Pire said, “I’ll make dinner, my Lord.” He set about the chore unpacking the meal that the old woman had sent with them while Corwin and Cathorian made camp. They ate well on fried rabbit and bottled red wine.
*****
Roelle gathered together the ingredients that she knew were part of the spell and mixed them late at night in the Palace Gardens where she could see the light from the stars called the Seven Dancers. The others watched her mix the ingredients under Marcus’s directions, grinding them in a mortar and pestle. The air shimmered above the bowl for a second and then went flat with a poof. “It’s because three ingredients are missing,” Marcus said. “The Star’s Tears, the Star That Fell and the Swimmer’s Fears. We have the star anise, starfish and the Star stone. The Star that Fell is in the Treasury of King Caldor of Minsk and his family have the other artifacts.”
“Unfortunately,” the king said dryly. “My spies have told me that Jasra and the former General of her forces, Ryan Secrest are waging war on the Border Kingdom. Minsk has fallen and they’ve killed Caldor, the Royal Family and all the Army.”
“I refuse to believe we can’t find the rest of the items,” Marcus stated. “I think the spell will seek out Raven and alert him were trying to fix him.”
“What about the sacrifice part, Marcus?” Roelle asked nervously.
“It’s only a drop of blood needed, Roelle,” he soothed. “And from a black crow-like bird called a raitt. There are plenty of them around here.”
“No, Marcus, it needs to be something rarer than a mere crow but I can’t figure out what. Just that it has something to do with Raven. I wonder where he is.”
Luke said, “My spies have reported that the Dragon is working with my mother and has killed many people, destroying whole villages and towns. I’ve also heard rumors that she’s chained him to the front gates of the city. And is starving him to death, offering him only human corpses to eat.”
“No!” Both Marcus and Roelle paled at that. “If he eats of the flesh of humans, the spell won’t work!”
“He won’t,” Roelle avowed. “Not knowingly. Raven would never do that.”
“I hope so,” Luke returned. “Because I’ve read in an old manuscript on Dragon Lore that if the Dragon does eat humans, it can drive them into a bestial fury that can’t be controlled. At one time, dragons were a part of Khafra’s fauna until the people slaughtered them all. The Dragon Wars.”
“It was real?” Marcus asked.
“According to the books, it happened over a thousand generations ago, before the continents were divided into the Border Kingdoms. The Sentinels were raised to protect the kingdoms from invading dragons.”
“No one’s seen any since?”
“Not one until your Black Dragon turned up here,” said the King. “My mother leaked that manuscript you found, Marcus to lure him here. She found a way to coerce him to obey her. I don’t believe he’s any more willing to aid her than I am.”
“We need to find him and quickly,” the boy said grimly. He took Roelle’s hand.
“Don’t worry,” Luke said flatly. “She’ll find us. She’s heading this way with her army.”
*****
Murphy caught sight of the Prince’s group and dropped low to buzz their horses which startled two into bolting and Corwin’s to rear. All three being natural and confident horsemen managed to deal with the animals’ terror. He made no apologies to the trio but landed and began to speak to the Prince. “I’ve tracked Raven halfway across this realm, Prince Corwin and have learned that he was in Minsk, tethered to the Gates of the City like a chained dog. The Witch was slowly starving him to death.”
“Was?” Corwin snarled.
Murphy’s eyes were blood red and his fangs glistened with saliva. “He escaped and no one’s seen him since. I can find only minute traces of him and the last one was several days ago. Near the city of Alameth. I followed a black warship out of the harbor that is chasing a rumor of the last living heir of Caldor. Lost the ship in a storm and sensed you were near. Came here because this is the direction they were heading when the storm hit.”
“Was it Jasra’s ship?” Cathorian asked.
“The captain was a man named Ames. Gregory Ames and he came from my realm. Prince Corwin, he shot at me with a gun.”
“Guns don’t work in Amber or her close Realms,” he said but remembered the star shaped wounds of the dead soldier.
“I stole one off a sailor,” Murphy said simply and handed over the strange, bulbous shaped black pistol. Corwin broke it down observing the CO2 cartridge and a twenty-two caliber shell. “So that’s how he did it,” he mused. “Just enough power to kill. Do every one of his men have these?”
