Master of Dragons (16 page)

Safe in their
caves, deep beneath the earth, dreaming their wondrous dreams, the dragons and
their young would, for the first time in human history, be at the mercy of
humans.

Dragons could
never rest safe again. Like humans, they would always live in fear.

In that moment,
Draconas came very near to turning and walking out the back door. He came very
near to going back to his own lair, saying, “The hell with it. The hell with
them.”

And then his own
words to Lysira came back to him. Fine words, about freedom and doing what was
right.

“Dragons will have
to adapt to this new world,” he said to himself. “We will have to change.
Something will be lost. Something is always lost when change comes. But
something will be gained, for that, too, is a given. At least, I hope so.”

Wondering if the
alarm had gone off and if someone was there to hear it, Draconas sent a penetrating
gaze through the darkness, seeking out the tunnels that branched off from this
chamber and led deeper into the dragon’s lair. He found three. Draconas sniffed
the air of each of them, smelling and tasting with nose and tongue. He poked
his head down each of the tunnels, listening for the smallest noises. He stared
deep into each of them, studying them, searching for the tiniest hint.

He could not smell
dragon in any of them, and that further confirmed his belief that Grald had not
been near this part of his mountain in a long time.

No reason he
should be, of course. His interests lay in the world of humans. But it was an
indication that the dragon had grown lazy. Even though Draconas returned to his
lair only a couple of times every hundred years, he always checked it over from
top to bottom. Magic spells needed to be reinforced or re-woven; traps needed
to be reset; animal squatters driven out. And it was always good to know if any
stranger had been prying about.

He began to wonder
if there had been an alarm at the entrance or not. Given the hundreds of bats
coming and going on their nightly runs, the alarm—unless specifically designed
to detect only dragons—would have been going off constantly.

Bats. In a dragon’s
lair. Draconas’s lip curled in disgust as he waded through their droppings,
which were knee deep. He headed down the middle corridor. The other two were
quiet and smelled bad. The middle one had an intriguing odor and, more
important, intriguing noises. He was able to detect, echoing up through the
halls and tunnels of the dragon’s lair, the sounds and smell of humans.

The babble of
human voices increased markedly as Draconas walked the corridors of Grald’s “palace.”
To judge by the sound, the humans were engaging in some sort of celebration,
for the voices would often rise in unison, making what humans termed music,
something that was, for Draconas, a cacophony of ear-jarring screechings and
wails. The music was followed by bursts of applause or laughter that thundered
through the cavern chambers. If the noise they were making was any indication,
Draconas guessed that, like the bats, there must be hundreds of humans inside
the cavern.

Yet no one crossed
the bridge.

He continued to
advance, his wonder—and his concern— growing. He saw no sign of the dragon
anywhere. He came upon no traps. He did not wander into any illusory passages
designed to lead an intruder to grief. The lair might have belonged to an
enterprising bear. And Draconas suddenly understood the reason why. As a mother
with a toddler will remove all sharp objects from the child’s reach, the dragon
had been forced to make his lair safe for human occupants.

Draconas
calculated that he must be drawing near the base of the mountain by now. The
tunnel he walked twisted and turned, yet always sloped steadily downward.
Rounding a corner, he saw a glow of warm, yellow-orange light. The voices were
close. The human smell overpowering. He halted where he was to re-form the
illusion, to become human once more.

He did not choose
the monk’s form. He had the impression, from what he’d seen and heard on the
bridge, that few of the Blessed were allowed in the cavern. Hearing among the
voices raised in song the high-pitched cries and giggles of children, he went
back to being Draca.

As always, he let
go of his dragon form with deep reluctance, sighing his way back inside the
fragile, frail human skin. The corridor that had seemed small and narrow to the
dragon was suddenly enormous to the human girl. His eyes could see better than
those of most humans, but not as well as a dragon, and his hearing was so
reduced that it seemed his ears were stuffed with wax. He had to allow himself
several moments to adjust to the change. Then, keeping near the wall, he edged
his way forward.

