Bloodstone (37 page)

“The Black Mages used the dragons, enslaved them. Koronolan didn’t know this until he defeated the Black Mages and broke the spell. By then there was only one dragon left. Koronolan didn’t want to kill the beast since it and its brethren hadn’t participated willingly in the carnage, but he knew his people wouldn’t accept giving the beast its freedom without some penalty.”

“Like…going to sleep?” Gareth asked.

“Yes, going to sleep until there would come a time when his people would accept the return of the dragon. Koronolan wrote it all down, so that those who came after him would know of the bargain he made with the Last Dragon, but his sons were afraid. Memories of the Black Mages’ treachery and the dragons’ destruction were too vivid in their minds, so they hid the scrolls of Koronolan, and soon those scrolls—and Koronolan’s promise—were forgotten.”

She leaned forward and her eyes intensified. “Tell me, Durren, you hear a voice, don’t you? Ever since that night you broke the crystal, you’ve heard a voice?”

She means me,
the Voice in his head said.

Durren swallowed, hard.
You’re not—

Oh, but I am. And I have been patient a very, very long time.

Syryk drew his cloak tighter around his shoulders. It was an expensive cloak, well made, befitting the Master of Nolar’s status and fortune. Such a cloak kept out both the cold and damp that came with the twilight pressing in on him from all sides as the horses plodded ever upward into rougher and rockier terrain. Pity it couldn’t ward off the growing sense of dread that pooled in the pit of his stomach and turned the dry-cake he’d demanded from Rees into a burning lump in his stomach. He shifted again in his saddle, attempting to find a position that hurt less, but nothing availed. With each bone-jarring, stone-crunching step, they came inexorably closer to the truth: the old man and his fat companion were headed to Drakkonwehr.

What could possibly be drawing them there? The Dragonkeeper had no such power. With the girl and the bloodstones, though— No, the fool had no idea how to use them. Syryk had the only crystal. He’d banked on it, the bloodstones, and Master Brandelmore’s bride being enough to complete the Chant and raise the Dragon wherever he wished. There was no need to go back to the gatehouse of Beggeth. No need to traverse this place that reeked of sulfur and—he sniffed—urine?

Rees halted and stood in his stirrups, head turned like a hound scenting the wind. “Krad,” he said. “There’ve been Krad through here.”

An unearthly howl rent the air. Stones cascaded down from above, pelting the ground, the horses, Syryk’s head. He reeled in his saddle and saw stars before Rees grabbed his reins and shouted, “Ride!”

****

There was a rumble, and the floor of the chamber heaved. Mortar showered from the lintel over the door. Mirianna leaned over Durren, covering him, and Ayliss sheltered the boy. The paving stones rolled like a gigantic mole passed beneath them, raising and shifting years of dust. The groan seemed to well up from the depths, a great creaking of earth and stone as the fortress swayed all around them.

“I am awake!” said the Voice, and it seemed to have gained power. It reverberated in Durren’s head and even, he fancied, echoed in the chamber, but that was impossible. It was his own thoughts he heard, wasn’t it? It was his conscience. The Shadow Man and Durren had split. The Shadow Man had been overthrown and Durren had reasserted himself, and the voice should have vanished, been beaten into submission by the will of the warrior, but here it was and louder, and—
by Kiros!
—not his voice at all.

“The time has come. You must keep your bargain, Drakkonwehr. For I willingly laid down to sleep for your ancestor. The Chant awoke me, my mind, before you broke the spell. Now you must finish what was started. Raise me and mine.”

Mirianna shuddered beside him, but her gaze darted into the shadows, as if seeking the voice she, too, could hear. Even Gareth’s eyes widened, but Ayliss smiled the cat’s smile he’d come to thoroughly detest.

“Ayliss,” Durren demanded, reaching out his free hand and seizing her ankle. “What in the name of Kiros is happening?”

She looked down her nose at the contact, the first between them in years. She’d made no previous move to touch him, either as lion or woman, and he wondered why until he saw the red glow shining between his black-gloved fingers as if the leather could barely contain it. Shocked, he let go, looked at where he held Mirianna’s hand under the blanket. The glow through the weave had intensified, no longer like banked coals but a log about to burst. And not just there—everywhere his skin had been bared for Gareth’s sponging pulsed anew with red fire, matching the beat of his heart.
Dear Koronolan!

