Master of Dragons (9 page)

“All would have
been well, but that Brayard’s son, Braun, was the inquisitive sort. He did not
believe that his father could have been so reckless. Prior to his death,
Brayard assured me that he had not spoken to anyone regarding his suspicions. I
now know that he must have mentioned at least some of what he suspected to his
son. How much, I’m not sure, but at least enough to cause Braun to fly to Seth,
with some scheme of trying to warn the humans about what was happening.

“The women of
Seth, skilled in the use of dragon-magic, very nearly killed Braun. He managed
to escape, and he returned and told his tale to anyone who would listen. He
wanted to stir up trouble, believing that the truth about the murder of his
father would then float to the surface. You know what happened. Draconas was
sent to try to ‘deal’ with Maristara. He was to take a human male—a king of his
people—to Seth to meet the Mistress of Dragons and persuade her to leave Seth.

“From that point
on, nothing went right. Grald lost his nerve and sent out his magic-wielding
monks to destroy Draconas. These lunatics did far more harm to us than they did
to Draconas, for they alerted him to the fact that humans had been given
dragon-magic. Maristara did not abandon the worn-out human body as swiftly as
she should have, with the lamentable result that two humans as well as Draconas
stumbled upon Maristara’s secret of body switching.

“We had to act
fast to repair the damage that had been done. Fortunately, Draconas provided us
with the means. He came up with the idea of the human king mating with the
human female— a High Priestess of Seth—producing a son that would be strong in
the dragon-magic; a son who would then be sent in to deal with Maristara.
Draconas later abandoned that plan, but Grald and I saw how it could be useful
to us. I persuaded Draconas to go through with it. The humans mated and the
female was impregnated. Then Grald also planted his seed in the human female,
impregnating her with a child that would be half-human, half-dragon.

“Even that went
awry. Grald’s orders were to abduct the human female and carry her safely to
Dragonkeep before impregnating her, but he could not control the lust of the
human body in which he is housed. Still, all would have been well if Draconas
had obeyed
my
orders. He was supposed to bring the two babies to me. He
took it upon himself to defy me, however. He had developed a bond with these
humans, and he felt guilty about being the cause of the death of the mother.
And he now knew that there was someone in the Parliament in collusion with the
dragons. He felt he could trust no one among us.”

“He was right,”
Malfiesto growled.

Anora ignored him.
“Grald feared that Braun had discovered the location of Dragonkeep. Whether
that was true or not, we’ll never know. We couldn’t chance it. He argued that
Braun had to die and, reluctantly, I agreed. I was afraid that Braun’s death
would only increase Draconas’s suspicions, which it did. He tried to keep the
children hidden from us—an impossible task, for they had the dragon-magic in
their blood, and that meant that, sooner or later, they must open their minds
to us.

“Grald and I found
the half-dragon child, but Draconas intervened before we could capture him and
spirit him away. Draconas warned the child against using the magic and, wonder
of wonder, the child obeyed him, at least until he reached manhood and found
himself in trouble. Then he turned to his father. Grald discovered his
half-dragon son and rescued him from humans, who thought he was devil-spawn or
some such superstitious nonsense.

“The other child,
the king’s son, went insane, as do so many human males with the dragon-magic,
and we hoped he would die and we would not have to worry about him. But
Draconas meddled in this and saved the boy. Not only that, Draconas taught him
how to use the magic. The boy grew to manhood and is one of the strongest in
dragon-magic we have produced. And one of the most dangerous,” Anora added
grimly, “for the prince has the ability to enter the minds of dragons,
something no human has ever been capable of doing before.

“Worse yet, the
king of this human nation, reacting out of ignorance and fear, began to develop
the first human weapon built specifically to slay dragons. The weapon is not a
threat to us, of course—one blast of fire will melt it where it stands. For the
first time in our history, however, humans are actually daring to take a stand
against us. Again, due to Draconas’s conniving, the prince, Marcus, found the
location of Dragonkeep. The king will undoubtedly lead his human armies against
this city. Our plans are endangered. The lives of all dragonkind are
threatened. We must act—”

“You keep speaking
of plans, Anora,” Malfiesto interrupted, using the dragon’s name, not her
august title of Prime Minister. “What plans are these? I think we have a right
to know. And were you party to the two dragons’ criminal behavior all along?”

