Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “I will, Mother.” She had already prepared for her quest, finding a plain old collar with a small, clear mothertear diamond so her new reptile bird could record images. Now Glik just had to find where the wild skas lived, deep in the rugged mountains to the north and west. When she gave Shella a warm farewell embrace, the old woman’s body felt bony and frail, like sticks wrapped with yarn.

  After the great convocation of tribes was over, the Utauk families saddled their horses, packed up their cooking equipment, rolled their blankets, folded down pavilions, hitched their wagons. They headed into the hills along several routes, dispersing like fluff from a dandelion.

  Glik set off on foot, alone. In her dreams she saw beating wings, scales, feathers, a faceted eye calling her, and she heard the long-lost song of the skas in her heart. She would follow the pull, even if she didn’t know where she was going. On this journey, Glik would only be able to see with her own eyes.

  She ached to have the scarlet reptile bird on her shoulder, longed to stroke the sharp-edged feathers, feel the warm scales, scratch under Ori’s elongated chin.

  Why did you leave me?

  When she had first found Ori, the ska was injured, caught in a tangle of branches. She had extracted the reptile bird, tended him, linked with him. Glik had been just a child then, but she kept Ori for five years, five perfect years.

  With a stick, she drew a freehand, perfect circle in the dirt and hiked away into the Suderran hills. Glik didn’t carry maps, but she instinctively knew the lay of the landscape. From her dreams she knew the direction she had to go.

  * * *

  Glik crossed a line of hills and paused to stare at the rugged sea of melted ground. In all her explorations, she had been to the Plain of Black Glass only once. The mysterious, scarred valley was the site of one of the most terrible wreth battles at the height of their awful wars. Scorched and blasted by titanic magic, the soil had not recovered even after two thousand years.

  According to stories, this place was once a wreth metropolis, but in a final battle, the creator race had unleashed so much magic that the ground itself melted. Since the wreths used their human slaves as foot soldiers and workers, countless thousands of people must have died during that holocaust. Maybe their blood was infused into the puddles of shadowglass, which carried remnants of magic.

  As Glik picked her way down the slope, she was surprised to see powder-blue poppies planted in the dry soil. Intrepid Utauks had come out here, knowing they could sell the shadowglass to collectors of rarities and especially to the priestlords in Ishara, who used slabs of shadowglass as windows to observe their godlings.

  Even under the hot sun, the ground held a chill, as if it had been drained of all life. The uneven ground was interspersed with chunks of obsidian that shimmered with an oily rainbow of colors. Glik was looking at an incomparable fortune in front of her, but the only thing she wanted was a ska.

  Shading her eyes, she saw a flash of color against the melted plain—the blue-and-white fabric of a tent. “Hello!” she called as she ventured out onto the rugged half-melted terrain, careful with each step. If she fell, the razor-edged glass might cut her badly.

  She heard no answer, only the breezy silence of the empty plain. She climbed the crystal-sharp blocks, seeing bare patches where more blue poppies claimed a foothold in tiny pockets of soil. “Hello!” she called again.

  Glik had often been alone for months, needing no other company than Ori because she was never alone, thanks to their heart link. Still, she enjoyed sharing a meal with someone, exchanging stories and news. Inside the circle, instead of outside. This isolated prospector might want company as well.

  The tent was empty, though. When the girl poked her head inside the flap, she found only a bedroll, some cookpots, and a waterskin. The tent cloth was tattered, as if it had been there for some time. Maybe the prospector had departed and left his possessions behind?

  Wind whistled across the blasted plain, seeming to blow sheer emptiness along with it. Suddenly lonely, Glik shivered. She sensed the powerful remnants of magic deep beneath this haunted battlefield. So many people had died here, both humans and wreths. Had the melted glass captured their dying screams?

  She left the abandoned tent and searched the area, not bothering to call into the eerie silence, sure that no one would respond. Whoever this Utauk prospector was, he or she must have gone away, perhaps with a load of shadowglass.