“You’re fulfilling your destiny, Durren,” his sister said. “All these years you’ve been
keeping
the Dragon in the only way possible since you interrupted the Chant. Its consciousness has been living inside you.”

“No!” Durren gasped.

“Yes! You broke your sword in my flesh, and now it resides in your own side. You eased your wounds in the pool wherein my blood from that wound seeps. Your blood is mine, Drakkonwehr, and mine is yours. Now, set me free!”

The voice echoed off the chamber’s walls, and within Durren’s skull. His head pounded and he wanted to hold the voice inside where it had at least been contained. But now the voice was out and filling the air, it had a hiss he hadn’t noticed before, an ancient thickness of the tongue that caressed soft sounds. By Koronolan, this could not be happening! He could not now be sharing a body with a beast—the Beast!—he’d vowed to keep entombed. And yet here was the creature demanding release according to some ancient ‘bargain.’ And here was his sister telling him he had to give it what it wanted.

“Syryk’s spell is nearly unraveled, and we must complete the Chant,” Ayliss said. “If we don’t, you’ll die because the only thing that saved you when the spell exploded is being bound to the Dragon, and that connection won’t last much longer.”

He heard her but faintly, as if she spoke from the surface above the whirlpool he was drowning in. Was nothing true? Had his whole heritage been a lie perpetrated by fearful sons of Koronolan? Had he been so thoroughly wrong in his beliefs, his decisions that his life meant nothing? Amid the crush of incongruities and impossibilities, his mind grasped the one salient point that might still matter. “Then…kill me! I’d rather be…dead. At least I’ll have…discharged my one duty as a Drakkonwehr—keep the Dragon bound!”

Ayliss kicked him. With her bare heel, she hauled back and kicked him in the thigh. Her eyes flashed green fire as she thrust her chin forward. “You bloody, stubborn knucklehead! No one is going to die. Do you hear me? We are going to live through this, every last one of us.
That
is our destiny, Durren—to complete Koronolan’s promise and restore the world he once knew when dragons and the People lived in peace. I’ve been trying for years to get you to see the truth, but you had eyes for nothing but that Sword! Yes, we need the damned thing, and it has yet a purpose to serve, but right now what we need is for you to trust me, to believe what I’ve learned from the scrolls is going to help us—all of us. Can you do that? Or are you going to lie there and bleed fire until you die from the inside out?”

Always so cool, so calm, Ayliss hadn’t lost her temper in his presence for…for longer than Durren could remember. He’d always envied that control, but her loss of it now, here, showed him more than anything she’d so far said that she loved him, needed him, and meant to save them.

“‘True hearts and no fear, against a mage’s power, hold dear,’” Ayliss said, her gaze full of the passion he’d once glimpsed so many years ago. “Have you seen my ‘true heart,’ Durren? Or do you need more proof?”

I’ve seen YOUR heart,
said the Dragon, this time inside Durren’s head.
Your ‘demons’ have cast a long shadow over your soul, but your heart is still intact—much as you’ve wanted to rip it out for the pain it’s caused you.

Be still!
All these years he’d resented the interfering voice in his head, and now he knew why. It was not his conscience. Not even
his
at all!
Hold your tongue!

Why? Because now you know it’s forked?

Treacherous beast! Get out of my head!

‘Treacherous beast,’ hah! Let me remind you, Dragonkeeper, this ‘treacherous beast’ is the very one who’s lived inside you for more than a dozen of your paltry human years, who’s listened to you endlessly bemoan your fate, who’s kept you sane those countless days and nights when you had no one else to talk to, who let you soothe your body in my pool—

“Trust her, please.” Mirianna’s entreaty penetrated his skull and overrode the Dragon, silencing both of them. “Trust her, Durren,” she said when she had his attention. “I do.”

“So do I.” Gareth held out his hand, palm up, and Ayliss grasped it. Her lip trembled, and she dropped her gaze before Mirianna reached across Durren's body and covered both of their hands with hers.

“We trust both of you.” Mirianna shared a long look with Ayliss before she let go and laid her hand on Durren’s heart. She looked deep into the eyes she couldn’t possibly see in the dimness and through his face covering. “Do you trust us?”

