The Dragon Hunter and the Mage (7 page)

“Alright…” Cassia sat up in the bed and Tarsus did the same. “I want Aric to see his father.”

Aric and Fadan washed away the sewer stench with water buckets, then ran up to the attic on the north wing. They didn’t even bother drying their clothes. Fadan dragged a table to the center of the room and placed a candle, two glasses of pure crystal, a jar of water, and the precious flask on top of it. The candle flame danced, and inside the vial, red waves swirled within the silvery liquid.

Across the attic, Aric dug the book from its hideout. He felt his stomach tighten and his eyes closed as he muttered a plea. Would Ava grant him his wish? It would certainly be a first.

He dropped the massive tome on the improvised table and quickly found the page he was looking for.

“One portion of Runium, five portions of water,” Aric read.

Fadan measured and poured the liquids in each crystal glass. He gave one to his brother and picked the other one for himself.

Aric reached for his belt and removed a small kitchen knife. He looked up, searching the heavens, and closed his eyes in a plea. Then, he made a small cut on the palm of his hand, dropped the knife, and squeezed some blood droplets into his glass.

Please….

He reopened his eyes. The blood drops unraveled inside the translucent liquid and he waited, watching each undulation of his blood threads as they dissolved.

Please….

The red became duller and duller until it turned white. Other than that, nothing happened. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, his body sunk and he let a long sigh escape him. Devastated, he lifted his head slightly.

Across the table, Fadan was staring at his own glass with his mouth wide open. He lifted his cup and showed it to Aric.

The liquid inside was as bright blue as an Imperial flag waving in the sun.

Chapter 3

Ava looked at him from above. Serene, crystalline, glowing, the stained glass where she was portrayed stretching across multiple stories up to the temple ceiling. Aric wondered if the star floating above her head was not a more accurate representation of her. After all, had she ever even stepped on Arkhemia?

He heard steps from behind.

“We don’t usually get visitors this early.” The Priest wore a white tunic with Ava’s Dawn Star embroidered on his chest. By the complicated, filigree-like cutouts of the cloth covering his head, Aric assumed he should be an important member of the Temple. “Why don’t you return in an hour, when the morning celebration begins?”

“Does she ever reply back?” Aric asked.

The Priest pondered the question for a while.

“It depends on the answer you are looking for. Mother Ava does not grant wishes.”

“Why not?”

“The city is full of fountains,” the Priest said. “The naïve throw gold coins into them, the wise quench their thirst in them.” He stepped besides Aric, searching for his face. “You’re the Empress’s son, Aric!”

“What’s the point of praying to a Goddess if she can’t hear us? Or just won’t?”

The Priest looked at his glass-made Goddess.

“Ava did not create us, yet she cared for us as if she was our mother. She risked her own life to protect us.” The old man turned to Aric. “We pray to her because we are thankful. Because if it wasn’t for her, we wouldn’t be here.”

“Risked her own life!? She just gave us weapons,” Aric protested.

“Dragons have their own Gods, you know. By taking our side, Ava crossed them. She lost her own lover because of it.”

“Now there is a God worth praying to,” Aric said. “He was a warrior. He came down to fight on our side. Ava just watched…”

“I thought you saw no point in praying to a God that doesn’t answer your prayers. How is a dead God going to help you?”

Aric opened his mouth but no answer came.

“At last!”

Aric and the Priest turned around at the voice. At the other end of the temple, by the entrance, stood Sagun.

“Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for hours,” the Castellan said as he walked through the temple’s seating. “My apologies, Holy Brother. I hope the boy was not disturbing you.”

If there was something Aric did not want to see right now, that thing was Sagun.

“Not at all. He’s just a curious boy.”

The Castellan returned the Priest’s bow, then turned to Aric.

“Your mother wishes to see you in the main hall,” he said.

His mother? In the main hall? The last time he had entered the main hall he had been removed by the steel gauntlet of a Legionary and then locked in his room. The time before that…. He could not recall a time before that.

