Crown of Dragonfire (7 page)

"Yes, sweet sister," he
said. "We are both changed."

Meliora lurked
somewhere within these walls—in Shayeen, the City of Kings, or in Tofet, the
land of slaves. There were no gates that broke these walls; winged seraphim
needed no gates.

"Yet you have no wings,
Meliora," he said, speaking to his reflection, to the halo of fire across his
face. "You are trapped. And I will find you here. I will find you if I have to
kill every slave in my empire, one by one, until you are mine."

He stepped out of the
chamber of healing. He walked through the halls of the palace, stepped onto a
dark balcony, and mounted his chariot of fire. His wounds roared across him,
and he grinned and grabbed the reins. Bare-chested, he soared. His firehorses
stormed across the sky, and the city sprawled below him in the night. Somewhere
in those shadows she lurked—the sister whose skin he would burn until nothing
was left.

 
 
MELIORA

"The . . . Keymaker?" Elory
whispered, eyes wide, leaning across the tabletop.

Meliora nodded. "We do
not like speaking his name in the ziggurat. He is a powerful wizard, ancient, a
mystic being. His magic is so great they say it drove him to madness. With that
dark magic, he made the key and the collars." She shuddered. "My family exiled
him, fearing his power, fearing his madness. He lives far in the mountains,
claiming dominion over a ruined fort."

"A mystic being?" Vale
said, frowning. "Is he not a seraph?"

Meliora swallowed a
lump in her throat. "I don't know what he is. He is never painted, never
sculpted, never described in our ancient books. I never saw him. He was exiled
centuries ago. But . . . I heard tales. Tales I dare not repeat. But though I
fear him, I must find him. If there's any hope left to us, it's in his hands."

It was Jaren's turn to
speak. The old priest looked at her with his sad brown eyes, his voice soft. "Yet
how will we find him, daughter? The walls surrounding Tofet are high, and in
five hundred years, only the hero Lucem has ever scaled them. Thousands have
tried. Those are not good odds."

Meliora nodded. Lucem.
The hero of Requiem. A legend among the slaves. Meliora remembered that day ten
years ago. She had been only a youth, seventeen, naive and scared. The entire
city garrison had risen into the sky, seeking the escaped slave in the hills,
deserts, and mountains around the city. Since then, Lucem had been an
embarrassment to her family—the slave who had found a blind spot in the walls
of Tofet, who had climbed, who had killed a seraph archer, who had escaped into
the wilderness. Her family had never spoken of him again . . . yet in Tofet, he
was still a hero, forever remembered.

"No," Meliora said. "We
will not try to scale the wall as Lucem did. It rises too high. All its blind
spots have been found since Lucem escaped, and many guards patrol its
battlements. There are no city gates in Tofet nor in Shayeen, it's true; seraphim
need none, able to fly above the walls as easily as any dragon." She smiled
thinly. "But there is a river. The Te'ephim River flows between Shayeen and
Tofet, forever separating our two realms. And only where the river leaves the
city is the wall broken—two exits. Two ways we can escape."

Vale grunted. The tall,
dour slave gripped a spoon as if it were a sword. "Swimming won't work. Many
slaves tried. I knew some of them. Good men." He groaned. "There are beasts in
the water, reptiles with great teeth, smaller than dragons but hungry and
vicious. Hundreds of them. Trained to feed upon the flesh of any slave mad
enough to swim for freedom. And even if you made it past the reptiles, there
are walls along the river too. Not as tall as the walls around the city, but
guards top them too, armed with bows and arrows. Just waiting for a chance to
shoot whoever the reptiles miss." He shook his head. "No, the river is death. I
would sooner try to scale the wall as Lucem did than swim. At least we know one
man who fled over the wall. No slave ever made it through the water."

"Yet I am no simple
slave." Meliora placed her hands around Vale's fist that still clutched the
spoon, and she stared into his eyes. "I have the eyes of a seraph. I have no
more wings, no more long golden hair, and my halo burns with red fire. But
cloaked and hooded, nothing but my eyes visible?" She smiled thinly. "Yes. I
think I could still pass for a seraph. I will walk to the city port—there are
no walls there—and book passage in a boat. I will sail out of the city." She
nodded and tightened her grip around his hand. "I will find the Keymaker."

