It was to this place of dark secrets that the dragon went first, boring up through the earth quietly, drawing the lore of it into herself. Her innate sense led the way as unerringly as a beacon, guiding her from far away to this place she had once made a lair of a sort, a hiding place of privacy and seclusion within the mountains she had once ruled. Her hated husband had given her this place, had made it for her, in fact, but she did not remember those things, only that it had once been hers, and that she had been betrayed there.
And more—she could hear the echoes of her name in the underground grotto, could sense it whistling in the wind of the guardian rocks above, trapped in endless circles, repeated over and over in an eternal howl of despair.
Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnwwwwwyyyyyyyynnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!
Now that she was finally here, in the place where the name had been uttered, she could feel the hatred, the betrayal, and the grim memory of pleasure long ago tasted in revenge. Whatever she had done to inspire that scream had a sweet flavor; it must have been a delicious payback, though she did not recall what it was.
As she waited beneath the grotto, savoring her return to this place, another taste came into her mouth, bitter this time. It was akin to the smell of another woman’s perfume on the bedsheets, or a foreign taste on a lover’s lips. At first the dragon was repulsed, spat in a vain attempt to clear the lore from her mouth, but eventually her compromised understanding recognized it for what it was.
This place above her, the lake and the gardens, the island and the cottage, belonged, in every possible way, to someone else now.
At the precise moment that her mind grasped that concept, it realized another as well: the person who supplanted her in this place, who had torn the lore away from her, knowingly or otherwise, who had taken away her dominion, was the woman whose misty face and green eyes haunted her waking dreams.
As the fury rose, a calming reassurance took hold, staying the response.
Because the dragon knew in that place she could smell the scent of the woman she despised, could drink in her essence, absorb it into her skin, into herself.
And thereby track that woman until she found her.
The wyrm did not feel the need to know the reason for her hatred, had no urge to understand her desire for revenge. She was still barely cognizant of anything, had lost the planes and angles and strata of consciousness, still was not reasoning or making the connections between thought and action. She knew only two things beyond doubt—that she had an endless well of acidic anger within her soul, and that venting it in destruction eased the pain somewhat.
I seek relief, she told herself as she slid along the underground spring that fed the lake, feeling the water recognize her and welcome her to this place again. Surely there can be no reproach for that.
Up from the bedrock at the lake bottom she emerged, swallowing the last of the earth’s lore like a breath to be held beneath the water. Up she spiraled, from the endless darkness of the earth toward the muted light above the lake’s surface, swimming with all the speed her anger could generate.
Past startled fish that dwelt in the depths, skittering away in terrified schools, by whisper-thin formations of crystal stalactites that rose up in great cathedral arches of brilliant color, unseen in the underground grotto, the dragon sped forward, finally bursting forth from the water onto the rocky shore of the tiny island in the center of the dark lake.
She lay for a moment, gathering her breath, then lifted her head and gazed at the place she had heard her name being called.
The long-ago scream actually had its genesis in the world above this place, this deep grotto; she could hear it wailing high up through the rock, dancing angrily on the wind that whipped through the circle rocks of Kraldurge. But there was enough memory latent here, below where it had happened, to warrant her notice.
The dragon crawled away from the bank, pulling the last part of herself from the water; water tended to mask vibrations, especially old ones, or distort them, and she wanted whatever she discovered here to be absolutely clear. How she knew this she was uncertain, but she didn’t care.
Because her sensitive nostrils had already caught the woman’s scent.
The dragon’s piercing blue eyes scanned the dark island.
In the center of it stood a small cottage, surrounded by gardens deep in winter’s sleep that had not been tended for a few years, with a tiny orchard behind it, beneath an opening in the firmament that otherwise covered the grotto. The wyrm’s dragon sense made note of the contents of the cottage—a kitchen with no stores but dried herbs and spices, a bathroom with a tub whose pipes drew water from the lake and drained it into the gardens, a drawing room with a cherrywood cabinet lined in cork and filled with musical instruments. One bedchamber contained a tower with a windowseat, the other a large closet filled with rich court dresses and linen gowns, along with an array of jewels to match them.
Ah, so you are a musician, are you, m’lady? And a pampered collector of clothing as well, the dragon mused, until a moment’s reflection yielded notice of one other item in the closet. It was an infant’s garment, a gown of some sort, ancient and delicately embroidered in every color of the rainbow. I recall this garment, the dragon thought, but the space it occupied in her memory was otherwise blank.
The goodwill in the place was extant in the air; there was an unmistakable happiness in the place, something the dragon found both foreign and appalling, as if someone had taken what had once been her warm, dark lair, beautiful in its starkness, and whitewashed it with cheery paint and pretty, vapid flowers.
And, in doing so, had given it a sheen that had not been present before, had made it a home and a sanctuary, a place of refuge. There was a deeper entity here than that; the dragon could feel it, but did not understand it. Love was something she had never recognized, even when in human form, and even when she had it.
Done with her assessment of the cottage, the wyrm turned to examining the gardens. In the center of the long-dead flower beds, near an arbor of roses given over to growing wild, stood a stone gazebo, hexagonal in shape, with two stone benches entwined as if they were lover’s seats.
