Palace Var shuddered.
Vahe stared into his brother’s eyes, his own face etched with disbelief. He tried to speak, his craggy lips striving to form words. Oeric let go of him, and he fell backward, and where he fell the floor cracked. The crack ran out from his body in all directions, spreading like webs up the walls, up the pedestals, up the statues of the kings and queens. The old queen screamed a silent stone scream, and her face shattered into fragments. One by one, the statues fell, and with their fall followed the crumbling of the roof.
The walls of Palace Var trembled again, broke into millions of tiny pieces, and fell as rose petals drifting across the blighted plains of Arpiar.
8
The Dragon’s smile is hot enough to drive out all the cold in Lionheart’s bones. Hot enough to singe his face even from a distance.
“There you are, my little morsel,” he says. “A merry chase you’ve given me. Come to me now, boy. Come to my embrace.” He holds his arms wide, and his black cloak drapes like wings.
Lionheart for a moment cannot feel the Prince’s hands on his shoulders. For a moment, he stands alone beside the Final Water, staring into the face of Death.
Then the Prince’s voice whispers in his ear. “Don’t be afraid. I am with you this time.”
Lionheart adjusts his grip on the bent sword, sets his jaw, and takes a stride forward.
“That’s right,” says the Dragon, almost purring through his flames. “That’s right, come to me.”
Then he sees the sword.
“What have you got there?”
Lionheart opens his mouth to answer, but before the words come, the Dragon has grown, twice, three times, ten times bigger. His face is long and black and covered in scales, and fire pours from his eyes, his nose, and mouth. Black wings beat the mist, which scatters like frightened children, and Lionheart can almost hear the screams of dying dreams fleeing along the river’s edge and vanishing into darkness. Only the Dragon and his fire are left.
“Where did you get that?” he roars in a voice that must rise to the Gardens of Hymlumé. “Where did you find that sword?”
Lionheart sees now the power looming over him, the fire of a thousand hells blazing in the Dragon’s mouth.
And he sees the fear.
“Did you truly think,” the Dragon cries, “that you could stand up to me? Did your boyish dreams tell you that you were the hero of your own sorry little story? You pictured yourself the brave warrior, didn’t you, striding across the landscape of your kingdom, brandishing a sword as you do now. You saw it all in glorious detail, how you’d cut off my head and save your kingdom, winning the hearts of your people.”
Lionheart shudders, and the tip of the sword wavers.
“But that’s not how it happened, was it?” The Dragon raises the crest on his head. “You know how it truly was. How can one such as you hope to face me? I am ageless! I am power! I am the Death-in-Life! You watched your dream burn when you handed your love’s heart to me and chose your own worthless life instead. And now you have sacrificed yourself in a pathetic attempt to save the girl you betrayed, and what has that done? She will die upon my throne, die with your dead carcass at her feet!”
Lionheart closes his eyes, his head sagging, and the Dragon’s laughter surrounds him.
But the Prince whispers, “I am with you.”
Setting his jaw, Lionheart raises his head and faces the Dragon again.
“I will devour you!” the Dragon roars, and terror laces his voice. “I will swallow you now as I should have swallowed you when you betrayed your true love into my hands! When you groveled before me, a quivering mass of mortality! When you proved your colors, you false prince! Disinherited, despised—I will devour you!”
His head darts forward like a cobra to strike, and Lionheart wants to fling himself away. But the Prince holds him by the shoulders and keeps him standing firm. The Dragon’s teeth close only inches from the tip of the broken sword. The heat of his breath and the sick stench of his poison are immense.
Lionheart gazes into the eyes of Death, and this time he does not blink.
“I am with you,” the Prince says in his ear.
Lionheart takes another step forward and raises the sword above his head.
The Dragon screams. His voice tears the darkness with its terror as he retreats, drawing himself up onto his haunches. Then he flames. The blast roars like a rushing tide pouring over the edge of the world, a great wall of destruction.
Lionheart holds the twisted sword before him and feels the flames sweep over him.
