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Realm of Dragons
CHAPTER NINETEEN
For Brother Odd, the hour of silence was always the hardest part of life on the Isle of Leveros. For that hour, the sounds of the great monastery faded away, and none were permitted to speak. Even those who normally meditated by reciting the hidden names of the gods had to do so silently, not a sound permitted to mar the tranquility there.
It was a moment designed to leave the inhabitants alone with their thoughts, free to delve inward to seek the divine connection, to look for peace. Brother Odd hated it.
Brother Odd; that hadn’t always been his name. He suspected it might have been a joke on the part of the abbot. After all, he made such an odd monk. Oh, the shaving of his head had taken away the long mane of shaggy dark locks that had been there, and he deliberately extended that hairlessness to the beard he had once forked and dyed to intimidate his enemies, but he was still larger than most of them, still had to hunch in so that he didn’t show his brothers the frame of the knight he had been.
No, he told himself as he sat in his cell, do not think of that. Clear your mind. Think of nothing.
Thinking of nothing should have been easy in a space like this. His monastic cell was bare save for a simple cot to sleep on, with nothing but empty gray stone to fill his mind. It was such a contrast to the chambers he’d once enjoyed. Even on campaign, his tent had featured a feather mattress, and there had always been a golden wine jug close to hand…
Stop it, Brother Odd ordered himself.
These memories were the seductive ones, the ones that seemed innocuous until he started to think about them. Yet if he sat with them, he knew that the others would follow. Knowing that he couldn’t keep sitting in his cell, he rose and padded from it, feeling the itch of his rough habit as he walked.
He did even that in silence, because the hour was absolute. Even the abbot made no sound during it. Those who broke the rule were punished through extra work in the scriptorium or even expulsion. Maybe, Brother Odd thought, it would be better to be punished like that. All the gods knew he deserved it.
He couldn’t risk leaving, though. Here he was safe, from the man he was, and from the things he’d done. Out in the world, who knew what evil he would visit on it?
Brother Odd wove his way through the monastery in silence, out into the gardens where he would normally work with the others, the backbreaking labor easy to a man with muscles honed through years of warfare. He went past that garden, to a garden of contemplation where stones carved with gods and demons and more stood, and the floor was a tiled thing, worn by so many feet that there were grooves in it.
He sat there among the statues for a moment or two, but could already feel the memories rising, blood and death sitting on the edge of his thoughts as if waiting for the merest slip. A fragment of memory seeped through: a child’s body, broken by fallen masonry. Brother Odd shuddered at that image, but the worst part of it was that he couldn’t even remember exactly when it had been.
Has there been so much violence that I can’t even place it? he wondered.
The answer to that came as more thoughts of his past life flooded in, past the barriers he had so carefully built on the island. He saw a foe swinging a sword, felt the crunch of impact as he stepped to the side and struck back. He saw the brightness of the tournament field, soon giving way to the fire pits used to get rid of the bodies in the aftermath of a battle. Was it Landshane, or Merivel? Not one of the skirmishes, nor even the last foray into the Southern Kingdom, but Brother Odd still couldn’t place it all.
He felt his disgust rising with the memories, and his hatred. Not of anything else, for he had sworn to love all things as a monk, but of himself. Of the man he had been. To wipe away that hatred, he stood and started to move his body through the stretches and movements some monks used to try to meditate in motion, forcing his body to twist and turn and even wheel upside down.
He felt the moment when something switched in his movements. A stretch became a lunge at an opponent, a twist turned into a kick that would have knocked a man flat. He turned as if he had a blade in his hand, moving through the movements of the twelve plays of the sword in two hands. By the time that he was done, Brother Odd was sweating, and he hated himself even more.
This can’t continue, he told himself. I can’t be that man.