  But why leave the waterskin behind?

  With increasing dread, she followed marks where someone had chopped out pieces of shadowglass. She climbed over an obsidian hummock and saw a man below—a human figure in a gray shirt, red scarf, brown pants. He was sprawled facedown among chunks of broken shadowglass.

  Startled, Glik began to run toward the man, but she knew it was much too late. She slipped, caught herself on a sharp-edged black boulder, and the shadowglass cut a gash across her fingers. Bleeding, she moved with greater caution, making her way to the body.

  The prospector must have also slipped. His tools were scattered around him: a chisel, a rock hammer, a pick. The sharp obsidian had sliced down the inside of the man’s arm, opening an artery. He had bled profusely, and dark, sticky patches dried across the vitreous rubble. On the lifeless Plain of Black Glass, scavengers hadn’t come to devour the body, although a few persistent flies buzzed around the desiccated skin. The man’s dead face wore a look of surprise.

  Glik considered burying him, but the ground was much too hard, the shadowglass too sharp. The slabs would be too heavy for her to lift by herself. Instead, she went back to the tent and found scraps of cloth which she tore into strips to wrap around her bleeding fingers, then wrapped more cloth around her hands for protection.

  In the warm afternoon, she picked up chunks of the black rock and carried them around the dead man to create a perfectly circular ring. She worked hard, knowing the labor was important, filling in the gaps, surrounding him, keeping him inside the circle. “The beginning is the end is the beginning,” she said.

  When night fell, she went back to the empty tent, taking advantage of the shelter. Glik would remember the man’s legacy, as much as she knew of it. Among his scattered possessions, she found a name written down. Bhosus. She discovered paper among the supplies and wrote an account of everything she knew about the prospector. At least that was something to mark that this person had existed, since the gods certainly didn’t care about humans.

  When she slept in the whistling silence, dreams came to Glik with rushing noises, countless voices from the ancient battlefield demanding her attention, insisting that she remember their stories as well. It was overwhelming, deafening, and she wished Ori were there with her to help guide her dreams, her visions.

  In her dream, with a mental call, Glik asked for the ska’s protection, and inside her mind the sound of countless chittering ska voices drowned out the voices of the ghosts in this battlefield, made them leave her alone. She saw thousands of reptile birds flying, swooping together in an enormous flock, so many wings and feathers and scales they filled the sky … and they all flew toward black, jagged mountains.

  The next morning, Glik emerged from the tent to see sun shining on the distant line of rugged mountains on the horizon, exactly what she had seen in her dream. She took the prospector’s supplies and waterskin and left the Plain of Black Glass.

  High overhead, she made out the tiny black specks of skas wheeling on the breezes. Their eyries were in the mountains. That was where Glik needed to go.

  43

  THE wind made beautiful music as it whistled outside the crystal windows of the frostwreth palace, accompanied by the hiss and scratch of blowing snow. The weak, gray sunlight that penetrated the blizzard wall illuminated Queen Onn’s bedchamber.

  She concentrated on the sound of her own breathing, the brush of flesh upon flesh, and the sounds of pleasure from the man beneath her. She found the noises stimulating. The captured Brava lay back on the slick bedcoverings with sweat glitter
ing on his pink skin. She could have made each of those droplets freeze into tiny ice crystals so his body sparkled. She enjoyed it when her lovers sparkled.

  Lasis kept his eyes closed, lips drawn back as he fought her, though of course he did not succeed. His features revealed that he had wreth blood somewhere in his lineage. Onn’s people had once dabbled with their human creations; some even fooled themselves into calling them lovers. For Onn, there was no love, only curiosity.

  So far, this one had not lived up to expectations. She straddled him, shifting her hips, and against his will he moved with her. “That’s better.” She drew a long finger across his forehead.

  Lasis kept his eyes closed as if he were imagining someone else. His lips curved in a frown. She stroked the side of his face, along his nose, releasing more glamour, more of the complex chemicals and scent that worked into the man’s animal nature. He shuddered, unable to resist.