Silence fell across the
hut.

They all stared at her,
eyes wide . . . all but Tash.

Throughout the night,
the slender pleasurer had said little, merely sat and listened. Now her eyes
narrowed, and she rose to her feet. The candlelight reflected in her bracelets,
earrings, and ring.

"Wait a minute!" Tash
said. "This won't work. This won't work at all."

"It's our only hope,"
Meliora said.

Tash shook her head
wildly, her long brown hair swaying. "It's a useless hope! Look. Do the
numbers. There are . . . what, half a million slaves in Tofet? Maybe more?" She
nodded. "And even if you fix the key, that's just one key. Imagine you could
get every slave to line up, one by one, and you started opening their collars.
Imagine it took you . . . say, thirty seconds to open a collar. It would still
take six months to open everyone's collars. Half a year! And that's assuming
you could even do it that fast. Meanwhile Ishtafel would kill us all. The
seraphim wouldn't give us six minutes to work, let alone six months."

Vale grumbled. "At
least it's some hope. At least we could get a
few
dragons flying before
Ishtafel attacks."

Tash groaned. "A few
dragons who'd die right away! Think, everyone. Ishtafel killed thousands of
dragons in Requiem. Maybe even hundreds of thousands. He's good at killing them.
Just opening a few collars won't work. We'd all need to fly as dragons,
together—all of us, the entire nation of Requiem, roaring fire at once,
surprising the enemy. That's the only way we'd stand even a tiny chance. To do
that . . . we'd need over half a million keys. A key for every slave, kept
hidden, secret . . . then all used at once." Her eyes shone.

Meliora winced. "According
to legend, it took the Keymaker six days and nights to forge this key and embed
it with dark magic." She sighed. "I don't think we'd have time waiting for half
a million keys."

"We don't need to wait."
A sly grin spread across Tash's face. "I know some magical secrets too. There
is a way . . . and there is a map."

Tash took a round
obsidian box from her pocket, the kind pleasurers kept spice in, and opened it.
Inside, instead of hintan, was a folded piece of parchment. She unfolded it
carefully, as if handling an ancient relic, revealing a crudely drawn map,
showing mountains, rivers, and a coastline.

"It's the world outside
the walls," Elory whispered, staring in awe. "How did you find this map?"

"The pleasure pits are
the empire's hub of knowledge." Tash nodded. "Every man who comes into our den,
who smokes our pipes, who drinks our wine, who moans under our kisses, his
words are ours to collect. And we hoard that information like a miser hoards
gold. This is a map to the most important, most magical, most sought-after
treasure in the world." She pointed at a drawing of a ship upon an eastern
coast, and her voice dropped to an awed whisper. "The Chest of Plenty."

They all stared
silently, and Meliora struggled not to laugh. The Chest of Plenty? She had
outgrown believing in that artifact years ago.

"Tash." Meliora spoke
gently. "The Chest of Plenty is just a myth. Just a tale they tell children in
the palace."

"Not a tale!" Tash's
eyes flashed angrily. "It's real. One man who came into the pleasure pit, he'd
even seen the ghost ship from a distance, beached upon the shore. He swears he
heard the ghosts who guard the ship, who guard the chest within. Imagine it,
Meliora! A chest that can duplicate whatever you place inside it—food, coins,
jewels." Tash's eyes gleamed like jewels themselves. "For years, I dreamed of
finding the Chest of Plenty. Of placing my own humble jewels inside it, only to
see them multiplied a thousand times. I would have enough money to live as a
queen. To build a castle somewhere, to have servants, to . . ." Tash's cheeks
flushed. "Well, I suppose that dream is rather childish. An impossible dream.
But the Chest of Plenty is real. Thousands of men have sought it, dreaming of
growing rich off a single gold coin, but I'm the only one who has a real map."

Meliora sighed. Tash
seemed earnest, excited, and she had saved Meliora's life. But how could Meliora
believe this tale?

"Tash—" she began.

"Hush!" Tash glared at
her. "I don't want to hear your doubt. The Chest of Plenty is real. It has to
be real. It's real or . . . or all my dreams are meaningless. And I won't
believe that." Her eyes dampened. "I won't! I'm going to escape with you on
your boat. I helped you escape from your prison cell; you will help me escape
from the city walls. You owe this to me. I will travel alone if I must,
following this map, until I find the Chest of Plenty. Until I bring it back
here and place your Keeper's Key within it."

