Black Dragon of Amber Book Two: The Road to Amber

by Barbara Bretana

Black Dragon of Amber

  Book Two: The Road to Amber

  Copyright 2015 by Barbara Bretana

  Dedication:

  For my four legged friends who mean more to me than most people. My life has been saner and kinder because you were in it.

  For my brothers Michael, Mark, Christopher and Charlie and of course, you, Chris. And for you, Lindsay because I said I would make you a Princess.

  O to be a dragon,

  A symbol of the power of Heaven-of silkworm

  Size or immense; at times invisible.

  Felicitous phenomenon!

  O To Be a Dragon, Marianne Moore

  Lift up the heart of a true friend by writing his name on the wings of a dragon.

  Chinese Proverb

  Never laugh at LIVE dragons.

  J.R.R. Tolkien

  Go and catch a falling Star;

  And bend it with a swimmer’s fears.

  The Star that grows on sinking sands

  The Star that swims beneath the tears.

  Catch the one that floats afar,

  And bind it with the Star that lands

  Beneath the Seven Stars that dance.

  Dance the Seven Sisters in the skies

  Raise the mountains laid to rest,

  All the stars are now just one;

  Between the Scarlet Queen and None.

  Upon the wing the black bird flies

  To bring the dragons back he must

  Before the sun sets and the fire dies,

  He rules the Pride, his will be done.

  Dragons fly with fearsome grace.

  Fly, winged beast of Ancient flame

  With grace and beauty through the skies.

  Jeweled scales that burn with fame,

  Rulers of the Heavens as your world dies,

  With tooth and claw and fired death,

  Till the hero comes and lays to rest

  Your awesome power with his blessed breath.

  Dragon Prince, my promise this;

  Commanded by Star Stone and eye

  The Dragons home where none may bide

  But Dragons and their very Pride.

  So vows the Dragon Prince and his.

  The Riddle of the Seven Stars.

  Chapter 1

  The Borders of Amber were secured; after an entire morning of following her boundaries on lofty thermals, I returned to the Castle. Seen from above, it resembled a five pointed star and pentagram. My keen dragon eye could even discern the fluttering of her pennants that announced King Random; two of the Princes and my father were in residence. I sighed, (which in a forty-foot dragon came out as a belch of near flames) and spiraled in to land gently on the rooftops.

  Somewhere inside, it rang a special bell activated by a sensor plate that let the guards know that it was me and not some other fiercesome creature come to wreak havoc on the realm. There were no others, not in all the Shadows or any of the accumulated wisdom of my uncles and aunts could recount of another dragon.

  I hadn’t always been a dragon. Once, I had been a teenage boy. Not a normal one but then, are any teenagers ever considered normal?

  I grew up on the run, homeless, with an Irish gargoyle for a caretaker and friend. Part mother, part bodyguard, he saved me from many situations that I couldn’t have dealt with myself. I had a human body once. But it was taken from me. Taken until I offered it up as a sacrifice to save my father and granduncle’s realms.

  I died there. In the castle of Amber. But it seems, not totally. I woke up in this black scaled, diamond hard rad body of a real fire-breathing dragon.

  “Oh stop admiring yourself,” Ghostwheel sneered. I turned my head around to stare at the glowing manifestation of the intelligent artificial computer mind that my Dad had created when he lived on Earth. My Dad? He was the king, great lord, ruler of the Courts of Chaos. Sort of like the opposite end of Amber. Where she was order and light, Chaos was Entropy and well, Chaos.

  I was stuck with Ghost because he, it was the only thing that could hear me. I hated the three-way communication but it was all I had.

  “Go turn into spare toaster parts,” I told it and sulked. I was hungry, too. I’d seen fat cattle grazing below but because I’d promised the King I wouldn’t take from his subjects, I’d not eaten. Later, I’d have to make a special foray out for a deer or two dozen. It took a lot of fuel to keep the Dragon furnace going.

  I smelled human. Whipped my head around and watched Roelle and Marcus trying to sneak up on my blind side.

  “Darn it,” she said. “How can you see us?” I blew a sulfur-scented snort that lifted her skirts and hair. I eyed her with pleasure and ignored that my air had blown near half of Marcus naked. “Raven!” She shouted. “You did that on purpose!”

