Warrior

  Koren raised her burdened hand and rubbed her forehead. “I have the worst headache.”

  Walking toward Koren with her usual provocative swagger, Zena gave her a sympathetic smile. “It’s no wonder. You have bruises from your hairline down to your chin.”

  “How can you see well enough to know?”

  “I have ways to receive temporary clarity of vision.”

  Koren forced herself to a sitting position. Now the chamber became clear. She was back in the incubator room, her ankles and wrists chained to a ring embedded in the floor, a familiar position. The manacles and chains, however, seemed different. Instead of the usual black, these were dark brown and rusty, and the metal stung her skin slightly as it shifted with her movements.

  She tried to scowl at Zena, but her headache wouldn’t allow her brow to furrow. “Do you know what happened to Petra?”

  Zena, now within reach, pushed her fingers through Koren’s hair and stared with her vacant black eyes. “Shrillet was unable to find Tamminy. We don’t know where he took Petra.”

  Koren glanced away. She wanted to cry, to wail, to lament Petra’s death, but now was not the time. Allowing Zena to watch would pollute her grief. It would be like allowing an unrepentant murderer to comfort the relatives of his victims.

  She looked through the ceiling hole. It appeared to be evening. Taushin’s coronation had already taken place—he was now the king. Soon he would hatch his plans and force her to help him dominate the planet.

  A tear dripped to Koren’s cheek. Then, like a geyser, sadness pushed from somewhere deep inside and burst through. She covered her face and wept bitterly. “Poor Petra! Why did you do it? Why did you—”

  She pressed her lips together. Keep quiet! Peeking between her fingers, she snatched a quick glance. Zena crouched next to her, staring blankly. She probably knew that Petra had swallowed the stardrop, and she likely figured out who plucked it from the floor, but had she and Taushin guessed Arxad’s plan?

  “When your grief ebbs,” Zena said with a soothing purr, “I will take you to the new king’s throne. There you will learn how you will serve him willingly.”

  Tears still streaming, Koren picked up a chain and shook it. “Willingly?” The rattle punctuated her question with a sarcastic bite. “What do you know about willingly?”

  “I see that you are recovering your hostility. Your grief is short-lived.” Zena withdrew a slender key from her dress pocket and unfastened the chain from the floor ring. Then, wrapping the links around her hand and wrist, she stood and pulled Koren up with her. “You have proven your unwillingness to serve in freedom,” Zena said, her purr changing to a low growl, “so until you come fully under Taushin’s control, this chain will be your ever-present companion.”

  Koren scowled in spite of the pain. “I will never serve that monster willingly! Petra is dead because of him!”

  “It is your fault that Petra died.” Zena began walking toward the door, forcing Koren to stumble along behind her. “Taushin had nothing to do with it.”

  Koren looked back. Her cloak still lay on the floor. She longed to rush back and put it on. It always made her feel better—covered, protected—especially now, dressed in black with her booted legs exposed.

  Zena passed through the doorway to Taushin’s lair. As Koren walked two steps behind her mistress, light from the ceiling hole behind her faded, replaced by weak flames burning within diminutive wall lanterns, each one no bigger than her hand.

  Koren kept her gaze low to avoid the light. Although dim, the rapid flickering seemed to pound at her skull like a miner’s chisel. If Taushin had really entered her head, maybe he felt it, too. That was some consolation.

  After reaching the end of the corridor, they entered a new chamber that was perfectly square and at least twice the size of the incubator room. The ceiling rose to perhaps three times the height of the average human, not the usual dizzying level found in the domed rooms, though a hole in the ceiling provided light and a way for a dragon to come and go.

  On an elevated platform at the far end of the room, Taushin sat on his haunches behind a dining pedestal. “Come, Starlighter. Join me in a meal. I hear that you have eaten nothing in quite some time.”

  Koren pressed her hand against her stomach. It felt empty but not hungry. In fact, nausea simmered, probably a sign of a concussion.