9
The first thing he became aware of was the heat.
After that came the smell.
It was a smell he recognized all too well.
His eyes flew open, and he found himself lying upon a black slab of marble, and people were screaming all around him. Flames danced before his eyes.
“Dragon’s teeth!” he swore, and that’s the next thing he saw.
Enormous, gleaming, flame-wreathed teeth bearing down upon him in the face of an enormous red dragon. He yelped and sat up, putting one hand in a pool of blood and the other . . .
The other touched the hilt of a sword.
He grasped and lifted it, scarcely noticing that it was black and twisted and useless, just grateful in that brief moment to have something to hold on to, something to put between him and the onslaught of fire and teeth and mad red eyes. He rose and braced himself, faintly aware that others clustered behind him, vaguely conscious that someone was shouting, “Felix!” All his uppermost senses were focused on the monster bearing down on him.
And suddenly, in that moment of absolute panic and madness, he felt calm. Distant, somehow. This had to be a dream, after all. None of this could be real. As though his spirit floated somewhere above him, beyond this—
No! No, his spirit was very present, right here in his body, in this moment, with the dragon bearing down, and he wasn’t about to give it up, fire and brimstone take him!
The wood thrush sang in his mind:
I am with you.
Then came the fire.
It rushed toward him, a tidal wave of flame spilling from the dragon’s mouth even as she hurtled toward him. He squeezed his eyes shut and raised the sword, a useless gesture against that oncoming death.
The sword caught the fire.
He felt the power through his hands, and it frightened him. He opened his eyes and saw the sword drawing the fire to itself in a long, steady stream. The hotter it grew, the straighter the sword became and the brighter it shone, until it was like a flaming star in his hands. A more perfect weapon was never forged by heat and hammer, and it balanced beautifully in his hands.
The dragon swallowed her flame, her huge eyes widening as she stared down at the blazing star in the mortal’s hands.
“Halisa!” she roared in a great cloud of poison and fear. “Fireword!”
He stared at her, stared at the sword, then threw it with all the strength in his arm.
The blade plunged through the armor plating of scales, down into the furnace of her soul. She screamed in agony, an agony stored up over centuries, an agony of hurt and betrayal, of love lost and destroyed; an agony of dungeons in the mind and chains dragged in heavy links. She fell upon the stones, crushing the bodies of her sleeping brothers and sisters beneath her.
Thus, the Bane of Corrilond died. Her body dwindled into that of a woman robed in red, and then vanished in a flurry of dust.
The boy stood on the edge of the black stone slab, panting. When he wiped his face, his hand came away wet with sweat and blood, and he realized that his cheeks were cut in thin lines like scratches. They stung, and he scowled. He whirled about, seeing for the first time with whom he shared this strange dais.
He looked into the eyes of a monstrously ugly girl sitting in a monstrously ugly throne carved all over like bones and dragon skulls. “Who are you?” he demanded.
She gaped at him, then swallowed. “I’m Rose R
ed,” she said.
“Oh.” His nose itched with sweat, and he rubbed it with the back of his hand. “I’m Felix.” His frown deepened. “Have we met before?”
She nodded.
“Have we had this conversation?”
She nodded again.
“What in all the names of all the dragons is going . . . on . . . here . . . ?”
His voice trailed into nothing as he realized that he stood surrounded by hundreds upon hundreds of sleeping dragons, heaped across the floor among the Bane of Corrilond’s smoldering flames. His knees shook, and Felix thought for a horribly embarrassing moment that he might faint. But someone caught him, and when he turned to face that someone, he found himself looking into a pair of black eyes that he recognized.
“Dame Imraldera!”
“Lights Above be praised, you’re in your right mind,” she said. Her eyes shimmered, and from the look of her smoke-smeared face she had been crying.
A thousand questions rushed into Felix’s mouth and jammed against each other in their efforts to get out. But they halted in painful silence at the next sight that met his eyes—the sight of the dead man lying cold upon the stone near his feet.