“From what I could judge, no. Just the elite guard this Ryan keeps around himself and the Red Witch.”
“Thanks, Murphy. That’s invaluable information,” Corwin returned. “We’re heading into the city. Are you coming or do you plan to continue tracking the Dragon down?”
“I await your orders, Prince Corwin,” the gargoyle said.
“Find him. He’ll need you more than we will,” the Prince answered. The gargoyle nodded, leaped into the sky and was gone in a flurry of wing beats.
Chapter 35
I opened my eye and the world seemed different, less vibrant, duller and heavier on my body. I ached, too. There was a deep pain in my shoulder and chest, and when I tried to touch it, my hand wouldn’t move. I could feel the ground under me. Cold, gritty and full of broken branches.
“Lyndseye? Tegan? Kids?” I called out and heard a faint echo further down the slope. Presently, I saw Tegan toiling up the slope using a tree limb as a crutch. His figure wavered before me and I shook my head to clear my vision, when I did so, the movement attracted his attention. He stopped dead and stared at me, his mouth hanging open. Linz came up behind him.
“Where is he, Tegan?” She asked, blood dried on her forehead.
“The kids?” I asked and her eyes widened in disbelief as she saw me. “What? Am I hurt that bad?” I joked and winced.
“Raitt, raise your hand,” Tegan ordered and I tried. Cried out as the bones protested. Both of them rushed to me, knelt and put their hands on me feeling for the parts that hurt. She found my broken shoulder, a large gash on my chest and various scrapes and bruises. Carefully, Tegan brought my right arm around and raised it to my face.
“See this, Raitt?” I stared at a pale white hand with four fingers and a thumb, slowly rotating the hand to drop lower and feel a human body complete with male genitals. I blushed a deep red.
“Tegan,” I begged, strangling on the words, nearly bawling in shock. He wrapped his cloak around me and ordered Lyndseye to go back to camp.
“You need me to help,” she argued. “Your ankle was sprained or broken and you can’t help the Prince by yourself. Can you rise, my lord?”
“My true name is Raven,” I sniffled, embarrassed that I was crying. “Don’t call me Prince or Sir.”
“Easy does it, lad,” Tegan said and put his arm under my good shoulder. Between the two of them they stood me up on my feet. My head whirled and Tegan took more of my weight until I could refocus. “Ah, that’s better. Pale gray isn’t your normal color is it, lad? Still have that pretty golden eye, though.”
“Still blind in one eye?” I mumbled trying to adjust to having two feet under me. I felt weird. Besides the pain that invaded this body, it just felt weird. Like I was inside a clown suit.
“Can you walk?”
I took a deep breath and that was a mistake. Ribs protested violently along with my shoulder. Linz tore the bottom of her cloak into strips and wrapped my arm close to my chest right over Tegan’s cloak, binding my shoulder and ribs at the same time. It helped but after five steps down the slope of uneven rocky ground, I had to stop and rest. My feet were bare and soft, I wasn’t used to walking on rough ground.
It took us nearly an hour to reach the rude camp they made in the sheltered hollow underneath a spre
ading hemlock. The two kids were tending a small fire, poking deadwood branches into the flame. Our supplies consisted of one water skin and one backpack stuffed with a lone haunch of venison. Linz made a bed of sorts with boughs and leaves stuffed under her cloak and the two of them eased me down as both of the two kids stared.
“Where’s the dragon? Who’s this? How do you know he’s not with them?”
“Quiet, Leos and Bryn. This is still Raitt.”
“Cor! Really? What other things can you turn into?”
“Go get some water, please and some of those yellow flowers that look like sunflower. And the purple asters. Any of you have a knife?”
Tegan did and handed it over as she slowly unwrapped my ribs, having him hold my arm so that it didn’t pull on my shoulder. With careful hands, she inspected the hole in my chest which was black and blue, raw red edges and the white of bone showing. “I need to clean it, Raven,” she said quietly. “It’s full of dirt, rock pieces and slivers of trees. And I don’t have any painkiller.”