  Not that I hadn’t seen Roelle naked before but it was always an enjoyable sight. I wasn’t likely to have sex anytime in the near millennium. Neither human nor Dragon. I wasn’t even sure how a dragon had sex.

  Wheel buzzed me. It was like an electric shock–less than a Taser but more than an electric fence. Annoying more than painful. I swept my tail around and whacked him. Sent him flying off the roof and out into the blue sky. I hoped he went far enough to land in the sea. Roelle climbed on my shoulders and held my head spikes, lifting my head up so that we could see over the entire realm. Of course, I could see much further than she could even with one eye.

  Marcus sat near my hind leg and the heat of his body felt odd–almost mystical. He was the main chef’s son and was always underfoot in the Palace. At one time, we’d thought he was going to be a soldier but the war changed that idea. Instead, he studied magic tomes and was learning to be a magister. Not a magician, those were the silly dudes that did card tricks and pulled rabbits out of hats.

  He smelled odd. Meaty. Powerful. I took a deep smell and started drooling. He made a disgusted sound and pulled out a bag that smelled of beef and pork. “Here. I brought you the parts of today’s dinner.”

  I swallowed the tempting morsel bag and all. Both of them watched me expectantly. The flavors hit my stomach in a burst of heat that spread all the way to my toes. Roelle and Marcus jumped off me and stood back.

  I shivered. Shook. Opened and closed my wings. Thumped my barbless tail on the roof regardless of the damage to the ceilings inside. Howled. Screamed at them and fell over. My head rose on its ten-foot neck to thump on the stones twice before I subsided. A ripple of magic flowed over me.

  I felt Roelle’s hand near my heart. Her touch was exquisite agony. “Raven? Oh gods, Marcus! What did you do? Is he alive?”

  “Yeah, Marcus,” I grunted. “What did you do to me? Did you poison me? Do you want Roelle so much you would kill me to take her? Like I’m really a threat to any male out there in this form. Like I could collect girls and put them in with my rock collection?” Two stunned faces stared at me. “What?” I sputtered. “You try to kill me and I’m the villain?”

  “Raven, it worked!” Marcus shouted and grabbed my face. By the horns. I blinked and nearly pulled him off his feet.

  “What worked?”

  “The spell! The magicked beef hearts!”

  I shut my mouth when I realized he’d heard me. Stupidly, I said, “you can hear me?”

  “Yes, yes, you idiot!” He yelled. “But turn it down. You’re loud enough for the dungeon dwellers to hear you.”

  “We have people in the dungeons?” I cocked my one eye on the stairwell to observe a battalion of Black Dragon Guards running onto the roof in full battle gear. Impressive, it took only four minutes for them to kit up and run up five flights. King Random and his general were with them as well as my g
randfather, Corwin.

  “What the hell’s going on, Marcus? The roof collapsed in over twenty rooms! Several people are hurt! Raven, is he okay?” They ranged around me, hands on their weapons. I was slightly pissed at the show of mistrust. After all, they’d been named for me.

  “I fell off my perch,” I said in a whisper. At least for me it was a whisper. Everyone took two steps back as my voice boomed. Hey, it even sounded like me.

  “Marcus, what have you done? Where’s Ghost?” The King demanded. His red hair and blue eyes were fairly crackling with intensity.

  “Sorry, my Liege,” I said sincerely. “No one was seriously hurt?”

  “No. Scrapes and bruises. I fell off the…commode and bruised my–,” he stopped. “Marcus?”

  He dipped his knee. “I found an old, really old treatise Melangine brought back from Khafra and found a reference to a spell that made dumb beasts speak with the tongue of man. No offense Raven, so I tried it out.”

  “On anything other than Raven?” Random asked.

  “Well, no. It was good only for one shot,” he explained. “It needed the blood of a gargoyle and a harpy. I only had enough for one dose.”

  “How long does it last?” I butted in.

  He shrugged. “Didn’t say. But Raven, it hints at other things.”

  I opened my eye wide and then my mouth. “Tell me.” He swallowed. Although I had never hurt him, the size of my cavernous mouth, forked tongue and dagger-like teeth made him nervous.

  “It speaks of turning creatures into men.” There was silence and then an excited babble of voices. Of course, I could shout all of them down at once.

  “Like what?” I asked over them.

