The Ruin of Kings (A Chorus of Dragons)

by Jenn Lyons

  “Yes,” Darzin agreed. “Quite. Even I stick with dueling agreements.” He paused. “Usually.” He fetched a glass of wine from a waitress’s tray and pointed. “But look, the duel for your honor is beginning.”

  Galen watched as the two combatants finished their talk, and the Voice of the Council waved a medallion. In response, a line of golden energy etched the outlines of a door hanging in empty space, then golden light filled in the rest of the door. Jarith and Thurvishar walked through the light, which collapsed behind them.

  Galen tugged on his brother’s sleeve. “Do you see? Thurvishar doesn’t have a sword.”

  Kihrin looked at him, frowned, and narrowed his eyes at the two men inside the Arena. Jarith did have a sword—a long, curving Khorveshan blade. Thurvishar seemed to have no weapons at all.

  “Jarith couldn’t have agreed to let him use magic. He couldn’t have been that stupid…” Kihrin worried at his lower lip.

  Galen had to wonder.

  As soon as both men were through the gate the duel had technically begun. Thurvishar didn’t seem to notice this, however, and stood there, looking tall, proud, and vaguely bored.

  “You said you’d summon a weapon!” Jarith shouted. “Do so, wizard, or pick up that rusted blade sticking out of the ground behind you. I will not attack an unarmed man.”

  Thurvishar smiled. “I have already done so. It can hardly be helped if you do not recognize it.”

  “You’re starting to grate on my nerves. I’m not—” As Jarith advanced on Thurvishar, he tripped, and pitched headfirst into the grass. His sword stuck blade-down in the soft earth like many of the weapons scattered around the clearing.

  “For my weapon today, I choose … you.” Thurvishar gave that damning, maddening slow smile.

  Next to Galen, Darzin let out a low whistle, more appreciation than shock.

  “Why you—” Jarith’s foot slipped on the wet grass and he pitched backward this time, crying out as something sharp hidden in the lawn sliced across his shoulder. There was a general gasp from the crowd.

  “Luck is not solely the province of Taja,” Thurvishar said. “Luck can be manipulated. Luck can be twisted. Luck can be used as a weapon.”

  Jarith was careful not to move. “I didn’t challenge you because you said the boy was lucky, or even that he cheated. I said he—” His voice went silent.

  Galen leaned forward. “What happened? Why can’t we hear them anymore?”

  Darzin frowned. “The wizard’s blocked the sound.… Interesting.”

  Kihrin pushed himself through the crowd, ignoring Darzin’s attempt to grab him. Galen, smaller and quicker, followed easily, ducking under arms and around distracted spectators. As they reached the area where the Voice stood, Galen realized the High General was also present, a volcano in the process of continual, simmering eruption.

  The General gave both the D’Mon sons a nod of recognition as he saw them approach. The High General’s focus, however, was elsewhere. It rested on the small white-robed man, Caerowan, the D’Lorus Lord Heir, and most of all, on his only son.

  They waited as the two duelists finished their conversation and the black-robed man offered Jarith a hand up. Jarith took it, and the two of them walked, together, to the edge of the Arena. They did not require a gate to exit—simply crossing the perimeter seemed to be sufficient.

  Jarith’s expression wasn’t that of a man humiliated and defeated. He bowed to the Voice, Caerowan, and said, “By your leave, the duel is complete and all parties are satisfied.”

  “All parties are not satisfied,” said the High General.

  Jarith looked up, surprised.

  Thurvishar’s expression did not change at all.

  “This duel,” Qoran Milligreest explained, “was inappropriate and ill-advised. You are not royalty. It is not becoming to our family that you purport yourself as such.”

  Jarith blinked. “Father—”

  “General,” Milligreest corrected.

  The young man flushed red and stood straight as a rod. “Yes, General.”

  “Your assignment has been changed. You will report to Stonegate Pass for further orders, effective immediately. You are dismissed.” The General’s anger bubbled at the surface, ire burning like a great heat. He turned to Thurvishar, gave him a short, angry bow, and said, “My apologies for this unpleasantness, Lord Heir. I hope the duel was finished to your satisfaction.”

