“Yes, that’s what they call it in the history books, I believe. Many of the elders and scholars among the dragons were purposely infected. But the group of scientists—they were more ignorant potion makers back then—didn’t realize the disease they’d created would be infectious across species. Most of the scientists themselves died as a result, and other dragons that were in the vicinity of the sick also contracted the virus and died. Those who survived attempted to quarantine the ill, but most ended up scattering and holing up in deep caves for years while they waited to make sure all those who had been infected died out. It was a quiet era for humanity, and they flourished for a time.”
“The Golden Age?” Rysha had read about that, a lull in dragon activity more than three thousand years earlier.
Moe nodded.
“I’ve never seen a list of the dragons that died during that time of illness,” she said.
Moe sniffed derisively. “Because, like your mother, you probably never go out in the field.”
“Only as a soldier. I studied dragon history in school, but then joined the army.”
“That sounds like a waste.”
“Isn’t your son in the army?” Rysha tried to decide if she could see any of General Zirkander in the wiry white-haired man. Maybe in the face and lean build. Moe did still possess some of the family looks too.
“Also a waste.”
“Even though he’s a national hero?”
“Nationalism, such a ridiculous sentiment.”
“No worse than imperialism, I should think.”
“Humanity was better off when tribes were splintered and independent, and people formed solid bonds with everyone they knew.”
Rysha shook her head, not wanting to argue with him about this. “Agarrenon Shivar, sir. We’re positive he’s not dead. And we need to find him.”
“Why?”
“We believe he may be a good ally for Iskandia.” The words came out before Rysha had more time to consider them. Given what she now knew, did she believe that?
Moe threw his head back and laughed so hard he almost fell down the stairs.
“We’re in an enemy stronghold here,” Blazer growled back in a low voice.
Moe winked at her.
“Agarrenon Shivar was an utter ass, even by dragon standards,” Moe told Rysha. “That’s stated in numerous different accounts. Seek his burial chamber if you wish, but you won’t find an ally. Nor do I believe you’ll find him alive. As none of those who were infected ever appeared in the world again. Until that silver dragon my son dug up. Phelistoth.”
“But you have reason to believe Agarrenon Shivar was entombed in those mountains?” Rysha asked, refusing to be deterred.
Just because a dragon hadn’t been seen again didn’t mean he couldn’t still live. Perhaps it had taken him a long time to recover from the disease, and he’d hibernated for countless years.
He could be in a stasis chamber, Jaxi spoke into her mind.
This time, Rysha wasn’t as surprised by the contact.
I’ve been listening to your conversation in between my efforts to help Trip convince the cultists that they find the bedrooms at the far ends of the hallways incredibly fascinating. One man is rubbing a dust ball between his fingers in deep contemplation.
He’s manipulating people’s minds? Rysha understood that such abilities were within sorcerers’ repertoires, but somehow, she always found the notion more disturbing than that of hurling fireballs.
Azarwrath is mostly handling that, though he’s making sure Trip is watching so he’ll learn how to do it too. Whether he wants to learn or not. It’s a useful skill to have in one’s repertoire.
Not wanting to debate the pros and cons of mind-manipulation just then, Rysha focused on the more pertinent part of the discussion. Stasis chamber, you said?
A hint of sea air wafted into the stairwell from somewhere, and she hoped that meant they were almost out. Her legs burned, and everyone was breathing heavily except for Kaika, who probably thought climbing fifty stories was a refreshing warmup and nothing more.
Yes, such as the one we found Phelistoth in on Owanu Owanus, Jaxi said. That’s a long story, but he was dying from that disease when we found him. Actually, the Cofah found him first, and they’d opened the chamber—which included a barrier that had been keeping him and his diseased air inside—to extract his blood and use it for weapons. We had to figure out how to slay the bugs infecting him in order to save his life. I was instrumental in doing so. He’s not nearly as grateful about it as you would expect. Dragons are so arrogant and uppity.
So they seem. Are you telling me this because you believe Trip’s sire might also have been kept in a stasis chamber all this time?
It’s a possible explanation of how he could be alive today.
If so, how did Trip’s mother find him and, uh, impregnate herself with him while he was in it? Presumably he would have had to have been let out, at least for a while, right? Rysha tried to imagine some deathly sick dragon being interested in shape-shifting and having sex. And then what? She put him back in? Would a dragon have allowed that? And if she was there, and they had physical contact, how did she avoid getting the disease?
I can’t solve your entire mystery for you, Lieutenant. How boring would it be if I simply gave you all the answers?
Is that your way of saying you don’t have all the answers?
You’re a clever lieutenant, aren’t you? It’s no wonder Trip dreams of snoffling with you.
Are you this lippy to Sardelle? Rysha decided not to ask for clarification on what snoffling was.
We have a deep and personal bond of more than twenty years. We’re like sisters.
Was that a yes?
Rysha had the sense of the soulblade grinning into her mind.
Up ahead, Blazer stopped. They were only a level from the top of the staircase and the hallway they’d entered the outpost through. Rysha grimaced, remembering they would still have to climb that rope to get out.
Trip and Blazer conferred quietly, Kaika on the step below them. Curious. Rysha eased past Duck so she could hear them.
