The Dragon's Son (35 page)

Gathering up her skirts so that they did not brush the corpse, Evelina
detoured around the body of the monk and ran across the hall to the door.

The sun was a bleary red slit of an eye, peering over the edge of the
horizon. No one else was awake yet, for the courtyard was devoid of life. Ven
was already halfway across the courtyard, walking with swift, purposeful
strides. Evelina knew his game now. He was making good his own escape. He’d
killed the monk, who had been set there to guard him, and he was fleeing,
leaving her behind.

“By the time I’m finished with you, you man-beast, you won’t be a man
anymore.” She touched the knife at her waist. Her lip curled. “You’ll just be a
beast.”

With this promise, she hastened after him.

MARCUS CROUCHED IN SEMIDARKNESS, HIS HAND PUSHing hard against a chill stone
wall.

“You can’t come in!” He was sweating, afraid. “Go away. Keep out!”

“Too late for that,” said a voice.

Marcus gasped and shuddered and woke up. He found himself standing in front
of a stone wall, pushing against it with all his might.

Bewildered, he backed away.

“You were walking in your sleep,” the voice told him.

Still confused, but at least awake, Marcus remembered the dragon outside his
room, trying to batter down the door. He drew in a breath and turned from the
wall, which he could see now was just a wall, not a door. His terror was real,
however, not a dream. His heart raced, he was clammy with sweat. He breathed
deeply, waited for fear to subside, and looked around.

He was in a one-room dwelling that had the feel of a cave, for the walls and
the low-hanging ceiling were made of rough stone blocks, irregular in shape,
that had been jammed together. The floor was packed dirt. Gray dawn straggled
through two crudely made windows set in the front, one on either side of an
ill-fitting wooden door.

The room was bare, except for a straw mattress on the dirt floor. The
mattress had a dent in it and Marcus had a vague memory of rising from it. The
only other objects in the room were a slop bucket and a basin of water. A chill
breeze sighed through the door, whistling a low note. The door was held shut by
a leather thong attached to an iron hook on the wall.

The man who had spoken to him stood by the window.

The man was Grald.

The room was too small to hold his great bulk. He was forced to hunch his
shoulders and keep his head lowered, or he would have bashed into the ceiling.
He stood at the window, staring out into the street. He paid no attention to
Marcus, did not so much as glance at him. Marcus might have thought he’d
dreamed that voice, too, but that he could still hear the echoes in the dark
hole left by his terror.

I have to calm down,
he told himself.
I have to think, figure out
what’s going on.

He didn’t want to move, because he didn’t want to draw Grald’s attention,
but he felt a pressing need to relieve himself. He made self-conscious use of
the bucket, all the while striving desperately to figure out what was going on.

“I brought you water,” said Grald, keeping watch out the window. “I thought
you might want to wash the blood off your hands.”

The sun’s newborn rays struck the east-facing windows, brightening the room.
Marcus’s questions died on his lips.

Grald stood at the window. Behind Grald, clear as his shadow, was the body
of a dragon—a dragon with scales of red-gold and wings of orange flame.

Marcus knew of only one human who bore the dragon’s shadow.

“Draconas?”

Grald raised a thick finger in a cautionary gesture. “Keep your voice down.”

“Draconas?” Marcus repeated, to make certain. He felt his bewilderment
increase, not lessen. “What are you doing in Grald’s body? And where are we?
Where am I?”

“Questions,” said Draconas with a brooding half smile. “You’re always asking
questions.” He shrugged in answer. “You’re where you wanted to be. In a house
in Dragonkeep.”

Marcus plunged his hands into the cool water and laved them. “The last I
remember, the dragon had hold of me and was dragging me away—”

“It’s your own fault,” Draconas told him, unsympathetic. “You did what you
promised me you wouldn’t do. You opened the door to your mind and the dragon
was able to gain entry.”

“I’m sorry,” said Marcus, chilled at the memory. “It was foolish—”

Draconas glanced at him. “Foolish! I stopped two of his monks who were about
to stab you through the heart.”

“They killed Bellona,” said Marcus, watching the water in the basin turn
pink. He hurriedly wiped his hands on his robes.

“I know.” Draconas returned to watching out the window. “I saw her die.”