  “Oh yes,” Thurvishar said. “Now if you’ll excuse me…” He returned the bow and walked into the crowd, presumably to bask in congratulations and perhaps even order a drink.

  The High General turned to Kihrin and for a split second it seemed he would unleash a similar anger to that reserved for his son. “Kihrin.”

  Kihrin swallowed. “High General.”

  “I would say it’s good to see you again, but I don’t want to lie. May I instead say that I would take it as a kindness if you would avoid involving my family with your politics? Or better still, learn to fight your own duels.”

  Kihrin nodded, and looked in Thurvishar’s general direction. “I didn’t—yes, High General. Thank you. I’ll do that.” He turned back to Milligreest. “He was only trying to help me, you know.”

  “You may leave,” the High General said, stony once more.

  Galen saw their father and grandfather making their way over to them through the crowd. “Come on, Kihrin,” he started to say. “Kihrin? Where—?” Galen D’Mon looked around.

  Kihrin was gone.

  67: THE DESTRUCTION OF YNISTHANA

  (Kihrin’s story)

  We didn’t do anything immediately. In fact, implementing my plan took another two years. That may seem like a long time, but despite Khaemezra’s worry that I would leave the island too soon, I did see the wisdom of finishing my training. I had a lot of magic to learn from Tyentso, more sword work from Doc, and then I had to learn how to play the saymisso* from one of the local Thriss musicians.

  I needed a string instrument, you see, that was more portable than a lap harp.

  Once I was running through Doc’s lessons without any “resets,” and once Tyentso had grudgingly agreed that I had learned as much as I was probably going to learn from her given my own natural inclinations, only then did I go to Khaemezra for permission.

  To my surprise, she agreed, announcing the whole thing “inevitable.”

  So that just left the fun part.

  We picked a bright sunny morning just after a Maevanos, when it would seem normal that most of the residents of Ynisthana were out of sight, presumably sleeping off the drinking and bedding of the night before. No drakes hunted in the jungle and no fishermen were out casting their nets, but those details were easy to overlook if you happened to be a giant, self-absorbed, narcissistic dragon.

  I dressed myself in a pair of black kef and sandals, hair pulled back and tied with a length of white cloth I’d salvaged from an initiate robe. My gaesh was secured in a pocket. I wore the Stone of Shackles around my neck, shining like a piece of long-dead sky.

  I wanted there to be no question that I was wearing the damn thing.

  I left behind weapons. They would be useless anyway. The star tears of my gaesh made easy and effective talismans, sharpening my tenyé with protections from magic and fire—the latter a special spell Tyentso and I had worked out together. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t truly ward off the Old Man’s fury—I wasn’t that powerful—but I hoped the spells would buy me a few precious seconds just in case I found myself in the wrong position. The only objects I carried were my saymisso and bow, tucked under an arm.

  I walked down to the beach, which was empty of all life. I couldn’t see the Old Man, but his island was there off the coast, along with his “rock garden” of trapped singers. I counted thirty-six of them, and felt my throat constrict.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered as I sat cross-legged on the beach and rested the spike of the saymisso in the sand. “I’m so sorry.”

  I drew the bow acr
oss the strings.

  I heard a roar. Seconds later, that monstrous shape flew in from a nearby island and spread his wings to blot out the sky. Sitting there and playing that instrument instead of fleeing was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Every instinct pushed me to run screaming. I played a lullaby, keeping the bow strings stiff with my hand while I pulled a long plaintive note and let it echo in the air. Hot winds scoured passed me, but I ignored that.

  The dragon landed on his island and growled with a sound like an earthquake. He was still magnificent, terrifying, and profoundly wrong—a perversion of the natural order on a scale that was in its own way transcendent.

  “Have you decided to die? To give yourself to me? To surrender?”

  “No,” I told the dragon. “Not this time. I am curious about something. What was your price for betraying your mother? Was it jealousy? Your mother was chosen to be one of the Eight and you weren’t. Did you think you could manage things better than she did, or was your betrayal a misguided attempt to make her proud of her little boy?”

