Starlighter

  “Hey, Maximus!” someone shouted. “You left your post! Another human is getting in!”

  The human voice came from the entry gate. She turned that way and peered into the darkness. Was it Lattimer?

  A loud huff sounded only a few steps away. Something slid on the floor, and a stream of sparks flew to the side. Wings spread out in the sparks’ glow, and whipping wind sent Koren’s hair streaming back. Soon, all was dark again.

  Koren laid her palm against her chest, trying to calm her thumping heart. That was close! Too close!

  She ran toward the circular room she had just passed through, halted at the end of the corridor, and pressed her back against the wall. Moonlight shone over the central table and the toppled lantern. In the distance, Lattimer’s shouts continued, intermixed with roars from Maximus. He was trying to buy her some time. She had to go for it now.

  After taking her skirt off, she leaped out, grabbed the lantern’s top handle, and tossed her skirt as far as she could into one of the other corridors. Then, she ran into the original passageway, confident that this section was clear of obstacles.

  She slowed down and listened. That fire had to be somewhere—she needed light for the lantern. Following the crackling sound, she kept a hand on the smooth wall. A breeze dried her sweat, cooling her body. With her legs now bare, chill bumps covered her skin. How long could Lattimer keep Maximus occupied? Would he get burned? Arrested and punished?

  Finally, her hand reached a void. She turned toward it and, again feeling with her hands, inched along another corridor. The crackling sound grew. Soon a glow appeared that strengthened with every step she took.

  She emerged into a massive chamber. The breeze swirled, troubling a log-fed fire that burned with waisthigh flames at the center of the room. Above, two of the three moons peeked through a large ovular hole in the ceiling. A spattering of red and white stars also appeared, though the firelight almost washed them out.

  Near the fire, a large book lay open on a stone pedestal that faced a stage, as if whoever would read the book might address an actor on the elevated platform. Open floor space lay behind the pedestal, big enough for at least twenty dragons to rest comfortably.

  As Koren gazed at the area, images filtered into her mind, memories from a drug-induced daze. She had seen the book before, and the fire. This had to be the Assignment room, the very place the dragons had brought her for placement into a new slave position.

  Koren listened for any sign of movement. Nothing stirred. Lifting the lantern’s glass, she ran to the fire, used a thin firebrand at the edge to light the wick, and turned to hurry back. But the book’s open pages caught her attention, and she stopped and stared at the black script. The text was in the dragons’ language, of course, but she had long ago learned its written form. She often had to read and obey the hastily scrawled notes Arxad left behind when he went to the Zodiac earlier than usual.

  The first line read “Promotion Protocol.”

  Koren tightened her grip on the lantern. This was it! Exactly what she was looking for. The dragons did Promotions here as well as Assignments.

  She glanced around. Could she afford the time to stand out in the open and read it? Probably not.

  After making a mental note of page number 209, she slid her hand under the book to close it, but a strange noise made her pause.

  She tried to quiet her thumping heart and listen.

  “Bring her forward!” A throaty growl spiced the draconic words, spoken with the ardor of a prophetic bard, yet so quiet it barely rose above the sound of the breeze blowing past her ears.

  Koren searched for the source. It was close, so close.

  “Set her on her knees before me.”

  Koren bent closer to the pedestal. The voice came from the book, as if buried somewhere beneath the pages. As the muffled words continued, she rifled through the volume’s thick leaves. The voice grew clearer and clearer until, on page 576, it resonated throughout the room.

  “She has red hair and green eyes. Who is worthy to take this gifted human into his custodial care? Since she is now of age, if no one offers an appropriate bid we will match her with a suitable male and begin her childbearing. Then, perhaps, we will be able to propagate more humans with her features.”

  As if forced by an invisible hand, Koren dropped to her knees. A huge red dragon stood on the stage before her, its wings spread and its eyes like fountains of fire.

  Another draconic voice sounded from behind her. “Great Magnar, this girl is not one of the usual redheads. We gave her an extra-strong drug and examined her thoroughly. Her eyes reflect images that do not exist in reality, and her tongue and vocal cords are far more nimble than other girls’. We believe she could be a Starlighter, but we cannot be sure until her gifts are manifested.”