Marcus tipped the water in the basin out onto the floor, watched it seep
into the dirt.

“I don’t understand, Draconas. What’s going on? You told me you couldn’t
come with us. Yet you were there, seemingly, and you did nothing to help her.”

“Because there was nothing I could do,” Draconas returned. “I told you the
truth. I couldn’t come with you. Those with the dragon magic see me as you see
me now. The •wretched monks who were going to kill you knew that I wasn’t
really Grald or at least suspected it. Fortunately they’re so addled that most
of the time they’re not sure what they see or don’t see and I was able to scare
them off. I can’t count on that •with everyone I meet here, though, so I can
use this body only for brief periods of time. I must be ready to abandon it if
I’m discovered. You would have been safe enough on your own if you hadn’t
walked into Yen’s trap.”

“And is that where I am now?” Marcus asked quietly. “Am I in Yen’s trap? Or
yours?”

Draconas didn’t reply. He stared out the window.

“You could have carried me to safety outside the wall, put me in a boat, and
sent me back to my father,” Marcus went on implacably. “But you didn’t. You
brought me here. You told me it was a trap. What you didn’t tell me was that
you were the one setting the trap. You didn’t tell me that I was the bait.”

Grald rubbed his chin with his hand.

“The dragon will come for you himself, since his monks failed him. He won’t
dare trust them again. And when he does, I’ll be waiting for him.”

Marcus walked over to stand beside Grald. He didn’t look at the illusion. He
looked at the dragon’s shadow.

“All this, to avenge my mother.”

“It’s not about your mother,” Draconas said impatiently. “It’s not about
you. It’s about. . .”

“The dragons,” said Marcus. “The dragons whose voices I heard when I was
little. The dragons whose dreams I dreamed. You are old, as old as the earth,
and accountable.”

“We tried to fix what went wrong.” Draconas sighed. “Nothing has gone the
way it was supposed to.” He leaned forward, staring intently into the street. “And
it’s not going the way it’s supposed to now, either. Damn and blast it all to
hell and back again!”

“What is it?” Marcus asked, alarmed. “What do you see? Who’s coming?”

The illusion of Grald rippled in the air and was gone. The dragon’s shadow
was very bright, very vivid for an instant. Marcus stared, fascinated by the
beauty, the magnificence. The dragon’s head towered far above Marcus. The
dragon’s eyes gazed down on him from a great height. The eyes were filled with
sorrow and wisdom and time.

So
must look the eyes of God,
Marcus thought.

The shadow of the dragon waned and collapsed into the man. Draconas. The
walker. Tall, gaunt, with long black hair streaked with gray. The eyes were the
same eyes, however. And behind him, enfolding him, were the wings of a red-gold
dragon.

Picking up his staff, Draconas grasped the leather latch and lifted it off
the hook. He gave the door an irritated push, then looked back at Marcus.

“There is so much at stake. Far more than you realize. I will do what I can
to save you, but if I must let you go, I will. You are one and there are
many—so many . . .”

“I’ve been the bait all along, haven’t I?” said Marcus. “For sixteen years.”

“It was the reason you were born,” Draconas replied. “In a way, you are
lucky, Marcus. Most humans never know the answer to that question.”

He walked out the door, shut it behind him.

Marcus stood alone, a little child in his quiet room, thinking he “would
leave, thinking he wouldn’t, confused by images of the sorrow-filled eyes and
the fire of bright red-golden wings.

“—only if the victim doesn’t know,” he muttered, repeating the tail end of
the Draconas dictum about traps. “And in this case, the victim knows.”

He took a step toward the door, flung it open, and came face-to-face with
Ven.

Clawed feet, digging into the dirt. Sunlight
shining on bright blue scales.

NO ONE TOLD MARCUS. NO ONE WARNED HIM. HE HAD pictured a brother like other
brothers.

What he saw was half-brother, half-dragon.

He looked into his brother’s blue eyes and he saw himself, saw features
contorted with horror, saw eyes wide with the shock that softened to pity. Yen’s
own eyes hardened and Marcus was reduced, in an instant, to someone very small
and insignificant.

He deserved that, he knew, as he knew there was nothing he could do or say
to make amends.

