Quest Of The Dragon Tamer (Book 1) (39 page)

“I could never forget you. You’re the only one I’ll ever love, Mari. But you’ll soon forget me, which is what you should do. You’ll love another and bear fine children.”

“No.” She pulled away. “I’m dying, Korin.”

Korin put his hands on her shoulders. “You aren’t dying. You’re just ill. I want you to see the healer. Promise me you will.”

Mari remained silent. Korin’s previous foreboding crept up his spine. A cloud passed over the sun, casting them in shadow.

“When the power was released at Stardom,” Mari said, “I watched Alise crumble to the ground in pain. I saw others screaming, others dying. I felt nothing, but at the same time I felt everything. Something happened to me too. In the next breath I wasn’t the same person I was just heartbeats before. I don’t know how to explain it any better than that.

“All I know is something isn’t right inside me. What, I don’t know, but I know I won’t be alive much longer, and I’m frightened.”

“Mari, a lot changed when the Quy was born, for many people. You’re compassionate. It’s only logical you felt changed. People were dying, in pain, and you felt for them. You reached out with your feelings and felt so much it’s now making you physically sick. Can’t you admit that’s a viable possibility?”

Marianne studied at him for a long time before replying. Korin held his breath. The look in her eyes was one of a fatally wounded animal full of quiet acceptance it was going to die.

“No. Something’s inside me. It’s eating away at my soul.”

- - -

Keys clattered against the lock. Lazo squinted in the gloom but the slits at the top of the door were too high to reveal their visitor. Beside him, Jasta and Justin exchanged furtive glances.

Lazo put a gentle hand on the Jasta’s shoulder. “Don’t fear. I’ll return before it claims you.”

They had been confined to the isolation cell since capture. It was an individual confinement, devoid of any kind of opening, and encompassed by dreary gray stone. Four men guarded the cell at all times. The only light, night and day, was from a lone torch hanging behind the thick wooden door. It gave little light and little comfort.

Ista kept them secluded because of their close association with Ren. She knew they could reveal the truth to whoever would listen. No food was brought them, no light given, and the sanitation was theirs to control. Now the only thing keeping each of them from giving up on life and rejecting the dirty water the guards brought was the unspoken threat hanging around them like chains: if one of them died the Mar would claim the others. So they drank the water. And they ate rats.

Rats thrived in the dungeon, feeding off prisoners too weak to push them aside. They had gone for days until they could stand their hunger no longer. Jasta wept after they had eaten the first rat. Lazo had never seen his sister cry, not even as a child. It had shaken him more than he could have imagined.

By his calculations, it was early morning. He was never called during the day, only at night, when the castle was quiet and the Collective asleep. He had been taken every night since their confinement, Ista demanding he reveal the secrets of the Red Eye.

Ista had taught him a chant that called to the Red Eye’s memories. Because he was a twin he had learned the chant within a moons’ click, not the days it would have taken a normal man. Because he was a triplet he could leave the twins in small doses without the Mar claiming them. Ista was holding his siblings over his head. One day, if he didn’t reveal the memories of the Eye he would be taken from the twins permanently and their deaths would be on his hands.

In the ritual all contact was lost with the outside, even for a twin. Each time the ritual began Jasta and Justin’s lives hung in the balance. Lazo made sure to end the calling before his siblings were lost to the Mar.

So far, Lazo had been able to avoid the Red Eye’s memories. When the ritual began he closed his eyes, never allowing himself to witness the Eye’s secrets. The apparitions of the Red Eye were as real as an army of soldiers. The memories of the Eye could come alive, and they could kill. Because he originated the chant he was immune to the Eye’s memories. The children, however, were not.

May the Maker forgive him. Ista had known he would try to protect the Red Eye’s secrets so she had forced innocent children to be witnesses. Ista hadn’t guessed Lazo would allow the children to die. Lazo might have been able to save them if he had seen the memories, but he had not. He couldn’t allow Ista to discover the truth.

Each night he had wept in remorse and prayed a fervent prayer for the Maker’s forgiveness. But what choice did he have? The Red Eye could not be awakened.