He set out in search of the abbot, finding him where he always was in the silent hour: kneeling on a ramp that came out from the monastery’s walls, looking out over the island in his meditations. Brother Odd approached, and with the silent hour still continuing, could only stand there while the abbot continued to kneel. He stood and waited, knowing that he should be meditating himself, but now all he could see in his mind’s eye was death.
It didn’t matter that the cause had been noble, that he’d been a knight who had fought on the king’s behalf. Brother Odd knew better than anyone that he hadn’t cared about that at the time, only about the violence, about the chance to prove he was the greatest, about the thrill of it.
Finally, sonorously, the great bell in the monastery’s tower tolled, bringing an end to the hour of silence. Brother Odd made to approach the abbot, but the old man raised a hand to make him pause. It was a good minute later before Abbot Verle rose, turning to face Brother Odd, his face curiously unwrinkled in spite of his advancing age. They said that the old man had possessed the skill to heal wounds as a younger monk, and to see visions of the gods.
“You have come to me because you are troubled, Brother,” the abbot said.
“Yes, Father Abbot. I have had… the thoughts and dreams still trouble me in meditation and prayer.”
It was such a simple way to put such a wealth of horror; horror that he had inflicted on the world. How many were dead now because of him? What might they have done with their lives?
“The same thoughts?” the abbot asked. “Thoughts of the man you were?”
Brother Odd nodded, hanging his head in shame. “I cannot seem to push them from my mind. It is like the man I was is waiting beneath the surface of me, waiting to fight his way back. How can I put that man away for good?”
“I think you are asking the wrong question,” the abbot said. He gestured for Brother Odd to follow as he walked down from the walls, heading back to the body of the monastery.
“Then what question should I be asking?” Brother Odd asked.
The old monk shook his head. “We do not give answers here; we are not fanatics of one of the gods. We are only here to seek them.”
“I have sought answers,” Brother Odd insisted as he followed. He hunched over so that he would not tower over the old man. “I have meditated, and prayed, and thought for so long. None of it has freed me from the evil of who I was.”
“And none of it will,” Abbot Verle said. “As I said, it is the wrong thing to seek. The past has happened, Brother; you cannot be rid of it, or of who you are.”
“Then what is the point of being here?” Brother Odd snapped, and immediately felt shame coursing through him.
“It is not about who you were, Brother,” the abbot said. “It’s about who you are, and who you could be. Perhaps you should meditate on that. Now, I believe you are needed in the gardens.”
Brother Odd knew that the abbot was right, but even so, it wasn’t the answer he had been hoping for.
“Yes, Father Abbot.”
“Oh, and Brother Odd? Remember that we are a peaceful order. Practicing old things is no way to become something new.”
That caught Brother Odd by surprise. How had the old man known? Just the thought of it added to his shame, but also to his resolve. He would try. He would seek to be the best monk that he could be, try to be the perfect brother, embrace their ways of peace.
Even so, he could feel the violence of his old life bubbling within him, and it scared him.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Devin watched as Rodry checked the saddle on his horse, tying in place the last of his equipment for the journey. He couldn’t believe that he was being included in a journey like this; couldn’t believe that he was out of the dungeon.
“You need to cinch your saddle tighter,” Sir Twell said, showing Devin how it should be done. Devin nodded, even though he’d only rarely had a chance to ride a horse before. He was too busy trying to decide what he would do, now that both the king and Prince Rodry wanted him to make the sword for them. He didn’t know what he was going to do. For now, maybe it was better to focus on the act of simply getting the metal.
Three Knights of the Spur were going with them: Lars of the two swords, Twell the planner, Halfin the swift. Given the stories about them, they were probably worth about fifty normal soldiers.
A couple of Rodry’s siblings had come down to see them off, and Devin hung back at the sight of Vars. The prince looked disheveled and hung over. Princess Lenore stood tall and almost impossibly beautiful, coming over and hugging Rodry.
“What is so important that you have to leave like this, Rodry?” she asked. “You’re not going to miss my wedding, are you?”
