“There was too much!” he cried. “Simply too much to do when I came back. I couldn’t very well leave, could I, when my people needed me here? Not all of us are free to go chasing across the countryside after dreams or monsters, Prince Aethelbald. Some of us have responsibilities that must come before our own desires.”
“And there was your bargain to consider,” the Prince said.
Lionheart gasped. He knew! How could he know? That was a secret too dark and too terrible, but which could not possibly be known to any in this world beyond Lionheart. He found his own mind screaming in a voice just like the Lady’s: Hate him!
He said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The Prince shook his head. “But you do, Prince Lionheart. I know that Dragon better than you think. I know the game he plays and the bargains he drives.”
“That’s none of your concern, Prince Aethelbald.”
The Prince turned away. “In that case, let me bid you good day.”
Lionheart barked angrily, “And just what do you propose to do now?”
The Prince paused on his way to the door and said, “I journey to the Red Desert.”
Lionheart’s anger momentarily vanished behind surprise. “Are you mad?” No one ventured to the Red Desert. It was a place of death and desolation, long ago poisoned by the vengeful fires of the dragon known as the Bane of Corrilond. Her poisons, though hundreds of years old, still reeked in those blistering sands. It was a land of dragons, so legend said. It was a land of Death.
Yet the Prince stood there, calm as a clear sky after that wild declaration.
Lionheart shook his head. “You are mad, but I see that you’re serious.” He sighed heavily. “Do not think that I am unconcerned about all this, Prince Aethelbald. If there is anything I can do to aid you in your quest, please accept my help.”
“Come with me.”
“What?”
Lionheart knew then that this was what their entire conversation had been about. The Prince of Farthestshore needed no word of Una. He had already known about her change and made his plan to venture into the Red Desert, the likeliest place for a newly turned dragon to be found. No, he had not come for information.
He had come for Lionheart.
Lionheart recalled a moonlit night, not many months gone, in the gardens of Oriana. He had been merely Leonard the jester then, part-time floor scrubber, without a penny to his name. Nearly five years of exile and hopeless searching for a way to destroy the Dragon had left him with hardly a trace of his own princely heritage.
The Prince of Farthestshore had stood before him in that garden and said, “Come with me, back to your kingdom. Together we can face the Dragon.”
This memory was worse than all the dragon poison Lionheart had ever breathed—the memory and the regret. What might have happened had he agreed? He would never have taken Una’s ring. He would never have groveled before the black King of Dragons and bargained away the heart of his love.
Perhaps he would have fought the Dragon.
“Come with me, Prince Lionheart,” said the Prince now, his hand extended. “Come to the Red Desert and help me rescue the princess.”
Hate! Kill!
“You . . . you cannot seriously—”
Don’t let him lure you from your dream! It is madness what he suggests, and it will destroy you!
Bitterness poured from Lionheart’s tongue. “You do realize, don’t you, that you cannot enter the Desert and survive? Those who have crossed beyond sight of its borders have never returned. You will die there. I cannot abandon my father and my people now for certain death, as you well know.”
The Prince looked sadly at Lionheart. “Then I bid you good day,” he said, and turned once more to the door.
A second chance had been offered. And now it was gone.
“Wait,” Lionheart said, then paused, uncertain what he was going to say. He felt a desperate need that the Prince not go away thinking ill of him. But what had he to offer now? The words came before he had a chance to think them through. “I will send men with you. I will select them myself—strong men, loyal.” He rose, gazing at the back of the Prince’s head. “It is all I can give you.”
Aethelbald did not look back. “Thank you, Prince Lionheart,” he said and left the room.
The attendants in the hall put their heads in, but Lionheart waved them away. “Shut the door,” he said. When it closed with a click and he was alone, he slowly took a seat once more.
The Lady’s voice returned with all its power. But now the Prince was out of sight, she no longer screamed. She wrapped her cold presence around Lionheart like a comforting mother, crooning.
You did what you had to do.
“I did what I had to do,” he whispered.
What other choice could you make?
“What other choice could I make?” He sank his forehead into his hand and shut his eyes tight. “What other choice was there?”
Not two hours after watching the stranger’s arrival, Daylily watched his departure from the same window. Twelve horsemen in Southlander uniforms followed behind him, though he remained on foot as before. They passed through the gate and on out of sight, leaving Southlands by ways unknown to mortals.
Daylily stood a long time, gazing at the gateway through which the stranger and the twelve riders had passed. No thoughts formed in her mind at this time, none that she could pin down. Then suddenly she knew, without quite knowing how.
She would never marry Prince Lionheart of Southlands.
7
Lionheart labored day in and day out at the desk that had once belonged to his mother. Impossible puzzles were presented to him, swift answers expected. But how was he, magician-like, supposed to conjure wealth that was not to be had? How was he to purify poisoned fields? How was he to force growth in desolate places? Yet the messages poured in, carried by thin couriers from across the land, piling in mountains across his desk. Attendants and assistants did what they could, but he needed to check their work behind them, for mistakes would fall upon his head.
All Southlands watched him, eagle-eyed, waiting for some small misstep from the friend of demons.