The door squeaked open. The glare of the torches almost blinded him, and Lazo shielded his eyes with a soiled hand. The outline of four burly guards could be seen in the doorway. Just in case anyone besides Ista could sense the power by touch, Lazo stepped forward so he would be the first one handled.

He had always been able to reach his other side. He was a triplet. It was in his nature. Since birth he had been able to enter another part of his mind and escape the constant chatter of the twins. That’s how he could leave the twins and not feel the Mar, or the pain of separation. Because he could go to his other side he was able to hide his power from detection. It was next to impossible for Jasta and Justin. Thank the Maker Ista had only touched him when they had first been captured. She hadn’t tested the twins. Ista knew if Lazo had the power the others would as well. That had given him the time he needed in the dungeon to teach Jasta and Justin how to enter the other side of their minds in order to conceal their power.

By night, Lazo was a soldier. By day he was an instructor, tutoring Jasta and Justin on how to find their other side. Although it had been a grueling task, both had learned. Lazo had to keep his own emotions under control as he ordered his siblings to give themselves over to the Mar. The Mar’s effects were something the twins experienced even if each left the other for only a heartbeat. It was excruciating: as if one heartbeat you were floating in a sea of warm water, the buoyancy carrying your weight easily, and in the next you were drowning as a frigid undercurrent pulled you down, plunging you into a torrent of darkness.

There had been times in his life Lazo desperately wished he had the twins’ closeness. This was not one of those times. The Mar was something he hoped to never feel.

Jasta was able to remain on the other side longer than Justin; Justin had always been the weakest of the three, but both could remain in the other part of themselves for as long as it would take for Ista to touch them and test them for the power. They had to be prepared at all times. If they went into their other sides too soon or too late Ista would have them.

A guard came forward and tethered Lazo’s arms and legs. The other moved to Jasta and Justin. Lazo almost cried out in alarm. Jasta and Justin had never been taken. Did Ista know of his betrayal?

Lazo reached inside and found the light of the Quy. Although he was no fighter, he desperately wanted to try to break his chains and flee. His inner voice was never wrong, and it currently screamed for him to run. The same fear was mirrored in the twins’ eyes, but they would never escape the guards. They knew nothing of the Quy and they were far from soldiers.

Lazo tried to recall if he had ever held a sword. He glanced at his hands. They were covered with grime. His fingernails were broken to the quick and there were a few bloody scabs where the rats had nipped him in sleep. He tried to recall the way his hands had looked before magic’s rebirth: smooth, without calluses, murky white and unblemished. A sword would be as foreign in his hands as it would in the hands of a newborn child. He knew strategy, maps and tactics but nothing about physical combat. Escape was as fleeting as water through his fingers.

A guard jabbed Jasta in the back and shoved her forward. Jasta tripped over her chains and released a sharp cry of pain. Lazo watched as Jasta wavered precariously to regain her footing. He wanted to reach out to her but he knew the punishment for his aid would be worse than the punishment if she fell, so he remained where he was, whispering encouragement to her with his inner voice. When Jasta managed to stumble to an upright position, her hair was tousled, her cheeks were pallid and sunken, and her robe was torn from her falls. It was an image Lazo would have laughed at weeks ago. Jasta was steel: hard, unemotional and almost cold. Now she was a fine silk thread, needing him and Justin more than they needed her.

And Justin: the twin whose eyes always shown with inner excitement now had eyes of granite; the twin whose incessant chatter almost drove Lazo mad was completely silent. Lazo found himself talking about anything he could bring to mind just to ensure Justin would hold on to sanity. Soon, Lazo knew, sanity would be the least of his worries. Disease would kill them. Rats were host to many illnesses. Jasta already had odd spots on her back, and Justin was losing his hair.

Jasta and Justin walked in front of him with one guard to each side. Lazo followed, the other two guards at his heels. A sharp spear butted him in the back. He barely noticed. He was intent on trying to decipher why Ista had summoned the twins. Did she suspect they had the power, or did she want to question them?