I looked around and saw tall stemmed bunch of weeds with white trumpet like flowers near what looked like thick ferns and dog tooth violets. “See those–Devils trumpets? The seeds are hallucinogenic. If I smoke them, they’ll make me high and I won’t know what you’re doing to me.”
“Too much will kill you, too,” she said.
“Personally, I’d wish for some OxyContin but I have a better chance of becoming president,” I drawled and she looked worried, patting my forehead.
“He’s delirious, Tegan.”
“No,” the bodyguard grinned. “I think he just made a joke. He’s a big, tough Dragon Lord. He can take a little pain, right, Black Dragon?”
I could’ve lied and said I took her treatment stoically like a man but the truth was at the first touch of the hot rag on the wound, I fainted and didn’t wake up until she was wrapping my chest and arm to my side. I was leaning against Tegan’s shoulder on my side and had the shakes so bad that I made him shiver. “I’m cold,” I whispered and someone drew another cloak around me but it didn’t help.
“Linz, lay next to him,” Tegan ordered and she wrapped her arms around me, tucking her head into the side of my good arm and rolling me slightly at an angle so that half of her body supported mine. Slowly, I warmed and fell into a deep sleep. I didn’t wake until early morning when the dew settled on the land and dripped off the hemlocks branches to hiss as it hit the fire. We were dry being closer to the trunk and under the thick inner branches.
“Tegan,” I whispered, trying not to move and conscious that a young girl was snuggled up to my very naked body.
“Raitt,” his voice came from behind me.
“I have to pee,” I said in a strangled voice.
“Do you think you can stand?”
“I don’t have any clothes on, Tegan,” I said in agony.
“It’s nothing we haven’t seen before,” he said and she echoed him making me blush deep red. “Princess,” Tegan said firmly. “Don’t tease the boy. Bring me the spare trousers in the pack”
She slid out from under me and reached for the bag, digging through what had been Mallei’s pack. All that was left in it were some clothes and a small bundle wrapped in fine linen. When she unrolled it, we saw it contained a gold band, clearly an old wedding ring. It must’ve been one of Mallei’s most cherished possessions being so carefully wrapped and one of the items she had chosen to save.
Lyndseye gave it to me and then knotted it into the thong that held the blue Star stone. “She would want you to have it,” she said softly, kissed me on the cheek and left me alone so Tegan could dress me in the rough spun trousers. Together, the two of us hobbled off to use the toilet, a short stretch above our heads that was a small ledge off the tree line and dropped into rocks. He held me up so I could hold myself and direct the stream away. It felt weird to do it that way, as the Dragon and the mule, I hadn’t given it any thought, had just gone when the urge hit. Now, my bodily functions embarrassed me.
I would’ve thought that after all I had experienced at the hands of my uncle Jurt, I would not have had any sense of embarrassment left. As his slave, but my body had been his to use and abuse and he had done so in every conceivable way.
“Tegan?” I asked in a very small voice. “What do I look like?”
He narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean? You look like a man.”
“But how? I can’t see my face.”
“You’re as tall as me, maybe an inch taller. Thin, muscled. White skin with a fawn tint. Straight nose, two ears, black hair, firm lips and the goldeneye. Scar tissue where the other eye was. Are you afraid you’re ugly? Don’t be, you look very…respectable.”
“I’m hungry. Is there anything to eat?”
“Some rather off venison. Do you think your stomach can handle it? Do you think you can go back to your Dragon body?”
“I can try. It might make my bones heal faster too.” I spoke the spell that I used to convert the big Dragon to small, and even tried the one that converted me to mule but neither worked. I remained human. I wanted to forge ahead, get down off this mountain and head for town but both of them said I wasn’t ready nor would make it. Even the two kids ganged up on me and said the same thing.
The Princess had cut off the outer layer of the haunch and found the inside was still edible. Slicing it into thin strips, she laid it out on the rocks the caught the sun, drying it into jerky. The rest, she’d boiled inside an old helmet that one of the kids have found on their wanderings. After we shared the hat full of soup in equal portions, I’d fallen asleep in front of the fire with the kids using them as pillows. They smelled terrible until I realized that I smelled no better or worse.