He very nearly
stepped off the edge of a cliff.

His human stomach
gave a lurch and he took a hasty step backward, painfully mindful of the fact
that in this body he had no wings to save himself from what would have been a
hundred-foot plunge straight down.

The tunnel opened
into an enormous chamber. Draconas had seen something like this only once
before—the Hall of Parliament, where the dragons met. The entire center of the
mountain had been scooped out like the insides of a pumpkin. The ceiling—far,
far above him—was supported by huge columns of rock that jutted up from the
smooth floor. The cavern’s walls were a veritable honeycomb of small caves,
built in neat, even rows around the inside of the chamber. Stairs carved out of
the rock led up to the caves, opening out into walkways that were like streets.

The chamber was
brightly lit. A bonfire burned in the center of what would have been a plaza in
a human city. Draconas wondered at the lack of smoke from the blaze—the cavern
should have filled with it. Then he saw that the fire did not feed off wood.
The flames fed off stone and magic.

The child, Draca,
sat down on the stone floor of the tunnel and, letting her feet dangle over the
edge, gazed down in wonder at the sight beneath her.

Humans, men and
women and children, clustered about the magical blaze. He listened to their
songs, to the words of the songs; he watched them dance their dances, and his
wonder devolved into grim dismay. Their stories were those of fighting and
battle. Their songs were songs of war. He had found the dragon’s army.

His roving eye
took note of a group of people who held themselves apart from the others, kept
their distance, stood aloof and proud. He stared at them and his dismay turned
to shock.

“What have we
done?” Draconas asked the question of himself and all of his kind.

“What have we
done?” he asked again. “And can we ever be forgiven?”

Draconas now knew
the truth about Anton and Rosa’s daughter. Why she had been chosen and what
for. And he was pretty certain now that he knew her terrible fate.

VEN SLEPT FITFULLY
THAT NIGHT AND WOKE THE NEXT DAY RE-solved to leave the room that had become a
prison. He spurned the monks, who urged him to continue to remain in bed. He
ate breakfast with a hearty appetite and then sent the monks into a panic when
he stated that he was going out for a walk. They attempted to dissuade him by
murmuring that he was not well. All he had to do was point to the wound that
had already closed and scabbed over. He was still a little weak from loss of
blood, but he would never admit to that. If he stayed cooped up in that room
with only the mad monks for company, he’d go as mad as the maddest among them.

Ven had another
reason, though it was one he did not readily admit to himself. He needed to
talk to Draconas. The need was grudging, for it implied weakness on Ven’s part.
He’d determined that he would never again ask for help from anyone. With the
long night to think things over and the vision of Draconas slipping into Grald’s
mountain lair before his eyes, Ven had come to the conclusion that exchanging a
modicum of pride for Draconas’s assistance in carrying out his plot against
Grald was not such a bad trade-off.

I won’t ask him
to help me fight Grald,
Ven resolved.
I just need information about
fighting dragons.

Ven didn’t dare leave
the white-shielded cave of his mind to go in mental search of Draconas—such a
move would place them both in danger. But he could leave his room.

Flinging open the
door, Ven found two monks standing guard outside. One of the monks jumped
nearly out of his skin as the door banged against the wall. The other regarded
him with a wary look.

“I’m going for a
walk,” Ven announced, and shoved past the two of them. “You can come, if you
want.”

The monk who was
not quivering frowned.

“Your father—”

Ven rounded on
him. “I have heard rumors that the people of Dragonkeep think I am dead, killed
in the explosion. If I am to be the leader of these people, then they should
see me, see that I am alive and strong and well.”

Either this
inspired argument carried the day, or the monk saw that he had no hope of
stopping Ven from leaving, and so he gave in, though not without a whispered
conversation with his fellow, who immediately darted off, presumably running to
Grald with the report.

Accompanied by
three monks, Ven left the Abbey for the first time since he’d gone out that
fateful morning to meet his brother.