“Is that . . . is that Leonard? The jester?”
Imraldera made certain the boy wasn’t about to topple over, then again knelt beside Lionheart’s fallen body. She swallowed the tears in her throat, desperately trying to force them back.
“Prrrlt?”
A fluffy body pressed against hers. Distantly, she heard Felix’s voice growling, “What is Monster doing here? All right, I’m confused!”
“Eanrin!” She made a dart for the cat’s scruff, but he dodged her hand. “Dragons eat you, cat!”
“Not yet, actually. Sorry, old girl.” He sat and wrapped his tail primly about his paws. Her tears spilled over in good earnest now, and Imraldera no longer tried to restrain them.
“I thought you were dead.”
“Just a bit singed. But I look a fright, I’m afraid!”
He looked like a bag of rags. His fur was burned away in clumps, and his whiskers had sizzled into crisp little curls on either side of his nose.
“You are lovely,” Imraldera said, and she meant it.
“Who the blazes are you?” Felix cried, and Imraldera turned to see King Iubdan striding up the stairs. He carried the Prince’s sword before him, and it still shone brilliantly white even under the red eye of the moon above them. He ignored the boy and presented the blade to Imraldera, who accepted it. She turned at once to Death’s throne, where the ugly princess still sat bound and limp. Grinding her teeth, the dame raised the sword high, and the little carved skulls shrieked just before she cut them off and continued shrieking where they fell for some time afterward.
Varvare slumped out of the throne, and Eanrin, once more a man, caught her.
“And why is my cat a man?” Felix bellowed.
The goblin girl clung to the poet for a moment, gasping and weak, her eyes closed tight. He shushed her gently, patting her bald head and rocking her like a baby. Then she gave a cry and pulled away, falling over herself as she sought to reach Lionheart’s side.
“No, no, no!” she whimpered, taking his cold hand in hers. But his eyes were empty, his spirit fled. Her face was more hideous in a grimace of sorrow, and she covered it with one hand, still holding tight to Lionheart with the other. Then with a ragged gasp, she reached out and closed his staring eyes. “Not Leo.”
Imraldera knelt beside her and put an arm around her shoulders. “He was a brave lad in the end,” she said quietly. “He meant to make amends by you. You know that, don’t you?”
“I don’t care!” the princess cried, gulping and gasping through her tears. Burns covered her body, and the place where the unicorn had pierced her must have been terribly painful. But she seemed unaware. “I don’t care. He’s dead! Oh, please, tell me he’s not really. Tell me you can bring him back!”
Imraldera shook her head. “He’s beyond my skill to help.” Her eyes met those of King Iubdan above the princess’s head. “He’s beyond any of us now.”
The sword blazes whole in Lionheart’s hands, shining like the sun. It is the beauty of perfect symmetry and balance. Forged anew in the Dragon’s blaze, it is the truest, most splendid weapon Lionheart has ever seen.
The Dragon stares down upon him and begins to shake. Then he screams, and his mighty wings beat the air. He leaps aloft and soars away, trailing his black shadow behind him, fleeing the edge of the Final Water back to the place from which he came.
Lionheart stands staring at the sword in his hands. For the first time he can remember, the weight on his heart eases. It is as though a burden he had not realized he was carrying is suddenly lifted, and his paralyzed limbs can not only walk but run.
He whirls about and faces the Prince. “He’s gone!”
“And you will never face Death again,” the Prince says and smiles. “Well done.”
Lionheart bows his head then, pride sapped from him and replaced with dawning humility. “I would have fled.”
“But you did not. I am with you now.” The Prince places a hand on Lionheart’s shoulder. “You understand, don’t you, the difference between guilt and repentance?”
Slowly, Lionheart nods.
“You understand that you can never absolve your own sin?”
Again Lionheart nods.
“But you are forgiven. All that is past is past. The man you once were is no more. The man you are now is what matters, and I declare your name in truth: Lionheart. From this moment forth, you will serve me with the courage of roaring lions, and all my foes will tremble at your name, for they will know that you are one of mine.”
