A Day of Dragon Blood (3 page)

"General Mahrdor," whispered one soldier, rising to his feet. His face paled and he slammed his fist against his breastplate. "My lord!"

The other soldiers in the room, a good hundred or more, stood at attention. Their fists all slammed against their chests. All sounds died: the music, the raucous calls, even the men's breath. Lyana stared at the general and her heart thrashed. He was staring right at her: not at her body, like the other soldiers would stare, but directly through the scarf and into her eyes.

He knows!
she thought
. He knows I'm not blind. He stares through the scarf—into my eyes, into my soul.

She dared not move, not even shiver. She struggled to calm her pounding heart; she felt that General Mahrdor would hear its beat across the room.

No, he cannot know,
she told herself.
To others, the scarf is solid silk, white and covering my green northern eyes. He sees only Tiana. Only a blind dancer.

Finally he tore his eyes away from her; it felt like he'd pulled a dagger free from her gut. He began walking through the silent winehouse, the soldiers frozen around him. He made his way to a table before Lyana. When he stared at the men who had occupied it, they bowed and retreated into the shadows.

General Mahrdor sat, poured himself a mug of wine, and stared at Lyana. The candlelight danced against his armor. When he spoke, the room remained silent. His voice was smooth as the wine, his accent highborn and meticulous; it flowed through the silent room, too loud.

"You must be this... Blind Beauty I have heard of." He took a sip of wine, sloshed it, and swallowed. "They call you the Desert Rose and say you are a dancer of much grace and beauty. I have always greatly admired and sought grace and beauty—from good wine, to fine art, and yes... though my soldiers might snicker to hear it, even dance."

Though a glimmer of amusement tweaked his lips, his eyes remained hard. Lyana barely dared breathe. A lump filled her throat, but she dared not swallow. She had heard stories of this General Mahrdor and his love of beauty. They whispered that in his villa upon the River Pallan, he collected items he found beautiful—jeweled skulls of men he slew, scrolls of human skin, and stillborn babes dipped in bronze. Lyana had always thought those mere stories, rumors told to spread fear of the great general. Now, looking into those cold blue eyes, she believed all those tales.

"Well?" Mahrdor said, staring at her. He leaned back in his seat. "Let us see the Blind Beauty. Dance for us, child."

She closed her eyes and she danced.

Old Peras played his lute, but the soldiers—who had clapped and pounded the tabletops—were now silent. She could hear the patter of her bare feet and the flutter of her silks. Her body swayed. She felt his eyes on her skin, skin dyed gold to hide her northern paleness. She was as rushes in the wind, as smoke rising from the desert.

When her dance ended and the music died, she bowed her head. Deathly silence filled the winehouse. General Mahrdor stared at her—stared through her scarf, stared into her skin, stared into her deepest dreams and fears. His eyes were bottomless and clutching.

Without a word, he stood up and left the winehouse.

Lyana felt like an empty bellows. Her limbs began to tremble. Around her, the soldiers breathed out shakily, emptied their mugs, and cried for more wine. Soon cheer and song filled the winehouse again, but iciness lingered inside Lyana.

This is what I've danced a year here for
, she thought.
Stars, let him remember my dance! Let my painted body linger in his mind! Let him return. Let me learn what I can... if there is anything to be learned from icy, clutching eyes.

Night fell, wine flowed, and music swirled. Platters of roasted fowls, served on beds of leeks and mushrooms, filled the winehouse with their scents. Men cracked open pomegranates and greedily scooped out tiny jewels of seeds. A few men began playing mancala, the great game of the desert, dropping seashells into pits in a board, then howling after every round. Lyana was standing in the corner, singing soft desert tunes to an old soldier with one leg, when a Gilded Guardian returned to the winehouse and approached her.

"Dancer," he said, voice echoing inside his ibis helm. The beak swooped, long and sharp as a dagger. "The General Mahrdor, may the Sun God bless him, has invited you to his villa tonight. He requests a private dance. In return he will pay you a handsome reward. Will you accompany me through the dark streets to his home of light?"

Around them, soldiers smirked and hooted.

"A private dance for the general!" one called, a man who wouldn't have dared breathe around Mahrdor. "I'd say you've charmed the old man, girl."