Devin saw Rodry flinch. “There shouldn’t be a wedding, Lenore. You must have heard what people are saying about Finnal.”
“Don’t,” Lenore said, and there was a hardness to her voice as she said it. Her tone softened then, and Devin felt bad for listening. “Please don’t, Rodry. I’ve heard the things that people are saying, but they aren’t true, they can’t be. I love Finnal, and I’m going to marry him, and that’s an end of it.”
“I just want to be sure that when you’re marrying for love, he is too,” Rodry said.
“He is,” Lenore insisted. “I’m sure of it. He is pure, and noble, and good.”
Rodry started to reply to that, but Lenore held up a hand.
“Please, Rodry,” she said.
“In that case,” he said, “I will go and find you a wedding present no one else could get you.” He glanced over to Devin, and Devin felt the weight of the prince’s expectation on him. “Something for you.”
“Thank you,” Lenore said.
“What about you, brother?” Rodry joked, turning to Vars. “Come to join us on our dangerous mission?”
“I’m sure you’re capable of hitting things stupidly with a sword by yourself,” Vars replied.
“At least I’m willing to walk into danger when it’s needed,” Rodry shot back. “Whereas you just walk to the next wine bottle or woman.”
His brother ignored him with a sneer, turning back toward the castle’s interior. Lenore caught Rodry’s arm.
“Do you have to be cruel to Vars?” she asked. “Maybe if you were kinder to him, he would do better.”
Rodry shook his head. “He’s… he’s a coward, Lenore. If someone poked me like that, I’d be goaded into action. Instead, he slinks away.”
“And maybe he wouldn’t if you just encouraged him,” Lenore suggested. “Stay safe,” she added.
“I will,” Rodry replied. He glanced to Devin again, and now Devin was starting to understand why the sword was so important to the prince. “And I will bring you back the finest gift that I can.”
***
Devin rode with the others from the castle, feeling very much like the odd one out among the others. Prince Rodry and the knights were all armored in plate and chain, all sitting comfortably on their horses, joking with one another as they rode. Next to them, Devin felt useless, not used to riding long distances, dressed in a blacksmith’s leathers and with only the sword he’d forged by his side.
“So, Twell,” the knight with two swords rather than a shield called out. “Got the whole trip planned out?”
“We just follow the prince,” Twell said. “And I’ve told you, Lars, I don’t plan everything.”
“Don’t believe him,” the last knight said, nudging Devin. “He plans for the possibility of enemies on the way down to dinner.”
“I do not!”
“I’m Halfin,” the knight said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Devin… my lord,” Devin said, overwhelmed for a moment by the sudden friendliness by the knight. He’d heard stories of these men and their deeds: Twell, who could think his way out of anything. Lars, who had once dueled with three brothers at once over the hand of a maiden. Halfin, who had run a hundred miles with no horse over two days to warn of a coming battle ogres.
“Lord,” Lars said. “He’s no one’s lord. Don’t go giving him ideas.”
They rode on, down through the city and out into the countryside. The sun rose higher, and in its heat, Devin was glad he wasn’t wearing the armor that the knights were. Prince Rodry rode at the front, and Devin found himself watching the way the men looked to him with clear respect. Devin could understand that; he’d found the prince to be honorable and just in a way that his brother wasn’t.
They rode for hours, and Devin found himself wondering at the fact that he was a part of this, brought along on a journey with a prince and three knights out of stories. He wondered most at how normal they all were, and how willing they were to talk to him like an equal, even when he wasn’t.
Slowly, the ground started to drop away, walls of rock rearing up on either side of them to form a canyon. A stream of perfect, clear water ran through it, and Devin saw Halfin drop down, ready to fill his water bottle.
“Don’t,” Twell said. “The water in Clearwater Deep is contaminated. Drink it and you risk death.”
“Then what am I supposed to drink?” Halfin asked.