With his black braid snaking at his back, Sagun lead Aric out of the temple and back through the myriad palaces of the Citadel. The Castellan left a trail of perfume behind him so intense that Aric felt nauseous. On the other hand, everything about Sagun gave him nausea, from the shaven top of his head contrasting with the gigantic black braid, to the overly decorated and colorful Akhami tunics. Even the way his brown skin always glowed without a single drop of sweat was repulsive. Were all people of Akham like him? If so, it had to be a horrible place.

The gates of the main hall were open when they arrived at the Core Palace, and Aric could see the blue dais where the two thrones rose. Their backrest, covered in blue satin, climbed up to the ceiling like two veils dropped from the heavens. But what truly intrigued Aric was that, standing up there, waiting for him beside his mother, was the Emperor himself.

Had Fadan said anything about the book? Or the Runium?

I’m going to be thrown away! Or worse….

Tarsus had a rigid expression, his eyes piercing through Aric. Cassia, however, gave him a delightful smile that made Aric feel warm inside.

“Aric, my love,” his mother said, “your father is in Augusta. Today, my dear, you will be allowed to see him.”

Aric’s chin dropped. He turned to the Emperor, sure he would forbid it at once, but Tarsus did no such thing. He just kept his eyes locked on Aric without saying a word.

That was not possible.

“Seriously?!”

His mother nodded affirmatively. The smile had not faded from her face yet, and it didn’t look like it was going anywhere anytime soon.

“I need to stop.”

The Sergeant leading the escort gave him an astonished look.

“Again?!”

Doric shrugged. “Horse riding makes me want to piss,” he said.

“I imagine drinking four wineskins probably doesn’t help either.”

“Unfortunately, that’s all I brought.”

“The city gates are right up there,” the Sergeant told him. “You can piss when we get to the inn.”

Doric did not reply. He stopped his horse, dismounted, and tied him to a branch. Then, he lowered his pants and started relieving himself.

“What are you doing?!” the Sergeant asked.

Doric looked down his own body, then back at the Sergeant.

“What do you mean, what am I doing?” he asked.

A Legionary started laughing but was quickly silenced by the Sergeant’s look. Doric finished, pulling his pants back up. He climbed back onto his horse and took the view in.

The Imperial Citadel rested like a crown above Mount Capitol. Its sharp towers jutted upwards like swords challenging the sky, and somewhere inside was Cassia and his son.

Around the Citadel, Augusta spread like a mantle of houses, streets, and plazas. Throughout the centuries, the city had grown so much it already had three separate, concentric walls protecting it. Doric still remembered when there were little more than a few shacks outside the outer wall, but the last couple of decades had brought so many people to the Empire’s capital that soon it would be necessary to build a fourth one.

With his escort surrounding him, he crossed the city gates. They rode through cobbled streets, crowded squares, and avenues so large you could fit entire villages inside. It was incredible how so much had changed, and yet everything was exactly the same. The Safya still flowed as wide and blue as ever. The towers of the temples, public buildings, and nobility estates still competed among themselves for the place closest to the sky. Even the Legionaries still guarded their posts everywhere he looked. To Doric, the only change were the Paladins. More than a dozen times, he saw columns of twenty of them, marching around with their black cuirasses and red waistbands. As if the Legionaries weren’t enough….

They arrived at the Maginus field, a colossal, rectangular plaza around which gathered a collection of public buildings from post offices to courts. In the center of the plaza, cutting it in half like a spine, was the largest collection of statues Doric had ever seen. In it, the Legions of Maginus II triumphed over the last army of Akham.

“It’s a breathtaking monument, is it not?” Doric asked. When no one answered, he added, “If you’re into ultra-realism, of course.”

Once again, silence.

“I prefer Fyrian, myself.” He waited for an answer again, and once more none came. “Saggad is full of Fyrian pieces. Have you ever been to Saggad, Sergeant?”

“Yes,” the Sergeant replied at last.