The tenderness of her touch, the love radiating through the blanket’s weave to Durren’s skin, penetrated to his heart. He looked from Mirianna to the boy and responded with his heart before his head could process the reasons, “I…trust you.”

“If you die…if you give up and let go and take the Dragon with you,” Mirianna said, “everything you’ve worked for, everything you’ve worked to preserve will go too. The Shadow Man will win, and Durren Drakkonwehr, the man you once were and were becoming again, the man I love, will disappear too.”

He knew in his bones she was right. He loved her, had committed his heart to her, but he realized he loved the boy too, as a man loves a younger brother or—even—a son. They and his sister were his family, and he had to take care of them as best he could. Even the old man and the fat fool were his charges now. He’d been shadow too long; he’d almost forgotten how to be a man. It had taken a motley bunch of humans and their bumbling hearts to make him care again. He would give his life, but not in the name of Drakkonwehr. He would give it to save them, the people he loved, and that was as it should be.

“What…do we do now?” he said.

Mirianna’s eyes shone. He saw unshed tears, but also pride, love and fear.

Ayliss swallowed and cleared her throat. “You complete the change that the broken spell set in motion. I’ll do my best to weave the spell, but I have to warn you, with this small piece of crystal, I’m only buying us time. Neither of you will be…entirely whole. The Dragon will take your body, Durren, but you’ll be within the Dragon. It will keep you alive until we can find enough crystal to complete the Chant and, hopefully, separate the two of you.”

“Hopefully?” Mirianna said on a whisper.

Ayliss leaned forward and covered her hand where it lay atop Durren’s heart. “‘True hearts and no fear,’ Mirianna. That’s older magic than crystals and spells. Remember that.” Gripping Gareth’s hand, she stood. “I’ll give you a moment,” she said, taking the boy with her out of the chamber.

Mirianna’s hand on his chest trembled.

“You’re not…going to lose me,” Durren said as she blew out the candle.

“I know. The dream—we’ll always have the dream.” She turned and took in the glow radiating everywhere from his body.

She was terrified. He understood. His heart would be as cold as the stones of Drakkonwehr right now if it weren’t burning so hot with dragon flame. “No more…time, love.”

“I said I would do anything, Durren, and I meant it. I love you.” She raised shaking hands to his face covering. “I want to kiss you, and then I’ll go.”

“Close…eyes…please.”

“For now. But you’ll be back, and the spell will be broken and you’ll be yourself again.”

Would he? Dear Koronolan, that would be as wonderful as the fresh air caressing his face before her lips, cool, touched his so sweetly, so tenderly, he sensed more than felt the kiss. Then she stood and rushed from the chamber, leaving him alone in the dark—but not alone as the pain in his side intensified and the glow grew and the beast inside him stretched and the world shifted, wrenched itself inside out, and went dark…

****

Mirianna tramped along the path back to the fire in the courtyard. Full darkness hid the tears she wiped from her eyes, and she had her voice mostly under control when she met Ayliss and Gareth at the edge of the firelight. “I’m going down to the pool. If Gareth found one piece of crystal, there should be more to be found.”

Gareth blocked her with his staff. “She wants you to wait.”

Ayliss stood with her arms outstretched, palms up, eyes closed. Firelight shifted across her face, sparkling the sweat beading her forehead as she mumbled in a language Mirianna didn’t know, but seemed somehow familiar.

Shadow Speech, she guessed, remembering Durren’s gesture days ago—was it only days?—when he’d rubbed the stone, a bloodstone, in his broken sword. It had power too, the sword or the stone—or both. The Sword of Drakkonwehr, Pumble had called it. Where was it? Still with Durren in that chamber or—no, she couldn’t think about that now, what might be happening in that darkened room. ‘True hearts,’ Ayliss had told her, and she sensed there was power in that or she wouldn’t have left Durren alone to face whatever was going to happen to him.
By the Dragon!
Mirianna jammed her fist to her chin to stop its tremble. She needed strength now, not tears.

Ayliss stopped speaking. She opened her eyes, but recognition came into them slowly, as if her thoughts returned from a great distance. She reached out for the boy, who took her arm over his shoulder.

Mirianna needed no further evidence of a connection between the two. Every touch, every unspoken communication since the shelion had made herself known to Gareth told her Ayliss had secrets yet to tell. She would push her, but not just yet. Durren came first. “Well?”