  “Go!” Zena shut the door to the passageway and stood in front of it. Dropping the chain, she nodded toward Taushin. “Do not keep the king waiting.”

  Koren shuffled forward, keeping her head low. With her arms weighed down by manacles, she dragged the chains across the floor. The clopping of her boots echoed, sounding like the drumbeat of a funeral march.

  The tiles looked nothing like the oddly angled ones in other dragon chambers. The squares resembled the shape of the room, with perfectly cut edges and finely polished surfaces.

  When she reached the platform, she climbed two steps to the top and looked up at Taushin. He pushed the pedestal to the side and reached out with a wing, as black as ever but now bigger, fuller, and obviously more powerful.

  Koren lowered her eyes again. Looking at him heightened her nausea. If not for him, Petra would still be alive.

  A strange sight caught her attention: four brackets embedded in the floor where the pedestal had been, too widely spaced to act as a frame for the pedestal. What could they be?

  She looked up. A mural covered the wall behind Taushin, displaying a chair with an ornate wooden frame and a padded seat. How strange it seemed! No dragon could sit in it. It had obviously been designed for humans.

  Taushin’s eyebeams struck the front of Koren’s dress, dancing on the black material like two active fireflies. She raised her hand to brush them off, but the manacles weighed her down once again, squelching her futile desire. He seemed to want to draw her focus to her clothing so that he could view it for himself.

  “As you can see,” Taushin said, “you now wear black, while Zena wears white. You have taken her place in my ser vice.”

  Koren glared at him, saying nothing.

  “Petra is dead. Jason is far away where he can offer no help. Tamminy can never return, if he is alive at all. Arxad has betrayed you and departed this world.” He extended his neck and breathed a flow of hot air across her cheeks. “You are alone.”

  Spasms rocked her body, sobs threatening to emerge. She fought to hold them back. She couldn’t give this devil any satisfaction.

  “And now,” he continued, drawing his head back again, “I hear from Zena that you wear black and purple bruises on what was once a lovely face. Your failure shouts from your very skin. Everyone has abandoned you, even Jason, the great warrior who would follow you here no matter what the risk. Where is he now?”

  She glared at him. He didn’t want an answer. He wanted a broken Starlighter. He wasn’t about to get one.

  “So,” he continued, “seeing that you have no alternative, will you now submit and help me rescue every dragon and human on this planet?”

  Breathing heavy, shallow breaths, Koren spoke through clenched teeth. “I don’t believe a word you say. You are filled with venom. You were born to kill. You live to witness suffering. I will die before I help you.”

  Taushin shook his head slowly and released a soft clucking sound. “I hope you do not regret your hasty words. Such vows are bravely uttered but rarely kept.” He waved a wing at Zena. “It is time. Bring the witness.”

  Nodding, Zena opened the door, slipped outside, and closed it behind her.

  Taushin paused for a moment while the door’s echo died away, then, using a wing, he pushed a hunk of meat from the pedestal.

  Koren watched it fall to the floor. Still clinging to the bone, it appeared to be the thigh of a goat. She had seen enough of them in her butchering chores to recognize it.

  “At one time,” he said, “the bones of humans littered the floor of this chamber. Magnar, whom you seem to honor more highly than you do your new king, consumed m
any girls your age from this very pedestal, and he scattered their bones as a testimony to his power.”

  As Koren imagined the sight, bones appeared all around. Magnar stood at the pedestal gnawing the arm of a girl, tearing flesh from the limb. She closed her eyes and jerked her head to the side.

  “I see that your Starlighter powers have not diminished, and I do not blame you for being repulsed. My own hatred for such cruelty incited one of my first orders as king, that all Promotions cease, and that people be told the truth so they would understand the depths of depravity to which their former king had sunk. A new day has dawned, and when I resurrect the Northlands star everyone will be set at liberty.”

  “So …” Koren slowly reopened her eyes. The bones had vanished. “So the people have been told?”