  Koren looked behind her. At least fifteen dragons sat on their haunches, most with their necks extended to get a better look at her, all with eyes that shone like burning phosphorescence. A few mumbled the word Starlighter, low and whispered, as if uttering a macabre curse.

  She then turned to the corridor that led her in. No one darkened the entry. Could others see and hear this display, or was it going on only in her mind?

  The dragon who had been called Magnar stalked from one side of the stage to the other before returning to the center. “Then she is too dangerous to transfer to the breeding rooms. She must be destroyed.”

  The other dragon bowed. “Very well. We will put her on the list of—”

  “Wait!” The third voice rumbled from somewhere among the watching dragons. “Even if she is a Starlighter, she is harmless at this time, and she could be valuable to me someday.”

  Magnar’s brow arched up. “Valuable, Arxad? How so?”

  Koren turned again. Indeed, her master stood nearby, his head lifted higher than those around him. “When her gift begins to manifest itself, I could use her in the Zodiac.”

  “As a speaker for the stars?”

  “A real speaker, great Magnar, not one of the pretenders.”

  Magnar laughed. “Spoken like a true believer.”

  Arxad’s brow dipped, but he showed no other signs of anger. “We all believe what we choose to believe.”

  “And I choose to believe that your trade is one of chicanery and charlatans. I keep you and your fellow priests around only to entertain me with your absurd prophecies and to appease other superstitious citizens.”

  Arxad lowered his head. “With respect, great Magnar, you know full well that I and my fellows are not at all alike.”

  “True. With all your prophecies of doom, you are far less entertaining.”

  “I speak only what I see. If I had a Starlighter, I could—”

  “You could misinterpret her doggerel prophecies and continue painting the skies black with your dark sayings.” Magnar laughed again. “An invasion is coming! An invasion is coming! The humans will overtake us!”

  The other dragons laughed with him, their coarse guffaws sounding like barking wolves.

  Arxad lowered his head and glared at the floor. “If you will grant me this one grace, my lord, I pledge that I will use her expeditiously. If she causes any trouble, let her punishment be doubled upon me.”

  “Kill you twice?” Magnar stretched out a wing and slapped Koren’s face.

  She sucked in a breath. Her cheek stung!

  Magnar’s expression softened. “This little one is not worth risking your own scales.”

  “I beg you to allow me to be the judge of that.” Arxad approached the stage and looked Magnar in the eye. “You know that I do not fear death.”

  “And you know that your position already rides on the edge of a precipice.”

  “Yes, I know.” Arxad touched Koren gently on the head. “This one might well help me hear the song of the stars. I am willing to risk anything for that.”

  “Then so be it. If she causes any trouble whatsoever, I will kill her and banish you to the Valley of Bones.”

  Somethin
g twinkled in the corner of Koren’s eye. She turned toward the passageway she had entered. At the far end, firelight flashed across the opening to the other corridor.

  Koren leaped to her feet. Every dragon vanished. The breeze blew, rattling the book’s leaf and lifting the bold text, Promotion Protocol. It was back on the original page. She glanced at the letters. No time to read. It would have to wait.

  She hurried to yet another corridor at the far side of the chamber. With the lantern lighting her way, new options appeared. Above, the top of the corridor walls gave way to a bigger chamber with a ceiling that blocked the moonlight. It seemed that her passageway was merely a wide trench in the floor of the room above. But there was no stairway or even a ladder. Yet why would there be? The dragons needed only to fly to access the upper room. Humans could never go there without help; maybe the lower chamber was the only place they were allowed.

  She looked back across the Separators’ assembly room. A dragon-like shadow in full flight appeared in the opposite corridor. It had to be Maximus!

  With a quick jerk, she lifted the lantern’s glass and blew out the flame. She leaped into a sprint, the flames behind her guiding her way. Soon, the walls curved and blocked the assembly room’s firelight.

