Quest Of The Dragon Tamer (Book 1) (46 page)

He turned and marched down the steps. As soon as he reached the first column, a gust of air hurled him back. He spun to face the thrones. Now they were threatening him!

“How can I take heart? How can I believe you when you tell me I will slay the silver dragon, damning all hope of saving Aidan?” He brandished his sword at the shredded painting. The guardians remained motionless, impassive. Ren’s eyes fell on the third stone slab.

Choice, Chance and Fate

Merged with pain, love and hate

Can embrace the light,

Can embrace the dark,

Heed us well Our Chosen
.

Ren’s world crashed down. He sank to the floor, ashamed. It had already begun. He was already rejecting the pain. He wanted to flee from it, tear it from his soul, but if he did the darkness would claim him.

Truth above all
.

His eyes flickered to the painting. There were some things he would never understand, some things he would never fully accept, but he couldn’t give into hate. The guardians didn’t want to cause him pain. They were the gift of the Maker to the world of the living. Pain was the last thing they wanted to bestow.

He had no answers. He could only believe that somehow, some way, he would overcome the end the Oracle portrayed. Prophecy clouded the truth. The Oracle’s paintings could cloud the truth also. He knew they were true, but they may not be true in a literal sense. It may not be as bad as it appeared.

Ren stood, shoving his feelings of animosity down to drown in his pain. When his hate had dissipated he raised his eyes once again to the figures on the thrones. They still stared blankly ahead, but this time he saw something he hadn’t seen before: righteousness, integrity, honesty and, yes – love.

He ascended the steps and read the glowing slab once more. Instead of feeling anger, he only felt a profound disappointment that he would be unable to ask his questions.

He thought of the third painting. Surly the guardians wouldn’t ask him to do such a thing. He was being senseless. Choice, Chance, and Fate were righteous. Ren drew a deep breath, allowing the honeyed air to give him a small amount of comfort.

Ren turned to the first statue on his left. Choice sat with a quiver of arrows propped against his chair and a bow in his left hand. A flowing paludamentum covered his broad form. A triangular clasp secured it to his left shoulder. His wavy hair and beard were cut with a majestic air and his brows were furrowed in a look of deep concentration.

Ren’s heart quickened. Not even the Watcher’s gaze could come close to the severity of Choice.

And Ren had to wake him. But how?

A short stone table stood beside Choice. Three arrows rested on it, forming Choice’s symbol, the same symbol etched on Ren’s sword. The sword tingled in his hand as if the thought had brought it to life. He heard a soft, distant humming – the voice of the Quy.

May Choice, Chance and Fate be with you for all three play a part. Always choose the right, and when you roll the dice let life’s kiss prove your heart
.

Choose the right, the Quy had said. Ren glanced back at the table. One arrow pointed away from him, another pointed down and to the right, and the third pointed down and to the left, just like his sword. Ren touched the arrow pointing down and to the right.

Choice opened his eyes and turned his cold gaze to Ren. Ren retreated as the statue’s white stone came alive like flesh. Choice’s gaze seared through him, shaming his soul for his accusations and filling his heart with white-hot fear. When Choice rose from his throne, he towered over Ren. Choice’s brow drew together in disappointment. Ren fell to his knees and bowed his head, desperate to escape Choice’s eyes.

“Have you read the rules, Chosen?” Choice’s voice rose in the nave, so deep and poignant Ren felt his insides vibrating. He nodded, humbled in front of Choice. When Choice remained silent Ren forced his eyes to flicker up the length of Choice’s torso, back into his eyes.

They froze him where he knelt. No smile appeared on Choice’s harsh face, no absolution.

“You will have a choice in time, a choice to allow one’s death. I will tell you whom you must choose, whom you must betray. Heed my warning, Chosen. Heed it well or you will fail. Choose your mother, Renee. Choose her immediately.”

Choice’s eye’s closed as his flesh turned into a lifeless mass once again. Ren continued to stare. Had he heard him correctly?

Betray his mother?

He tried to rationalize Choice’s words. Renee would somehow be under Ista’s command, unsalvageable. Renee would have a horrid disease and he would be forced to command her death. She would be in pain and he would choose to let her die. The thoughts poured from him. But he knew in his heart, in his soul, none were real.

