Return of the Exile

8 Dragon Dreams

“I’m sorry, my lady. I should have realized this would be too much. You have fought a ket-rhild, and by rights you should be back in the Akeelawasee.”

The voice droned in her ear as Linsha felt herself carried to the wall and carefully set down, her back to the cold stone. Her eye opened a crack, and a face swam into her vision. Lanther. Blast it all, she thought, she must have only been out for a minute or two. She slouched down, her legs in front of her, her shoulders sagging, and closed her eye again. Lanther left her alone to return to the warriors congregating around the smoking slab and the ashes of the Akkad-Ur. Linsha tried to sleep. Every muscle in her body screamed that she needed rest. But she couldn’t find a comfortable position, and in her mind danced her own words. Where was the egg?

She hovered on the edge of consciousness, her body half asleep and her mind half awake. Where was the egg that Lanther promised? And who was this Sirenfal? What was she doing here in this condition? When would all of this be over? She shifted against the wall and felt the chill seep into her bones. She shivered and did not stop.

A sudden cheer pulled her attention to the crowd in the cavern. Her eye opened again to see two Keena priests bring in a large metal box suspended between two poles. The box was big enough to carry… a dragon egg? Linsha’s eye opened further and she pushed herself up the wall to a better sitting position.

Reverently the two priests laid the box on the smoldering ashes atop the hot slab and stood back. One handed the Akkad-Dar a pair of heavy leather gloves. The box must have been hot, for even with the gloves Lanther moved quickly to remove the lid and lift the contents onto the slab. The warriors crowded around, blocking Linsha’s view.

Linsha struggled to her hands and knees. She still couldn’t see past the bulky bodies of the Tarmaks. A strong suspicion gave her the strength to pull herself up the wall to a standing position, and at that moment Lanther held the object overhead for all to see. The Tarmaks cheered.

Linsha stifled a cry. An oblong shape, little more than two feet long, lay in his gloved hands. It gleamed in the torchlight with a polished pale gold sheen. It was a brass dragon egg. Her egg. Linsha struggled forward on legs that had the strength of gelatin, but before she had made it three steps, Lanther lowered the egg and she heard a sickening crack.

Her heart fell to her feet. “Lanther, you bastard!” she screamed.

Surprised and startled Tarmaks turned and gave way before her furious advance. She shoved and staggered her way through the ring of warriors to the slab and Lanther in time to see him thrust a dagger into the top of the egg, where a small hole had already been started.

“Hold her,” Lanther ordered.

Two warriors snatched Linsha’s arms and pinned them behind her back, giving her no chance to get closer. She didn’t have the strength left to fight a butterfly, let alone two burly Tarmaks. Her face twisted into a mask of grief and disgust.

“How could you?” she cried. “You gave those eggs to me.”

He grinned his mischievous grin of old. “I gave you dragon eggs that are safely lying where we left them. This was one I kept out for myself for this occasion. Now, be quiet and watch. This is a rare opportunity. Females are not usually allowed to attend these ceremonies.”

Before her stricken gaze, he continued to stab the dagger into the egg until he had cut a circular hole in the top. He pried off the cut piece of shell and poured the contents of the egg into a large stone bowl.

Appalled, Linsha stared as the small, slick dragon embryo squirmed once or twice in the puddle of albumen in the bowl before it lay still. It was perfectly formed and more developed than she expected it to be. Tears ran unnoticed through the blue paint on her face.

Lanther turned to face the warriors and raised his dripping dagger high. “The feast of dragon blood will be prepared tonight! Who will drink the Awlgu’arud Drathkin?”

A shouted roar from the warriors answered him and echoed through the cavern. While the Emperor, the Akkad-Dar, and the warriors watched, the two Keena priests chopped the dead embryo to small pieces, mixed its body with the bloody ruined contents of its egg, and added hot water. They also mixed in powders and other liquids, something dark that looked like blood, and some herbs and wine until they had made a revolting-looking soup. The drummer beat on his drum once more and the attendants sang a harsh, discordant chant that grated on Linsha’s shaky self-control. She watched, sickened, as the priests stirred the contents of the stone bowl and let it steam gently on the hot slab. When the potion was ready, the high priest fished through the hot contents and pulled out the dragonlet’s tiny skull. He filled it with the liquid and bowing, handed it to the Akkad-Dar.

