll let it go free if it promises to return to wherever it was before Kelvin freed it and do no harm to any? I mean then it would be out of Melina's reach for good."

  "We could," Firekeeper replied, "but not without someone paying the price."

  "Just as the Star Wizard did," added Grateful Peace somberly.

  Chapter XXXVII

  PLEASED AS HE WAS by the success of h
is plan to get Grateful Peace and Edlin Norwood out of Thendulla Lypella, Toriovico couldn't help but kick himself for forgetting that the littlest dancers were instructed to defend themselves against just the sort of assault Derian Carter had attemptedùa practice that dated back, so one of Toriovico's teachers had said, to the Old Country when the little dancers stood for the fruits of the harvest far more literally than they did today and possession of one of them was thought to guarantee prosperity for the new year.

  Still, Toriovico had gotten two of the three out and had survived Melina's indignant rant on the matter of the indignities to which her daughter had been subjected. He had been forced to promise to consider the matter of these irritating foreign visitors, but had dared to point out gently that Citrine was hardly the most reliable witness and that no one else had identified the kidnapper with this Derian Carter.

  When Toriovico mentioned this, Melina looked as if she might add something more, but she had paused in midbreath and had only made him repeat his promise that as soon as Xarxius's trial left time for such matters Torio would see about the best way to tactfully eject these irritations to her peace and tranquility from the kingdom.

  Toriovico had agreed with humble enthusiasm, and had hoped that he would not see much of Melina for a few days, but the next morning Melina came to him, her expression drawn.

  "Torio," she said, laying her hand on his arm, her manner at its most ingratiating, "someone has told me that today the Primes mean to conclude Xarxius's trial. You will be thereùperhaps do something for him?"

  Toriovico bent to kiss the top of his wife's headùan affectionate gesture that incidentally kept his gaze from her ownùand indulged in a cynical smile. He found it telling that Melina should now attempt to ameliorate a process she herself had begun. If she was a wiser person this mistake might make her reflect on the wisdom of her larger goals, but that was too much to hope for.

  "I will be present for the conclusion of the trial," he promised her, "but whether I can do anything…"

  Toriovico let his words trail off. Actually, giddy with his earlier success, he had lain awake last night trying to find a way to save Xarxius. He had the barest threads of a plan in place, but refused to speak his thoughts aloud. Melina might not be the only one with spies within the Cloud Touching Spire. Coming as she did from a monarchy where nothing short of mass murder would unseat the king and his heirs, Melina might have been surprised by the alliances being formed to bring down Apheros's government, but Toriovico was not.

  In a more normal situation Toriovico would have let events run their course. After all, a shifting domestic government would make it more difficult for Melina to play her games. But he couldn't passively stand by when Xarxius's life and reputation were about to be swept away in the torrent. At least, he couldn't without a struggle.

  AS RUMOR HAD promised, Xarxius was found guilty of treason that afternoon.

  Lips moving as stiffly as if he condemned himself, Apheros issued the death sentence. This was tantamount to letting the axe drop, for the New Kelvinese legal code did not hold with delayed executions. Toriovico knew, as many of his contemporaries did not, the reason for this provision.

  Some of the Founders had practiced human sacrifice in the course of their magical arts and immediate execution was meant to forestall any stockpiling of potential victims. The tradition of immediate execution had carried forward from the Old Country to the present, though the rationale had been lost to all but scholars of obscure legal codesùand the Healed One, who was admonished by his forebears to uphold the practice.

  This time, however, Toriovico felt he must interfere or sacrifice not only Xarxius but all of Apheros's government to Melina's meddling.

  The guards were stepping forward to lead Xarxius to the Death Spire when Toriovico rose. Taking a deep breath so that his voice would project to all corners of the chamber, he said:

  "The lore that is the heritage entrusted to me by the First Healed One warns against executions at this time."

  Every face in the room turned toward him and though Toriovico saw unguarded hope on a few, most were either neutral or actively hostile. He shaped his next words accordingly.

  "We are moving toward not only the death of the year, but dark of the moon. An official execution at this time, in this place, would overbalance the tides, enhance those very forces that our Moon Rituals and Harvest Festival keep in check."

  The sculptured dragon gripping Apheros's skull nearly touched the tips of his shoes, so low did the Speaker bow.

  "Are you saying, Healed One, that Xarxius's life is not to be taken?"

  Toriovico wished he could indeed say this, but he knew he must not overstep. He made his lip curl in disdain.