Renee would be whole and he would choose her death.

How could that be the Maker’s wish?

He couldn’t send his mother to her death. Somehow he would avoid it. He would escape the choice, escape the betrayal in her eyes.

Ren forced his thoughts to still. He stood and walked to Chance.

Most spoke of Chance with a smile. If someone ever wished another luck, they wished for Chance to be with him. She was the most loved and the most talked about of the three guardians. All loved her winsomeness and allure. Women wanted to be compared to her, men wanted to court her, but Chance was the one guardian Ren always found mysterious and inaccessible.

Most men spoke of Chance with sexual innuendoes. Ren had always thought uttering lewd references to Chance was scandalous. Seeing her now he understood why sexual connotations always followed Chance’s name. Chance was scantily dressed, with a loose-fitting cloth tossed around her breasts and looped over one shoulder. The long skirt she donned hung from her hips, just below her navel. A provocative chain clung to her dainty waist, drawing the eye. Chance herself was draped over her throne, legs dangling over one side, one arm wrapped around the back and the other placed teasingly at her side. A crooked grin dominated her face and her long hair cascaded down her bare midriff to tickle the chain.

Roll the dice
, the Quy had said. The table below Chance’s dangling feet held a variety of dice. Ren perused each pair. There were no astragali. Some of the dice were large, some oblong, but none were astragali.

He thought about the astragali on his sword. They had double sixes showing: the sonnez or luck roll. He looked again at the dice. One pair had a sonnez showing. Although they weren’t astragali they were elongated, with four sides. Just as Ren reached to pick them up a wave of apprehension stole through him. Something wasn’t right.

He glanced at Chance. Her grin had widened. In her second hand, now propped on one knee, were a pair of astragali, each with a sonnez showing. Ren wiped his brow, remembering the stories of Chance’s jests.

He didn’t find this one very humorous.

He took the dice from the cold stone that formed Chance’s hand and threw them on the floor.

A thin slit of stone slid up from Chance’s eyes. She peered at him with mild amusement. Tilting her head, she glanced to the ground.

“The sonnez roll, Dragon Lord. Maybe luck is smiling on you today.” Chance’s grin broadened. Ren wanted to believe her words, but he knew she toyed with him. There was no luck today. He had to betray his mother.

“The news hasn’t been kind, I see,” Chance said. Her voice oscillated in the air like a harp being plucked by a skilled minstrel. “I don’t know if you’ll like what chance will send your way either, Dragon Mate.”

Ren tightened his grip on the sword, daring Chance with his eyes to order him to kill the silver dragon. He would never harm it, and he would never harm Aidan.

Chance tittered with alluring charm. The hollow echo of her laughter sounded odd in the stone chamber. “You have a spark, Dragon Mate. I see why you’re the Chosen. The Maker chooses well, though I would have made you a little less,” Chance paused and put a finger to her lips, “gracious. More severity would attract more fear, more attention, and perhaps more caution.”

Chance’s stone eyes turned harsh and her thin lips wilted into a frown. If Ren had thought Choice looked threatening, Chance looked sinister.

“Heed my voice and heed it well, Dragon Mate. Chance will come again. The silver fiend will land. Though you aren’t required to kill it physically, as the picture shows, you must kill its heart so it will never be the same. You must face it with malice, look at it with loathing, and wound it with your words. When it comes, hide your feelings, bury them deep inside. Tell her you denounce your union. You must deny your heart, Dragon Mate. You must deny it completely.”

Ren staggered backwards as Chance transformed into lifeless stone. The truth he so desperately wanted to deny was upon him. He sat on the steps and buried his face in his hands.

If he did as Chance commanded Aidan would give up on life. She would begin to merge with the dragon.

“Aidan,” he whispered, “please have faith in me.”

Now he knew what the prophecy meant. It didn’t mean killing the beast, it mean destroying Aidan. Buy why? Why would denying his feelings for Aidan help destroy the darkness?

“No,” he said. “Please let this not be true.”

He began to pray he was living an illusion. Over and over he prayed, again and again, until the cold floor below him warmed.

When he looked back at Chance she was watching him with cold, stone eyes.

