The Dragons of Winter (23 page)

He spun around before the Dragon could answer.

“I’ll tell you,” Mordred said. “It’s to become educated—and I have learned my lesson, oh yes, I have. And I know, Samaranth, who has betrayed me the most.”

The Dragon did not answer, but merely regarded his apprentice with an expression closer to sorrow than pity.

“I’m through as your apprentice,” Mordred said. “And you can leave now.”

The Dragon growled in response. “You are still the apprentice,” he said sternly. “And as poor a student as you have been at times, it is a calling, not a cloak to be dropped on the floor when you grow too hot. You may refuse my teaching, but you will remain a Dragon’s apprentice until the end of your days.”

“Then I’ll be what you made of me, Samaranth,” Mordred said,
turning back to the fire, “and the next time I see you, we shall see if one Dragon may kill another.”

He said nothing more, and after a time, the great Dragon gave a sigh, and with a stroke of his wings, lifted silently into the night.

It was not an hour later when the Scholar appeared, quietly, unobtrusively, in the corner of the room, just out of range of the firelight.

“Greetings, young Madoc,” he said, his voice quiet but firm. “Well met.”

“My name,” Mordred spat, not bothering to turn around, “is Mordred. And you have chosen a poor time to introduce yourself, whoever in Hades’s name you are.”

“Wrong twice,” the Scholar said. “I have neither chosen poorly nor introduced myself.”

Mordred spun about, reaching for his sword, then flushed with both anger and embarrassment when he realized he’d reached with his missing hand.

“You have been the victim of a grave injustice,” the Scholar said. “I have come to right that wrong.”

“I’ve heard that before,” Mordred said, hiding his stump under his cloak as if it were naked.

“From the Elder Dragon, yes,” the Scholar replied. “But his agenda is not mine. And I am not going to ask you for anything. I am merely here to serve.”

“Serve?” Mordred barked. “Whom do you serve, here, in this place?”

The Scholar bowed. “A king, my lord. I serve you.”

Mordred’s face grew tight. “I am no king,” he said brusquely. “Especially not here.”

“You are a king with no country,” the Scholar said, “but you remain a king, nevertheless.”

Mordred hesitated—the Scholar’s soothing words were doing the job they were intended to do.

“Winter is approaching,” he said, turning to stoke the fire and add tinder to it. “A poor time to become a king.”

“Winter’s king now,” the Scholar said persuasively, “and king of all else in time.”

“Do not promise that which you cannot give,” said Mordred.

“I never do,” said the Scholar. “May we sit, and speak further . . . my lord?”

Mordred regarded the Scholar warily. His manner was not imposing, and his words dripped with honey . . . . But somehow, this strange, slight man who wore a monk’s robe and called him lord understood what he needed to hear. And, Mordred realized, it had been a very, very long time since anyone had understood that, much less spoken the words.

“All right,” he said, gesturing to the chair opposite his seat by the hearth. “Whom am I conversing with?”

The Scholar took a seat and extended his hand. “Dr. Dee,” he said firmly. “But you can call me John.”

“Call me Jack.” Hearing those terrible words, spoken by this pale man who called himself Lord Winter, was like stumbling into the Styx and feeling the cold death of the water splashing against one’s soul.

Lord Winter noted the companions’ shocked reaction with a wry expression, then walked across the terrace to where a long table had been set up for a feast.

The geometric shapes and the attendants marked as Dragons stayed where they were, watching silently.

The settings at the table were familiar, as were the dishes the food was served on—it was patterned after the Feast Beasts’ dinner table at Tamerlane House. Except none of the foods were recognizable, and the details of the plates were not quite right.

They were made of bronze rather than silver, and the designs were imprecise, as if they were being viewed through a fuzzy lens, or had been made of wax that had softened over time. Or, thought Rose, as if they had been remade from old, imperfect memories of what the real dishes looked like.

Lord Winter took his seat at the head of the table and gestured for his guests to join him—but none of them moved. A look of irritation flashed across his features, and with a gesture, he signaled to his Dragon aides to escort each of the companions to their seats around the table. Winter watched as each of his “guests” pulled out their chairs to sit, giving each one a thorough once-over, but paying particularly close attention to Rose.

When everyone was in their place, Burton broke the tension by blurting out the first question that was on all their minds: “Your servant, Vanamonde, said that everyone on this world is Lloigor. Are you also a Lloigor, ‘Jack’?”

“Right to the point, eh, Sir Richard?” Lord Winter said, unruffled by the question. “The answer is yes, I am. But the larger question is, why aren’t all of you?”

“Why would we be?” asked Charles. “If you were truly Jack—”

“I am,” Lord Winter replied, “just as much as you are who you are, Charles.”

“You haven’t answered me,” Charles said, his voice reflecting
the misery in his face. “Why would we be Lloigor?”

“On the rare—exceedingly rare—occasions that we encounter someone who has not chosen the path,” said Winter, “their shadows are severed, and they are assigned new shadows, from those of the Echthroi who are still waiting for hosts.” His eyes flickered up to the geometric shapes in the air, which vibrated slightly with the attention. “It is a condition of living in Dys.”

“And if they choose not to, are they permitted to leave?” asked Burton. “I only wonder this because we were called your guests—but last night, the door was locked.”

“That was for security,” said Winter. “I shall order it kept unlocked in the future.”

The companions exchanged uneasy glances at this suggestion that their stay might be longer than they wished—whatever their choice would have been.

“Have you ever had ‘guests,’” Burton pressed, “who wanted to stay in Dys but didn’t want to become Lloigor?”

“A few,” Winter admitted, “like Vanamonde’s father—your old colleague, Bert. Moses . . . Nebogipfel, I think it was. I’ll have to check the label on his skull.”