He settled on the latter. If he had judged Ista correctly she took little notice of those she deemed harmless. Just as a giant ignored a pebble, Ista ignored those who couldn’t match her skill. Her arrogance could very well be her downfall. Even a pebble could arm a sling to down a giant, even a pebble.

But his observation did little to suppress his feeling of dread. Something terrible was about to happen, something treacherous. Sweat broke out on his brow, and despite his weak condition every fiber of his being tensed for battle.

From what Lazo had overheard, Ista had begun to rebuild the Alcazar and she was training those with magic with rigorous intent. She promised all her subjects glory and power beyond reason and had proclaimed the age of the Collective.

Lazo knew the real meaning behind those words. It would be an age of domination, an age that would defy all the Code of the Alcazar stood for, and an age that would herald wizards as rulers of the Lands. A silent rage ignited within him. He opened his mind to allow the others to feel it. He felt the twins grab on to his anger like a banner of hope. If they concentrated on rage, Jasta and Justin would have no time for fear.

His siblings began to murmur frantically. When Lazo refocused, his step faltered. They had reached the great room. Nothing could have prepared him for the sight. In all of his days and nights in the dungeon he hadn’t imagined this.

A cry came to his lips but no voice would follow. Hundreds upon hundreds of migrants filled the lower chambers of Stardom, valises tossed over their backs or dropped by their sides. Children shouted in excitement as they filtered through the adults to reach the forefront of the throng. Soldiers’ uniforms, not only from Crape, but also from Fyl and Byn, some even from Oldan, weaved in and out of the mob, trying to maintain order among the commoners.

Although the people were grains of sand on the shore, that wasn’t what stunned Lazo to silence. It was the fact that every one of them, man, woman and child, had one thing in common – their heads were shaved. Although a few of the women wore snoods to keep their baldness hidden, most did not. Their baldness was a mark of their power. Lazo sent a silent prayer to the Maker, knowing the needles lay under the surface of their skulls. Ista already controlled them.

He felt as if he looked in on a nightmare. People glanced in their direction but gave them little notice. The chamber was filled with a current of titillation. Fervent voices infiltrated the air like a drone of bees, and bursts of laughter sent the ado to even higher levels. Lazo’s stomach turned, sick with the reality before him.

A sentry posted at the bottom of the stairs sounded a trumpet. All quieted, and everyone, children included, fell to their knees and touched their heads to the floor. Lazo’s eyes rose to the landing overhead where Ista stood in her glorious body. Her stoic green eyes looked straight through him.

One of the guards cursed and forced Lazo to the ground. With sudden realization, Lazo saw he was the only one who had remained standing. Jasta and Justin were already down. He was unsure if they had been forced to bow or if they had done so out of fear. They were silent, even in their minds.

His heart beat so frantically he was sure it could be heard in the hush that had settled over the crowd. He held his breath, wanting to look up but sensing Ista’s eyes had yet to stray from him.

“Arise, my children.” Ista’s voice floated across the assembly. “As I have said, I’m your humble servant, you aren’t mine. I welcome you to the Collective.”

A roar went up from the crowd. The marble hall seemed to magnify the shouts and carry them to the depths of the Abyss.

Ista lifted her hands, stilling the throng to silence. The sunlight filtered in the windows and bathed her in sunlit glory. Her dark hair seemed to dance in its graces. A few men in the crowd spoke in admiration of her beauty. Ista smiled before she began.

“In my day wizards were under the Code of the Alcazar. They were forbidden to rule, forbidden to fight, and forbidden to embrace the Quy for all its power. My children, the wizards of old failed for one reason and one reason alone: they gave magic boundaries.” Her face twisted in anguished disapproval. “I’ve had many years to think on magic’s history and what rules need to be changed. Now I have a chance to mend the old ways. I’m honored and humbled to teach and guide you in something as powerful as the Quy.”

The crowd was silent. Lazo closed his eyes, feeling Jasta and Justin’s panic mingle with his own. The people were transfixed, hungering for every word and swallowing her ideology like life’s water.

“Why did magic have to be destroyed, my children?”

Murmurs sifted throughout the great hall, but no one raised their voices to speak. After a few heartbeats the murmurs stilled and all waited in expectation.