"No." It was Vale who
spoke this time. The gaunt young man rose to his feet, staring with hard eyes.

Tash glared right back
at him. "And who are you to tell me what not to do? You're nothing but a—"

"No," Vale repeated,
voice hard. "You will not follow this map alone. I'll go with you."

Everyone stared at him,
silent. Tash gaped and rubbed her eyes. "You . . . want to come with me? You
believe the Chest of Plenty is real?" She glanced down at her cleavage. "Or do
you just believe
this
chest might be yours?"

"I don't know if the
chest is real," Vale said, ignoring the jab. "I don't know if the Keymaker is
real. I don't even know if our hope is real or just folly. But I know that
here, in Tofet, there is no hope. So I will seek it beyond the walls." He
turned toward Meliora. "We're joining you in your boat, Meliora. You'll smuggle
us out of the city. You will go seek the Keymaker, and you will fix the key.
Meanwhile Tash and I will find the Chest of Plenty to duplicate that key half a
million times." He clenched his fists. "Soon a nation of dragons will rise."

 
 
ELORY

For the first time since the
slaughter, the decimation that had left one in ten slaves dead, Elory dared to
feel hope, dared to let the veil of grief lift.

Meliora will fix the
key.
Elory touched her collar, remembering the time she had begun to shift,
had seen the buds of lavender scales before the collar had slammed her back
into human form.
Vale and Tash will multiply it, one for every dragon.
Requiem will fly again.

"So what are we waiting
for?" Tash was saying, leaping to her feet. "Let's go. Now! Before Ishtafel
burns down every hut to find us. Before the sun rises."

When Elory glanced over
at Tash, she felt her cheeks heat up. Memories of her brief time in the pit, of
Tash's lessons, filled her with a strange, intoxicating feeling much like the
spice's smoke. Here in the hut, Tash was all wildfire, but back in the pleasure
pit, she had been like honey, her kisses and caresses awakening deep senses in
Elory she could not forget. Elory had never loved another soul, not a romantic
sort of love, but she had heard tales of romance, and she wondered if those
feelings were akin to the ones Tash had instilled within her. Strangely, Elory
missed the pleasure pit, missed the comforting shadows, the incense, the gentle
touch of Tash's lips.

She shook her head
wildly. She had no room for such thoughts anymore. Those days were over, and a
new path lay before her, a path of war.

She rose to her feet
too, and she approached the others, one by one.

"Goodbye, Vale," she
whispered, hugging her brother, then turned toward Meliora. "Goodbye, sister. I
will pray for you. I—"

"You will go with them,"
Jaren said, also rising to his feet.

Elory turned toward her
father and gasped. "But . . . Father!"

Jaren's gaunt, bearded
face was grim. "If Meliora can smuggle two slaves out of the city, she can
smuggle a third. Tash and Vale have each other on their quest for the Chest of
Plenty. I will not have Meliora walk her path alone. Join her, Elory. Help her
find the Keymaker."

Elory's eyes dampened.
She stepped toward her father and embraced him, placing her cheek against his
thin chest. "Come with us, Father."

He shook his head and
kissed the top of her head. "I am a shepherd of Requiem. I cannot leave my
flock."

She looked up at him,
tears in her eyes. "And I can? How can I leave the others to suffer? How can I
leave you?"

He caressed her cheek. "Sweetest
daughter. You are like your mother, a being of pure light and kindness. And
here in Tofet, the masters will crush your light, grind away your kindness
until only bitterness remains. Ishtafel will seek you again, seek to drag you
into his palace, to take you away from me. If we must part, I would see you
travel a road of hope with Meliora, not enter a prison of gold with Ishtafel.
You are in danger here, Elory. We all are. Go with your sister. Bring back
hope."

She held her father
close. "I will return to you, Father. I promise. I love you. Always."

As he held her, Elory
thought of her mother. Not that last memory, that horrible memory of Mother
dying in Ishtafel's fire. She thought of the kindly mother she had known, the
mother who would hold her like this, sing to her old songs of Requiem. She would
not forget Mother either, not forget all those who had fallen, all those who
still lived, desperate for salvation.