  The Old Man spread his wings and hissed, “You are a fool.”

  “I’ve been told. It’s probably even true. But a while back I snuck out while you weren’t looking and stopped by Kharas Gulgoth. Maybe you remember the place. Big city, kind of run-down, lots of magic, and a giant demon god sleeping in the center. Sound familiar?”

  “So, you do remember.” He had that lethal menace in his voice, worse than his periods of insanity.

  “No,” I admitted, “but I can read a book if I stare at it long enough. There were these drawings all over the place telling the same story again and again and again. It took me a little while, but I realized that the squiggly lines at the end weren’t rays of energy or a depiction of chaos—they were dragons.* Eight men and women who thought they could become gods became monsters instead.” I pointed a finger. “You were one of them, Sharanakal. You were human.”

  “We only wanted to balance the inequity of power, knowing it was only a matter of time before the Eight Guardians became corrupted. Those idiots had chosen warriors, soldiers, healers—the carrion crows of the battlefield. People who blindly followed orders, people they could control, to give unto them power unrivaled.” The dragon stood, far too large for the island on which he perched. He rose upon his haunches and roared to the heavens, the thunder in his voice trembling the ocean and the rocks and bringing every bit of animal noise on the island to a complete halt. The dragon’s black serpentine head whipped back to stare at me with volcanic eyes.

  “Sounds like you had good intentions. Sounds like it wasn’t really your fault.”

  “No. It was your fault. YOU!” His head snapped forward, lunging toward me. “You. You were a naïve trusting FOOL. How could you believe his lies?”

  I had expected this response, anticipating it. That didn’t mean it was an easy thing to endure. “It was Relos Var’s fault,” I corrected, taking a deep breath to keep myself from running as that head dove for me.

  He stopped very close—close enough that he had broken Khaemezra’s commands and trespassed onto the island proper, close enough that I felt my fire protections kick in to keep me from being scorched. I couldn’t look him in both eyes, but had to stare in one only, where I watched as the heart of a thousand fires raged.

  “We, who were pure, thought our purity would bring resistance to evil. But this is foolishness, for the soldier understands that purity is impossible, that evil cannot be destroyed, only tempered and channeled. The soldier knows he is a tool, and will not suffer to be wielded by his enemies. We, in our arrogance, thought we were above such usage. Hubris!”

  “Relos Var created the ritual,” I said. “Relos Var was the one who convinced you that they’d made a mistake when they chose eight other people to fight the demons instead of you. It should have been you from the start, right? You thought you’d become a god, but Relos Var turned you into a monster. You blame me, but he lied to me too. He used us both. You and I are alike. We’re both victims.”

  That eye widened. “We’re not alike. You are far worse than my own cursed existence. You are Vol Karoth’s Cornerstone,* the shell left behind from that rivening, a great unending hunger that can never be filled, that will devour and devour as a star that collapses under its own weight eats without ever being sated. You are the only piece of his soul left, and when he wakes, he will reclaim you. Let me save you. In my garden, you will be spared that fate.”

  I shuddered. I didn’t dare take too long to contemplate what he was saying. I might start screaming. “That’s kind of you, but I’m going to have to refuse your generous offer. But don’t think I’m not appreciative. In fact, I wrote a song for you. Would you like to hear me play it?”

  The Old Man folded back his wings and regarded me for a long, slow, silent moment. I actually worried he might say no or fly away.

  “Yes.”

  I exhaled with relief. “That’s what I hoped you’d say.”

  I bent my head down and drew the bow over the strings. The song itself was a wordless overtone, low and droning, and the musical accompaniment wove its way around it in high arches and long, flowing sustained notes. It didn’t take very long before the Old Man ordered his garden to begin singing accompaniment.

  It was beautiful. I can’t deny it was beautiful.

  I lengthened the notes, let them build. What I didn’t think the Old Man could tell was that it wasn’t purely musical talent. I wasn’t just playing music.

  I was casting a spell.

