Dragon Stones (66 page)

FOURTH EPILOGUE

Diasa stood on what was left of the stone dock outside the ruined walls of Flaurent.  The drifting, stinging sand had obscured most of the buildings, the wasteland reclaiming what had been carved out of it.  In the distance the mountains loomed, tall, dark, indistinct behind veils of dust and salt.

"My lady, we can't stay here much longer.  There's a storm coming; we must leave soon if we're to reach Achengate ahead of it."

She glanced over her shoulder at the flatboat that had brought her home.  She'd had some difficulty and spent a great deal of money finding a pilot willing to take her this far into the Salt Flats; everyone knew Flaurent had been destroyed, and rumors had spread of curses and sorcery.  Even without the approaching storm, the captain would have been in a hurry to be gone.

"You will leave without me," she said.

"What?"

"I'm staying here."

The captain shook his head.  "But, my lady—"

"Please stop calling me that," Diasa said.  "Do I look like someone who is accustomed to being addressed as
my lady
?"

"No, my lady, but regardless, you can't stay here.  If the bandits and the phantoms don't get you, you'll be dead of thirst within a week."

"I didn't pay you to look after my well-being," Diasa said.  She picked up her pack and headed for the compound, ignoring the man's half-hearted protests.  By the time she had climbed the mounded sand that had piled up in front of the wall, the boat was already leaving, the relieved crew pushing it away from the dock with their poles.

It was an easy slide down the other side of the dune and through the gates, and then she was inside the college.  She wandered a while through the wreckage.  It no longer looked like the place where she had been born and raised.  The trees stood withered and dead, their leaves dried up and blown away; the flowers and yards lay beneath a layer of fine powder, as if they had never been.  The ruined buildings were nearly buried as well, reduced to mounds beneath the wasteland.

She stopped after making a circuit of the place, in front of the dark entrance to the guardhouse.  It, at least, remained free of debris. This was where she had last seen Flaurent's sleepless guardians, unless she counted what had happened on the docks in Achengate.  Tolaria had told her the Withered Ones weren't there, but that didn't mean she was right.

She had no idea what lay beyond the black opening; no one went through that doorway except the Withered Ones.

Something flickered at the edges of her vision; shadowy figures moved in the interior of the guardhouse, barely visible, watching her. She approached cautiously, a hand on her sword; as she passed into the shadow of the wall the remaining Withered Ones came out to meet her, four of them, moving single-file.  Two carried swords; two carried axes.  They lined up before her as if presenting arms for inspection.

"Were you in Achengate?" she asked.  "Did you save me?"

"We guard," it said, its voice sand blowing in the wind.

"So you
were
there," she said.

The Withered One didn't answer.  Instead, it stretched out its arms, showing her what it held:  A dusty, hooded robe, identical to the ones that the Withered Ones wore themselves.

"I don't understand," Diasa said, looking at it.

"We guard," it said.  "You guard."

"You want me to join you?"  It nodded.  She imagined she could hear the dry flesh of its chin and neck creaking like old rope.  "But I told you, there's nothing left here to guard."

"We guard secrets," it whispered.  "Secrets below."

What was it talking about?  More things she didn't know about Flaurent, more things her mother hadn't told her?

"Come," it said.  "Guard secrets."

Diasa unbuckled her sword belt, then took the robe from the Withered One's outstretched hands.  She slipped it on; the fabric felt stiff and prickly against her skin, as if it were attaching itself to her with thousands of tiny, gripping claws.  She put her scabbard back on.  Already it seemed her waist and hips had shrunk.  She looked at her hands, blackened and shriveled, like those of a body burned beyond recognition.  Burned, perhaps, in the fires of a thousand dragons.  Except for the prickling, though, she felt no different from before.

She lifted the hood up over her head.  Her vision changed, the colors fading, replaced by a twilit view of dim shapes and striated temperatures.  Was this how they saw the world, her mysterious, vigilant, silent brothers?

The Withered Ones turned away and shuffled back to the entrance of their guard house.  She followed, seeing the doorway differently now.  Strange letters were carved on the lintel, up and down the sides, glyphs that she had never seen before.  They glowed in her new vision, a greeting perhaps, or a warning.

She passed through the opening, and into the darkness.

About the Author

James V. Viscosi is an expatriate New Yorker currently living in southern California.  Visit him online at www.jamesviscosi.com.