Master of Dragons (15 page)

He waited and
waited, but no one made any attempt to cross. After almost an hour, Draconas
began to realize that no one was going to try to cross. When they said no one
entered the palace, they meant it.

The Blessed roved
about aimlessly, occasionally coming together to talk, then wandering off.
Draconas considered using his magic to make himself invisible. The illusion
would work with ordinary humans, but he could not count on that with these
monks. Whereas another of their own trying to cross the bridge . . .

Draconas made up
his mind. He set forth, walking briskly, as with purpose.

The monks guarding
the bridge were apparently not accustomed to dealing with interlopers in the night,
for they were startled beyond measure when Draconas materialized out of the
darkness. Indeed, he was almost on top of them before they even noticed him,
and then all three stared at him in such amazement that they seemed to wonder
if he was real or an apparition.

“Greetings,
Brethren,” said Draconas pleasantly. Sweeping past them, his robes flapping
around his ankles, he glanced skyward. “At least it has stopped raining for the
moment. I trust I will be finished with my business and back safely in my bed
before another storm breaks.”

He kept walking as
he spoke, as if crossing the bridge in the night was an everyday occurrence.
None of the monks said a word or made a move, and he thought he was going to
make it. He took another step, then one of them glided sideways to take up a
position directly in front of Draconas.

“None may pass,”
said the monk. He was polite, not threatening, merely stating a fact. The monk’s
eyes were neither unfocused nor wandering. His eyes looked quite sane. All too
sane.

“I have the dragon’s
sanction.” Draconas affected surprise. “I was told to inspect the shipment of
weapons that was brought into the palace this day. It seems that the dragon is
concerned about their quality. He may decide to take the smith to task on the
morrow.”

“You need not
concern yourself with this, Brother. The matter will be dealt with by those
within,” said the monk calmly.

“But I was told to
handle this myself,” protested Draconas.

“Then whoever told
you that was mistaken.”

The monk was calm,
imperturbable, and immovable as the mountain. Less movable, maybe, for an
earthquake might shake the mountain, but it seemed that nothing would shift
this monk. Draconas glanced past the man to the other end of the bridge. He
could always make a run for it and, with his dragon strength and speed, he
could easily outdistance the human. He was turning back to the monk when his
eye caught a faint shimmer of light like a fine spray of water sparkling in the
sunshine—except that there was no water and no sun. He looked hard at the end
of bridge and the shimmer vanished. When he looked away, the shimmer
reappeared.

Draconas was
thwarted. He’d been in enough dragon lairs to recognize a magical barrier when
he saw it; a barrier that was undoubtedly so sensitive it would detect a rat’s
whisker. Draconas could use his magic against the monk and then against the
barrier, but he had the feeling—looking into those all too sane eyes—that this
monk knew a few magic tricks of his own, and the last thing Draconas wanted was
the eruption of a magical firestorm in front of Grald’s living quarters.

Draconas could
think of no other persuasive arguments. Muttering that he was going to get into
trouble with his superiors, he stomped angrily off the bridge and retreated up
the street. Halting in an alleyway, he eyed the bridge and the stanchionlike
guardian and the unseen barrier.

“ ‘No one may
pass,’ “ he repeated. “Except by invitation, and only those women who are
strong in the dragon-magic. No one else is admitted, not even the Blessed. What
is in that palace that no one is meant to see?”

No one may pass.
At least not across the bridge, and that was the only way inside the mountain.

The only way for
humans . . . Not for dragons.

Draconas glanced
up in frustration at the buildings that towered over him and pressed in around
him. He thought of the Abbey and the broad, open expanses of grassy meadows
that surrounded it, and he headed in that direction at a run.

Ven rose from his
sickbed shortly after supper, and over the protests of the monks, he announced
his intention of going for a walk in the cool night air. He needed to get out,
to walk off his trouble, as Bellona termed it. The mind worked better when the
body was active. Ven needed exercise, needed fresh air, not the stale,
monk-breathed air of the sick room.

He started for the
door, but at this the monks did more than protest. They told him firmly that he
was not to venture out— Grald’s orders.