Lanther raised the skull in a salute. “Hail to the godson, Amarrel, Keeper of Dragons, Champion of the White Flame and beloved of the goddess, and hail to the Dark Queen, mistress of the world and ruler of the dead!” With a bow he passed the skull to the Emperor who drank the contents in a single swallow.

Lanther and the Tarmaks roared their approval. As the warriors pushed forward for their taste of the potion, Linsha felt the grip on her arms loosen. Her two guards, eager for their own share, released her and pushed her back and out of the way. Linsha staggered several steps, bent over, and vomited on the sand. Her legs trembled beneath her; her head throbbed with pain. She wanted no part of this savage ceremony, but she did not have the strength left to climb the stairs back to the upper levels of the palace. She had to lie down and she had to do it now. Wiping her mouth, she looked up and saw the dragon curled up in its induced state of sleep. The dragon was a stranger. But Linsha was a prisoner, too, and in the brief moment of mental joining, Linsha had sensed a desperate loneliness and fear in Sirenfal that matched her own. She felt drawn to the dragon and empathetic to her plight and hoped that Sirenfal wouldn’t mind a little company.

Growing weaker by the moment, Linsha forced her legs to walk to Sirenfal’s sandy nest. She felt the heat of the brass dragon radiate outward like a warm oven, and gratefully she fell to her hands and knees and crawled until she could sit up against the dragon’s bent leg. In spite of the shouts of the Tarmaks and the beating of the drum, she was asleep before her head settled against the brass scales.

She came to a state of awareness in a chamber of pale shadows. Looking around, she thought perhaps she was still in the dragon’s cave. The air was damp and smelled of stone and saltwater; the spaces echoed around her. But if that was where she was, some time had passed, for the Tarmaks were gone and the cave was silent and empty. There was no sign of Sirenfal. Light filtered in from somewhere overhead and reflected on a pale mist that swirled in from an opening she sensed but could not see.

Who are you? The voice, light and feminine, spoke directly into her mind.

Linsha peered into the dim fog around her and saw only more shadows. “I told you. I am a friend.”

So you say. But you wear the paint of a Tarmak warrior and you attend their ceremonies.

Linsha studied her skin, which was indeed still blue. Only the pain, the tingling, the cuts, and the bruises were gone. “I am a Knight of the Rose of the Solamnic Order and a friend of Iyesta. I was captured and brought here because of a debt of honor.”

It must he an important debt.

“Iyesta asked me to protect a clutch of eggs.”

A sharp intake of breath somewhere close by cut across her words. She paused, staring harder into the mist.

“I have not been very successful so far,” she added.

Sirenfal’s thought came back heavy with sadness. If there is even one left, you have been more fortunate than I. The Tarmaks destroyed my entire clutch.

Linsha climbed slowly to her feet. Her pain and nausea were gone. In fact she felt nothing, not even the chill of the mist gently wafting around her. “How long have you been here?”

A lifetime. The answer came sighing back. About eight years, I think. Their priests and that dreadful man captured me with spells and stole my eggs. I think they killed my mate.

Linsha was horrified. “How could they keep you imprisoned?”

Because I am a dragon? There was a soft earthy chuckle, and a petite, delicate woman stepped out of the mist and stood in front of Linsha. Her light brown eyes bored into Linsha’s jewel green ones. Even dragons can be vulnerable.

“Sirenfal.”

The woman nodded. She was as beautiful as an elf maiden with honey-gold hair that swept around her shoulders and fine-boned features that looked like porcelain.