“I’m sorry,” he faltered. “I didn’t—”

Ven brushed past his brother. His clawed feet scraped on the dirt floor. His
scales glittered as he moved. He closed the door behind him and turned to face
Marcus.

“I take it I’m not the brother you expected,” said Ven.

“I’m sorry,” Marcus said again. “I don’t know what else to say. I didn’t
know.”

“Bellona didn’t tell you about me?” Ven asked. The blue eyes glittered
brighter than the shining scales.

Marcus shook his head. He couldn’t find his voice.

“Not surprising,” said Ven. “She couldn’t stand the sight of me.”

“That’s not true,” Marcus returned, finding refuge from guilt in anger. “She
came seeking you. She lost her life trying to save you. You know. You saw her
die through
my
eyes.”

“I didn’t ask her to save me,” Ven said caustically, brows lowering.

“No,” Marcus responded coolly. “You asked me.”

“Not
to save me,” Ven countered. The blue eyes flashed. “Not to save
me,” he repeated.

“Then why did you bring me here?”

“Because—” Ven stopped. He cast a glance behind him, in the direction of the
door, and seemed to change his mind about what he had been going to say.

“Because I wanted to meet you, Brother. I’ve never met a royal prince
before. And, unlike me, you are exactly what I expected— handsome, comely,
charming. Leading a pampered life in your ‘little room’ in your royal palace.”
Ven glanced at the door again. “Did you hear something?”

Marcus had heard a muffled noise, as of someone gasping.

If Draconas is out there spying on us, he is doing a clumsy job of it,
Marcus
thought irritably.

Aloud he said, “I didn’t hear anything.” He paused, eyed his brother, and
asked abruptly, “Is the dragon coming to kill me?”

Ven raised his eyebrows. “Direct and to the point. Perhaps we’re more alike
than I thought.”

“We are alike,” said Marcus. “The dragon’s scales may not show outwardly on
me, but they are there, just the same. The dragon blood is in my blood. People
shun me because they sense there’s something strange about me. They talk behind
my back. Arranged marriages fall through at the last moment. There’s always some
excuse, of course, but the truth is that the girls have heard stories . . .”

Marcus paused to try to find the right words. He forgot where he was, forgot
the danger, thought only of how to explain what was in his heart to those blue
and unforgiving eyes. “I was glad to find out I had a brother. I knew you would
be the one person in the world who understood me. And then I angered you by
looking at you as if you were some sort of monstrosity. I want you to know that
I do understand. Or, at least, I want to try to understand. I want to be your
brother. And I want you to be mine.”

Ven looked at his brother. His gaze traveled deliberately downward to the
normal feet, pink flesh, normal toes in monk’s sandals. Yen’s gaze stopped,
fixed on the brown hem. Marcus glanced down, saw the stains—dark red against
the brown.

“Did you know,” Ven said, his voice altered, “that moments after we were
born, our mother was attacked by the women of Seth, who had been sent to kill
her. The midwife put the two of us under the bed, so that we would be safe from
the arrows. When our mother was struck, her blood dripped down onto the floor.
Onto us.”

Marcus’s throat constricted. Tears stung his eyes. “Yes,” he said huskily. “Bellona
told me.”

He reached out mentally to his brother, but he was repelled. All he found
was blazing white emptiness.

“The dragon is coming to kill you,” Ven said. “I wanted to see you first.”

“Why? If I’m to die.”

Ven shrugged. “I was curious. That’s all.”

He turned around and loped toward the door, his movements graceful,
powerful, bestial. Marcus tried to think of something to say to stop him, to
bring him back, to find again that single moment they’d shared, even if it had
been a moment of pain.

Ven yanked open the door. A girl bolted past him. Her arms outstretched, she
ran straight for Marcus, who stared at her in astonishment.

“Save me, gentle sir!” she cried. “Save me from him!” Stumbling, weeping,
the girl flung herself into his arms.

Marcus caught hold of her, more by accident than by design.

“Save me . . .” she breathed.

Her eyelids fluttered and closed. Her head lolled. She went limp in his
grasp.

She was the prettiest girl Marcus had ever seen. Golden hair tumbled over
her smooth white shoulders. She was tousled and disheveled, as if newly risen
from her bed. Marcus stared down at her, dumbstruck, bewildered by her, so pale
and languid, warm and soft in his arms.