Veil of the Dragon (Prophecy of the Evarun) (2 page)

“Then look deeper, but not with your eyes. Place your hand there. See the truth beneath the stone.”

Chaelus knelt. His hand shook as he held it above the cenotaph. The familiar burning of his fever pressed again inside of him. He felt its warmth beneath the markings on his brow. He looked to Al-Aaron, who nodded.

Chaelus reached down.

The cold touch of the stone seized him like ice. His body grew heavy and slow. The world before him shivered. A shadow drifted from the mound, from deep beneath its forgotten stones. Black wings stretched out from it, like the Dragon waiting in the ice water of his tomb. And like the Dragon, a familiar voice whispered to him.

“The Blood of Malius.”

Chaelus’ fever consumed him. 
 

“Chaelus.”

His own name struck like a mallet and he fell backwards, landing hard against the ground. The whispering voice of the Dragon echoed inside of him, its breath a part of his flesh.

The harsh light of dawn blinded him. The shadow of the cenotaph passed away.

Al-Aaron’s hand reached down to him through an azure glow which held like a fire about the boy. Chaelus reached out to it, but the light faded at his touch. His breath parted from him.

“What is it?” he whispered.

Al-Aaron took Chaelus’ hand. “It’s the world as it is. It’s the truth that waits for you beneath the lie.”

The menace of the mound and the black stone beneath it dimmed in the sharp morning light.

“It was from a cenotaph deep beneath your father’s House that I raised you.” 

“My tomb,” Chaelus said, his voice drifting.

“Did the Lossons ever teach you why the Gorondian Empire fell?”

“The Gorondians were wizards. They were consumed by their own dark magic.”

Al-Aaron tightened his mouth as silent thoughts fought within him. He breathed out. His gaze grew long again. “They were seduced by the Dragon,” Al-Aaron said. “Eventually the Dragon came to possess all of them. With the cenotaphs the Dragon consumed their flesh, and the flesh of their people, keeping them alive only to appease its unending hunger, until only the suffering of their spirits remained.”

He looked up at Chaelus. “The Dragon of legend is real. It lorded over the Pale many times before and has returned to do so again. Its voice is one you know well. Its whisper seduced you as you took your father’s throne. Just as it whispered to your father, so it whispers to your brother Baelus, just as it whispered your own name now.”

Chaelus closed his eyes. Against the burning tapestry of sunrise beyond them floated the silver mask with the child’s face that had whispered from behind his throne since before he was born, the mask that veiled a face he
’d
never seen, and whose whisper had summoned him to his grave.

“Magus,” he said.

“Magus is no man. He’s the Dragon made flesh.” The slow smile returned to Al-Aaron’s face. “His wrath was unequaled when he found I’d stolen you from him.”

The nearby copse whispered as sunlight breaking through the branches lit upon the surface of the still and fetid pool. Voices and visions swirled about Chaelus, threatening to consume him but for the one question Al-Aaron had
n’t
yet answered.

“You know much of me, Al-Aaron,” Chaelus said. “You know much of my father’s House. You know more than a boy, or even a knight not born of it, should. But that’s not what troubles me. It
’s
another thing. Tell me, Al-Aaron, Servian Knight
,
why did you raise me?”

“We shouldn’t remain here.” Al-Aaron climbed onto the back of Idyliss. “I’ve
risked too much
in showing you this, but I wanted you to know what hunts you.
N
ow it’s
seen you. It won’t be long before it comes to claim you.”

“Answer me,” Chaelus said.

“
Roanwaith isn’t far from here
.
I know someone there who will give us rest. It will be our last until we pass into Sanseveria, where what is left of my
O
rder awaits. Only there will you be safe.”

“Answer me
!”
Chaelus demanded.

Al-Aaron’s dark eyes hardened. They were no longer those of a child. Their depth strengthened with zeal. “Because it’s you, Chaelus, Roan Lord of the House of Malius, that the Dragon covets and fears above all others. If you would regain your kingdom, you will come with me to Sanseveria. I will help you defeat the Dragon. But if the Dragon takes you first, know that not only will your own House fall, but so will the rest of the Pale as well.”

Chapter Two

Roan

Twilight faltered through the gathering storm. A drumbeat echoed beneath it.

Chaelus looked down upon the Village of Roanwaith. His fever had quickened since the darkness of the cenotaph that morning. Their rest since then had only been brief.

