Dragons on the Sea of Night (37 page)

‘You are what you are,' Bjork said. ‘You
must
accept that if you have any hope of surviving.'

Sardonyx nodded, a quick, reflexive action and she turned back to where the Makkon was about to pluck Ouwlmy's tongue from her throat. But not before Moichi saw a look in her eyes that chilled him. It was as if they were hollow, and he could see down into a void beyond his imagining.

Then, she raised her hand, made a series of vertical signs in the air. A wind began to rise, rustling through the cobweb of branches, turning the leaves over so their silver undersides sparkled as if the stars had been flung down from the very heavens.

The Makkon, alerted at last, lifted its hideous head and began to turn around. But it was already too late. Sardonyx had drawn her sword and, plunging it into the center of a giant root that arched out of the grass, she murmured an invocation in a language whose syllables hurt Moichi's ears.

He clapped his hands over his ears lest the unspeakable sounds render him numb. But he could not avert his eyes. What he saw rooted him to the spot. A pale green light began to shimmer and then, in a roar, poured upward from the spot where Sardonyx had buried the sword point. A hot wind began to howl, sending up tiny leaf-storms all through the tree-castle.

The storms converged upon the Makkon, who tried to keep its grip on Ouwlmy. The green howling was too powerful, and it slid away, tumbling head over heels along the ground, sparks and billows of smoke spurting in its wake.

Moichi ran to where Ouwlmy lay upon the ground, sobbing. He cradled her head in his lap, but still his eyes refused to leave the nexus of the green storm which now held the Makkon in its grip. The Chaos beast, its fists clenched and beating the ground in rage, was hurtled feet first into the dark heart of that sorcerous storm. Down the beam of light it flew, dwindling as it did so, its outline becoming indistinct, flickering like a candle's flame in a tempest.

Then it was gone, vanished in a black-green flash. The green windstorm followed it down, and so, too, the beam of light. At length, Sardonyx wrenched the blade out of the root, and the night regained its senses.

‘Moichi, I am all right. Just a little sore,' Ouwlmy whispered. ‘Please help me up.' He kissed her on the cheek and together they rose.

Bjork was coming toward them from the far side of the clearing. Sardonyx stood as still as a statue, clutching her unsheathed sword, staring fixedly at nothing.

‘What is going on here? What happened?' Moichi asked.

Bjork came up beside Ouwlmy, and the Shakra said, ‘Tell him, Sardonyx.'

‘She is right,' Bjork said. ‘The truth has already been demonstrated.'

‘Only because you forced it,' Sardonyx said hotly. ‘You could have dealt with the Makkon yourself.'

Bjork nodded. ‘Perhaps so. But that would have done you no real good. Quite the opposite, in fact.'

Sardonyx shot her a venomous look, which she cheerfully deflected. ‘Sardonyx opened a Portal into Chaos,' Bjork said as matter-of-factly as if she were reporting on the month's crop totals.

Moichi looked at Sardonyx and she nodded.

‘It is true,' she said. ‘I was born in Aden, as I told you, but I am Shinju.'

‘
Pure
Shinju,' Bjork interjected, ‘unlike me.'

‘But why didn't you tell me?' Moichi asked. Now he understood the antipathy between Sanda and Sardonyx.

‘Because,' she said defiantly, ‘we are all traitors to mankind. Ever since the Shinju mages locked Chaos away behind the Portal atop the Mountain Sin'hai there remained a way to undo what they had done. Even we do not know much about our own mages. What drove them, for instance? But surely since they kept the secret of access into Chaos they must have lusted after power.

‘The Shinju continued to harvest White Lotus long after the Portal had been sealed. Why? Because the Shinju – certain Shinju who passed the secret down the generations – continued a clandestine relationship with Chaos. Why? I do not know. No one, I think, does. Perhaps we are like moths to a flame; perhaps we cannot survive without them.

‘They, on the other hand, despise us. We knew their weakness for White Lotus and over the course of the centuries we played upon that weakness, exploiting them.'

‘Until they had had enough,' Bjork said. ‘And then they streamed through the Portal and all but destroyed the entire race.' She looked at Sardonyx with great compassion. ‘Not that we did not deserve such a fate. We were greedy and avaricious and arrogant. We. sought to make the Kaer'n our slaves. We ignored the laws of God and Nature. And how we were punished for our sins!'

‘Why did the Shinju treat the Kaer'n this way?' Moichi asked.

‘I can only speculate,' Bjork said slowly. ‘I think they must have been frightened of what they had created. You have only to look at the Kaer'n once to understand that. And then, I believe, they were jealous. All along they had believed themselves to be mankind's sole link to Chaos. This made the Shinju special; unique. Now, along come the Kaer'n to make a mockery of that notion. Once, I imagine, the Shinju considered themselves mankind's shepherds, keeping them safe from Chaos. But with the advent of the Kaer'n deep down they knew they were only the creators of man's guardians.' She sighed. ‘The Shinju hubris – I am afraid we were quite the egotists.'