Ven argued and
even threatened. The monks were careful to keep their distance, for they feared
him, but they apparently feared Grald more, for Ven was not able to shake their
resolve. When he saw sparks dance on their fingertips and heard the crackle and
sizzle of magic in the air, he was forced to back down.

“It is not
personal to you, Dragon’s Son,” one of the monks told him in tones meant to be
mollifying. “No one walks the streets of Dragonkeep after the Slumber Hour.
Take your rest this night and I will ask Grald if you may be permitted to go
forth on the morrow.”

Ven was left with
nothing more than the small satisfaction of ordering the monks out of his room.

Alone, he paced
and paced, his claws clicking loudly on the wood floor, back and forth, back
and forth—an irritating sound that he hoped was annoying the hell out of the
monks.

He had much to
think about, not the least of which was how he would fulfill the promise of his
name—Vengeance. He had sworn an oath to the spirit of Bellona that he would
avenge his mother’s death. How he was to fight a dragon, when he couldn’t even
stand up to a half-starved, half-mad monk, was more than Ven could fathom.

He thought again
of trying to learn the magic and rejected the idea. He wanted no part of the
dragon within him. The human part of him would kill the father who had made
him. And it was then, in his pacing and his thinking, that Ven realized a truth
about himself.

He was not just
avenging his mother’s death. He was avenging his own accursed birth.

He dreamed about
the battle with his father in all its bloody glory, but that was all it was—a
dream. In reality, the only blood likely to be spilled was Ven’s. He could
wield a sword—Bellona had seen to that. But he did not possess a sword, and
with the blasted monks dogging his footsteps, there seemed no way to acquire
one.

Add to that the
fact that he’d have to kill Grald twice. First he’d have to slay the huge and
hulking human body—a task that might daunt even the most skilled human warrior,
something Ven was not. Then, he’d have to kill the dragon.

Growing
increasingly frustrated, Ven paced and kept on pacing. His route took him near
the small hole that passed for a window in the crudely constructed building. He
looked out this window every time he passed, longing for the freedom of the
grassy sward that lay beyond it, and he vowed that tomorrow he was getting out
of this room, even if he had to tear down the walls to do it.

On his hundred and
umpteenth time past the window, Ven looked outside and caught sight of
movement. Even a deer bounding across the hillside would be a welcome
distraction to his own dismal ponderings, and he halted his pacing to stare out
into the field, his dragon eyesight easily penetrating the rain-drenched
darkness.

He saw a man
standing on the hillside lift up his arms, and the arms became enormous wings.
A huge reptilian head gazed up into the night. Powerful hind legs and a massive
tail drove into the ground, propelling the body upward. The dragon’s claws
grabbed at the clouds and caught them, seeming to drag them down to earth, as
the wings carried the massive body into heaven.

Ven was a child
again, watching with vivid clarity a man take wing, take flight, soar into the
sky, leaving behind a grief-stricken half-human, half-dragon, who wanted to be
all human, no dragon.

Ven sprang at the
window with a bound, sprang at it as though he might spring out of it. Gripping
the ledge with his hands, he stared into the night and sucked in a breath and
let it out in a hiss that was also a name.

“Draconas!”

He watched the
dragon wheel in the sky. Draconas was fleeing Dragonkeep, escaping. Leaving Ven
behind.

Ven was tempted to
call out to Draconas, to splatter the white emptiness of his cave with the
red-gold stain of Draconas’s name. Ven stopped himself, however. He had only
once in his life cried out for help, a cry that had been answered by Grald. He
would not beg for help ever again.

The dragon flew
into a cloud bank and Ven lost sight of him.

He continued to
watch, his gaze roving rapidly over every portion of the sky. He was frustrated
in his search, for the clouds gathered thickly overhead. Spatters of rain
started to fall. He leaned precariously out the window, twisting his body to
peer upward, but saw nothing. The rain fell harder, drops plashing on his bare
head. He pulled himself back inside and continued to watch.

His patience was rewarded.
A gap opened in the clouds and Ven had a clear view of the dragon.

