Master of Dragons (42 page)

Into this miasma,
Draconas dropped the image of the human city of New Bramfells. He showed the
dragons the flames, the destruction, the dying humans. He held up before them
the image of the dragon warriors, and he displayed their power. The dragons
watched, some grieved and shocked, some impassive, and at least one grimly
pleased.

“It is not
ordinary humans who will destroy us,” Draconas told them. “
These
humans
are the enemy, these with dragon-blood in their veins and dragon-magic in that
blood. Not long ago, all of you were appalled at the very suggestion that such
a terrible crossbreeding might occur. Now some of you promote it.”

“Such humans can
be easily controlled by us,” said Mantas, who had become the leader of the
opposition. “We have let humans go their own way too long. It was all well and
good when they were killing each other, but now they threaten us. Maristara is
right. They need to be controlled. Brought under our wise ruler-ship. Told what
to do.”

“No human has ever
done what he was told,” said Draconas dryly. “I see no reason why they should
start now. Even those with the dragon-blood will go their own way soon enough,
and then how will you bring them to heel? For they will fight you with your own
weapons!”

Arguments broke
out again, and the colors blazed hotter and led nowhere.

“Listen to me!”
Draconas thundered and, though many cast him baleful glances, they subsided to
hear what he had to say. “Another human city is going to be attacked and
destroyed as was New Bramfells. Thousands more humans will die.”

“Those with the
cannons,” said Mantas coolly.

Draconas drew in a
breath, commanding patience. “We can stop Maristara and Anora and the dragon
warriors from committing this atrocity. If we all join together and act to
protect the city of Ramsgate—”

“The humans will
fire the cannons at us and try to shoot us out of the sky,” said Mantas.

“I will speak to
them,” Draconas said. “Make them understand—”

“Bah! Humans have
no capacity for understanding. They are ruled by their fear—”

“In that, we’re
much alike,” Draconas returned.

The young dragon
bristled. “I say let them die! Let others of their kind see what happens when
they dare to threaten those who should have been their masters centuries ago
and would have been, but for some misguided thinking. You listen to me, Walker.
If you side with those humans and try to save them, you will find me there to
stop you.”

“And me,” said
Litard.

“And me, as well,”
said Reyal.

The three dragons
rose from their places, their claws scraping against the stone floor, and their
wings twitching, eager to fly.

“The session of
Parliament has not ended,” said Draconas.

“Oh, yes, it has,”
returned Mantas, his head snaking around to regard those who remained. “It has
all come to an end. You just don’t know it yet.”

The three dragons
departed and, after a moment’s hesitation, others followed until only four,
Draconas, Lysira, Malfiesto, and Nionan, remained.

“The Parliament—”
Lysira began.

“There is no
Parliament,” said Draconas. He had not only failed the humans. He had failed
his own kind. Despite what Mantas said, Draconas knew it and he grieved the
loss.

“The Parliament of
Dragons is dissolved.”

THE LADY IZABELLE
SHIFTED HER EMBROIDERY STAND TO RESUME her seat by the fire. Marcus, sprawled
in the chair opposite, had fallen asleep. She regarded him suspiciously,
wondering if he was truly slumbering or shamming. The human was pale and gaunt
with dark smudges beneath his eyes. He was restless in his sleep, twitching and
tossing his head. He looked ill. She smiled, satisfied.

It must be a
dreadful experience,
Anora thought, smoothing the embroidery with her human’s
hand,
having one’s soul pulled out and stitched into the fabric of my magic,
imprisoned within an embroidery frame.

The dragon wasn’t
truly stealing his soul, of course. Dragons do not believe in souls. She had
merely borrowed the human term. The enchantment she’d placed on Marcus was a
type dragons had concocted during the ancient wars, when they had fought each
other. If a dragon could lure or trick or force another dragon to look into his
eyes, that dragon could catch hold of his foe’s colors and wrap them up or
steal them or drain them or whatever he chose. So does the snake charm the
rabbit. Anora had not been certain the spell would work on Marcus, for she had
never attempted it on a human. Snagging him had been laughably easy, however.

