Spine of the Dragon

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Onn beckoned him to her, and he stretched out on the bed so they could touch their skin, feel the tingle of magic as they each unleashed their glamour spells, building to an ecstasy that they would both experience.

  “Do your duty, Chief Warrior Rokk,” said the queen. “Satisfy me.”

  44

  THE people of Scrabbleton had no explanation for the wreth stranger’s remarkable healing, other than magic. They already knew that the half-breed Bravas recovered more swiftly than normal humans.

  At Elliel’s side, Thon walked among the townspeople, fascinating them and frightening them. His broken leg was healed, and he barely limped. The smoke from the summit of Mount Vada seemed angrier and thicker each day, and a gloomy pall hung over the Dragonspine Mountains, as if Ossus were growing restless. Each breath of air tasted of brimstone.

  Elliel took Thon to the town’s small remembrance shrine, where she showed him the records of human lives, all the people who had been associated with the town for a long time. She read some of the names aloud, because he said he couldn’t understand human writing. His face remained blank; the recent history meant nothing to him.

  Thinking hard, he asked, “Would you take me back inside the mines? I want to see what remains of the chamber where I was held. Maybe it holds some clues as to why I was sealed inside.”

  She was concerned. “I don’t know if it’s safe. Most of the miners haven’t gone back inside yet. Some of the shafts have been dug out and reinforced, but we were deep inside the mountains. The tunnel collapsed behind us. I barely got you out before the walls and ceiling caved in.”

  The wreth man shrugged as if such an obstacle was of no consequence, and his dark blue eyes pleaded with her. “I need to see.”

  She looked at his strange expression of curiosity and need. She had already decided to stay with Thon and help him solve his own mysteries. Something about him captivated her.

  Some miners were shoring up the outer galleries and clearing the main passages of debris, but none had yet ventured into the deep tunnels. Occasional tremors still rumbled through the mountain, so mine boss Hallis had not risked sending in the full work teams.

  Carrying a lantern, Elliel led Thon, proceeding with caution. As they picked their way around debris, a warm sulfurous mist hung in the air. When they came upon a wall of fallen boulders that blocked the passage, she shook her head. “We can’t climb over or through that.”

  Thon placed the flat of his hand on a boulder and concentrated. The rock shivered, then crumbled into fine gravel that spilled across the tunnel floor, clearing the way. “It is no longer an obstacle.”

  Elliel was amazed. “No, it isn’t.” He waited for her to take the lead.

  They worked their way through the rubble, moving down the tunnel until broken slabs formed another impenetrable barrier. Again, the barricade posed no challenge for the wreth man, who simply made the obstruction crumble. When parts of the cracked, unstable walls threatened another collapse, he used the rock debris he had just produced and slathered it onto the rock like plaster to hold it in place, and then it hardened into a solid bond.

  Elliel followed the turns, chose the correct intersections as she remembered them, guided Thon farther until they reached the hidden quartz-lined grotto. They stood shoulder-to-shoulder as he peered into what had been his prison.

  Glimmers of light shot through the broken crystals, as if his presence activated some inner energy. Without speaking, Thon used his hands and his magic to widen the opening so he would walk through the door without obstruction. Together they searched the small chamber, but found no artifacts, no answers. The reinforcing metal struts in the wall were jarringly incongruous. Thon picked up a quartz shard and turned it in his hand. “No message here. No wreth writings.” He was mystified and disturbed. “Someone just … sealed me away for eternity without leaving any explanation as to why.”

  “Do you think you were being punished?” She unconsciously touched the tattoo on her cheek. “Did the wreths strip you of your legacy, too? Or maybe it’s something entirely different. You could have been left as a guardian. Or a messenger.”

  “Maybe I was left here to protect Ossus.”

  She wasn’t sure he was serious. “If Ossus is real.”

  Thon turned his startlingly handsome face toward her, tilted his head to one side. “Of course the dragon is real. You felt the mountains stir. You saw the collapse in the mines. You see smoke rising from the mountain.”

  She did not deny the evidence. “I’ve come to question a lot of things.”

  Thon sifted handfuls of the crystalline debris through his fingers before letting out a sigh. “We will not find anything here, Elliel. We have to look elsewhere.” He moved her out of the chamber, then made intricate motions with his hands. The crystals crumbled from the vault wall, shifted, and drew together to form a jagged sphere that filled the entire chamber, sparkling like a giant snowball. The hidden room was entirely blocked.

  Thon backed away farther and collapsed a huge section of the rock wall, to seal the chamber forever. “My answers will be outside.”

  * * *

  The next morning, as more of the miners cautiously returned to their regular routine, Thon prepared to leave Scrabbleton. “I must find answers, and they are not here. My path leads north along the Dragonspine, then west. Something is calling me there, drawing me.”

  “Wreths haven’t been seen in thousands of years,” Elliel said. “Just half-breeds like me.”

  “And yet I am here.” He gave her a smile that sent an electric tingle through her skin. “Perhaps there are more like me. I need to find them.”

  “Maybe they aren’t friendly if they entombed you for thousands of years.” She looked at him for a long moment, then made up her mind. “I’ll go with you. As you find answers, I may find answers of my own.”

