“Princess Varvare must die,” Bebo said. “That prophecy was spoken long before her birth, and the sons of Hymlumé sang the truth of it. I heard the song. I know. The Princess of Arpiar must die unless one will die for her.
“You vowed by Hymlumé’s light to save her, mortal man.”
The stars were a million eyes watching him.
“Would you die to honor that vow?” Bebo persisted. “Would you pour out the blood of a lion’s heart so that this girl you have wronged may live? Would your guilt carry you so far?”
But Lionheart could give no answer.
Gently, Bebo lifted his hand and pressed it to her lips. Lionheart gasped at this as though branded, and turned to see that tears gleamed in the queen’s eyes.
“I promise you, Lionheart of Southlands,” she said in the voice of one who had seen worlds created and destroyed, “you will cross the boundaries into Arpiar before the Night of Moonblood has come and gone. You will be given the choice: your life for hers. What you choose is your decision. No one can make it for you. But I swear by Hymlumé’s face, the choice you will have.”
Then she let go of his hand and stepped away from the edge, back to the doorway and the long, winding stair. Lionheart followed, casting only one last glance backward. Perhaps he saw Hymlumé’s face. Perhaps he saw only a gibbous moon. But he turned away from the sight, his shoulders hunched like a slave’s and his heart heavy with a question he could not answer.
Imraldera did not make any sound for a long moment as she stared into those burning eyes. Then she whispered, “It’s been a long time.”
“It certainly has,” the yellow-eyed dragon replied. “I can’t remember when last I stepped into your library.”
“I can.”
“You remember many things, Imraldera, things that others would be just as glad to forget. That’s why you keep the records.”
In her fear, Imraldera could feel the solid walls disappearing. The library was hers, but it dissolved into the night one portion at a time, and the Wood closed in. Her attendants were far from her, probably fled the moment they smelled dragon fumes. She struggled to maintain a steady voice as she spoke. “What are you doing here, Diarmid?”
He snarled as though she had struck him. “That’s not my name!”
He was a dragon now; she had to remind herself of this. It was difficult for her to remember, for she had seen very little of him following his transformation, and in her mind he would always be the golden-eyed, golden-haired youth she had known when he first came to the Haven. Not this strange creature with the sallow face and the blackened hair hanging like rags to his shoulders. But he was a dragon. And if Imraldera knew anything about dragons it was that they could flame suddenly and without provocation. She must tread carefully.
“Have you come to see Eanrin?” she asked.
The yellow-eyed dragon snorted. “My one-time uncle? Not likely. I don’t smell him hereabouts anyway. Is he off courting his cruel mistress again? In all these years, haven’t you yet convinced him to try his luck elsewhere?”
“What do you want?” Imraldera demanded, her voice suddenly cold. In that flash of anger, her fear receded for a moment and with it the Wood. She felt her library about her again, and she clung to that.
“I want nothing from you,” said the yellow-eyed dragon. He could feel her strength, and though his kind, for all their faults, was not given to cowardice, he was a little afraid of her. History had granted him a respect for this dame, soft and frail though she may appear. He took a step back. “I want nothing, but rather I come with a message.”
“From whom?” Imraldera knew she sounded as snappish as a fishmonger’s wife. She was alone and afraid in her own home, and the feeling soured her mood considerably. “Your Father is dead. You are alone in this world. Or have you and your kind found yourselves a new master?”
“Not yet,” the dragon hissed. He seemed bigger now in the shadows of the trees, and his eyes brighter. “My kinfolk are asleep. As they sleep, they watch their dreams die again and again. It makes them very angry. Their fires are building, ready to erupt. But they must wait until the proper time, wait until someone strong enough wakes them. That time is coming, Imraldera.”
“How are you awake when all your kinfolk sleep?” she demanded, hating herself for allowing her voice to tremble. The Wood sprang in around her, and once more she felt her library slipping away.
“My true mistress woke me,” he replied, and his voice was very low. “It is she who has sent me, despite her husband’s power.”
Imraldera caught her breath, for she knew whom he meant. “Anahid.”