An entire day of journeying and that was all he had gotten out of him. Yes, or no. Doric hadn’t even discovered his name. In fact, all he had heard from him had been orders to his men. He was too young to be an officer, which meant he was no plebeian. Besides, the clean way in which he moved gave him away. Doric had also noticed the obsessive way in which he cleaned the silver plates of his armor as if it were the most valuable thing he possessed. It was curious, considering he could obviously afford a Sergeant’s rank.

Doric stopped his horse again.

“What is it now!?” the Sergeant fumed.

“Do you have any idea how many of those Legionaries are my ancestors?” Doric asked, indicating the statues.

That clearly got the man’s attention.

“No….”

“Not one,” Doric said.

The Sergeant was about to reply something rather unfriendly, but Doric didn’t give him enough time.

“As for the high ranking officers, however…” he pointed at a figure riding a horse that looked like he was giving orders to those around him. “See that General over there?” Doric hoped it was, in fact, a General. “He is my great-great-grandfather’s great-great-grandfather.”

“Your what?”

“My great-great-grandfather’s… he’s my ancestor,” Doric explained. “A great man.”

Probably a cretin.

The Sergeant was clearly impressed with that.

“General Lucena was your ancestor?” he asked.

Who?

“Precisely.” If there was something Doric’s family had in abundance, that thing was famous Generals. What difference did it make if that particular General wasn’t one of them?

The Sergeant gave Doric a sullen look. “A great man, without a doubt,” he declared. Then, as if waking up, he ordered his men to resume their march, except this time he placed his horse beside Doric’s.

As the Citadel got closer, the city became denser. The streets grew narrower, the buildings more compact. The column was forced to form a single file line in order to fit through the crowd. A group of kids dashed by them and under Doric’s horse. He wanted to yell at them, tell them that it was dangerous, but the boys were gone before he could decide what to say. He turned around and looked ahead and saw a man being squashed against the wall by the horse of one of the Legionaries. Exasperated, the man pushed the horse. The gesture was useless, but the soldier did not like it. He smashed his boot right into the face of the poor man, and he fell sideways into a puddle of what Doric hoped was not urine.

Suddenly, there was a thundering up ahead. Doric saw a carriage at the crossing in front of him. A wheel had broken and its cargo of green apples was spilling over the ground. The escort stopped.

“Fire take my luck!” the Sergeant cursed. “Belba, go see what’s the matter.”

The Legionary spurred his horse with a ‘Yes, Sergeant,’ and advanced ten paces until he reached the carriage, but a curious crowd had enveloped the accident and the Legionary found himself blocked.

Doric saw the owner of the apple cart yelling and waving his arms. Then, someone pushed someone and someone else replied with a punch. Some spectators decided to intervene and a brawl began.

“Look at these idiots,” one Legionary sneered.

Doric rubbed his horse’s neck to calm him down as the Sergeant exhaled impatiently next to him.

“We can’t leave Lord Auron waiting here all day,” he said. “Clear the way.”

The Legionary horsemen advanced, opening a path, but the fight was spreading and the advance lost its momentum quickly. The horses got nervous, and soon the Legionaries were part of the brawl as well.

Two men, entangled in a fight, fell over the Sergeants horse and Doric saw him struggling not to fall off. His own ride squirmed beneath him, circling.

Then, a hand hugged Doric’s horse’s neck and it froze. A pair of blue eyes looked up. It was a woman, covered in a dark cloak. The hood over her head did a poor job of hiding a mischievous smile.

“Welcome back to Augusta, Doric Auron.”

Doric was confused.

“Hum…  Do I know you?”

The woman offered him an apple.

“A welcoming gift,” she said. “Just don’t open it until you are alone.” Her voice was as sweet as a lullaby.

Doric grabbed the apple, trying to decide if the woman was insane.

“A gift?” He studied the fruit. It was indeed just an apple. “Hum… Thank you.”

The mischievous smile on the woman’s face turned into a satisfied chuckle, and without another word, she disappeared into the middle of the crowd.