  “They have, and although they naturally reacted with disgust at the news of Magnar’s wickedness, their revulsion quickly turned to joy at the prospect of freedom. They also know that you must provide the insight I need to resurrect the star. You are their only hope, yet you stubbornly stand as the only obstacle.”

  Koren lifted her arms again, making the chains clink. “You are the obstacle. Your cruel ways prove that you aren’t really doing this out of love. You’re just trying to manipulate me.”

  “Your presumption is the real obstacle. Your lack of trust in me is not based on anything but your self-assured idea that I should not use force to bring about my purposes. Even the Code you cherish details events in which the Creator did the same, leading wars against hate-filled nations in order to achieve his goal of freedom for those he loves.”

  Koren crossed her arms over her chest, intentionally shaking her chains in the process. “As if you are wise enough to decide who should be forced.”

  “The accusation of a hypocrite,” Taushin said, pointing at her with his wing. “You claim to know that you should not be forced. Are you so arrogant as to think that you should never be compelled to comply with the Creator’s wishes? When your perceived goals and methods for attaining those goals are not the same as those of a greater power who sees and knows much more than you do, are you above chastisement and correction?”

  Koren glanced away. His verbal blow had struck its target. She had no answer.

  Taushin’s tone altered to that of a plaintive cry. “The whip-scarred cattle children, hungry and wasting away; the miners, broken and weary of draining sweat and blood; the unwed mothers, forced to procreate with men unknown; and hundreds of other slaves cry out for you to help them unlock their chains. Yet you stand here complaining about your own chains, which were put there in order to end your stubborn resistance to a higher calling, a purpose that you cannot possibly view from your lowly position or understand with your finite perception.”

  The dragon’s speech flooded her mind. So much of it was true. She was lowly. She was finite. She didn’t understand everything. It seemed that his arguments washed away every possible objection, but one truth stood tall in the flood. It could not be altered, no matter what. As if slogging against the tide, it rose to her lips and leaked out in slow, measured words. “Love … needs … no … chains.”

  Taushin’s head shot closer. “The presumptuous one holds fast to her proverb. She lives by maxims, ignorant of exceptions that every rule allows. She is a slave to her own legalities, and yet creates an exception for herself by resisting an authority she is commanded by the Code to obey. As it says, ‘Be in subjection to authorities, for the Creator places them on high ground to do good and not evil.’ “

  She lifted her arm, heavy and tired, and pointed at him. “If the Creator made you king, and you really do good and not evil, then you could release the slaves at this very moment. I call on you to outlaw slavery, liberate my people from their bondage, and …” She took a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she shouted, “Tear down the cattle camp walls, and let my brothers and sisters go free!”

  A smile inched across Taushin’s face. “My dear girl, you have again proven your misunderstanding of me. To think that I wouldn’t free the neediest of all your people is an insult to my character and purpose. At the very moment I took my place as king, I ordered the immediate release of all the cattle children. They are free and in the company of people who will take care of them. Yet I cannot release the others until I resurrect Exodus. We need the miners and their support labor to survive, and they will not work unless we force them. Surely you understand that I must help my own kind survive, so the liberation of the remaining slaves waits on your decision.”

  Koren slid back a step. It seemed that every objection had already been countered. Taushin was either the most calculating fraud in history, or … he was telling the truth. “How can I know the children are free? Can you prove it?”

  “A fair question.” He aimed his call at the door. “Zena, you may bring her in.”

  The door swung open. Zena walked in, followed by Madam Orley.

  “Come, good lady,” Taushin called, “and stand next to Koren.”

  Wringing her hands as she looked around the room, Madam ambled on her short, stocky legs, giving Koren a hurried glance. Her nervous smile indicated excitement mixed with terror. She stopped at Koren’s side and dipped into a shallow curtsy toward Taushin. “What may I do for you, Your Majesty?”

  “All I ask is for you to bear witness to the truth. What did you see at the cattle camp when Zena sent you there?”

  “Empty, sire.” She glanced at Koren again. “Not a child remained.”

  “And the food bin?”