A chill swept through him, a shadow of the Dragon itself.

A whisper in the dark. 

A whisper in the dark from great wings of shadow spreading out as he drowned alone in the watery void of his tomb. The whisper of Magus in the dark, uttering poison to him, even as he died in fever upon his throne. The same whisper that Magus, or the Dragon, had delivered to his father, it did so now to his brother Baelus as well.

Bloodstained snow.

Over Baelus, wounded on the field of battle, Chaelus had risen up against their father. In doing so, it seemed he had damned them both. The blood of the father is the blood of the son, and the Dragon wanted him because he was his father’s son. So now the Dragon haunted Baelus as well.

The blood of his father weighed heavy at Chaelus’ side. The tremor of his hand diminished as it tightened over Sundengal’s hilt.

 To silence a whisper and win his kingdom back, the kingdom of his father, the kingdom he’d never wanted.

The keep of Hasslyd, Roanwaith’s queen, stood dark over the village beneath. The slumbering shape of the inn rested atop the ruined wall surrounding it. The acrid stain where Chaelus had left the bodies of its villagers to burn, still marked its bleached stones.

But today, the drumbeats came for her.

“It’s the march of the dead,” Chaelus said. “Their queen has fallen. They’re taking her to the cenotaphs.” 

Behind him, Al-Aaron’s face had turned ashen. “Then Hasslyd’s beyond our help,” he said. “Draw your cloak. Conceal your face as they pass, even Idyliss. Yours shouldn’t be seen here. Your war with them hasn’t been forgotten. For now, you’d do best to remain dead.”

A black-robed and hunchback priest passed beneath the broken arch that reached above the happas. He held his hands above him, the chain of the incense burner held taut between them. The ball swinging from his left hand welled with fragrant smoke. The flattened bronze ring of the Giver hung about his neck, swinging to the staggered rhythm of both drum and step.

The priest’s pale face turned upward, his sunken eyes closed, a scowl laced with ecstasy stretching across it. His lips trembled as he chanted in the Gorondian tongue. Behind him, a great cart bore the corpse of Hasslyd, pulled by four black-robed apprentices. Small yellow flowers wreathed Hasslyd’s brow above a crimson veil. Two more of the holy men followed, drums around their necks, beating out the rhythm of their death march.  

Villagers and sordid guardsmen gathered behind them, perhaps two score together and all with their faces veiled. They were silent save for the few who followed their priest in the muttering of words they couldn’t have understood.

When the day of the Dragon had come

All of the souls were seized with envy

At the price that had been paid by some

As a torch lit a fire within them.

Chaelus pulled his hood lower, withdrawing into it, reining Idyliss onto the raised curb stones of the happas, and the sheltering shadow of the wood that ran alongside of it. He lifted his cloaked arm before his face as if to ward off the miasma of the dead.

To spread the words they had heard

Rejoicing they were already dead

As they slept in their beds

The truth of their vanity fed.

The column passed. 

“The Dragon’s Sleep has fallen here,” Chaelus said.

“No.” Al-Aaron reached behind, pulling forth the bundle concealing his sword.  “It’s something worse.” He looked at Chaelus sideways. “No hail or challenge was made to us from either the procession, the guards, or the village. We’ve hidden our faces, but not our arrival. Even in their time of woe, the Measure of the Roan Kingdoms and its rule over your people shouldn’t have been forgotten.”

The wall encircled the nearest half of the village, arching away as it rose beneath the shadow of the inn above. The thinning moonlight cast long shadows across the wall to reveal the fluted traces of a maker’s skill that had long ago been lost. They ran across its weathered face as it spiraled at last into the abrupt and broken arch. The peeling plastered face of a thatched guard tower stood beyond. Torn crimson banners marked with the Prostrate Cross draped from the broken twist of the arch above.

“The trappings of the Theocracy have come far to be seen upon the House of a Roan Lord,” Chaelus said.

“It’s been long since Hasslyd ruled here,” Al-Aaron said. “The war you made with her left her weak. She would have been all too willing when the Taurate came to her with offered hand.”

Chaelus stiffened at the rebuke. “I didn’t bring this shadow here.”

“No. But neither should you forget it was from its darkened ruin you were raised.”