  "Not at all, Apheros," he replied, deliberately eliminating the man's title in order to give hope to his opponents. "The execution is to be delayed until the first day of the new moon, when life energies will be on the flood rather than the ebb."

  Prime Dimiria of the Stargazers, doubtless happy that such a valuable associate was being given even a few more days of life, spoke up quickly.

  "That's in five days," she said. "Five days counting today. I request that Xarxius be locked securely in the upper rooms of the Death Spire until that day. I further advise that the execution take place as the edge of the sun peeks over the Sword of Kelvin Mountains so that the sun's rising energy can counter any weakness in the new moon."

  Least Prime Nstasius of the Sericulturalists, clearly disappointed at what he feared would be interpreted as a sign of the Healed One's favor toward Apheros's retainerùand too inexperienced to hide this disappointmentùspoke out before his allies could stop him.

  "Could such an arrangement be made for tomorrow morning? Wouldn't the power of the sun counter the ebbing of the moon?"

  Toriovico cocked an eyebrow at him.

  "Not at all, Prime Nstasius." This time he placed the faintest emphasis on the man's title, as if questioning that one so ill-educated had risen to such prominence within his sodality. "If the sun's force alone could counter the moon we would not have a Moon Ritual at the ebbing of each phase."

  Rebuked and belatedly aware that he had embarrassed both his Defeatist allies and his sodality, Nstasius offered no further protest. His embarrassment had the added benefit of stilling any other debate on the issue. Toriovico could almost hear the thoughts filling every mind in the room.

  After all, it's not as if the Honored One pardoned Xarxius or questioned his sentence. He's only delayed it for a brief time.

  Apheros is still vulnerable to a vote of no confidence. We don't even need to wait until after the executionùthough maybe that would be wisest.

  Toriovico knew that Melina would be wondering whether she should use this reprieve to find a way to clear Xarxius or whether she would do better to identify who was likely to succeed Apheros and set about digging her claws into the prospective new Speaker.

  Then Toriovico wondered if he was wrong about her thoughts. Melina's expression when he glanced her way was withdrawn, as if now that the immediate issue of Xarxius's innocence and guilt was settledùif not completely to her satisfactionùshe was concentrating on something that interested her more.

  That worried Toriovico. He had bought Xarxius five more days of life. He had the strangest feeling that those five days were a countdown to something far more significant than the life or death of a innocent man and the rise or fall of a Speaker's prominence.

  THOUGH MELINA PRAISED TORIOVICO lavishly for his clever delaying of Xarxius's execution, she decided that she would do nothing further to interfere with the course of those events. In her anger she had misjudged the power of the Speaker and the Healed One to protect her interests, but she had been right about Xarxius's treason. If Apheros could not maintain his position after everything she had done to try and help him, then he was not the strong ally she desired.

  It was time to seek that allyùand to eliminate the need for all other allies. From the hints Melina had gathered
from various histories, she had deduced that the best time to work the spells freeing the Dragon of Despair would be during the dark of the moon. As Toriovico had said, elemental forces were at an ebb then and as this dragon had been raised from the elements it should also be weakenedùand easier to control.

  She felt certain that Kelvin's error had been working his spell at a time when elemental forces were on the ascendance. She had no proof of this, but felt certain nonetheless. It fit.

  Melina didn't blame that long-ago sorcerer for his error. After all, he had been working to defend his land against an invading forceùan invading force that had already shown itself powerful enough to push the sorcerers of New Kelvin away from the coast and into the western mountains.

  She was aware that Kelvin himself would probably consider her an invader, but she preferred to think of herself as a savior. New Kelvin had certainly drifted far from its initial glory. She doubted whether its current thaumaturges could raise a rain shower, much less a dragon. With her in charge, though, the kingdom would achieve the glory its founders certainly intended for it.

  And then, and then…

  Kiero requested audience with the Consolor of the Healed One almost as soon as Melina's foot crossed the threshold. Melina shook herself back into practical considerations.

  "You have information for me?"

  Kiero's hand crossed his chest right to left in an emphatic Yes!

  "My watchers report that several of the foreigners left their house this morning, attired as New Kelvinese, and went directly to Aswatano. While one of their number, the woman called Wendee Jay, did some shopping, the others showed undue interested in the fountain."

  Melina felt her blood chill.

  "Did they do anything other than show interest?"

  Kiero shook his head.

  "They did not. Indeed, they seemed rather nervous about being in public."

  "Did your agent do anything to help intensify this nervousness?"

  "No. You seemed to wish to know what their plans were and another uprising would have been counterproductive."