“The Queen of Arpiar,” the yellow-eyed dragon said, “sends you and your brethren a message, a warning, rather. Vahe has found himself a body, a mortal one with a broken mind that he is using to move beyond the boundaries of Arpiar. A mortal filled with dragon poison. My own poison, I believe.”
Prince Felix’s young face flashed across Imraldera’s memory. Anger took hold of her again, and she clenched her fists, her eyes snapping. “Vahe does have him, then. Cruel, evil arts! I should have known as soon as Eanrin said the unicorn took him, that Vahe would—”
But the yellow-eyed dragon let out a horrible shriek and fell to his knees, and Imraldera leapt back, pressing against a great tree trunk. “Don’t!” the dragon gasped. “Don’t speak of that one! You’ll draw him! You’ll draw him even faster!”
Blood drained from Imraldera’s face. “What are you saying?”
“I must show you quickly!” The yellow-eyed dragon cast anxious looks over his shoulders at the deep shadows of Goldstone Wood. The moon’s face remained covered in clouds, and the only light came from his frightened eyes. He turned on Imraldera, his face fierce with terror, and lunged at her. She cried out as he caught her arms; his touch burned red-hot. He took both her wrists in one of his hands and grabbed her face with the other, searing her cheek.
“Look into my eyes,” he hissed, steam streaming between his teeth. Her mouth was open in silent agony as she felt his fingers pressing into her temple and brow. “Look into my eyes, and see what I saw all those centuries ago!”
Fire blazed in his black pupils, and she fell into his memory.
The dragons crouch in the shadows beyond the light of their Father’s eyes and watch as he and his sister play for the life of the goblin king. The yellow-eyed dragon trembles with desire to rend Vahe limb from limb, but he dares not step into his Father’s gaze. The Dragon King sits still as stone upon his bloodstained throne and watches his sister’s newly won prey.
“My dream!” Vahe screams, turning to Life-in-Death. “You won the game. I know my rights!”
“You have no rights,” says the Dragon.
But Life-in-Death speaks in the softest tones. “I will see your dream realized, little Vahe.” The dragons shudder at the sound of her voice. “My brother knows that I will. One way or another.”
Their Father rises from his throne, smoke issuing from his nostrils, and approaches his sister as though to dismember her. But her smile is fixed unwaveringly upon him; it is he who turns away first.
He snarls at Vahe. “Very well, King of Arpiar. Perhaps we can make a deal, you and I?”
Even as he speaks, the blood of the moon spills through the darkness and shines red upon the throne. It flows even into the darkest crevices, a glaring light that reveals all the hiding dragons, who try to flee. But the yellow-eyed dragon looks on and hears the words his Father says under the light of Hymlumé’s remembered pain.
“You desire a gift I have given only one other before. The mortal woman Tavé, as the Faeries call her, was willing to pay the price for the sake of controlling dragons. Are you willing to do the same?”
“I can pay any price a mortal woman can!” said the goblin king. “Am I not glorious beyond the dirt of mortality? Tell me what you require, Death-in-Life.”
“You have spun your pretty veils to cover all Arpiar,” says the Dragon King. “All ugliness of you
r kingdom thinly covered by your illusions, yet you have created not a single work of true beauty. Here is my bargain: Grow your own rose, Vahe, a rose fairer than any other. When the Night of Moonblood comes again in five hundred years, offer this rose of yours as a sacrifice to me. On my own throne, compel a child of Hymlumé to spill the blood of your child, and for every drop that falls, I will give you a dragon.
“Will you make this bargain?”
The goblin king shrieks, shaking his fists. “Not even the kings of the Far World can control one of Hymlumé’s Fallen! What you ask is impossible!”
Life-in-Death places her hands upon his shoulders. “I will give you a unicorn, my sweet king. I shall see your dream realized.”
Vahe turns to her and sees the fulfillment of all his desires, and he laughs. Then he turns to the Father of Dragons and says, “You have my word. The blood of my own lovely rose shall be spilled upon your throne, and the dragons will be mine to command.”
“So be it. But be forewarned, little king.” The Dragon smiles. “Fail to complete your part, and I myself will come and claim you, and my sister will not stop me.”