Another brayed laughter. "He'd like a private dance in his bed, I'd wager."

Lyana barely heard the laughter. Her innards leaped and her breath stung in her nostrils. She would enter the villa of General Mahrdor himself, chief of Tiranor's armies! Her head spun. In a year of work, listening to these drunken soldiers chatter, she had not achieved half so much. Her fingers trembled. What dark secrets would she learn in his home? Memories rushed through her: rumors of bronzed fetuses, severed heads, and parchments of human skin. But she dreamed of other treasures: of maps, of battle plans, of secrets whispered in darkness when her flesh intoxicated him and loosened his tongue.

Tiranor planned a second invasion of her home; Lyana did not doubt that. If anyone could reveal its time and location, it was General Mahrdor.

"I accept," she whispered to the Gilded Guardian.

They left the winehouse and walked through the night. On the night of the new moon, when the sky was darkest, the Tirans lit fires across the city and praised the Sun God, the banisher of darkness. Great braziers crackled atop the Palace of Phoebus, which rose to her left across the square. Torches blazed upon the columns of the Sun Temple, which rose upon a hill to the east. People crowded the streets, holding candles and chanting prayers to banish the night. Smoke rose and sparks swirled like fireflies, filling the darkness. Light and fire ruled; shadows fled.

We are shadows to them,
Lyana thought.
We, the children of Requiem, who worship the stars and can fly as dragons—we are creatures of darkness for them to burn.
She swallowed a lump in her throat. These people who marched the streets, holding candles before them, did not lust for blood or death; they lusted for light. They had never met a Vir Requis, Lyana knew. They knew only the stories Queen Solina fed them: stories of wretched beasts called weredragons, demonic shapeshifters of the north who could grow scales and wings, who had toppled their temples thirty years ago.

They think us beasts, mindless killers, monsters of darkness,
she thought.
They will burn us all if I cannot stop them.

She could not stop Solina from spreading lies. But she could discover her plans. She could warn her home. She could save her people from the endless fire of Solina's wrath.

The Gilded Guardian walked silently, staring ahead through the holes in his helm; he seemed to Lyana like an automaton of metal. He took her to a dock upon the River Pallan where rushes swayed and water flowed over mossy stones, reflecting the light of lanterns like a thousand jewels. Frogs trilled and children knelt above the water, sending candles floating upon wooden toy boats, gifts to banish the darkness of the northern seas. In the water swayed a full-sized boat too, ten feet long, shaped as an ibis. Silver filigrees lined its hull, forming coiling shapes of phoenixes. The Gilded Guardian stepped into the boat, reached out his hand, and helped Lyana in. His hand was gloved in leather, icy even in the warm summer night.

He rowed. They floated down the river, soon passing the Sun Temple whose priests moved between columns, blowing ram horns. The smell of frankincense, palm oil, and charcoal filled the air. Past the temple, the river ran between the narrow mudbrick homes of tradesmen: scribes, masons, blacksmiths, and healers. Around a bend, the river flowed through a copse of palm trees, then into the wealthy quarters of merchants and nobles. Villas rose here upon the riverbanks, their gardens lush, their doorways flanked with statues. The greatest villa lay ahead, rising from a verdant paradise of palms, fig trees, and terraces of flowers. A palisade of columns led to its gates, each topped with a status of a desert animal; Lyana saw falcons, foxes, snakes, and gazelles.

They docked the boat. Three slaves waited there, clad in crimson livery, their hooded heads bowed. They accompanied Lyana through the gardens toward the villa. The song of frogs, owls, and crickets rose around her, and the heady scent of jasmine filled the air. Lyana's heart thrashed as she walked, tapping her staff before her. For a year in Tiranor, she had lurked in shady alleys, danced in rundown winehouses, and sought whispers among the common soldiers of the city's dregs. Now she walked toward the greatest house in Irys; what knowledge would she find here?

General Mahrdor waited at the villa's doors. At first Lyana did not recognize him. Instead of armor, he wore a white tunic fringed in gold, an iron circlet in the manner of Tiran nobles, and sandals. He smiled thinly, but his eyes remained cold. Again it seemed to Lyana that he could see through the scarf around her eyes, just as she could. Again a chill ran through her, but she sucked in a breath and forced herself to keep walking toward him.