In the corner of that gazebo stood a broken birdcage fashioned of pure gold, smashed beyond repair, its door gone.
The dragon’s sense honed in immediately on that cage; within it she sensed not only great power, but also her own fear, old fear, mixed with pain and anger.
The side of her gigantic face tingled; unconsciously she lifted a claw to rest on it, to cool the sting of the memory.
It had been a grievous blow.
And it had happened here, in this place. In this gazebo, near this birdcage.
Why? the beast screamed internally. Why can’t I remember?
The rage returned, flooding through her veins like acid. As the fury built, she struggled to subsume the lore, to take back what had been stolen from her, but the land would not yield its lore to her.
Never one to be denied anything, the dragon struggled again, calling in her blood to the place that she knew had once belonged to her, but nothing answered her call, not the gardens nor the cottage, not the lake nor the crystalline formations in the purple caves beyond and beneath it. Not even the hexagonal gazebo, where her fragmented memory told her she had once been so greatly wronged that the entire world had suffered, would acknowledge her.
She did not know the reason, and would have been even more furious if she had—that the man who had taken the crown of Firbolg king, the warlord who had won rightful dominion over the lands of the Teeth, had given this place, in word and lawful deed, to the woman she considered her life’s enemy.
It did not matter anyway.
Hatred, caustic and corrosive, rose up from the depths of her soulless being, and vented itself in acid fire.
First the gazebo; she blasted her fiery breath through its stone walls until the birdcage had melted into a pool of golden slag. Then she turned her anger around the rest of the place, torching the gardens a
nd the orchard, which vanished quickly in a billowing cloud of orange and black smoke, finally turning to the house. There was a grim satisfaction in its destruction, like the ripping of old love letters from an adulterous liaison; the thatched roof ignited quickly, immolating the lovingly restored bedchamber, the rich gowns, the carefully closeted musical instruments—destroying, with blast after blast of brimstone flame, every trace of the woman who had supplanted her here.
When the entire island was engulfed, the smoke and ash forming a dizzying cloud of black over the dark lake, the dragon surveyed her handiwork.
It’s a beginning, she thought, still unsatisfied. But only a beginning. Now I need to know her name, and where she is. But the dragon knew those things were not to be found in this place; she sensed the woman she sought was a creature of starlight and air, not of earth.
And needed to be sought in the upworld, the world above.
The wyrm reached down into the depths of herself, to the elemental earth, and once again, like a desert drawing in the water from an entire rainstorm and still not being quenched, still remaining deathly dry, she turned away from the burning island and sped across the surface of the dark lake, up into the windy meadow where the sound of her name rang ceaselessly around the mountains, and past the guardian rocks of Kraldurge.
Into the realm of the Firbolg.
36
THE DRAGON’S LAIR, GWYNWOOD
“What do you mean?” Ashe demanded shakily, the multiple tones of his draconic voice gone, replaced by a very human one that echoed off the walls of the cave mouth.
Without a word, the Bolg midwife turned and descended into the cave.
Numbly Ashe followed Krinsel down into the belly of the dragon’s lair.
The glow emanating from the treasure horde of the lost sea was tinged with the color of blood. He could hear his wife weeping, her voice shuddering as if she were trying to still the lament but failing. The sound caused his feet to gain speed; he shouldered past Krinsel and ran to the bottom of the cave, calling her name. The sight stopped him in his tracks.
The great ethereal beast was cradling his wife in the crook of her arm, gently brushing the sweaty locks of hair from Rhapsody’s face with her claw. That face was contorted in pain, white with fear, but there was more; it was pale as milk and her lips were colorless.
She lay on her side, her eyes open and glassy, a river of blood staining her clothes and pooling on the ground before her, growing larger before his eyes.
“The waters have broken, but the baby is not coming,” Elynsynos said softly. “And it is so tiny.” He heard her voice in his ear, where she had caused it to originate so as not to frighten Rhapsody further.
“Sam,” Rhapsody whispered. Her voice was dry and weak.
He knelt before her and cradled her face in his hands, smiling falsely to encourage her. Then he glanced at the two Bolg. Krinsel’s face was pensive and stoic, as was Achmed’s, but the Bolg king’s normally swarthy skin was dusky with sweat in the reflected light of the cave.
“It’s too soon,” Rhapsody said softly. “Not even three seasons—”
“We don’t know that,” Ashe said soothingly.
“Your mother—carried you—three years—”
“Who can say?” The Lord Cymrian looked into the prismatic eyes of the dragon, which glistened with unspent tears. “How long was it for you, Elynsynos? How long did you carry my grandmother and her sisters?”
The wyrm shook her massive head. “More than a year’s time,” she said.
Desperately Ashe thought back to the words of the Seer. Rhapsody will not die bearing your children, Manwyn had said smugly. He had puzzled endlessly, trying to invent some way in his mind that the words could be twisted, as the Oracle had a way of doing, but had finally determined the statement to be unequivocal.
Then a terrifying thought came to him. Perhaps the Seer did have a cruel way out, a way that would defy the implication of the prophecy while still being accurate.