“No,” says the Lady with a radiant smile. “No, should he fail, I will give him over to you myself.” Then she leans down and plants a kiss on the goblin’s ugly face. “But I shall see your dream realized, my darling, for you are mine.”
Imraldera gasped as the yellow-eyed dragon released her, and she fell to the ground, burned almost beyond bearing. But she spoke through her pain. “Rose Red!”
“Yes,” said the dragon, turning away from her and clenching his hands into fists. Though he hated her, he couldn’t bear to look on her suffering.
The Wood trembled. Goldstone was old, older than the Near World or the Far. But it felt within its boundaries a being older still, and fear raced through the treetops in rustling whispers of warning.
“My Father is dead,” the yellow-eyed dragon said, turning this way and that, listening to the Wood, “but his bargain lives on. If Vahe spills his daughter’s blood one night from now when Hymlumé shines red in remembrance of her own flowing blood, then my kinfolk will wake. And they will serve Vahe to whatever end he drives them, were he to order them to eat themselves alive.”
“He cannot do that!” Imraldera struggled to speak through her pain, her words thin. “Even Vahe is not so strong!”
“What my Father has promised will come to pass. The Lady of Dreams Realized will see to that.” He whirled upon her then, and seeing how she cringed in fear of his burning touch, fire rose in his throat.
“I care nothing for your world, Imraldera.” Flames lashed from between his teeth, and sparks struck her already ravaged face. “I care nothing if Vahe raises his army and burns you and your Haven and all your records beyond recall. I wish the memory of those centuries was destroyed even now, that my own life was ended and gone, that it never was! But . . .” Here his eyes closed, for a moment sparing her from their awful gaze. “But Anahid would have her daughter safe. Anahid still has a heart, soiled and seared though it may be. And she loves the Princess Varvare. I have no heart, Imraldera. None. But what Anahid desires, I desire.”
His eyes flared open, but they looked into the forest over her head, and they were enormous with terror. His voice was a guttural snarl. “Save the girl, Knight of Farthestshore! Don’t let her blood be spilled.”
He took a step back then, and as he did so he lost all semblance of a man and became a dragon. Dread roared from his throat. “Away from me!”
Imraldera felt the presence of the one-horned beast.
It walked where it willed, and the Wood gave way around it. Even the Haven vanished at its approach. Imraldera, cradling her ruined hands, turned and saw it coming. Its pace was solemn but swift as stars turning overhead, and its horn was white and black at once.
The dragon flamed again. He towered over the unicorn, his wings like great storm clouds, his eyes like lightning. Fire billowed from his mouth, and Imraldera flung herself flat on her face as flames raced over her and struck the unicorn. The unicorn came forward, untouched. The yellow-eyed dragon screamed and beat his wings, crouching for a spring into the air.
A flash of white, and the unicorn leapt. The movement was like the doom of kingdoms, powerful and inevitable. The horn pierced the dragon’s hide as a needle pierces silk, penetrating deep into the place where the heart would be had the dragon still possessed one.
The yellow-eyed dragon . . . Diarmid . . . the golden-eyed childe who had fought monsters at her side . . . the young man who had loved a girl named Anahid and lost her . . . shrieked and shrieked again until blood poured from his mouth and clogged his throat.
Then he died.
Imraldera screamed, staggering to her feet and shaking her ruined hands at the one-horned beast. It stood over the crumpled form of a dragon that dwindled into the ruins of a human body. She stumbled forward, hardly knowing what she did, angry again and shouting, “How could you? How could you?”
The unicorn turned to her. She saw with overwhelming horror that it was beautiful.
Maiden, it said, you are hurt.
“How could you?” she yelled once more, tears streaming down her burned face. “He died a dragon! You killed him as a dragon! Don’t you know what you’ve done?”
The unicorn stepped forward. It was so delicate, Imraldera realized, unreal in its grace. Its eyes were as deep as the sky.
Stretch out your hands.
She obeyed, still crying, shaking with anger and terror. The unicorn bowed its horn, so narrow, so fragile that a child might snap it in two. It touched her hands, and they healed. It touched the burns on her face, and they vanished.
Imraldera stared into those deep, deep eyes. She drew a knife from her belt and raised it.