  “A shadow realm only hinted of where you can become human again,” Marcus whispered staring everywhere but at me. I swallowed and felt ashamed that I had accused him of trying to kill me so he could have Roelle to himself. “I want you to have every chance of becoming human, Raven,” he continued.

  Random laid his hand on Marcus’ shoulder. “Marcus, show me this text. Raven, the stable master has two steer set aside for your breakfast. Murphy has patrol duty so you can relax. Don’t go anywhere.”

  My grandfather added his own admonitions and the entire troop left the same way they’d arrived only without the urgency.

  With equal parts of hope and dread in my heart, I leaped off the parapet to land neatly in the stable yard where two fat cows were eating hay.

  I used to be squeamish about killing them but now, I merely bit off their heads and swallowed the rest daintily. Sated, I spent the rest of the day perched on the headlands of Kolvir.

  Chapter 2

  Somehow, I squeezed into the somewhat large tower room in the East pentacle. I had to be careful where I planted my rear feet and front legs, as there wasn’t much room left for Roelle and Marcus. It’d been a major feat to sneak around and join the pair without Random or the rest of the castle knowing.

  Random and Corwin knew something was up, he had set a new pair of guardsmen on my tail and it wasn’t until I flew off in a huff that I was alone. For five minutes. Then both Ghostwheel and Murphy attached themselves to me. I only succeeded in escaping them by hiding under the waters of the sea until nightfall, coming out at dark and then sneaking up the backside of Kolvir using my talons and tail to climb. I didn’t like to fly at night, as that was when the enchantment that let my Dragon body survive was the weakest. I had to fight the constant urge to coil up and sleep. Plus, my blind eye made seeing difficult as I had lost almost all depth perception. Marcus helped once I was out on the ramparts of Kolvir; he placed a minor spell on me that made me a shadow that only a first rate magister could see. Roelle was with him and helped drape a gray cloth around me that he explained muffled the noise and smell of me.

  “I don’t smell,” I protested offended and he shook his head.

  “Well, Raven, you don’t stink but you do smell a great deal like smoke and sulfur.”

  “Especially after you snort,” Roelle said helpfully. “And you do smell like rotten eggs,” she added.

  Sulking, I let them push me into the room and Marcus had one more surprise for me. As I stepped over the threshold, sparkles of blue dust covered me, tingled and abruptly, they became as large as giants. I blinked. They grew in size but the room remained the same.

  “I shrank you, Raven,” he grinned and Roelle carefully cradled me in her hands. My voice squeaked were once it’d boomed.

  “Can you still hear me? Is this permanent? I’m not much threat to anyone like this. Except maybe a mouse.”

  “It’s only temporary,” Marcus assured me. “You’ll revert as soon as you speak the phrase ‘gigantum alternus’. But don’t say it in here or you’ll blow the walls apart. This way, we can smuggle you out of here.”

  “Smuggle me where?” I asked.

  “Khafra.”

  “Khafra? We’re almost at war with Khafra!” My squeak was nearly a Dragon shriek.

  “Quiet, Raven,” he hushed and slammed the room’s oak door. “Why don’t you tell the King, the Castle and the Realm of Amber what we’re planning?” Huffing, he went to the corner cabinet in the austere tower and pulled out a wizard’s safe. Its enchanted gargoyle locks opened to his password but not before trying to bite him. Inside, was a thin pamphlet made of Griffin hide, bound by silver wire and written in the blood of elves. Only a few spells were legible although my Dragon sight and knowledge knew more than he’d deciphered. The pages gave off an aura that was…unsettling, almost evil. It had the stench of Chaos and the Logrus, of old power best left forgotten.

  Marcus turned the page towards the middle of the book and pointed out the complicated spell. From what I could read, I picked up the words ‘body’, ‘receptacle, sacrifice and replace’.

  “Marcus, it calls for a sacrifice. I won’t take another’s life to gain back my own.”

  “You can read this?” He returned.

  “Better than you can.” I perused the texts and was able to pull out the general meaning. It was a recipe for disaster but it also gave me a glimmer of hope.

  Just when we were settling down, someone’s heavy hand knocked at the open door in a manner that would not be denied. Roelle scooped me up and tossed me into her waist pouch where I clung screeching a shrill protest. There were all sorts of odd bits and pieces in there, some of which were squishy and gross. She thumped me through the cloth and I grumbled in protest but quieted so I could eavesdrop.