Lionheart’s eyes glazed over as he skimmed a report from the Baron of Fernrise. The letters shifted about on the page under his tired gaze. They gathered together, forming images in his mind, and he was too tired to shake those images away, too tired even to care. They formed the face of Rose Red.
She was ugly beyond description. But when she passed into the shadows of the Wilderlands, Lionheart thought the last good remnant of Southlands had gone with her.
He startled to himself, shaking. No good in thinking such things! Why go over the past? Overworked, that’s what he was. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes with an ungentle hand. If only he could get more sleep at night. Ever since the Prince of Farthestshore left Southlands in company with those twelve handpicked men, sleep had eluded Lionheart. He lay awake for hours each night, wondering where they were. Days had slipped by without a word. But of course, it would be much longer before he could expect news of them. It would take them that long at least to even approach the borders of the Red Desert, should they meet no mishap along the way.
But he wondered even so—had they indeed passed over the Chiara Bay to the mainland and on to the desert? Were they even now within those fiery grounds, searching for the “treasure” Lionheart had sent them to find? Were they even alive?
He took up a new set of messages and slowly broke their seals, determined not to allow the next question to form itself completely. But his hand shook as it wielded the sharp letter opener, and the question came.
Could he have helped had he journeyed with them?
My darling, the voice of the Lady immediately intruded in his mind, alluring and repellant at once. There was nothing you could have—
A knock at the door brought Lionheart from his reverie. One of his attendants entered, bowed hastily, and said, “Captain Catspaw has returne
d!”
“Catspaw?” Lionheart dropped the letter opener. “And the men?”
“All twelve of them.”
Then the Prince was not with them. His heart sank, and Lionheart set his shoulders. “Send them to report.”
“All of them?”
“All.”
Captain Catspaw and the others were admitted a quarter of an hour later, during which time Lionheart had tried to adjust himself into a more princely bearing. He sat by his desk like a king upon a throne, his face grave. The men bowed but cast each other sidelong glances. Some looked guilty; others, willful.
“I’m glad to see you safe, captain,” Lionheart said, narrowing his eyes at the lot of them. “What news do you bring? Did you find what you sought in the Red Desert?” But he knew even as he asked the question that they had not.
Catspaw cleared his throat. “Your Highness,” he said, “you know we are true men of the Eldest and would serve our king to the utmost of our strength—”
“But?” Lionheart’s voice was a low growl. “Would you serve me to the same capacity? Tell me, captain. Did you follow the Prince?”
“Your Highness—”
“Did you?”
Catspaw set his teeth. “That man led us by ways no mortal man should walk. Unnatural Paths! Down into the Wilderlands, and when we came up again at the day’s end, we had crossed not only all of Southlands but the Chiara Bay itself without so much as wetting our feet! We were in the hinterlands of Shippening before the sun had set. Shippening!”
Lionheart heard terror in the man’s voice as he recounted his tale. He could almost feel sorry for him. He himself had once walked a Faerie Path as a boy. It had not been a pleasant experience.
“Then,” the captain continued, “he stood there on the edge of the Red Desert—the heart of dragon country—and he bade us follow him. Right down the Dragon’s throat!”
“And?” Lionheart asked coldly.
“Have we not had enough of dragons already, Your Highness? We, all of us, have looked into the Dragon’s eyes and seen our deaths. And we were powerless against him! Who of us did not count himself blessed beyond belief when the Dragon left and he found himself still living? Yet this man, not even a Southlander, asked us to follow him back into that poison. That fire. What did you expect us to do?”
“I expected you to obey me. I expect you to obey your prince.”
In his anger and fear, Catspaw seemed to have forgotten to whom he spoke, and he shook his head violently. “You did not know those five years of enslavement.”
“Cowards!” Lionheart snarled, leaping from his chair, his fists clenched. “What do you know of the Dragon? What do you know of those five years and how I spent them? All of you make me sick!”
Catspaw paled before Lionheart’s fury and backed away into the cluster of men. But his voice was belligerent when he said, “Forgive us, Your Highness. We did our best, but we could not—”
“Could not?” Lionheart cried, advancing on them as though he would strike them. They backed all the way to the door. “Would not, you mean. Has the honor of Southlands no claim on your hearts? I promised Prince Aethelbald the help of twelve loyal men, and this is how you serve me?”
“Please, Your Highness—”
“Out of my sight!” the prince roared and all but chased them from the room. “Don’t let me see your faces again! Out!”
They scurried away, some muttering, others silent as shadows, and the door shut behind them. A second later it crashed open again as Lionheart himself burst forth and stormed down the hall. Household folk scrambled out of his way at one glimpse of his face, and he, in his rage, saw none of them. He came to his private chambers, slamming doors open and closed.
A chambermaid stood with a handful of cuttings, arranging them in a vase. A plain girl with a snub nose, whose eyes nearly popped from her head at the sight of her enraged prince.
Lionheart stared at her. She stared back, trembling, not knowing what he saw when he looked at her face.
“Out,” he said.
She scurried from the room as quick as a mouse.