Al-Aaron loosened the bundle and eased it beneath his cloak. A queer silence ebbed across the threshold of the open gate as the clod of Idyliss’ hooves echoed against it. Beyond the gate the speaker stone, draped again in tattered crimson cloth, rose above the stones of the happas as it continued past. The villagers passed or stood muttering in darkened doorways unconcerned by the presence of strangers among them. 

Nestled beneath the shadow of the arch of the ruined wall, empty stables waited beside the smoldering light of the tavern. Mirthful voices babbled beyond its open door.

Chaelus slowed.

“Why do you stop?” Al-Aaron asked.

“It’s been long since I’ve heard laughter.”

“Don’t be seduced. Hasn’t their queen just passed? The veil of the Dragon blinds them, just as it blinds you to the shadow that consumes this place.”

Thunder cut across the air and Idyliss shifted. Chaelus soothed her as Al-Aaron dismounted. 

Al-Aaron seized his arm. 

“Make your way to the chapel beyond the village,” he said. “There you’ll find the one we seek. He’s the chief priest and a friend of my order. His name is Joshua. His is a holy place; you will be safe there until I return.”

Apprehension gripped Chaelus at the thought of Al-Aaron’s departure, but not for the boy, for himself. The threat of losing the boy surprised him. 

“You shouldn’t go alone.”

Al-Aaron stared at him. “I fear more if I don’t. Do only what I’ve asked you and don’t waver from it. The shadow of the Dragon’s already here. It will test you. Now go.”

A second crack of thunder sounded out. The scent of jasmine struck at Chaelus. He closed his eyes against the memory and regret that it summoned. He opened them to find Al-Aaron gone and the fullness of night descended upon the village.

***

The shadows welcomed Al-Aaron just as they used to.

They, like he, hadn’t forgotten. His mouth split into a grin as he slipped, silent and without effort, into their familiar embrace. The heavy sounds of the world fell dreamlike and distant behind him. His gift remained, learned in the darkness as a beggar thief, to listen to the whispers, the rattle of chains and the oiled creak of leather, the crumpled rustling of broken leaves upon the wind.

And a whisper.

Al-Aaron’s smile faded.

The Dragon’s whisper. He could smell its pungent decay, its caustic touch upon everything. The stain it left sharpened the presence of everything around him and stared back at him through eyes that shouldn’t be.

But the Dragon didn’t rule him. Not anymore. Now he would meet it at his choosing. 

The night deepened and the colors grayed. The silent eyes of villagers looked out through still darker doorways as Al-Aaron passed. The grief they suffered had little to do with the death of Hasslyd. Within each of them, the shadow of the Dragon turned. Their stares followed him.

The fires from the inn diminished against the night. Above the longhouses, a mist gathered beneath Hasslyd’s keep. It had started there. What had she done? What could Hasslyd have been promised to make a sacrifice so great, to have condemned so many of her own to be taken by shadow?

The wind fell still as thunder pealed across the void. The chill of the night caused Al-Aaron’s breath to gather. 

A dark figure stepped out from the doors to Hasslyd’s hall, searching. Shadow consumed its form. Al-Aaron’s smile returned. He’d found it. He had found the Dragon. 

A flush of crimson robes billowed next to him, unfettered by the rain.

The ghost of Malius smiled, his voice little more than a tremor above the storm. “Keep him safe for me.” His spirit faded. His stay no longer than any time before.

Al-Aaron swallowed the pride in his throat that always came with the presence of his Teacher. Only when Chaelus reached Joshua would he be safe, and this would only happen if the Dragon had its attention on something else.

Al-Aaron’s grin widened, the pride in his throat swelling into his chest. He would do what no one else had done, what only Malius and the rest of the Servian Lords ever could have. He would summon the Dragon to him. It wouldn’t suffer to pass upon the soul of one of the Servians it had sought so hard to destroy.

Al-Aaron stepped out from beneath the shadow of the eaves. He swept the binding and furs away from Baerythe. The soft blue light of its blade burned through the thin white gossamer that embraced it. Upon the air, songs once sung by the Cherubim and heralds of old danced upon the storm.

The Dragon turned towards him, a pillar of shadow. The azure light of Baerythe reached out to it. The Dragon raised its hand. The mist swirled beside it, another shadow birthing within it. The same mist swirled at Al-Aaron’s feet as the truth of his failure swept through him. Dread filled the air behind him as he turned.