Twell took a spare water skin out of his pack, tossing it over, as if he’d anticipated this. As if he’d planned for it, Devin thought with a smile.
“There’s no time to stop,” Rodry said. “I want to get to the spot my father told me about before it gets too late for us to get back.”
“I brought a tent, just in case,” Twell said.
Lars snorted. “Of course you did.”
They kept going, and Devin found himself looking around, taking in the trees and the plants that were starting to grow up around the side of the river. Most of them were misshapen, twisted by the contents of the water. There were trees that were turned in on themselves like snakes biting their tails, and dark flowers that bloomed with nauseating scents. Away from the stream, there were bushes that clung to the walls of the canyon, and because Devin was looking that way, he was the first one to spot the movement there. Creatures sprang forward, mouths open wide, teeth bared as they snarled.
“Wolves!”
They weren’t wolves, though, or weren’t anything like normal ones. These were huge, muscled things that shambled on their hind legs, leaving the knifelike claws of their front legs free to swipe. There were at least a dozen of them, and one leapt at Devin’s horse even as he called out the warning.
The impact knocked him from his saddle while his horse screamed. Devin came up, drawing the sword that he’d forged, and struck at the beast as it lunged at him. It moved back with a wound across its snout, but circled, watching for openings.
Around him, Devin heard the sound of battle, and he could feel the fear of the violence rising in him. He saw Sir Lars striking out with two swords, Twell moving carefully, picking his cuts, Halfin striking out with lightning speed. Rodry was there too, hacking at the wolf-things, showing the skill with a sword that Devin had suspected he possessed.
Devin struck out at another of the things. This was nothing like striking a training post, because the beast didn’t come at him in a predictable way, seemed almost to ignore his sword stroke to lash out with wickedly sharp claws. Devin had to throw himself aside to avoid them, rolled up, and managed to thrust his sword through the thing’s arm as it came at him again.
Around him, the others seemed to have had similar success, in the face of the initial rush, but Devin could see that Lars was wounded too, blood dripping from his shoulder. Worse, none of the creatures seemed to be down, and they definitely weren’t retreating. Instead, they circled, snarling and growling, clearly looking for any opening.
Devin held the sword he’d made in two hands, but he knew it wasn’t going to be enough. Twelve of these things against the five of them was too many. If these had been men, it would have been easy, but these were far more dangerous than men, faster and stronger, able to withstand what Devin had felt were clean blows of the sword.
Fear rose in him, along with the urge to run, but there was nowhere to run to, and these creatures would be faster than any man. Better to stand and fight, but they couldn’t fight. Devin looked around, hoping that one of the others would have a plan, but even Rodry was standing there in obvious fear. They knew just as well as Devin what was about to happen:
They were going to die.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
Nerra crept out of the castle, leaving the doors to her rooms closed so that no one would come looking for her. One advantage of people knowing how often she was ill was that they didn’t question her not being there at the heart of things.
She slipped out, picking her route carefully, so that if anyone saw her they would probably assume she was going out into the gardens. She needn’t have worried. All the attention was on Lenore, and on the growing array of guests in the castle. Almost no one paid attention to the slender, almost gaunt figure drifting through it all. Maybe if she’d cared about the attention, Nerra might have worried about that, but she was grateful. It made it possible for her to slip out to the forest, taking her horse and making the ride down to the cave that sat there.
She clung to the saddle as she rode, feeling the weakness that came from her illness. Here, away from people, she felt isolated enough to lift her sleeve, checking on the creeping tracery of black lines on her arm. Nerra quickly yanked her sleeve down again. She needed to focus on the cave and what lay within. It wasn’t far.
Carefully, Nerra levered away the rocks in front of the entrance, slipping inside. The egg sat there, in the nest that Nerra had made for it. It looked as impossible as ever, blue and gold, as if someone had pieced together a fractured thing with molten metal. Nerra knelt beside it, staring at it and running her hands over the surface to feel the warmth of it.