Perhaps it was meant to end like this, with the child dying inside her, before it was born.
In his head he could hear his father’s voice.
Beware of prophecies, Llauron had said. They are not always as they seem to be. The value of seeing the Future is often not worth the price of the misdirection. Ashe cursed himself silently, having to acknowledge that his father might have been right.
“Help me,” he said to Achmed as he stripped off his cloak and tucked it around her. “You are the Child of Blood, are you not? Can you not stop her bleeding, at least?”
Achmed shook his head. “I don’t know how,” he said sullenly. “I have used my blood lore as a trained killer, not a healer.”
In the darklight of the cave, the beast’s head inclined slightly, causing all random noise to still. “If you have an elemental lore, you should be able to make use of both aspects of it,” the harmonic voice said. “Blood is an element, though not a primordial one. If you know how to let blood, you should be able to save it as well.”
Achmed stood still, but his dusky face grew more ashen. “I do not,” he repeated.
The iridescent eyes of the dragon narrowed in a solemnity that was unmistakable, and the artificial voice in which she spoke, fashioned from twisting the lore of wind, was soft with import.
“Hear me, Bolg king,” Elynsynos said. “Close your eyes, and listen to no sound but that of my words, and I will tell you how to use your lore to bind up the blood of mortal wounds, rather than spilling it.”
For a moment Achmed stood, rigid with indecision, in the quiet of the cave as Rhapsody’s lifeblood pooled at his feet. Then reluctantly he knelt beside her.
“Tell me,” he said tersely.
“All of the universe, Bolg king, is either Life, or it is Void. It is these two opposing forces that are forever at war, not good and evil, as man believes. Something is either creative, or it is destructive. And in each life, there is both creation and destruction.” The wyrm’s words grew warmer, as if the heat of the fire lore to which she was tied, along with that of all the other elements, was rising in her voice. “Those that are born with the gift of Liseleut, the color of red, are tied inexorably to blood, the river of life that runs through all creatures. If they invoke it in the name of force of Void, of murder, destruction, they are Blood-Letters, natural assassins, killers, as well as those who bring death respectfully when it is needed.
“But if that blood lore is invoked in the name of creation—with love—then it is a healing force. You and Pretty share the same connection to blood in many ways, but you have chosen to use your gift to spill it, often in the course of protecting what you believe to be right, while she struggles to contain it for the same reason. As a Namer she can heal, but she does not have the gift of Lisele-ut, nor do I; dragons are tied only to the five primordial elements. You alone are blessed, or cursed, with it, the natural tie to blood. It is not skill you need to save her, Bolg king—it is a reason. If you care for her, direct your tie to blood to heal instead of kill. The blood will obey you, as it has done countless times in the past. If your intent is to save, to heal, then that is what will happen.”
“She and I have not exactly been on the best of terms,” Achmed muttered.
“Your arguments, and the state of your friendship, do not matter now. All that matters is that you wish to aid her. If you do, then address the bleeding. If you do not, you should leave now.” A puff of acrid steam issued forth from the beast’s nostrils, a hint of menace in its odor.
Achmed stared at the growing red stain on Rhapsody’s garments, then stiffly removed the glove from one of his hands and let it come to rest on her abdomen near Ashe’s.
His mind wandered back, unbidden, to the tower rooms of the monastery in which he had trained. Achmed shook his head sharply, violently, as if to snap away the memory.
A shame you chose to leave the study of healing behind for another profession, Jal’asee had said. Your mentor had great faith in your abilities. You would ha
ve been a credit to Quieth Keep, perhaps one of the best ever to school there.
A hollow sting filled his ears at the recollection of his reply.
Then I would be as dead as the rest of the innocents you lured to that place. You and I do not have the same definition of what constitutes “a shame.”
Warmth crept through him, followed immediately by the chill and the flinching pain of recall, as he thought of a particular one of those innocents.
Beneath the sodden fabric of Rhapsody’s clothing, her belly moved, fluttering, then stretching, then subsiding immediately.
Achmed recoiled, his arm drawing back with a jerk.
The child within her was kicking, its effort listless.
Rhapsody moaned, and her eyelids flickered.
“I—this is not the first time I have attempted such a use of lore,” the Bolg king said haltingly. “The outcome was not good the last time.”
Elynsynos eyed him, the multicolored irises gleaming in the partial light of the cave.
“This time you have incentive, Bolg king,” the dragon said. “This time you are trying to stanch the blood of one of the only people you care for.”
Achmed snorted, but internally the irony was almost more than he could keep from giving voice to.
Now I see where Ashe comes by some of his most irritating traits, he thought as he rolled the sleeves of his shirt back to the elbows, revealing arms scored with surface veins. Dragons. They speak as if they are in sole possession of the world’s wisdom, when in truth they know nothing. Come to think of it, priests and academicians must be part dragon, also.
His irritation cooled upon touching Rhapsody again. The warmth in her body was fading quickly, ebbing with each heartbeat, as if she were expelling her life force with each exhalation of breath. Guilt, a sensation he did not normally experience, clutched at the outer recesses of his mind, then wound quickly through his viscera. It seemed impossible to believe that their argument had caused this, but perhaps it had.