“To answer your
last question first, no, I was not party to what Grald and Maristara were
planning. I was as furious as you when I heard that they had seized a human
kingdom. That was before I knew the danger humans posed to us, however. When I
became aware of that threat, it seemed to me that Maristara and Grald had the
right idea. Use the dragon-magic in their blood to control the humans. Rule
over them. Prevent them from creating these terrible weapons. Not only will
this benefit us,” Anora argued. “Such a prohibition will also benefit the
humans. Let us face facts. Humans first invented these horrible weapons to kill
large numbers of their own kind. We will stop them from harming each other, as
well as ourselves. In the future, when humans come to view our intervention
rationally, they will thank us.”

“Thank us for
enslaving them,” Draconas muttered in Lysira’s mind.

Some of the
dragons were nodding sagely, evidently favoring Anora’s position. Others
glowered, not pleased with what they were hearing, among them Malfiesto, which
surprised Lysira, for his dislike of humans was well known.

Lysira did not
know what to feel. She was terrified of the destructive force of the humans’
weapons, yet, she was troubled by the idea of dragons making humans a
slave-race, as Draconas was saying. She grieved over the loss of her brother
and was furious at how casually Anora spoke of slaying him. Yet, Braun had
always been a troublemaker, a meddler. If only he’d let well enough alone! Now
she was the last of their noble house and, if what Anora said was true, her
children might be among the last dragons ever born. . . .

She momentarily
lost track of what Anora was saying and caught hold of the thread in the
middle.

“For two hundred
years, I have been working with Grald and Maristara, developing our plans in
secret. We hoped—at least I hoped—that we would never be forced to use such
drastic measures. I hoped that the human inventions would fail and that they
would grow weary of pursuing them. I underestimated the human desire for
conquest and power. As for the nature of our plans, I cannot reveal them to
you.”

The dragons
muttered at this. Tails snapped in irritation, wings rustled, claws scraped.

“By law, Prime
Minister,” said Malfiesto, “you are required to tell us.”

“I have broken so
many laws, old friend, that one more will not matter,” Anora replied. “And I am
no longer your Prime Minster. I resign from that post. Who will side with me?”

Dragons spit and
snarled, snapped and roared. Heads swooped down in fighting stance, wings
lifted, tails thrashed. Malfiesto bellowed, actually using his voice, something
unheard of, to try to make the other dragons see reason. Three of the young
males, incensed, flew off. Two of the females left with them. Others remained
behind to argue and debate.

“There’s nothing
more you can do here,” said Draconas, and Lysira, thankfully, left.

Once outside, she
lifted her wings and soared into a night spattered with stars. She breathed
deeply of the fresh air and felt better.

“Where are you,
Draconas?” she asked, free, at last, to speak openly with him.

“I am here,” he
said. “In your mind. Whenever you want me, this is where you will find me.”

“I mean,
physically, where are you?” Lysira persisted.

“It is better that
you do not know,” Draconas replied. “Not that I do not trust you, Lysira, but
two members of your family have already died by violence. I do not want to risk
a third death, especially of someone I care about.”

Lysira’s colors
shimmered, dazzling her with their brilliance.

“I
can
use
your help, however,” Draconas continued. “I need eyes to see and ears to hear.
But only if you are willing.”

“You mean, only if
I agree with your side of things,” said Lysira slowly. “I’m not sure I do
agree, Draconas. What Anora said frightens me.”

“Anora has been
blinded by fear, Lysira. She is able to see only one path—a path that leads to
doom. Many paths exist, and some are bright with sunlight.”

Lysira did not
immediately reply. She watched the ground skim beneath her. Humans were small
as ants in her sight, and they could not see her at all. She realized,
suddenly, that she’d never seen a human except from this vast distance.