  Once again probing the dark air with her hands, she slowed. Her fingers struck something solid, a flat wall. A dead end! Yet something fibrous brushed her face. It moved easily from side to side. A rope?

  She set the lantern down and grasped the rope, a braided cord too thick to wrap her fingers around, but a series of knots helped her get a grip. With her first pull, the rope descended with her weight. A loud gong sounded above. Then, the rope jerked her upward, and another gong reverberated all around.

  Koren grimaced. A bell! She scrambled up the knotted cord. If she could just—

  A gust of wind blew her hair. As a third gong sounded, something sharp clawed the back of her shirt and yanked her away from the rope and into the air. She flew into the upper chamber and fell to the floor on her backside. A dragon landed next to her and shouted, “Fool of a girl!”

  Koren pushed with her feet and slid away, but when the dragon’s face clarified, she stopped. “Arxad?”

  “Yes, of course!” He looked down into the trench at the floor far below. “Climb on my back! Hurry!”

  She scrambled up his tail and, dodging a ridge of spines, settled in near the base of his neck. In a flurry of wings, he took off.

  Koren clenched her eyes shut and wrapped her arms around the dragon’s neck. The sudden lift took her breath away. As Arxad flew, Koren forced her eyes open. She couldn’t keep a smile from stretching across her face. Had any human ever ridden on a dragon before? It was so amazing!

  Arxad flew toward the underside of the dome above. A cylindrical room was attached under the very top, like a jar screwed into the ceiling. Pulling in his wings slightly, he glided through a narrow doorway and settled on the floor inside.

  “Down!” he ordered. “Now!”

  Koren scrambled to the smooth marble floor. A wooden stand sat next to her that supported a metallic tube pointing toward a wedge-shaped hole in the ceiling.

  Arxad’s voice stayed sharp and angry. “What are you doing in the Basilica?”

  “I’m…” She stared at his fiery eyes. It would do no good to try to charm Arxad. He knew her all too well. “I’m trying to learn about Promotions. I was worried about Natalla. She thinks dragons eat the humans who get promoted.”

  His voice became sarcastic. “Oh, she does, does she?”

  Koren nodded. “The humans who go to the Northlands never write letters after the first one. What happens to them?”

  “That is not for you to know. You will never be a promoted human, so it is not your concern.”

  She let his words filter in. They sounded so strange. Never be a promoted human? Just hours ago that thought would have broken her heart, but now it was a relief. “Natalla wants to know. It is her concern.”

  “She cannot change what the Separators decide. It is her fate. She must accept it.”

  Koren pushed up to her feet and brushed her hands against her shorts. “So what do we do now? Will I be punished? More labors? Missed meals?”

  Arxad peered out the open entryway. “If only it were that simple.”

  Following his gaze, she caught a glimpse of another dragon flying at a lower level, just a shadow, but its beating wings and sparks in its breath gave it away. The sight sent a chill through her body. “They’ll want to kill me, won’t they?”

  His head shot forward, setting his blazing eyes directly in front of her. “You should have thought of that before you broke into the Basilica!”

  “I didn’t break in. Maximus let me in.”

  “Let you in? If you think such a lie is going to keep you from the cooking stake, you had better invent another one.”

  “Invent? Do you mean you think that I—”

  “What I think is irrelevant.” He pointed a claw at her. “What matters is that your foolishness has already caused one human death and will—”

  “Death? Who?”

  “The night watchman, Lattimer.”

  “Lattimer is dead?” Her throat caught. Heat raised prickles on her skin, and tears welled. She barely choked out, “How?”

  “It seems that Maximus discovered your presence, and Lattimer was trying to distract him. Maximus is easily riled and has been given authority to kill any human who appears to be involved with a Basilica breach. Lattimer raised such a ruckus, I heard it in the Zodiac and flew out to investigate, but I arrived too late. Maximus had already engulfed him in flames. When Maximus told me what happened, I asked him to allow me to find you. That is the only reason you have not suffered the watchman’s fate yourself.”

  Koren gasped for breath. Poor Lattimer! He sacrificed himself to save me!