The creature
spiraled down from the sky to land on a rock ledge at a point about halfway up
the mountainside. The dragon was there an instant and then disappeared from
view as the clouds caught the mountain in their grasp and smothered it.

Ven drew back from
the window. He no longer paced. He had worn himself out. He had a lot to think
about, but he could think in his bed.

The last Ven had
seen of Draconas, the dragon stood silhouetted against a lightning flash.
Ducking his head and folding his wings close to his body, Draconas had entered
the mountain.

DRACONAS HAD NO
DIFFICULTY FINDING THE BACK DOOR INTO THE dragon’s lair. He spotted the gaping
gash in the cliffs on the southern side of the mountain the moment he flew over
it. No effort had been made to disguise the opening or conceal it. Grald was
either a very lazy dragon or a very arrogant one.

Or—very
calculating.

Such an obvious
door might be a trap.

Conceding that
possibility, Draconas entered the cave using extreme caution. The aperture was
narrow. He had to flatten his body and keep his wings pressed against his
flanks in order to squeeze into it, and then his shoulders rubbed against the
cavern walls. He was forced to maneuver carefully to keep from tearing a wing.
He peered intently at the walls as he entered. If Grald had passed this way in
dragon form, Draconas would see some sign of it—scraped-off scales clinging to
the walls, claw marks in the rock.

No sign of either.
Draconas doubted that any dragon had walked this cavern for years, perhaps not
since it was formed. From the heaps of guano on the floor, the cavern appeared
to have been taken over by bats.

Draconas assumed
that he had probably tripped some sort of alarm upon entering. No dragon with a
brain would leave a back door unguarded. The dragon would weave some sort of
magic across it that would alert him to intruders. Draconas knew this was a
risk the moment he entered the cavern. He deemed it acceptable. There was
always the possibility—the hope—that Grald was not in his lair. He and his
human body might be somewhere else.

The cavern
narrowed into a tubelike corridor that ran for some distance straight into the
mountain, then opened up into a large chamber where Draconas was able to lift
his head and release his wings. He shook himself all over, scales clicking, and
drew in a breath of air that reeked of bat. The creatures were out with the
night, but this was evidently the chamber where they roosted. Despite the
stench, Draconas breathed well and deeply. He always felt better when he was in
his true form, his dragon body, and he felt better in his natural habitat—a
cave.

Though his human
form was just illusion—unlike Grald and Maristara and Anora, who had all seized
the bodies of real humans—the illusion was so real that Draconas sometimes felt
as if he were trapped in that human body, a body that was fragile, soft and
unprotected—all part of the magic of the supreme illusion. The Walker had to
feel human, as well as look human. He had to come to believe the lie, so to
speak, for otherwise he would not be able to understand what it was to be human
and so be able to pass for human.

Draconas thought
what it would be like to walk inside this cavern as a human—terrified of the
bats, for one thing; unable to see in the darkness; blundering into stone walls
and falling over unseen obstacles; losing himself in the tangled maze of
corridors. And always fearful of puncturing the vulnerable flesh or breaking one
of the slender bones, knocking a hole in the skull, or poking out an
unprotected eye.

In his dragon
form, Draconas was armored in scales that were harder than any steel man had
yet created. His eyes could spot a rodent in the pitch darkness fifty feet away.
He had a massive tail that could fell a tree with one swipe, razor-sharp claws
and sword-sharp teeth, and the fire of magic blazed in his blood. He was
invincible to every creature in this world with the exception of his own kind.

Or at least, he
had been.

King Edward’s
cannons. Not a threat now, but there was one thing to be said for humans—they
never stood still. They were always surging forward, bashing their headstrong
way through their brief lives, making progress, as they liked to call it. Dragons
had watched humans advance from the point where their brutish ancestors were
flinging stones to bring down small animals to the firing of cannonballs. He
conceded that Anora was right. It was not difficult to predict that the crude
iron ball that now flew a few hundred feet to land with a thud in a field of
millet would someday be armed with such destructive force that it could blow
apart this mountain.