“I will be your
eyes, Draconas,” Lysira agreed. “It is time that I looked at the world. But I
want you to know beforehand that I will never do anything to betray our people.
Even if that means going against someone I care about. What do you need me to
do?”

“I need to know
what has happened to the king’s son, Marcus. I do not dare try to contact him,
for Anora and the others are searching for him and, if they find him, they will
kill him. This is what he looks like.”

An image of a
human came to Lysira’s mind—youthful, comely, with fair hair and hazel eyes. He
did not, she was forced to admit, look like a monster.

“And what do I do
when I find this human?” Lysira asked.

“Warn him,” said
Draconas. “Warn him that he and his people are in danger.”

“And he will use
his cannons to try to slay us,” said Lysira sadly She shook her head. “I do not
think—”

“Lysira,” said
Draconas gently, persuasively, “Grald does not mean to make these humans slaves.
He means to slaughter them.” Lysira kept her colors to herself.

“Please, Lysira.
You said yourself. Our people have gone mad with fear. We have a chance to stop
the madness.” Dragons are always loath to take action. “I will think about it,
Draconas,” Lysira said.

NIGHT STRETCHED
DARK ACROSS THE RIVER. THE WATER SLIPPED out from underneath him. The river
flowed ever onward, uncaring about the vagaries of time. Marcus steered the
boat nearer the sunken cavern, and his fears grew, compounded by the fact that
he had no idea how far he was from the cavern.

The first and last
time Marcus had traveled the river had been during the night. He had not been
paying attention to his surroundings during that first journey. His attention
had been divided between keeping an eye on the boats of the monks ahead and
watching for snags and other dangers in the river. He had very little reckoning
of the passage of time—how long it had taken him and Bellona to travel from the
sunken cavern to the site of Dragonkeep. Had it been minutes or hours? He
looked back on that night and he couldn’t be certain.

His rowing slowed.
He thought he detected a change in the air, a different smell; one that was not
of green and growing things, but the smell that he remembered from the cave, a
smell of wet rock and slime. He felt a change in the temperature, as well—a
chill, musty breath flowing from a gaping mouth.

Evelina felt it,
too, for she began to rummage about for one of the blankets she’d scrounged.
Wrapping it around her shoulders, she huddled into it.

“What a horrible
stench,” she complained. “It smells of death.”

Marcus shifted
direction, rowed toward the shoreline.

“Catch hold of
that branch,” he told Evelina.

“Are we stopping?”
she asked eagerly, unwinding herself from the blanket long enough to do as he
said. She grabbed hold of the branch, and the boat swiveled around to nose
gently in among a shadowy tangle of reeds and rushes and willow trees.

“Just for a little
while,” he answered. “I want to wait until long after midnight to enter the
cave.”

Evelina gave a
little screech. “As if it won’t be terrifying enough! You’re going to make it
easy for the monks to catch us.”

“Hush, keep quiet,”
Marcus warned. “I don’t want anyone to see us or hear us. I’m not going to make
finding us easy for anyone.”

He planned to use
his magic to conceal the boat from view, cast an illusion over it, so that
anyone looking at the boat would see only dark, flowing water. Such illusions
never work, Draconas had once warned him. Someone always sneezes. But Marcus
could think of no other way to avoid the monks, if they were in the cave.

He shipped the
oars and tied the boat up securely. The boat bobbed gently in the water. He
picked up one of the blankets, toyed with it a moment as he thought over what
he had to do.

“I hate to ask
this of you—” he began.

“Ask me,” said
Evelina. “Please. I will do anything.”

He regarded her
steadily. “I am going to use my magic to hide us and the boat.”

He paused, waiting
for her reaction. She continued to gaze at him.

“Yes,” she said. “Go
on.”

“You’re not afraid
... of the magic?” he asked hesitantly.

“No, of course
not,” she told him. “Why should I be afraid of you?”

His heart warmed
to her. No flinching, no shrinking away, no talk of “devil’s work.” Just calm
acceptance.

“I am very tired,
and I must be strong and well rested to use the magic.”