Anora kept Marcus’s
thoughts wound around the spindle of her mind. Stitching them into a portrait
wasn’t really necessary, but it amused her and added to his torment. He knew
what she planned. He’d seen it all quite clearly when her mind had locked onto
his. A pity, but one of the drawbacks associated with using this spell was that
the caster was forced to open his mind in order to trap his opponent’s. Anora
had considered the risk and decided it was worth it.

She’d severed the
human’s contact with Draconas, and although Marcus knew her plans, she was not
worried about him revealing them to anyone. The prince might wriggle and
squirm, but she had fast hold of him. He could not escape, not until she freed
him. For Marcus, freedom would come only with death.

The human mother
rustled into the room. Ermintrude was nearly as pale as her son. Her face was
drawn and troubled. Her dimples had vanished. Going to Marcus, she felt his
forehead and his pulse and she gave a deep sigh.

“I think he is
improving, Your Majesty,” said Anora in the guise of the lady.

Ermintrude didn’t
hear. She was concentrating on her son to the exclusion of all else. She
smoothed back the hair from his forehead, then, seeming to remember they were
not alone, she turned to Izabelle.

“I am sorry, my
lady. What did you say?”

“I said I think he
is better, Your Majesty,” Anora repeated.

“I don’t know,”
said Ermintrude bleakly. “I don’t know.”

Shaking her head,
she added, “After this terrible news from New Bramfells, I have been thinking
that you should return to your home, Lady Izabelle. I should never have
permitted you to stay, and I would not have, if I had known the danger would be
this great.”

This plan did not
suit Anora at all, and she was ready with her arguments.

“Your Majesty,”
she said, her eyes lowered modestly, “I cannot bear to leave His Highness.
Perhaps I flatter myself—I am sure I do—but it seems to me that Prince Marcus
has some small regard for me, and I fear my departure might cause some setback
in his recovery.”

Anora raised her
eyes to meet the Queen’s. “I am not at all afraid so long as I am inside the
safety of castle walls, ma’am. I would be terrified to leave.”

“You would have an
escort,” the Queen assured her.

“And that would
take brave men away from the fighting, should it come to that. My father would
never forgive me.” Anora lowered her eyes again. “I will go if you command me,
Your Majesty. But I would much rather stay.”

Marcus roused at
that juncture. “What is the matter?” he asked, noting the lady’s high color and
his mother’s frown.

“Your father and I
decided that we should send the Lady Izabelle back to her home in Weinmauer,”
said Ermintrude. “The lady, it seems, refuses to go.”

Anora glided over
to stand beside Marcus. Her skirts whispered around her ankles. She looked into
his eyes. “Do you want me to leave, Your Highness? As you are soon to be my
husband, I will be guided by your decision.”

She could see in
his mind the red of his struggle to escape her, and she caught hold of that
color and wound it around and around the bobbin of her magic.

Marcus mumbled
something and sank back into his chair and closed his eyes.

“He wishes me to
stay, Your Majesty,” said Anora. “I love him. I do not want to leave him.”

“So be it,”
Ermintrude said. She touched the young woman on the cheek. “I will be proud to
call you ‘daughter.’ “

“Thank you, Your
Majesty.” Anora curtsied.

“I will sit with
Marcus awhile,” the Queen continued. “You should go rest before dinner.”

Anora curtsied
again to the Queen and left her alone with her son. Anora’s thoughts were
focused on her plans for the night, when, traversing a narrow spiral staircase,
she was aware of someone coming up as she was going down.

The two women met
in the center and stood regarding each other in the flaring torchlight. Anora
recognized the human—a female with blond hair named Evelina, who had tried to
barge in to see the Prince. The Queen, Anora recalled, had been most upset. The
female was of lower ranking than Izabelle, and she should be the one to stand
aside so that the lady could pass. Evelina did so, after a moment’s pause.
Anora gathered up her skirts and squeezed past the young woman. Evelina did not
curtsy as she should have done. She stood upright and stared quite boldly at
the lady. Happening to glance at Evelina as she went by, Anora saw the human’s
mouth curl. The glint of baleful enmity in the eyes would have chilled any
human to the bone. Anora had no care for humans, however, and she thought
nothing of it, except to be annoyed at the inconvenience of having to deal with
these hoops and the yards of silk, and a weak and fragile little human body.