  “Open and empty. The children likely had quite a feast.”

  “Very good. Thank you.” Taushin turned his head toward Koren. “Is the evidence sufficient?”

  “Maybe.” Koren lifted her arms as high as she could. “Will you allow me to resurrect this tale so I can see it for myself?”

  “By all means.”

  “I am a Starlighter …” Her voice felt weak, feeble, and her head pounded once again. Without her cloak, could she do this at all? “I call upon this tale to make itself visible, to reveal the secrets of the past so all can see the truth.” The chains dragged at her arms. This would have to be a short tale. “The cattle children, tortured and tired, forsaken and hungry, emerged from their walled prison and found sustenance.”

  The food bin appeared in front of her. A boy bent over the edge, gathering bread from within. His head stayed low in the bin, making it impossible to see his face, but since he wore no shirt, and scratches blemished his skin, he had to be a cattle child. After a moment, however, he withdrew with an armful of loaves and began wrapping them in a shirt. One-eyed and wary, his identity became clear.

  “Wallace!” The moment she called out his name, the image vanished. Reaching out for him, she shuffled forward, but the chains again dragged, halting her.

  “Do you now have sufficient proof?” Taushin asked.

  She stared at the floor where Wallace had stood. Although he looked older than the last time she had seen him, his face showed the same courage and nobility he had always displayed. “I saw no cattle children. Only Wallace.”

  Taushin spread out a wing. “Then please continue. Find them. Eliminate your doubts. Ease your mind.”

  Koren nodded. Although the pain was horrible, she had to know the truth. “Wallace,” she called, lifting her arms again, “show me what you did with the bread. Surely you collected it for others. Where are the cattle children?”

  Another image appeared, this one more transparent than the last. A misty veil fogged the scene, likely because of her weakness. Wallace scraped flint stones together over a pile of wood while Elyssa and at least twenty poorly dressed children rushed around a forest clearing, pulling up ferns and vines and tossing sticks to the side. Elyssa stopped and crouched next to Wallace. Her voice garbled, she said, “Soon we’ll have our own wilderness refuge. It’s really shaping up.”

  Koren let her arms fall. They were too heavy to keep in the air. Like a mist fleeing in the wind, the images streamed away.
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  Taushin extended his neck and drew his head close. “Are your doubts vanquished?”

  “I don’t understand,” she said, looking at him. “Why are they in the wilderness? Why can’t they go home to their families?”

  “Some are orphans without a home. Others must be protected from dragons who wish to secure free laborers. Not all dragons have submitted to my authority. They see me as small and easily controlled. This is another reason I need your power—to assert my authority and break their addiction to laziness and slave labor.” He took in a breath and spoke with tenderness. “Starlighter, I hope this act of good faith on my part will be sufficient to prove my intent. I have now done all I can. The rest is up to you.”

  Madam Orley laid a hand on Koren’s shoulder. Although the touch felt like a bee sting, she tried not to flinch. “He speaks the truth, Koren. Everyone is waiting for you to do what he asks so we can all be set free.” Her kind expression became stern. “Don’t let us down. Don’t be stubborn about this.”

  With the pain growing, Koren pulled away. She looked at the old woman. Her eyes displayed worry, fear, hope. Koren’s mind swirled as she stumbled through her words. “You don’t understand … You can’t understand. I can’t do … I mean … I won’t …”

  Finally, she turned to Taushin. His blue beams drilled into her eyes, and his thoughts forced their way into hers. Submit or suffer.

  As if summoned by the dragon’s words, a stinging sensation erupted on Koren’s arms, beginning at the manacles and running to her elbows and shoulders before sizzling like fire down her back and into her legs. Pain followed — searing, pounding pain that knifed into her bones and through her skull. Her head throbbed, worse than ever. It seemed that her brain expanded, pushing against her skull as if her head were about to explode.

  She dropped to her knees and pressed her hands against the sides of her head. The torture was unbearable — stabbing, drilling, splitting. If it didn’t stop soon, she would …