  Onn had always been able to manipulate males, whether they were wreth or human. With her beauty and primal sexuality, she rarely needed to rely on magic. But Lasis had resisted in every way since Rokk had found him skulking around the Lake Bakal ice fortress. As a half-breed, the captive possessed a trace of magic, and she wondered what he could do with it. The mage Eres had said he fought strangely but well.

  In a way, this man was as intriguing as the little boy that Rokk had taken from that primitive human village, but unlike the child, Onn could press Lasis into a different kind of service.

  The Brava’s ramer was an interesting artifact. She had heard it clatter to the cold floor when she made Lasis cast his clothes aside. The captive had endured, stony and angry, as she walked around his naked body, inspecting him.

  “I expected to be more impressed.” She had reached out to touch him, releasing the first tendrils of her glamour. She saw him flinch, then relax unwillingly. “But you are adequate, I suppose. Let’s see how well you perform.”

  “I refuse. I swore my loyalty to the Commonwealth. I serve none but King Kollanan the Hammer. I—”

  Impatient, Onn released a flood of her magic. He shuddered and threw his shoulders back as he struggled, but finally he sighed and shuddered in an entirely different way. “Oh, I don’t think you’ll refuse.”

  Onn had taken him to her bed, coaxing and kissing him. Lasis seemed mechanical, struggling to do exactly the opposite of what she wanted, but she could manipulate him as easily as she could shape ice forms. She played him like a musical instrument, moving him faster and slower, letting him rest—just enough—before driving him to a frenzy again.

  From the other side of the room, a whimper distracted her just at the moment of climax. In frustration, she looked over to see the human child sitting in the corner, wrapped in the blanket she had let him keep. He said his name was Birch—who named a child after a tree?—and that he was five years old, but could offer little additional information. He played with a small wooden carving of an animal.

  Contemplating how rarely wreth had children of their own, Onn kept him nearby. She herself had given birth to two sons, both of whom were killed in the wars millennia ago, and a daughter, Koru. She had lost track of her daughter, a full-grown, powerful survivor, but Koru had a different spellsleep cycle from Onn’s, so they rarely interacted.

  A young child was different, though, even a human boy. Dabbling in capricious maternal instinct, Onn had decided to keep little Birch with her, to mold his life, since he was young enough to be malleable. As an unformed human, the boy might prove more useful than a drone. He sat where he was told, and he watched without comprehending when she forced the Brava to be her lover.

  Dismissing thoughts of the child, she turned back to Lasis, pressed her palms on his bare chest, trying to command his focus. Again, he struggled, turning his head to one side to avoid looking at her. A jolt ran through him as he gasped, “Birch? Birch! He is still alive.”

  Onn glanced back at the boy, trying to sense some familiarity in the pale young face. “You know him?” Birch turned away from the attention, clutching the wooden figurine he had brought with him, like a talisman.

  “He is a boy,” Lasis said through clenched teeth. “Nothing more.”

  “If you know this child’s name, then surely there is more to him.” She leaned closer, demanding his attention. She found the Brava’s willpower surprisingly strong.

  “Nothing. A boy.”

  Uninvited, one of the smooth-skinned drones entered her chamber with a message. This new interruption annoyed Onn, and she snarled at the stupid thing. “What do you want?”

  The small-statured drone didn’t have the sense to know fear. “Chief Warrior Rokk will soon return to Lake Bakal. He wishes to seduce you before he leaves.”

  Onn’s face pinched with displeasure. “He always wants to seduce me.” She turned a wolfish smile down at Lasis, growing bored with his angry apathy. “Send him in. I might have need of him after all.”

  The drone stared with cowlike eyes as she arched her back, turning her cold breasts toward it. Drones were such a disappointment. “You like to watch us? Or are you going to deliver the message?” When the drone paused, as if pondering the answer, she shrieked, “Get out!”

  Birch tried to hide under his blanket, and Onn had had enough. “Take the child with you. Care for him, or I will be very angry!”