Lionheart feels his heart swelling at the Prince’s words. He raises his face and meets the Prince’s gaze, and this time he can smile.
“Walk with me,” says the Prince and begins to lead the way along the shores of the Final Water. Lionheart falls into step beside him, and they walk a long while in silence save for the distant songs above them, the Songs of the Spheres, composed before Time.
At last Lionheart asks, “What will happen now, my Prince?”
“I will give you new life.”
Lionheart’s gaze drifts slowly to the dark waves of the river. “Will we cross the Final Water?” he asks without fear.
Nobody paid any attention to him.
Felix could ask questions until he was blue in the face, and yet they ignored him. Even Imraldera! Lights Above, didn’t he deserve some sort of explanation for all this mayhem? Felix flung up exasperated hands, searching the crowd for some face that looked like it might be willing to give a word of enlightenment.
All around him he saw yellow-headed soldiers gathering, their faces young and sweet but their expressions fierce and sad. They looked remarkably like the illustrations of the Little Folk in the book of Faerie tales he’d grown up reading. Except they weren’t little. Or were they? He blinked, then groaned, rubbing his eyes, for the strange people around him were somehow both very small and very large all at once.
Just as Monster was simultaneously a cat and a man.
But he’d known that all along, hadn’t he? Felix realized with a start that some secret part of himself had always understood that the strange blind cat who came to him and Una out of the Wood six years ago was no mere cat. Then again, he’d never met a feline that considered itself merely a cat. They were all lords and ladies in their own eyes. But there was always something different about Monster. Something altogether smug and ancient.
Felix’s head ached. He couldn’t watch those clustered around the fallen form of Leonard the jester (by all the dragon fire, what was he doing here?), and didn’t like to look at the miserable face of the ugly Rose Red. He slipped away from the others, down the steps of the dais, taking stock of the burning world around him. It was something out of the worst of his nightmares. The Village, strewn with the bodies of slain and sleeping dragons, was a scene that had been presented t
o him in poisoned dreams many times over the last few months, dreams which he forgot upon waking but which never quite left his mind.
There were more than dragons too. More ugly people—goblins, he decided, uglier even than the girl by the throne—lay in miserable heaps among the scaly creatures. Some were dead, some wounded, some simply stricken with fear. But they did not move when Felix passed among them, and he felt pity for them.
Something gleaming caught his eye.
He turned to look more closely. It wasn’t so bright a gleam as the light still shining from the brilliant sword. It was much smaller, more delicate. It looked like a horn but was slender as a reed and white as polished ivory. Its glow was faint, but it seemed all the brighter as it lay in a patch of charred and smoking stone.
The stone was still hot but not unbearably so. Felix approached the silver object and put out a hesitant hand to touch it. It was perfectly cool, so he picked it up and stood awhile, looking at it. It was heavier than he had expected, and he needed both hands to lift it. When he turned it, he saw iridescent streaks coiling all the way to the tip.
“What have you there?”
He turned and found his cat standing beside him in man form.
“M-Monster?”
“It’s Eanrin, actually. Sir Eanrin, Chief Poet of Iubdan Rudiobus.” His cat swept him a flourishing bow, but his face was not smiling. “Now tell me, since I lack the proper equipment to see for myself, what do you have there?”
“I don’t know.”
“Hand it over.”
If his cat had still had a tail, Felix would have been tempted to step on it. As it was, there was nothing for him to do but obey. The tawny-haired poet turned it over in his hands, feeling it from base to needle-sharp tip. Then he said, “Come,” and without another word led the way back to the dais. Felix followed obediently, cursing the day that he found himself obeying his own pet. But he did not like to give up that white horn so easily, and he wanted to see what Eanrin would do with it.
“Imraldera,” the poet said, kneeling beside her and Rose Red and the broken body of Lionheart, “I found this. Will it help?” And he handed the ivory object over.