Linsha was not surprised. Some dragons could easily shapeshift and often did so for a variety of reasons. Bronzes in particular liked to shift their forms and many spent years disguised as humans—a fact Linsha knew all too well. She met Sirenfal’s sad gaze without judgment or fear, only curiosity. The dragon woman did not look well. Her gold hair hung limp around her thin face, and her skin was pale and drawn. She had none of the vivid life and vivacious quality of Iyesta in her human form. She seemed more of a wraith, a thin shadow of her younger self.

The man called Lanther has taught these Keena priests how to use spells created by the Dark Mystics. They in turn have taught him some of the secret potions of the Keena. They keep me sedated and under thrall while they experiment on me, harvest my scales, and leech my magic. They killed my eggs in those horrible ceremonies.

Linsha listened, appalled by the dragon’s misery. A terrible suspicion crept into her mind, prompted by the memory of the discolored wound on the dragon’s back. “Do you know of the Abyssal Lance?”

Sirenfal’s slender frame shuddered. “They experimented on me,” she whispered, using her own voice as though too afraid to share her thoughts.

“Linsha!” A voice harsh and loud boomed in the cavern. Sirenfal started in fear, took a step back from Linsha. Her form began to fade.

I must go. Must not let him know. The mist swirled around her.

Instinctively Linsha held out a hand in comfort and farewell, but she did not speak for fear of drawing the hated voice to the dragon.

“Linsha! Wake up! It’s time to go.” Lanther’s words cut through the gloom and shadows, and suddenly Linsha snapped awake.

She was back in the cavern at night with the Tarmak warriors, the torches, the smell of smoke and the stink of the potion. She was back with Lanther. Blinking in the torchlight, she looked up at his face hidden behind the golden mask and stifled a surge of loathing. The presence of the dragon was gone, but the intensity of her sadness and the injustice of her plight filled Linsha’s mind and heart, kindling a new hatred for Lanther. How could he have done something like that to a dragon? Any dragon? Is that what he had had in mind for Crucible? Experimentation. Study. Harvesting. Leeching. The words sat like curses in her thoughts. When he held out a hand to help her to her feet, all she could do was stare at it. She hadn’t really noticed before how scarred and blunted his hands had become from years of fighting, hostile weather, and incidents with thorns, knives, dragon scales, and the gods knew what else. These were the hands that tortured and killed dragons, murdered her friends, and wielded a magic she could not understand. It was all she could do to force her fingers to touch his and accept his aid to climb to her feet.

As soon as she was upright, she snatched her hand away and stepped back from him as if avoiding a plague carrier. She was still weak and unsteady on her feet, and the pain was back. But she felt a little stronger after her short nap, and the nausea was gone. With luck and determination, she should be able to make it back to the Akeelawasee without Lanther’s assistance.

She glanced back at the sleeping dragon and felt something stir in the back of her mind that she hadn’t felt in a while—compassion. For the first time in days the black depression that had oppressed her lifted slightly, like a pall of smoke stirred by a fresh wind. Although she realized she had been dreaming, she did not doubt for an instant the validity of her conversation with Sirenfal. She had dreamed with dragons before and found the results to be quite interesting. Like Crucible before her, Sirenfal had chosen this private way to communicate with her in the hope that she would understand.

Fortunately Linsha had. She had an affinity with dragons that she did not fully comprehend, an affinity that was stronger and more powerful than most humans possessed. Where it came from, she didn’t know, but for as long as she could remember she always felt comfortable in the presence of most dragons, and they responded to her in kind. Even Sara Dunstan’s aloof blue companion, Cobalt, had allowed her privileges he would have seared other children for if they had dared try. Sirenfal, Linsha knew, had taken a huge risk to communicate with someone who was still an unknown stranger, but perhaps she, too, sensed the sincerity of Linsha’s attempt to reach out to her. Linsha vowed to herself that Sirenfal’s trust would not go to waste. The dragon was wounded, ill, and in desperate need of help. Surely as the Drathkin’kela, Linsha could find some way to help a dragon.