  “Have either of you seen Raven?” The familiar voice of my head keeper demanded. Rinlon Preel, the soldier who had served my former master Jurt. Jurt, my father’s half-brother and Random’s enemy. Rinlon had saved my life and stood just outside the tower room in his 6 feet of unbridgeable sense of duty.

  “I saw him, flying around here yesterday and the king said he was in cahoots with you.”

  “Cahoots?” Marcus hooted. “I’ve been up here studying my homework with Roelle.”

  Rinlon must have pushed his way inside; his voice was suddenly much closer and louder. “King Random has a very important mission for him and after he’s through with that, Prince Corwin needs him. Where has he gone? Do you know?”

  I could feel Roelle shaking her head. Marcus said, “I think he was hungry. He said something about going hunting.”

  “He said?” Rinlon asked. I chewed a hole in her bag so I could see.

  “Haven’t you heard? Marcus found a way to let us speak directly to Raven and he can speak to us,” Roelle said happily. Inside her pouch, I mumbled to myself. Rinlon’s sharp ears heard me.

  “What was that?” He barked. He ran to the window and looked out expecting to see me flapping my wings or hanging off the roof. “Raven! If you’re here, the King wants you in the courtyard immediately!” He waited and snorted. “I know you three are up to something. I can feel it in my bones. Marcus, Roelle, the boy’s seen enough unhappiness and hardship to last 3 lifetimes. Don’t entice him into anymore.”

  I pinched Ro
elle’s fingers. Dragon snouts were very beaklike and in my miniature size, I was quite capable of inflicting a painful pinch.

  “Ouch!” Roelle cried and slapped the bag, knocking me into a glass vial of something stinky like toadswort. It made me dizzy.

  “Peww,” Rinlon gagged. “What is that? Goblin farts?”

  “Toadswort for mothballs,” she answered sucking her finger. “It does reek. I better go dump out my bag.” She leaned out the window that was over the head of the cliffs and emptied the bag, me included. I zipped off in circles as if I was drunk although that was another cool thing about Dragons–we could drink whole hogsheads and not get drunk.

  Rinlon chased them all out of the tower and I followed at a discreet distance. No one screamed or pointed at me. If they did see me, they assumed I was a bird. I confess it was easier to maneuver my way to the palace and I could go places I hadn’t been able to before.

  Zipping down the main corridor, I just missed flying up my grandfather’s tail. He whipped around, his hand on his sword, Grayswandir. He looked menacing, not the handsome laid-back Prince I knew not so well.

  “Who’s there?” He announced and tingles of magic lifted my wings. I hovered silently in the shadows over his head. “Damn,” he muttered. “I’m feeling Shadows.” He shoved Grayswandir back into its scabbard and departed towards his rooms. I continued towards Roelle’s room.

  She had a small suite of rooms off the Queen’s, as she was one of Vialle’s ladies-in-waiting. Born and raised in Rebma, Amber sister city under the ocean, Vialle’s suite had a decided aquatic theme. Pale green and turquoise, restful and calm, Roelle’s was quite nicely done to complement the Queen’s.

  I made entry through the transom window and perched on the canopy top of the huge bed covered in a quilt of scarlet and gold dragons. In fact, the entire room had a dragon motif except for the portraits of Random, Vialle and Roelle’s parents, the Baron and Baroness of Loest. Even stranger, a half-finished portrait was on an easel next to the balcony doors and covered with a sheet.

  Curious, I flew over and tugged at it. With my mouth agape, I stared at a portrait of me, half-human, half Dragon in a setting as if I were a knight saving a damsel.

  The door slammed and Roelle yelled at me. Startled, I let go and nearly tumbled to the floor. She swatted at me with her empty bag. I was curiously agile but furiously defensive, protesting all the way, as I dodged her increasingly accurate swipes. She connected and slung shot me across the room to bounce off her mirror. Cracking into a thousand pieces, I was carried to the floor in a barrage of little glass daggers. They hurt. I lay there, stunned, in pain and bleeding. She threw herself to the floor on her knees and carefully picked me up. My long neck and head hung limp. “Oh beards of Hernin,” she whispered. “Raven. I’m so sorry. Are you hurt?” She carried me to her bed and gently began to pull up the splinters, applying healing lotions to the cuts. She was crying as her hands filled with my blue blood. “Raven, what have I done?”