There was silence for a long time in the glade. Nocturnal birds flitted from branch to branch but knew better than to sing their songs. Now was not the time.

‘Ouwlmy …' Bjork reached out an arm into which the Shakra nestled. Before they left, Ouwlmy lifted her head, kissed Moichi tenderly.

‘Goodbye, Prince of Iskael, long life to you!'

‘And to you, dear Ouwlmy,' Moichi said. He was quite moved. ‘But you are mistaken. I am no prince; I am but a ship's captain.'

The Shakra smiled a most enigmatic smile. Then, snorting once, she trotted off with Bjork at her side and Moichi was left alone with Sardonyx.

Moonlight continued to stream down through the arboreal cathedral, cascading over her in ribbons and pinpoints, hiding her as much as it revealed. Standing there with her naked sword still gripped tightly, her eyes downcast, she seemed as sad and alone as had the Dai-San on the summit of Sin'hai. Moichi ached to reach out to her, to reassure her, but keen instinct held him back. He knew she needed to divulge one last thing, buried deeply, and he could not help her in this difficult exorcism.

‘Guilt,' she said at last. ‘I think more than anything my life has been molded by guilt. Guilt as to what I am, what my people have done and are capable of, has set me to reinventing myself. You know, it's curious; when you are not the real thing, when you expend so much energy making yourself
seem
genuine, then you wind up being
more
genuine than the real thing. Being so self-conscious you can weed out the flaws you recognize in others.'

She was silent for a long time. At last she said, ‘Are you listening to me?'

‘You know I am,' Moichi said.

‘I wonder.' She sighed. ‘After all this time, I wonder what you must think of me. Perhaps you don't believe anything I've told you.'

‘Sardonyx–'

‘No, no. I would not blame you, certainly.' She turned to face him squarely. ‘Perhaps you even harbor a suspicion that I killed Aufeya in order to be with you.'

‘I believed you when you told me she slipped and fell while I was dealing with the Firemask.'

She took a step toward him and he could see the pain and longing in her beautiful, scarred face. ‘I could have lied.'

‘What difference would it make now?'

She was astonished. ‘Why, all the difference in the world!' she cried.

‘By that answer alone I know you told the truth.' He smiled at her and took her hand. ‘It's over now. Don't you see? All the running, the hiding, the – what did you call it? – reinventing. I, at least, can accept you for what you are. So, I suspect, can many others, including my sister.'

‘No.' Sardonyx was shaking her head vehemently. ‘The Kaer'n will never forgive what the Shinju did to them.'

He held her close. ‘By thinking that aren't you perpetuating what your race did to them – dismiss them, denigrate them, abuse them?' And in his own words he saw the true ending to the centuries-old war between Iskael and Aden; the kernel of an understanding.

She appeared to think about what he had said for some time. Then she buried her head in his shoulder. It might have been the wind through the trees but he thought he could hear her weeping. He put his arms around her and, after a very long time, she let go of the sword. It fell at her feet, lying there, gleaming dully as a ghost of moonlight fired its edge.

Finally, he pulled her thick hair back from her face, kissed her temple, but he made no effort to move. He thought of Bjork and Ouwlmy. He was enveloped by a sense of serenity he could not explain. Perhaps, so close to the Mountain Sin'hai and all its secrets – known and unknown – he could allow himself the notion that the kinship he felt so profoundly for these folk was not merely psychological. Could it be that somewhere inside him a bit of Shinju or – like the Kaer'n and the Dai-San – Chaos still abided? He remembered what Bjork had told him of his father's fascination with Syrinx.

He held Sardonyx more closely, feeling a sense of calmness gradually steal over her. She was right: from the moment they had met in her castle in the land of the Opal Moon it was clear they were meant for each other. No one else, he knew, could have saved the sorceress from her own spell. He kissed her again, heard her sigh as she clung to him.

Time enough after he defused the holy war to explore his own nature. He was quit running away to sea – at least for the time being. The oceans of the world – such old friends! – seemed remote to him now, almost dreamlike, much like his journey astride his Kaer'n sister upon the sea of night.

He looked upward, through the latticework of the leaves, to the clear sky filled with clusters of stars so bright they seemed burned into the velvety blackness like suns. Somewhere, up there, he knew, the joyous host of Kaer'n was flying homeward. As if he were there, he saw Sanda catch up with them, flying alongside Chiisai and the Dai-San. Part of him was with them.

I am but a ship's captain
, he had said so ingenuously to Ouwlmy. Only now was he beginning to understand the nature of her enigmatic smile.

About the Author

Eric Van Lustbader is the author of numerous bestselling novels including the Nicholas Linnear series,
First Daughter, Blood Trust
, and the international bestsellers featuring Jason Bourne:
The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, The Bourne Objective, The Bourne Dominion
, and
The Bourne Retribution
. For more information, visit
www.EricVanLustbader.com
. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1997 by Eric Van Lustbader

Cover design by Kat Lee and Neil Alexander Heacox

ISBN: 978-1-4976-5494-5

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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