  Arxad nodded at her. “I see that you are appalled, perhaps even repentant, but it is too late for such emotional displays of penance. You are the reason for his death, and now you seek to shield your guilt with a lie.”

  She swallowed hard and tried to steady her voice. “But it’s true. I just told Maximus my story. I guess he felt sorry for me.”

  “You told a story?” he asked, his glare softening. She gave him a quick nod. “It’s a pretty sad story, you know.”

  Looking away, he mumbled, “Every human has a sad story.”

  “True, Arxad…” Koren hesitated. “I know little of the plight of most of my brethren, but when I tell the tales now, I feel the cries of my people’s hearts. Like when I told Maximus about Wallace, one of my friends from the cattle camp, I felt his pain so strongly he seemed to come to life. I could see Wallace begging with me in the streets, and Maximus looked right at him, as if he could see him, too.” She paused and took a breath. “Could that be why he felt sorry for me and let me in?”

  Arxad fixed her with a piercing stare, his red eyes seeming to probe her mind. Koren held her breath. The urge to look away was overwhelming. She hadn’t told him everything. Kind though he was, Arxad was still a dragon, still a slave owner, still a keeper of the secrets about Promotions. And if dragons really ate humans, even Arxad was an enemy.

  After what seemed an interminable stare-down contest, Arxad pulled his head back. “So it is true.”

  “What’s true?”

  “Never mind. At this point, it does not matter. If you had not acted so foolishly, you could have done great things for everyone, both dragons and humans.”

  “Do you mean it’s true, me being a Starlighter?”

  His brow dipped so low, it shaded his eyes. “Where did you hear that name?”

  She swallowed again, barely able to squeak. “From Lattimer.”

  “Oh, yes.” Arxad set a wing tip on the metal tube. “Well, he would know about it. As part of his Assignment, he sometimes came into the Zodiac for sky observations, and we talked about that and many other issues. Most dragons have no idea how powerful a Starlighter can be.”


  “Sky observations?” Koren nodded at the tube. “Is that what this thing is for?”

  “It is.” He used his wing to swivel the tube’s lower end toward her. “You may ease your curiosity.”

  She set her eye in front of what appeared to be a glass disk and looked through it.

  “We call it a lightcatcher,” Arxad said, “for it collects and magnifies light. We are able to see much more than without it, but it is a crude device compared to what we have in the Zodiac.”

  Koren took in the view—dozens of tiny specks of light, some red, some yellow, some so small and tightly packed together they looked like a glowing cloud. Keeping her gaze locked in place, she said, “Why is it here?”

  “To watch for signs of the black egg.”

  She jerked away and looked at Arxad. “The black egg? Do you mean like what they say about being hatched—”

  “Yes, but it is much more than an idiom.” Arxad extended his neck and looked out the entryway. As his head swayed from side to side, he made no sound at all. Finally, he nodded at her. “Get on my back again. I will show you. But you must ride low and stay completely quiet. When we arrive in a chamber lit by fire, I will hide you with my wings. It is crucial that you not be seen.”

  Koren scrambled aboard and seated herself again, this time pressing her chest and cheek against his neck. “I’m ready.”

  Arxad shuffled out the opening and dropped. Koren gasped but quickly stifled the sound. He spread his wings, caught the air, and leveled out. Shadows zipped past, and an occasional lantern or small fire appeared, but due to the darkness and the wind beating against her eyes, Koren could see little else.

  After flying through a wide corridor, Arxad entered a brightly lit oval-shaped chamber. Arrayed in a circle, fountains shot jets of fire that splashed against the stone ceiling. The jets were thin and set close together, making it impossible for anyone to pass through.

  When Arxad landed, he sat on his haunches and kept his wings up. Now sitting almost vertically on his back, Koren hung on tight, not daring to peek around his neck. What wondrous object might the fountains be protecting? Who would be there at this time of night to ensure the object’s safety? Heat from the fountains drew sweat from her pores, making it harder to hold on. She couldn’t slip off. Not now.