“All I have to do is break you,” she whispered to it. “If I crack you open, I’m cured. I can have a life.”
Nerra could barely imagine it. What would it be like to be well; to be the same as everyone else? She could go out into the world and be the healer that she’d always wanted to be. She could help people; she could have a family. There would be no more fainting fits, no more black lines growing darker and darker on her arms, threatening to change her into something she had never wanted to be.
All of it could be done, she could be cured, and all she had to do was break the egg, destroy the burgeoning life within.
Nerra wasn’t sure she could do that. She wasn’t sure that she could end anything, especially not something so unique, so rare, so special. Dragons were things that almost no one had seen before, and their eggs… Nerra had never even heard of such things until she saw them. Could she really destroy something like this… even to save her life?
She didn’t want to die. Carefully, precisely, Nerra took out her eating knife. She held it to the edge of the shell. She stood perfectly still, willing herself to do it, knowing that this was the only choice…
…She tossed the knife to one side.
“I can’t do it,” she said. “I won’t. I won’t kill you, even for this.”
She set her hand against the shell again, feeling the warmth there. She felt something else too: movement, sharp and sudden against the interior of the shell. Nerra jerked her hand back and saw the shell distend as something pushed at it from the inside. She saw a faint tracery of cracks spread across the surface of the egg, cutting across those golden lines.
A tiny segment of it fell away first, forming a hole, letting a small, scaled snout poke through. The hole widened, and claws followed, a small, reptilian body slinking through the space as the egg continued to fall apart. It split in too, letting the creature’s form roll out onto the floor.
Bright yellow eyes blinked up at her, with a forked tongue that flicked out to scent the air and eyes that blinked half closed the way a cat’s might have, as if testing out the world. Its scales were the blue of a cloudless sky, with the shine of other colors running through them here and there. It was small, because how else would it fit into an egg like that, but nowhere near as small as Nerra might have thought it was. It looked up at her, the expression strangely intelligent for something that had just been born.
It leapt up, and Nerra flinched, certain that it was attacking. Those claws caught hold of her, clinging to her, and she tumbled to the ground with the dragon, its weight atop her. Then its tongue flicked out to lick her face.
“That tickles,” Nerra said with a laugh.
The dragon lay there on her chest, making a rumbling sound that Nerra assumed was one of pleasure. It turned to one side and gave a kind of hiccup. A small burst of flame came forth from its mouth, the heat of it palpable. The dragon looked almost as surprised as Nerra was.
She lay there and looked at it.
“You’re beautiful,” she said. She couldn’t imagine now how she’d been about to break the egg that contained something so wonderful, couldn’t imagine even contemplating it. The dragon curled up against her.
Nerra wasn’t sure how long she lay there like that with the creature. At some point, she got up and went out into the forest, gathering what plants she could to feed the dragon. It looked at them, blinked, and then leapt out of the cave, wings flapping. Nerra saw it chomp down on something, and it came back to her with what looked like a whole pigeon clamped in its mouth.
“All right,” Nerra said.
It chomped down on the pigeon, and while it ate, Nerra went to her horse. She had a little roasted venison, stolen from the feast so that she wouldn’t get hungry on her journey. She threw that toward the dragon and its sinuous neck snaked up.
Flame crackled out over the venison, scorching and burning until the meat was almost black. Finally, the baby dragon seemed happy with it, and it chomped down on the meat. When it was done, it sat there, staring at Nerra expectantly.
“I don’t have anything else,” she said. The best she could do was go to it and hug it tight. The dragon made the rumbling sound that seemed to indicate pleasure. A worrying realization crept over Nerra.
“I have to go back.”
The dragon made a sound of protest.
“I have to,” Nerra said. “And you have to go back in the cave.”
The dragon made a whining sound.
“You have to. I can’t take you with me, because people will be scared. They haven’t seen dragons.”