  Birch looked at her for a moment in disbelief, then sprang to his feet. “Thank you, Queen Onn!” At least someone had taught the child manners.

  As Birch ran to the drone with his blanket, the diminutive creature seemed baffled, then the two scuttled out of the chamber.

  She knew it did no good to be furious at the ill-formed drones. It was like shouting at a piece of furniture. Some frostwreths even toyed with the drones as sexual partners. Most of the creatures were neutered and incapable, but some could serve the role, especially the females. The idea made her skin crawl. She had debased herself enough in rutting with this lowly half-breed. Perhaps a more cooperative human would have been a better candidate, though there was a certain thrill in making Lasis dance to her wishes.

  He glared up at her, and she leaned close, breathing chill steam into his face. “Tell me you are not enjoying yourself.”

  He followed her command precisely. “I am not enjoying myself.”

  During the time of the wars, wreths had followed Kur’s example and created humans to serve them. The inferior race looked like wreths, though they were less attractive, weaker, and mostly unable to use the magic that permeated the land. Humans had been a successful and tenacious species, and after awakening from the long spellsleep, Onn was pleased to know that they had survived, even after the holocaust.

  When the wreth mages awakened periodically over the centuries, they had attempted to create more humans. Queen Onn encouraged their efforts, knowing that the frostwreths would need servants to do the menial work, and to die as fighters when necessary. But the process had been disappointing, the magic in the land too weak after the wars, and the best species the wreth mages could now produce were simple drones, subservient, but not clever. So insufficient.

  Rokk sauntered into her bedchamber wearing a hard black vest, a gray cape, and tight blue leggings. “Ah, I see you are already occupied, my queen. Does that mean you have no time or energy for me?” He tossed his pale hair back.

  Onn bent over the Brava and felt a flash of anger toward the reluctant man. “No, I was finished with him. He has given all he can give.”

  The aloof warrior cocked his chin. “Are you already tired of the human child I brought you? I saw a drone leading him away.”

  “I have not decided what to do with him. I think I will send him with you to the Lake Bakal fortress.”

  Rokk’s eyes widened. “And what would I do with him there? How would I care for him?”

  “Have your drones tend him. That is all I would do with him here.”

  He still seemed alarmed. “But to what purpose?”

  “He might have some use as a hostage.” Onn l
ooked down at the reluctant man beneath her. “This Brava hinted that the boy is somewhat important, but would tell me no more.”

  Rokk scowled at the Brava as if glad to divert the discussion. “The man is indeed troublesome. I could torment him for you.”

  “No need. This one was just an experiment, a failed one.” In an offhand gesture, she slashed her razor-edged silver nail across his exposed throat. Blood sprayed out, and Lasis thrashed, bending his head back to splash crimson across Onn’s naked form. The blood smelled potent, wet and metallic.

  The Brava tried to grab her in his last moments of life, but she knocked him off the side of the bed, where he rolled onto the floor and stopped moving, stopped gushing blood. Onn sniffed, surprised. He hadn’t even bled much except for the original spurt, but now he lay cold and motionless.

  She turned back to Rokk as he approached the bed, looking hungrily at her. She ignored the dead Brava on the floor. “We will have drones dump it outside in the cold.”

  Rokk unfastened his dark vest and let his cape fall to the floor. “My pleasure, Queen Onn.”

  “Your pleasure will come after you have earned it.” She considered the spray of blood on the sheets, then intentionally reclined on the stain.

  Rokk poured himself a goblet of silverwine and drank it slowly as he regarded her. “For so many years whenever I awakened, you were still in spellsleep, so I would just stand and admire your body in stasis. It aroused me so much that I would have to find someone else to satisfy me, since you weren’t available.”

  “Whenever I awoke from spellsleep, I had plenty of lovers to choose from, too,” she said. “You should have made arrangements for us to wake at the same time.”

  “Now, we are both awake and will stay awake until we rouse the dragon,” said Rokk. “Until the world is ended and remade.”