Depraved though it had become, a unicorn never harmed a pure maiden. This was the final remnant of its glory days when it sang the Songs high in the firmament. Thus it did not kill her. Instead it vanished without a word. Imraldera felt the Wood relaxing about her as the unseen beast sped away from the Haven.
She breathed again and dropped the knife. Then with a sob she knelt by the crumpled form of he who once was Diarmid and held him in her arms. His body was light with the absence of spirit and no longer burned inside.
“He died a dragon,” she whispered, cradling his head against her shoulder. His blood stained her robes. “Why? Why did you let him?”
But she received no answer.
Gently she laid the dragon upon the grass, crossed his arms over his chest, and closed the lids over eyes that would never burn again. She whispered:
“I blessed your name in beauty. In fear I still must sing.”
Goldstone Wood looked on in silence as the lady sang her benediction over the slain. Then it watched as Imraldera gathered herself up, sheathed her knife, and took the Path to Rudiobus, leaving the Haven behind.
7
The Hall of Red and Green was too hot and noisy for Oeric’s comfort. He was accustomed to a solitary life, and the vibrancy of the little people was overwhelming at best. So he spoke a few words to the guard, then slipped away from the hall to wait. He made his way to the waterfall, Fionnghuala Lynn, and stood gazing out from behind its misty curtain to the frozen lake and winterbound wood beyond.
But his eyes saw none of these.
He gazed instead into the past, a past both distant and very near to him. Oeric recalled his own first visit to Rudiobus, long centuries ago, and what Bebo had said to him then. Back before the Sleeper woke and rose up from the Gold Stone. Back before the destruction of Carrun Corgar and before Oeric broke faith with the Prince, his Master.
His face was as hard as the stone of Rudiobus Mountain, and none who saw him could have guessed his thoughts.
Lionheart certainly could not when he descended the long stairway and, to his surprise, found he had not ended up back in the feasting hall as he had expected. He must have taken a wrong turn on his way down, he thought, though he didn’t recal
l there being any turns. Yet Queen Bebo was gone, and here he stood at Fionnghuala Lynn, alone save for the stony presence of Sir Oeric. He approached the massive knight, leaned his shoulder against the wall, and also gazed through the mist of the waterfall. Neither spoke. Echoing through the mountain caverns came the voice of Eanrin, singing his eternal devotion to Lady Gleamdren, sometimes followed by the booming laughter of Iubdan and his court. Otherwise all was quiet, and even the waterfall murmured rather than roared.
At length Oeric said, “I saw you climb the long stair.”
Lionheart grunted.
“Queen Bebo’s words can be difficult to hear.”
Another grunt. Another silence. Then Lionheart, bowing his head, said quietly, “I don’t think I can do it.”
Oeric turned his huge eyes to look at the small man across from him. Lionheart felt the gaze, it was so intense. But he could not bring himself to speak, to tell the knight his thoughts.
To admit that he did not want to die.
He gulped and said instead, “She says that I will cross into Arpiar.”
“What?”
The ugly knight’s tone was sharp, and Lionheart glanced up at him uneasily. “She says that before the Night of Moonblood has come and gone I shall cross the boundaries and . . . and find Rose Red.”
Oeric continued to stare, and though not a feature moved, his expression slowly hardened into something fierce. “Moonblood is tomorrow night.”
Lionheart winced. “It is?”
“Five hundred years I have searched for a Crossing.” The knight’s voice remained steady and low, but his hands formed into fists. “Five hundred years I have sought to find my brother. To find him and to kill him. For the last time.”
Lionheart shuddered, aghast. “You seek to kill your own brother?”
“Yes, little mortal. Yes, I do. Because I am the only one who can. I am Vahe’s twin, as like to him in spirit as any two beings can be. And I am as despicable as he, as capable of evil. I proved that long ago when in my pride I believed I could take and use my brother’s weapons. For good purpose, of course, or so I told myself. In my arrogance, I did not consider that what I considered good might not in fact be right. No, I saw the evil Vahe worked and said that I would not do the same as he. So I disobeyed my Prince, betrayed my fellow knights, and took what I wanted.”