She could imagine all the ways people might react. None of them were kind. No, the dragon was safest here. Nerra lifted it, putting it back in the cave and moving the rocks back into position even though it broke her heart to do it. The dragon mewled, and Nerra wished she could take it with her.
“Soon,” she promised. “I’ll be back soon.”
***
She saw the dragon, and now it wasn’t small. It was the size of a tower, a ship, a hill. It soared through clouds so vast that the world below was lost through them. When it opened its mouth, it didn’t just breathe fire; grown like this, it could manipulate its breath to be many more manifestations of the power within it: lightning and frost, shadow and rippling force.
Nerra saw it swoop down, and there was an army below, of men, and things that had never been men. The dragon’s breath swept out across the army, scything down creatures there. It landed among them, claws rending, teeth crushing. Its tail whipped around, scattering more foes, then it roared, and the sound seemed to fill the world, shifting and changing, becoming something else, becoming her name…
“Nerra!” Lenore said, shaking her awake.
Nerra’s eyes snapped open, and she stared at her sister. She was breathing hard, sweating with the force of the dream, or maybe with something else.
“You were crying out in your sleep,” Lenore said. “I came to see you, but you were… like this.”
“Just a dream,” Nerra said, sitting up.
“Obviously a bad one,” Lenore said.
Nerra wanted to tell her about the dragon. Her sister was kind, and good, and probably one of the closest things to a friend she had. Yet instinctively, Nerra knew that it was a secret she shouldn’t talk about. Dragons were… well, impossible, but more than that. They were large and dangerous, and if Lenore mentioned hers to anyone, wouldn’t it be in danger?
“I don’t remember it,” Nerra lied, hating that she had to. “But my dreams don’t matter. I guess that in the middle of your wedding preparations, you didn’t just come to see me.”
“I do want to see how you are,” Lenore said. “I’ve barely seen you in days.”
Of course she did. Her sister had always been there when she was younger, trying to look after her. It was just that they had lived such different lives.
“You’ve been busy,” Nerra said. “That’s normal, when you’re so close to being married. And I’ve been…”
“How have you been?” Lenore asked, looking concerned. “You’ve been stuck in your room a lot.”
“Afraid I won’t be able to make the wedding?” Nerra asked. She wasn’t sure she liked the idea of so many people around her; people who were noisy, and often cruel; people might see all that was wrong with her.
“I’d like you to be there,” Lenore said. “I’d like you to be by my side. Erin is… well, no one knows where she is, even though Father has men looking. One of my sisters should be there. I know you’re sick sometimes, but—”
“Not sometimes,” Nerra corrected her. “All the time.”
“I know,” Lenore said. “But you’ve been living with the scale mark for a long time now.”
The sudden urge to be honest gripped Nerra. She couldn’t tell Lenore about the dragon, but at least she could tell her about this. She would understand then; it would show her why Nerra couldn’t be around people, couldn’t be a part of her wedding.
“It’s not that simple,” Nerra said. She rolled up her sleeve to show the dark, spreading lines beneath. She heard her sister’s intake of breath. “It’s getting worse.”
“That’s…” Lenore stared at her arms. “I thought it was under control.”
“Something like this, you can’t control,” Nerra said. “I’m dying, Lenore.”
Or worse, but she couldn’t talk about the worse things.
Lenore threw her arms around Nerra. “Oh, Nerra, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.”
“No one can know,” Nerra reminded her.
“Does Father know about this?” Lenore asked. “I’ll talk to him. I’ll talk to Master Grey, force them to work harder to find a cure.”
“Don’t,” Nerra said. “There’s nothing to be done, Lenore.”
She didn’t tell her sister about the dragon’s egg, and what it could have done for her. She wouldn’t be able to explain it. Lenore would assume that she’d done the wrong thing, would want to know why she’d thrown her life away like that.
Nerra wouldn’t be able to explain it, but she knew that the world was better with the dragon in it… even if it cost her life.