  It had taken months of work to figure out how. Tyentso didn’t think a spell like this had ever existed before. We had practiced by using the temple gate to sneak off the island, never for more than an hour at a time, while I practiced against every kind of rock I could find—until I had found a type of onyx that was the perfect match.

  The garden statues sang so melodically I think they could tell what was about to happen and welcomed it. Underneath the intertwined notes, a deeper resonance began to vibrate. Sand danced in circles away from me. Ocean waves lost their rhythm and collapsed. I built up the sound, note by note, and the dragon’s aura of cacophony wasn’t enough to stop the relentless vibration, a pattern that I built and stacked higher with every note—

  The harmony cut off sharply as the garden statues cracked and crumbled to chunks of rock no bigger than my fist.

  Thirty-six trapped men and women died in an instant, free at last to return to the Afterlife. I felt guilt—even at that moment I felt guilt. It was impossible to truly know for sure if it was the fate they would have wanted. If they would have chosen death and later rebirth over an endless immortal prison trapped in stone.

  All I knew for certain was that it’s what I would have wanted. I wondered if Elana Milligreest, who had freed me from my prison inside Vol Karoth in another lifetime, had questioned if she was doing the right thing too.

  I wished I could meet her just once, to tell her that she had.

  In that same moment, the Old Man became a statue himself, temporarily frozen by his own outrage.

  I was already running.

  The roar that rose on the air behind me made the ground shake so hard I was thrown off my feet. A great rumbling echoed, and over my head, the mountain at the center of Ynisthana erupted in a giant cloud of smoke, ash, and lava bombs.

  “How dare you!” the Old Man screamed. “The mountain will bury you in lava, the molten rocks will be your tomb. You will spend eternity screaming in despair and pain. You will never know peace.”

  Now that’s a standing ovation, I thought as I picked myself up and kept running.

  I was halfway up the slope when a large crack opened in the ground in front of me. Lava fountained into the air, a wall of fire threatening to burn me to ash.

  “Kihrin!” Teraeth tackled me and pushed me to the ground as one of the lava bombs came uncomfortably close to finalizing our plans in an unexpected way. The threat was real; the Stone of Shackles felt like fire at my throat,
as it prepared to keep me alive at any cost. There was no one, after all, who was directly responsible for my impending demise.

  That’s not what the Old Man saw, however.

  “NO!” the Old Man screamed.

  What the dragon saw was Teraeth tackling me to avoid the lava bomb. Because of that tackle, the Old Man saw me trip and fall, stumbling toward the just-opened crack. I tried to grab the edge, but screamed as my hand met volcanic rock hot enough to sear flesh from bone. I fell. Likely I’d have impacted on the surface of the lava and burned to death, but the eruption was still in progress. My screams were cut short as my body was churned under in the lava fountain.

  Teraeth, for his part, staggered—exactly as you might expect for someone who had just been possessed by the soul of the man he had accidentally killed. He put his hand to his chest, but found only that black arrowhead necklace, and no sign of the Stone of Shackles. Teraeth stared horrified at his hands, looked at his body, disbelief evident on his expression.

  “I am not that dramatic,” I protested.

  “Shhh,” Teraeth told me. “And yes, you are.”

  We needed to keep low. The air was growing hard to breathe, and gods help us if a mudslide or ash flow decided to make its way down the mountain.

  We watched as the illusionary Teraeth turned to run just as an equally illusionary river of burning cinders came streaming down the mountain. He was engulfed in but an instant, and this time, without air to breathe or the Stone of Shackles to keep him alive, the result seemed sadly all too predictable. Kihrin, now Teraeth, would burn to cinder, choke on ash, and die quickly and painfully.

  “Damn you, fool.” The dragon’s voice was so loud I could still hear it over the eruption. “Come back here and let me save you.”

  “That’s our cue,” I said, grabbing Teraeth’s hand. “Come on.”

  The dragon started ripping into the mountainside not far from us, no doubt trying to recover and save a nonexistent illusion of Teraeth. Since the mountain really was erupting, it wasn’t long before he was tearing huge gouges of molten rock out with his claws, scattering them all around. Tears of lava ran down his face, making it seem like the Old Man was crying.