She followed in Lanther’s footsteps up the long stairs ahead of the long line of Tarmak warriors. Several times while she trudged up the steps she wanted to stop and rest, to catch her breath and let her aching muscles relax. But the warriors pushed up behind her and she would not show any more weakness before them this night. She forced herself on until her legs burned and her lungs panted and the ache in her head felt like a blacksmith was forging implements on her skull.

By the time she finally reached the door leading back into the first level of the palace, Linsha was trembling with exhaustion again. The therapeutic effects of her nap and her dream with the dragon had vanished. All she wanted was a bath and a bed. As soon as she entered the hall, she veered away to escape down the hall to her quarters.

Lanther caught her arm. “Come with me. We must talk.”

Talking to Lanther was the second-to-the-last thing she wanted to do with him. “Now?” she snapped. She made no effort to hide her antagonism and irritation. “I am tired beyond measure. I had to fight a useless duel, then you dragged me to a cave to watch you torture a dragon, cremate my enemy, and kill a dragonlet you had promised to me. I have nothing to say to you.”

Ignoring her, he removed his golden mask, handed it to an attendant, then took her elbow and propelled her down the hall and out a small door that opened into a beautifully manicured garden. The storm had passed, leaving the air cool and damp, and the moon spilled milky light over the trees and flowerbeds. All around them, tree frogs croaked an endless chorus in the darkness.

“I have some things to say to you,” he said and pushed her down onto a stone bench.

Linsha winced. The cold wet stone made an uncomfortable seat when all one wore was a scrap of loincloth. She pulled her elbow out of his grasp, laid her head in her hands, and groaned. Would this night ever end?

“You fought well tonight,” he said, pacing slowly in front of her. “It is a shame Malawaitha had to press her suit.”

Linsha did not bother to reply. She hadn’t had the time or the peace to think about Malawaitha and her needless death.

He went on. “Fortunately the Emperor is impressed with you. He has finally given me his blessing to marry you, and he made arrangements with the High Priest to hold the ceremony in five days.”

Linsha sat upright, aghast. Five days. Oh, gods, come back now and blast me where I sit, she thought.

Lanther stopped pacing and glanced up at the full moon. He took a deep breath. “The ships will be provisioned within the next week,” he said rather hurriedly. “I intend to sail for the Missing City before the next new moon.”

Linsha froze in a deluge of fear, anger, and disbelief. Had he meant what she thought he had just said? Surely he wouldn’t do that to her. “You said, ‘I.’ You do mean ‘we.’ We’re going back to Ansalon together.” She spoke more in desperate hope than conviction.

Lanther crossed his arms and continued to stare at the moon. “Take you back to war and deprivation? I think not. No, no. You will stay here where I know you are safe and respected, and where you cannot find a way to slip through my grasp. You will stay here and await my return.”

It was only with the greatest self-control that Linsha was able to stop herself from leaping off the bench and ripping his eyes out with her dirty fingernails. “I would prefer to go with you,” she forced herself to say rather than give voice to the shriek that banged at the back of her throat.

“I’m sure you would,” he said.

“You wanted me to stay by your side, fight with you. You asked me to be the Empress of the Plains. Now you want to leave me here like some second rate concubine?”

“It would be better,” he agreed.

“What about the dragon eggs? They are my bridal gift. I want to see them.” There was a note of rising hysteria in her voice that she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t believe what he was saying, couldn’t accept it. To be left here on this island, in this prison of women. Married and possibly pregnant. With no one but Callista to keep her company. She would never see her home again, never see her family. She would never have a chance to find Crucible and Varia.

“The eggs will be well cared for,” he assured her.

Linsha’s fragile self-control broke and she sprang to her feet. “Like you cared for the last one?” she yelled through her dry and aching throat. “No! I don’t believe you. I have to go back to the Missing City. You can’t leave me here!”

“I can and I will. You are my betrothed, and in five days you will be my wife. You will remain on Ithin’carthia to bear my son.” His final words boomed like a death knell in her ears.