“Keeping the skulls of your enemies as trophies?” Bert asked with a barely suppressed shudder. “Isn’t that a bit . . .”

“Barbaric?” Lord Winter finished for him. “Perhaps. But one man’s barbarism is another man’s culture. Isn’t that right, Sir Richard? And besides,” he added with a grin at Bert, “I learned it from
you
.”

Bert looked horrorstruck. “I’ve never taken a head from anyone in my life!” he exclaimed vehemently. “Nor would I keep the skull as a trophy!”

“Ah, not to quarrel,” Charles put in, “but according to what John and, ah, Jack, told me, that isn’t precisely true.”

“How do you mean?” asked Bert.

“You did exactly those things in the country of the Winter King during the Dyson incident,” Charles said, a pained expression on his face. He seemed to hate the appearance of supporting this Lord Winter’s point of view on anything, least of all on a point regarding their mentor. But the truth was the truth.

“That wasn’t me!” sputtered Bert. “That was—”

“A version of you, who had lived through some terrible tragedies,” said Lord Winter, “and in the process, had to make some terrible choices. But make no mistake, Bert. It was you. I know. I remember.”

“It weren’t—I mean, it wasn’t,” Bert shot back. “I wasn’t there.”

“We all like to think that we will always make the choices that flow in line with our image of ourselves,” Lord Winter said, turning to look out over the city, “but the truth is, we never know what we’ll really do until we’re already in the soup. And then, we do what we must, just as you did. It doesn’t diminish the good choices you made to have chosen to do something you abhor,” he continued, “but neither does it mean you suddenly changed character when you made those other choices. You are who you are.”

Bert shook his head. “I would not have done those things—not if I had any choice,” he added before Charles could correct him. “It just isn’t in my character.”

Their host spun about to face him. “Nothing we actually do,” Lord Winter said, “is out of character.”

He stood, and with a little encouragement from Lord Winter’s
Dragons, the others rose as well. None of them had so much as touched a morsel of food.

“No one was hungry, I guess,” Winter said. “Come—let me escort you back to your room. After all, traveling so many thousands of years must have made you all very tired.”

The companions followed Winter and Vanamonde back down the stairs to the room where they’d spent the night. None of their belongings seemed to have been touched. Not their duffels, or their books, or . . .

. . . their
weapons
.

“Perhaps we may speak again later,” Lord Winter said from the open doorway, “and I can tell you more about my decision to join the Echthroi and why”—he smiled broadly—“you will make the same choice, in the end.”

Rose had already been considering a choice, and there, in that moment, as Lord Winter spoke those words, she made it.

Steeling herself to her task, she carefully, quietly removed the sword Caliburn from its sheath underneath her duffel, and before he could speak, she whirled around and rushed over to Lord Winter.

“You,” she cried, “are
not
Jack!” and she buried the sword to the hilt in his chest.

It had absolutely no effect.

She stared at him, eyes wide and unblinking in disbelief.

“I was wondering why it was taking you so long to try that,” Winter said, not even trying to conceal the pleasure in his voice. “I decided that you were either too timid to actually strike, or you were too overwrought with emotion for your dear uncle Jack to try it. But I’m glad to know that you weren’t too weak to try. And I’m sorry that you had to fail so badly.”

He gave her a shove, and she flew backward into the corner, hitting her head roughly against the wall.

“And,” he said, taking little notice of the companions who had flown across the room to Rose’s aid, “I’m sorry that I have to break your little toy.”

He reached up and grabbed the hilt of Caliburn—and snapped it off. Then he simply pulled out the blade, which emerged clean and bloodless from his chest. He dropped it to the floor with a clatter.

“Impossible!” Burton breathed. “That sword should have defeated any Shadow!”

“Any mortal’s shadow, eh, Sir Richard?” Winter said, winking. “But not primordial Shadow. Not Lloigor. Not Echthroi. And especially not while I wear this armor.”

The fear in the companions’ eyes was evident, and he chuckled, then held up his hands.

“It’s all right,” Lord Winter said. “I’ve no desire to harm you. Step closer, and observe.”

To better facilitate their examination, Lord Winter stepped forward himself and raised his arms, turning slowly so they could see all the armor he wore.

“What is it?” asked Burton. “Where did you get it?”

“There was an old Chinese legend,” Lord Winter began, “about a young girl named T’ai Shan. In the beginnings of time, there came upon the gods of the world a great drought—and I say gods, and not peoples, because in those days, all were considered as gods. They spoke with the beasts of the Earth, and lived long lives, and knew all the secrets that there were. But not the reasons for the drought.

“Crops died, livestock perished, and soon starvation followed. And all the great gods came together to try to find a solution, but none was forthcoming. No one knew what had caused the drought, and no one knew how to resolve it. But one child, a crippled girl named T’ai Shan, who lived as a beggar on the outskirts of the first city of the gods, knew what must be done.

“She recalled a story told by her grandfather, who was one of the elder gods, that when the gods needed aid, they prayed to the stars, and the stars came to Earth and aided them. So she rose on her crutch and hobbled away from the city, which was radiantly bright, into the darkness where she could see the stars, and she began to pray.

“One of the stars heard her prayer and descended to Earth to give her aid. He said that far to the west there grew a flower, a rose, which contained within it a single drop of dew. If she were to find that rose and return to the city, the drop of dew would become a torrent that would restore rain to the world and fill the oceans again.

“All he required of her was that when this was done, she give the rose to him. And T’ai Shan agreed.

“So the star took from himself scales of fire and gave them to the girl, instructing her that she should find a smithy to forge them into armor. And when she had done so, she would be able to traverse the great distance and retrieve the rose.”