“…about thirty,” Trip was saying.
“All under the hole?” Blazer whispered. “What are they doing? Guarding it? Or enjoying the sun and fresh air?”
“It’s gotten dark outside.”
“So guarding is more likely?”
Trip shrugged.
“You have a magical solution?” Blazer asked. “Because after what I’ve seen of this place, I’m inclined to just run into the hallway shooting. Or have Kaika hurl a couple of grenades to clear the area for us.”
“That might bring the ceiling down on everyone, us included.”
“Given time, I can create more controlled detonations,” Kaika said. “But magic is probably the ideal solution. Damn, I never thought I’d hear myself say that.”
“Because you don’t trust witches and never will?” Duck asked.
“Because I prefer it when explosives are the ideal solution. They’re delightful to set off. You get a feeling of euphoria, the same as after bed-shaking sex.”
“Trip?” Blazer prompted. “Thoughts?”
“On bed-shaking sex, ma’am?”
“On magical solutions.” She squinted at him. “Are you being deliberately obtuse because you don’t want to use magic?”
Trip sighed, and Rysha suspected Blazer had guessed right. Trip wasn’t the most intuitive person that Rysha had met—mostly, because he didn’t want to know what people were thinking, since it might involve unpleasant thoughts about him—but he wasn’t a dummy.
“Azarwrath suggests we attempt to simply order them to leave the area. He believes I have the power to do so and has promised his guidance.”
“Good, do it. I’d order them to leave the area myself, but I don’t think they’d listen to me unless firearms were involved.”
Trip looked down at his feet. When he’d worried if he would be accepted in the flier squadron as
a magic-user, he probably hadn’t worried if he’d be accepted to the extent that superior officers started ordering him to use his powers. Rysha didn’t have any advice to offer. She could understand why he might hesitate to develop such powers, but if, as Jaxi had implied, the mind manipulation could keep people from being hurt, maybe it was for the best.
“Stand on the landing.” Trip waved everyone off the stairs and onto the tiled floor.
“I hear someone,” a man blurted from above them.
One of the girls rushed over and gripped Kaika’s arm. “Don’t let them take us back,” she whispered. “Please, please.”
“Nah,” Kaika said, drawing her onto the landing along with the others. “We won’t let that happen.” With her free hand, she pulled a grenade out of her pocket. “If Trip’s plan doesn’t work, we have backup options. And I wouldn’t mind ridding the world of some crazy cultists.”
“It’s possible the cult will disperse now that the leader is dead,” Trip murmured, his eyes toward the upper level, even though nobody had come into view yet.
“Possible but not likely,” Kaika said. “You know these things always have a second in command. There’s probably a whole scheme where you can work your way to the top if you’re loyal enough and bring in enough virgins to sacrifice.”
“You seem oddly experienced with cults,” Blazer said, though her gaze was also locked to the floor of the landing above.
“If you have a reputation for handling ordnance, you get approached by nut jobs now and then.”
It grew quiet on the level above, so Rysha started in surprise when the first person stepped into view, white-clad and hooded as everyone else in the outpost had been. The figure walked down the stairs calmly and normally as far as she could tell, but he never looked left or right. His eyes remained focused on the steps below him.
More people came behind him, filing down the stairs in an orderly line. They, too, looked neither left nor right.
Rysha remained still—her entire team did—certain that the people would look at them, that the spell would break. But the people continued past the landing, one after the other. She caught one mumbling under his breath.
“The dragon god is gone. Pack your belongings, and go back to your normal life.” He repeated the words as he continued past their railing, as if reciting an order over and over.
Most of the men and women passed in silence, but a few more mumbled those same words as they passed.
Would Trip’s mental suggestion work? From what Rysha had read about mind-control magic, it wasn’t something that generally lasted more than a few minutes. One couldn’t completely take over another’s mind without constantly being near that person. The soulblade had probably told Trip that, but she couldn’t blame him for trying.
She thought of that bowl of blood, and, as much as the science and archaeology student within her found the idea of destroying a culture abhorrent, no matter how malevolent, she couldn’t help but wonder if they should have let Kaika loose with explosives to destroy the entire outpost. Had the place been built by the cultists, she might have suggested it, but they’d simply expropriated it from its long-dead previous owners. And if the cultists didn’t meet here, they would find another spot for their foul congregations. Given the reputation that Lagresh had, she figured they could do their sacrifices in people’s basements without anyone noticing.
By the time the end of the line came into sight—more than fifty people had walked past them, never noticing the intruders on the landing—Rysha looked at Trip, wondering how he was doing. Even with the soulblades assisting him, he had to be using a lot of energy to control so many at once.
He stood at the edge of the landing, one hand on the hilt of Azarwrath’s blade, the other curled around the railing, and Rysha’s breath caught because he was radiating power, his aura blazing in such a way that even she, a mundane human woman with no sense for the magical, could feel it. More than that, she had a hard time looking away from it. From him.
She found herself moving across the landing toward him, drawn to him, wanting to touch him. To be touched by him. A tingle of heat surged through her body, and when his gaze turned toward her, his dark green eyes fiery with inner power, the tingle turned to a blaze, and she flushed with the desire to be with him in every sense of the word.