Tegan’s ankle improved once he wrapped it. He discarded his crutch and started to build something with saplings that he cut down with his knife. I watched fascinated until I realized he was making a travois and it was for me.
“No,” I stated. “I can walk out of here.” I demonstrated by trying to climb to my feet and because of my ribs, couldn’t even get my legs under me.
“We can’t stay here, Raven,” he said plainly. “We don’t have enough warm clothes, food or shelter. No tools other than a knife and some sharpened staves. We’d be easy pickings for the first bandit we met.”
“Unless I was the Dragon.”
“I tried every variation of the spell to change you. I even took off the Star stone but you’re still human,” She said.
“I can’t be, Linz,” I said in despair. “My human body died in Amber and was buried. This can’t be real!”
She cupped my face in her hands. “You are real, soft skin, blood and bones. Does a construct bleed? Does it feel pain? Does it feel this?” She leaned in and kissed me on the lips and I kissed her back, my tongue plunging into her mouth like I was drowning and she was my life preserver. I reached for her with both hands, forgetting that I was broken and my cry of pain became a moan of ecstasy as she worked my tongue. Her hands slid around my neck and I was slowly falling back to the ground dazed and filled with such sensations that I thought I had died. Tegan laid his cloak over me.
“He’ll sleep now, Princess?”
“Yes, Tegan. I used the last piece of the stone on him.” That was the last thing I heard for a long while.
Chapter 36
Roelle and Marcus were comfortably ensconced in a pleasant chamber of the palace guarded by the king’s elite bodyguards and some of Marcus’s spells. They were free to come and go. Had in fact, visited Evril in the bookshop several times and were amazed at the volume of newcomers in the city. The population of Topaz swelled as refugees came in from the outlying Border Kingdoms and ships carrying those of the wealthy and noble from across the Sentinels. The news was not good, nothing seemed to halt the Witch or her Army, even without the Black Dragon at her side. The rumor was that he was dead, or banished by the Red Queen.
Luke hadn’t seen the pair in days, he was busy mobilizing his armed forces and
fortifying the wards around the city with his own spells. Worse, he had heard that a squad of Amber’s commandos were infiltrating their way into Khafra.
Roelle was sitting outside on the balcony off her room bathed, dressed as befitted her station with a serious frown on her face as she watched the ferocious activity below. Soldiers and support crews were busy coordinating arms, food, supplies and shelters. Marcus joined her, chewing on a large joint of turkey leg. He wore clean trousers and a fancy blouse with the sleeves rolled back and his fingers were stained from his spell castings.
“What you doing?” He mumbled, his mouth full and his hair looked like a bomb had gone off in it.
The sky darkened over his head and they heard shouts of ‘the Black Dragon is coming! It’s an attack!’ People screamed and ran for cover as the black shape circled the palace. Guards mobilized and ran towards their posts, aiming crossbows and weapons on the menacing shape. Both Marcus and Roelle screamed not to fire on him but no one was listening nor could anyone hear them over the tumult. Magic bolts speared out of the sky and bounced off the creature with little effect as it dodged the arrows, lances and spells. Spiraling lower in a tight circle, Marcus’s eyes were the first ones to recognize the figure.
“Murphy!” He screamed and waved the poultry leg at him. The gargoyle dropped to the stone balustrade and perched, oblivious of the armed men attacking. Of course, they stopped when they realized they were endangering the two guests of the King. Murphy looked leaner, extremely muscled as if he been going nonstop which he had, nearly flying the circumference of this Realm twice.
“Roelle. Marcus,” he said in a grim voice. “Are you unhurt?”
“Yes, Murphy. Where’s Raven?” They demanded just before Roelle’s door burst in and they were surrounded by the King’s Palace Guard.
Luke tried to enter the room but the guards held him back even as he shoved to the front, his hands ready to work a spell. Roelle leapt forward, her hands out. “Stop!” She ordered, every inch the Baron’s daughter. “He’s a friend, not an enemy!”
Slowly, King Luke dropped his hands and the guards followed suit. Luke stared. “You’re a gargoyle.”