Lionheart drew the heavy curtains shut, reducing the room to a darkness almost as complete as night with only a small fire to alleviate the gloom. He drew a chair up to it, gazing at the dancing flames as they slowly consumed the kindling and wood.
“Cowards,” he growled. Then he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, gazing still more deeply into the fire. How long he sat there he did not know, but the flames were beginning to die, leaving the room as black as pitch.
Shameful, those men. The ever-present Lady wrapped her arms around his consciousness. You should punish them. Rid yourself of those who will not serve you as they should.
“I should rid myself of those weasels,” Lionheart muttered.
You cannot afford to keep them in your service, my prince. They will only hinder your work.
“I cannot afford to keep men like those in my service.”
Rid yourself of them as soon as possible. Just as you did the girl.
Rose Red! Her face returned to his mind, twisted in terror as she crouched on the edge of the gorge. His best, his truest friend. A hindrance. But he had not killed her! He had done his best, hadn’t he?
He covered his face with both hands, drew a sharp breath, like a sob. “Get out of my head.”
Oh, my sweet prince—
“GET OUT!” He leapt to his feet, tears staining his cheeks. Without a thought, he reached into the dying fire, took up a handful of embers, uncaring how they burned his hands, and flung them into the darkest corners of the room. Anything to chase out that darkness. Anything to chase away that voice. “Get out! Go away from me!”
Silence crept in around him. And that silence spoke in the voice of the Lady.
You are nothing without me.
Lionheart collapsed to his knees, his wounded hands shaking with pain, the fingers curled. Mingled with the silence was another voice, a voice from his memory, full of fire. And from the darkness emerged a figure, black and more real than real, although it was nothing but a memory too.
“Give me her heart, Prince Lionheart, and I will let you live.”
How could he have done it? How could he have given it up so easily?
“Leave me in peace!” He pulled at his hair with his burned hands, desperate to escape the memory. But he could not. He saw himself groveling before a great black King. He saw his own hand opening, and a small opal ring dropped from his fingers. His own voice cried, “It’s yours. Take it!”
The memory faded. Lionheart stood again in the silence of his rooms. The fire had died, leaving the coldness of tombs behind. He blinked back the last of his tears and sank once more into his chair.
The voice of the Lady returned.
You did what you had to do, Lionheart.
“I did what I had to do.”
There was no other way.
“No other way.”
Now take my hand and walk with me, Prince of Southlands, and I will show you what it means to see your dreams realized.
He looked up into her eyes. They appeared before him in a flash of white, gleaming in the darkness. And her hand, blacker than the shadows in the room, extended to him.
In that moment, the Dragon died.
It was like the shifting of continents, the fall of mountains, the end of worlds. The shock of it rippled throughout the Near World and the Far, and every living thing stopped what it was doing, shivering in terror and awe at they knew not what. Fire burst in their minds, then vanished.
But where Lionheart sat in the darkness of his chambers, the fire did not vanish at once. It grabbed hold of him, plunging him into a dream.
He stands upon an abandoned street in a city he does not recognize. Before him writhes the monstrous form he knows too well, the sinuous limbs and the bat-like wings of the Dragon King. The Dragon lies in the rubble and flames he has made of the city, convulsing in death agonies. Fire rains down upon th
e world. Lionheart cries out and covers his head, but the flames and ashes fall on him without burning.
All is still for a terrible moment.
Then Lionheart whispers, “I will never fight the Dragon.”
“NO!”
The Lady’s scream blasts the already ruined city, extinguishing the flames of her counterpart. She stands before Lionheart, between him and the Dragon’s dead body. She is as tall as a tree, black as nothingness, save for her streaming white hair, which flows behind her, lashing Lionheart’s face like so many knives. He shies away from her, but she takes no notice of him. She strides through the rubble toward the corpse, wringing her hands and screaming.
“NO! You shall not have this victory!”
For a moment, Lionheart thinks she speaks to the dead Dragon. Then he sees, rising from the ashes, another form he knows: the Prince of Farthestshore.
This time it is Lionheart who screams, and he throws himself facedown upon the stones. But he cannot resist looking up again.
The Prince’s face is resplendent with an unbearable light that banishes the poison from the air. He speaks to the Lady. “Life-in-Death,” says he, “you must let him go.”
“No!” The Lady is twice the Prince’s height, and her voice is foul with hatred. “You cannot have him!”
Do they speak of the dead Dragon? But no, the Lady turns and in three strides is at Lionheart’s side. She plucks him from the stones like a helpless kitten and shakes him. “You cannot have him! He’s mine!”
The Prince steps down from the Dragon’s carcass and approaches. Lionheart is helpless in the Lady’s grasp, yet he can scarcely bear to look at the Prince. He wails and tries to cover his eyes, but his arms hang useless at his sides.
“Let him go,” says the Prince.
“I won him. We played our game, my brother and I, and I won him!”
“Let him go.”
“He is nothing without me. Nothing! If I release him, he will lose everything he holds dear. His life will be over!”
“Better that than the Life-in-Death you offer,” says the Prince. He is unarmed, but the Lady trembles as he strides ever nearer. “Let him go.”