The Lady Izabelle
had been fifteen years old when the dragon had waylaid her entourage in the
wilderness, killed her escorts, and dragged the screaming and terrified young
girl into a cave, there to tear out her heart and steal her body. Anora had
left the girl, still horribly alive, sealed inside the cave, blocking the entrance
with a heavy stone, so that none should find her. Anora placed the girl’s heart
in the golden locket, hung the locket around her neck, and proceeded on the
journey, creating her own knightly escorts out of illusion.

The dragon’s
intent had been to merely enter the castle and gain access to the royal family.
Anora was pleased and astonished beyond measure to discover that the young
woman, whose body she’d stolen because it suited her purpose, was actually to
be betrothed to Prince Marcus. This opened up all sorts of possibilities. If
dragons had held human beliefs, Anora would have said that this was a sign that
God himself smiled on her. As it was, she seized the fortunate coincidence and
made the most of it.

Dinner that night
was a glum affair. The food was not very good, nor was there very much, for
Cook was rationing what she served them. There was no music. The musicians had
been sent away. The king was not present. He had gone to inspect the city’s
fortifications and supervise the evacuation of the populace. The few who were
present at the table did not linger over the mutton stew, and the meal ended
quickly. After dinner, Anora played at draughts with the Prince until she was
able to plead fatigue and take her leave of them for the night. She carried
Marcus’s soul off in her work basket.

When the church
bells in the city rang twice, Anora wrapped herself in a cloak of illusion, and
stole out of her room. She glided down the stairs, through silent, deserted
halls, out into the courtyard. From there, wrapped in the night, she made her
way to the castle wall, where stood the cannons.

Soldiers were at
their posts, manning the towers, keeping watch, walking their rounds. Every man
was watchful and alert, for each had heard the fate of New Bramfells. Anora
listened to them talk in tense, low voices as she stole past them, unseen and
unsuspected.

The moon was
waning from the full, yet still shed enough bright white light for Anora to see
almost as clearly as by day. She welcomed the light. Her dragon eyes could see
living beings in the dark—humans glowed a warm red in her vision. But the
cannons had no life. They squatted black and ugly and repulsive in the
moonlight.

Six grotesque
monsters, with misshapen arms that they used to haul themselves around, and trundling
legs. Anora regarded them with loathing. She hated them, hated the smell of the
iron that reminded her of blood, hated the stink of sulfur and saltpeter, hated
the all-pervasive stench of humans that bound iron and death together.

Anora walked around
the cannons, not touching them, for she detested the feel of them. She knew how
they worked. Prince Marcus had most kindly explained it all to her, and she’d
seen them in action from a distance, hearing the appalling roar that shook the
ground, and watching them belch fire and burp up stone balls. She thought back
to a time when dragons had witnessed humans picking up sticks to use as
weapons, and she knew from dragon lore how the dragons had laughed, amused by
the sight. The dragons had laughed and had then gone back to their dreams.

“We should have
known,” Anora said sadly to herself. “We should have seen then that these
cunning little beasts would one day be capable of producing weapons that
threaten our very existence. We should have done then what we do now. We should
have shown them that we are the true rulers of this world, taught them to fear
us and respect us. Still, better late than never, as the little beasts say.”

Soldiers walked
past the dragon, so close she could have plucked their cloaks. They did not see
her, though one stared straight at her. Anora kept still until they had gone.
The illusion effectively concealed her from human eyes, but it could not dampen
sound. While she waited for them to continue on their way, she decided she should
contact Maristara.

Maristara was
waiting for her, impatiently it seemed.

“Where have you
been?”

“About our
business,” Anora returned.

“You have not
heard the news.”

“What news? Just
tell me. Do not be so dramatic,” Anora said. Maristara could be such a dullard
sometimes.