Someone bumped her shoulder, and she realized she wasn’t the only one who’d been drawn over to him. But he only looked at her, his gaze locked with hers. Triumph filled her with a sense of smug superiority, the knowledge that she would be his.
Trip closed his eyes and looked away, and disappointment replaced the triumph. He’d rejected her.
Trip lowered his head and stepped away from her—away from them. Their whole little group had swarmed to him, moths to a flame. Only Moe had seemed oblivious, perhaps because he’d been peering at the people and scribbling notes in his book.
Blazer frowned and stepped back, confusion furrowing her brow. Duck too appeared utterly puzzled. Apparently, dragonly allure—scylori—worked regardless of sex. Kaika eyed Trip up and down, not bothering to hide an interest she’d never shown in him before. The girls were all staring at him, too, their mouths parted, their expressions more disappointed than confused.
Rysha shifted uneasily, knowing she’d worn a similar expression seconds before. She grew aware of an irritated buzz coming from her hip, from the chapaharii sword sheathed there. Had it been buzzing the whole time? And she’d failed to notice it because she’d been too wrapped up in gazing at Trip’s power?
Even though he wasn’t looking at any of them now, and seemed to be doing his best to dampen down his aura, it took a minute for her body to forget the way his eyes had blazed as they stared into hers. It made her uneasy to think that she, with her years of education and her rational mind, could be drawn in as easily as the next person to a sorcerer with mind-control powers. How scary to realize he hadn’t even been trying to control them. That had simply been a result of his aura slipping out while he worked his magic toward another goal.
Another goal. Rysha lurched around to look at the stairs, realizing she’d forgotten all about the cultists when she’d been busy ogling Trip.
But they had descended all the way to the bottom, apparently still following Trip’s urging. A few soft mutters drifted up, the same words the cultists had spoken as they passed, a chant of the orders he’d instilled in their minds.
It chilled Rysha to think that Trip had the power to control people now. More than that, it chilled her to think she might cross paths with some dragon or other sorcerer who had the power to control her. Would Dorfindral be enough to fight that? And if so, what if that potential enemy knew the control words, as Kiadarsa had? As Trip did. Granted, she’d given both of them the control words, however inadvertently it had happened with the Cofah sorceress. But the commands had been in those books forever. Many people out there could know them.
When Trip had first made the suggestion of reprogramming Dorfindral to obey words of her choosing, she hadn’t put much thought into the idea, but now she decided it would be a good thing if it could be done. When this mission was completed, she would hunt for more ancient texts that discussed the chapaharii weapons. With some references, maybe Trip would have the power to do the job himself.
“We can get out now,” Trip said quietly, not looking at any of them.
“Good,” Blazer said. “I’ve had enough of this place.”
13
The salty night breeze ruffled Trip’s uniform jacket, and he inhaled deeply, willing the fresh air to clear his mind of the disturbing thoughts lurking there. Everything he learned about Agarrenon Shivar was making him want to kill the dragon rather than strike a deal with him. And he couldn’t manage to quash the tendril of doubt that had spawned within him about himself. If his sire had been a sick and depraved being who relished the pain and deaths of others, was that something that was in his blood? Something that could manifest as he learned how to access and use more o
f his power?
The fact that he’d been able to convince those cult people to walk past their group en masse made him more uncomfortable than anything else he’d done. It didn’t help that it had been far easier than he’d expected—Azarwrath had shown him how to touch multiple minds at once and then to use their fears and motivations to his advantage. Because he’d already been in the head of the now-dead leader, he’d had a good idea about what those people wanted and what they feared. He’d attempted to keep himself detached as he injected his ideas into their minds, to see it as nothing more than a way to get his team out without hurting anyone else. But a part of him had marveled at how easy it had all been.
He’d spent so much of his life trying to fit in, trying not to be discovered as atypical. Could he have adjusted the thinking of those people who’d judged him unfairly? Perhaps made their derogatory thoughts turn into thoughts of regard?
Trip remembered the surreal experience of turning toward his teammates on the landing and finding them all staring at him as if he were some divine being they were drawn to touch. No, he admitted with a derisive snort. There’d been nothing holy about their looks. They’d all had a sexual hunger to them, all directed toward him. It had been startling, but for a moment, it had also made him feel powerful and desirable, as if he were the alpha wolf in the forest, the one all others wanted to follow and to mate with. He’d been ashamed of the thought as soon as he’d had it and hadn’t ever intended to act on it, but then Rysha had walked toward him with that same hungry look in her eyes, and temptation had flirted much more seriously with him.
He still thought often of the kiss they’d shared that night on the airship, the intoxicating taste of her mouth, her appealing womanly scent filling his awareness, the lush feel of her body pressed against his.
Trip lifted his eyes to the stars, willing the thoughts to wash away along with the tide washing out far below. He wanted to be with her, but he wanted it to be because she liked him—not half-dragon him but pilot and person him—not because he was turning on some stupid magical allure. Still, he suspected he would have lurid dreams that night that centered around what might have happened had he not broken eye contact on that landing.