Ren rose to his feet. His legs were lead as he climbed to the landing for the third time.

Most feared Fate more than Choice and Chance. Choice, no matter how bad the options, still embodied different paths from which to choose. Chance was associated with luck, and luck was what everyone wanted. Fate was feared. You had no control over your destiny, and you could never stop the sands of time. Once you were in the spiral there was only one way to go: to your fate, to your end.

Fate didn’t sit on her throne like the others. She stood holding a sundial in one hand and an hourglass in the other, indicating it was only a matter of time before your fate would come. A glacial cold shivered through Ren as he looked into Fate’s stone eyes. She was older than Chance, with wrinkles just beginning to appear around her lips and eyes, but she was elegant. Her gown clung to her, showing every curve yet revealing nothing. Her hair was piled high on her head while one thick strand made its way around her crown and fell halfway down her back.

No table stood beside her. There was nothing but the throne, the hourglass, and the sundial.
Let life’s kiss prove your heart
, the Quy had said.

Ren stopped paces from her. He didn’t want to know the fates, not if choice and chance were what they were.

He turned from Fate and sat on the steps. He fought to understand the messages in the pictures. He fought to change what Choice and Chance had told him. He couldn’t. The Oracle never lied, and those who disobeyed the Oracle’s commands suffered ten times more than if they had obeyed. If he didn’t heed them he would fail.

Ren drew in a breath and looked back at Fate. He had no choice. He had to finish what he started. He walked to Fate, kissed her cheek and stepped back.

Her stone eyes opened and she smiled. The smile warmed his heart. He thought how ironic the expression, “May Fate smile upon you.” That idiom hadn’t held its true meaning until then. Fate was beautiful, more alluring to him than even Chance. In a small way Fate reminded him of his mother, regally distant yet somehow holding a compassion that radiated from her soul.

“Your heart is true. Believe it. Your soul is good. Believe it,” her sweet, yet powerful voice commanded.

What she did next startled him. Fate bowed, tresses falling around her shoulder. He stood, wondering what he should do. He should bow to her, not she to him. She rose and touched his cheek with her hand. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, and soft, although it still looked as hard as the stone that formed her.

When she took her hand away a profound sorrow crossed her features. “Ren, Chosen, Dragon Lord, Dragon Tamer, Dragon Mate, I will ask you a question. Do you know of fate?”

His lips parted. She quickly put her finger to them, stopping him before he replied. Remembering the rules, he just stared at her. How was he to convey what he wanted? He thought he knew: the spiral, the end. But he wanted to hear what she had to say.

Her lips lifted into a small smile as she nodded in understanding. “What I do is unorthodox, but you have proven your compassion and I see your pain. I want to tell you a truth I feel you must know, but what I do risks much, for if the weapon that is to slay a beast is dulled, the beast will live.”

Ren nodded, knowing he was the weapon to which she referred.

“Fate is a spiral,” Fate said as she twirled her hand. Where her fingers touched, the air glowed with a white light, leaving a perfect image of a spiral hanging between them. “Some believe one can’t escape the spiral.” Fate paused and took a bead from a pin in her hair. She placed the bead on the hovering glow. It rolled to the tip and disappeared.

“This is a false prophecy.”

Ren’s mind worked furiously to follow her words. He had always thought fate was unavoidable, that every choice you made, every chance that happened, couldn’t change your ultimate fate. It was as if choice and chance were confined in the spiral and no matter where you were or where you went your destiny still resided at the end of that spiral.

“Every choice and every chance can lead you to a different fate,” Fate said. “Don’t misunderstand, fate is real, but it is multifarious. At each breath you have one fate and one fate only. But the next breath, within your next choice, your fate may change. Fate is what it is, but it is more like this.” Fate dropped the hourglass. It shattered on the floor. The dust it contained stormed around them and quickly formed multiple spirals: below him, beside him, above him, hundreds upon hundreds of spirals of all different sizes and shapes.

“If you didn’t have free will you would have only one spiral. You would have only one fate. But that isn’t so. The Maker allows you to make your own decisions. You may first start with one fate, a choice leads you away, a chance still further, until you are on a different spiral, a different end.” With Fate’s every word the bead leaped from one spiral to another, weaving its way in a frenzied fashion.