For Requiem,
she thought.
For my family, for my king, and for my home.

"Tiana!" he called to her, arms outstretched. "That is your name, is it not? Come, my Blind Beauty. Welcome to my home."

He dismissed his guards and slaves, and soon Lyana found herself tapping down a grand hall, its floor a mosaic of suns and stone vultures with jet eyes. She and Mahrdor walked alone. Great statues lined the hall, shaped as nude women with the heads of animals, their fangs bared and tongues rolling. Lyana had to struggle not to shiver, not to stare at them.

You are only Tiana,
she told herself.
You are only a blind dancer; you cannot see this place.

He reached out to her. She forced herself not to flinch, to feign surprise when he took her hand. His flesh was cold like a corpse's hand.

"Come, let me help you," he said. She stared forward but felt his eyes beside her, boring into her.

Past the main hall, they climbed a stairway and entered a wide, shadowy chamber. Lyana's jaw tightened, and it took all her will to stifle her gasp.

The stories were true. Sundry items filled this place, overflowing shelves, tabletops, and alcoves. Shrunken heads, their skulls removed, hung on strings from the ceiling. Pickled hands floated in jars. A chair stood in the corner, formed from human femurs. Old torture devices, their iron rusted and dulled, hung on one wall between paintings of bloodied, broken men.

Mahrdor stood still, holding her hand. "It is such a terrible malady, blindness," he said. "I have brought you to my chamber of wonders, the place of my most prized possessions. And yet... yet to you, the world is still a pool of darkness."

She lowered her head and whispered. "Though my eyes peer into eternal night, the Sun God lights my heart."

He nodded sympathetically. "Well spoken, child. He is a merciful god to those who serve him. If your eyes are blind, your fingers will see for them. Let me guide you."

He guided her deeper into the chamber, then raised her hand above a shrunken head. When he began to lower her hand, Lyana's breath caught and her eyes winced beneath her scarf. The shrunken head seemed to stare at her, no larger than a pomegranate. When Mahrdor placed her hand upon it, she gasped softly. The skin was smooth, leathery, and cold. Mahrdor moved her hand across it—the lips that were sewn shut, the empty eyes, the wispy hair.

Lyana gritted her teeth.
Think that you touch only old cloth,
she told herself.
Only an old, beaten tunic.

"Do you know what this is?" Mahrdor said.

"A... a doll's head," she whispered.

He laughed softly. "Yes, child, only a doll. A doll I made myself. I have taught myself the skill, you see—to cut the neck, remove the skull, and stuff the skin with herbs. It is an art, much like dance. I am an artist too, child."

He wrapped his arm around her waist, pulled her away from the head, and placed her hand against a deformed skeleton, its bones twisted and bloated.

"I found this poor soul begging on the streets of Irys," Mahrdor said. "He was a swollen freak, his back twisted and his face bloated like a hippopotamus." He sighed. "Killing him was a mercy, but... he was such a wonder, Tiana! Such a wonder that I kept his bones. Feel them. Run your fingers across them." He forced her hands along the twisted ribs, the withered hip bones, the coiled femurs. "Do you feel the bumps, the grooves?" He sucked in his breath, seeming almost like a man in ecstasy. "They are exquisite."

She nodded, bile in her throat. "They are... fine bones, my lord."

He pulled her away from the skeleton, spun her around, and placed her hand against a mancala board. Instead of seashells or seeds, its pieces were made from dried scarabs. He made her caress the beetles.

"These scarabs ate the flesh off my skeleton," he said. "They are ravenous little beasts! Once they had their fill, and died of overeating, it was a shame to merely toss them out. Dried like this, and still stuffed with human flesh, they make such wondrous little marvels. Can you feel their claws?"

She nodded. "They feel wondrous, my lord."

Next he placed her hand upon a wide, curling scroll that covered a tabletop. Lyana gasped. It was a map! A map of Requiem! Her heart trembled like a bird trapped behind her ribs. Wooden wyverns, each the size of a thimble, stood upon the map. The miniature army was arranged as if flying out of Tiranor, across the sea, and into Requiem through Ralora Beach upon its southern shores.

The invasion plans,
Lyana thought.
Stars, he's going to invade through Ralora Beach.