He emerged into
morning air washed fresh by last night’s rain and paused to gulp in great
draughts. He set out to walk the streets of Dragonkeep, with no particular destination
in mind, just the need to get the blood flowing and perhaps find Draconas.

Ven could not
forbid the monks from escorting him—they were far more terrified of Grald than
they were of Grald’s son. But he could make it difficult for them, and he did.
The dragon-blood gave him extrahuman strength and, even weakened, he was
stronger than any of the monks. His dragon legs carried him at an easy lope
through the city streets. The monks kept up as best they could— the image of
Grald’s fury acting as a spur—but none was accustomed to exertion of any kind,
and soon they were gasping and winded.

Ven saw them
falling behind and magnanimously halted to wait for them to catch up. A group
of people gathered around the Dragon’s Son, not approaching him or speaking to
him, just watching him. Several grinned when they saw the monks come limping
around the corner; one monk almost doubled over from the pain of a stitch in
his side and the other two were sweating and out of breath.

“Who’s guarding
who?” shouted a little girl with a laugh.

Some of the adults
looked stern and frowned at her. A few chuckled, though they hastily rearranged
their faces as the monks drew near.

By the time the
monks reached Ven’s side, the crowd had melted away, all except the little
girl, who stood staring at Ven with frank and unabashed curiosity.

“Begone, child,”
one of the monks scolded her. “Leave the Dragon’s Son alone.”

The little girl
stuck out her tongue. The monk made an angry swipe at her, but she skipped away
and ran off down the street. The monks paid her no more attention. They had
their charge to consider.

“You walk very
fast, Dragon’s Son,” said the monk, scowling.

“I plan to go on
at this pace. I just wanted to let you know that,” Ven returned.

“You would do well
to slow down, Dragon’s Son. You are not well.”

Ven looked
pointedly at the monks—one unable to straighten up and the other two scarcely
able to walk.

“I thank you for
your concern. And for your care of me.” Ven’s lip curled. “I feel so much
safer, knowing I am under your protection.”

“Ditch them,” came
a voice, its colors flitting about like butterflies in Ven’s head.

Ven knew that
voice and he could barely contain his elation. He had been right, Draconas was
here. As fast as the dragon’s colors darted into Ven’s mind, they vanished. Ven
could see them still, see the afterimages, as when one stares at the sun, but
he dared not answer. Grald lurked outside his cave, waiting for him to emerge.

The monks were
staring at him expectantly and Ven realized that he’d lost track of the
conversation.

“You can either
keep up with me or go back to the Abbey,” he stated. “I need no guards. What
does my father think I will do? Try to escape from Dragonkeep? The world
outside is a dangerous place for me. He knows that better than anyone. Why
would I want to return to it?”

The spokesman for
the three monks cast Ven a churlish look. He and his two cohorts conferred in
low voices, then, bowing, they turned and walked off.

Surprised and a
little suspicious at the ease with which he’d accomplished his task, Ven
watched the monks until they were out of sight. He kept watch for Draconas,
too, but saw no sign of him. No one was about except the little girl, who was
loitering in the shadows of a building.

Ven lingered in
the street, searching for the man he remembered from childhood—a human male
with long black hair, piercing dark eyes, carrying a staff. Several men passed
by him, but they did not answer that description. He began to grow impatient
and, when the little girl came dancing up to him, he tried to ignore her,
hoping she’d go away.

He detested
children. The sight of them brought back his own painful childhood. Adults were
unkind—with their averted eyes or looks of pity or crude remarks. Children were
cruel, taunting and teasing and tormenting the little boy who walked with a
beast’s gait.

“I wish my legs
had scales like yours, Dragon’s Son,” the child said. “Except that my scales
would be red-gold.”

“Run along home,”
Ven told her, scowling, and he tried to shoo her away with a wave of his hand.

To his
astonishment, the girl grabbed hold of his hand. She held fast when he tried to
shake her loose. She was a sharp-eyed little minx, with long black hair and a
spare, bony frame on which her ragged clothes hung like new-washed laundry. She
looked up at Ven and grinned.