  He offered her a sober look. “Our questions are entirely different.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can’t help each other.”

  Elliel had felt content here in Scrabbleton, even at home. The people had welcomed her, and she enjoyed her work as a miner, but she had made no commitment to settle here permanently. Something about this wreth stranger seemed vital. She had to help him, wherever it took her.

  Hallis was sad to see her go, because she was such a hard worker. Upwin and the other miners insisted on saying goodbye before she departed, and Shauvon provided ale for everyone as a farewell celebration. Thon joined them in the inn’s common room. The townspeople still felt perplexed about him, though not threatened.

  Filled with good food and ready for a good night’s sleep before setting off the next morning, she and Thon went back to her room, where he had continued to stay. He sprawled on the narrow bed, while she spread her blanket on the hard floor again, but he gestured to her. “Sleep here. You will be more comfortable.”

  She hesitated, wary of what he might be asking. Even so, her pulse raced when she looked at him. A mysterious magnetism hovered like mist around the strange man. Was she really so resistant to the idea of sleeping with him? She was sure most of the townspeople already assumed they were.

  Elliel thought again of her blank past and wondered if she would be a good lover, or if she was entirely inexperienced. As with her reflexes in fighting, maybe some things were instinctive.…

  Before she could join him on the bed, Thon stretched out, rolled on his side, and faced away from her, leaving half the narrow bed for her to lie upon. Elliel stood for a long moment, looking at the blanket on the hard floor, then surrendered. She crawled onto the bed, facing the opposite direction with her back touching his. Though the bed was more comfortable than the floor, she had a very difficult time getting to sleep.

  While Shauvon and his wife were baking the morning bread, Elliel and Thon slipped through the inn’s common room, where one man remained, snoring like a growling bear and resting his head on his forearms on a table. Outside, the sky was dark, with only a pale glow of sunrise seeping from beh
ind the mountain range. They set off, wanting no fanfare from the townspeople, and followed the hill roads out toward the western plains.

  After two days of walking, they found a very small settlement called Arnasten, with fewer than forty people, and strangers were rare. Elliel bought a hot meal for the two of them, but the villagers stared at them so intently that they left before dark, preferring the less judgmental solitude of the forest.

  Four miles down the road they found a sign on a wooden post pointing the way to a hot spring, one of many thermal areas in the Dragonspine Mountains. Elliel didn’t know if she had ever been to a hot spring before. After asking her to read the human letters on the sign, Thon smiled. “Let us go there to absorb the energy in the world. It is heat and life.”

  Following the side path, they found a ten-foot-wide pool surrounded by boulders and drooping, yellowed trees. The water was a milky blue, stirred by tiny bubbles. Steam and fumes rose up, adding a mineral smell to the air that was not entirely unpleasant. They were alone.

  “We bathe, and we relax,” said Thon. “We talk.” Completely unself-conscious, he removed his jerkin, his boots, and his fine leggings to stand naked and muscular beside the pool. His pale skin had a buttery sheen in the last light of day.

  Elliel began to remove her loose linen shirt, turning her back to Thon, who stood stretching as if to make sure she looked at him. “Why do you hesitate?” he asked. “Wreths created humans. We know what you look like.”

  “You don’t know what I look like,” she said, thinking of the scars that disfigured her otherwise fit body. When was the last time a man had looked at it—if ever? She steeled herself and pulled off her shirt, then undid the bindings on her loose trousers.

  “You are lovely.”

  For some reason she believed what he said. With her back to him, she heard the splash as he slid into the steaming pool. She piled her garments on one of the rocks. She turned, intending to get in and submerge herself as quickly as possible, but Thon was looking at her. She found that she couldn’t move, though not because of any magic. He ran his appreciative eyes over her breasts, the various scars, the curved loop across her abdomen, the burned patch. He seemed to take in all of it as part of her.

  “I was right. You are very beautiful.”

  When she could move again, Elliel pulled her cinnamon hair back from her face, stepped to the edge of the spring, and lowered herself into the water. The pool was hot and tingling, and the sulfurous fumes made her feel warm and giddy. She let out a long sigh. “This does feel good.” The aches in her muscles dissolved like honey in hot tea.

  Thon stretched his arms out to either side on the rim of the pool and leaned back. “There is still some magic left in the land. I can feel it here, a heat pulsing into this water.”

  “Do you know this place? Have you ever been here?”

  Thon touched his cheek, tracing the rune marked there. “I do not know.”

  “I don’t know either,” she said. Utho’s letter was in the pocket of her shirt neatly laid on the dry rock. “The memories of my old life aren’t there, but the skills sometimes are.”

  She sank deeper, all the way up to her chin, and rubbed her skin, running her fingers over the scars. Questions surfaced in her mind. “As a person, I am more than just my past crime, aren’t I? My body remembers some of what I was. I’m a talented swordfighter. I tried archery and found I was good at it. I practiced with musical instruments when a minstrel showed me, but I had no aptitude at all.”

  He seemed amused. “You were trying to find out who you are.”

  “Yes, and I still don’t know.”

  Daring, she moved through the water and floated just in front of him. Elliel stretched her legs down to where she could just barely touch the soft silt and slimy rocks on the bottom of the deep pool. She reached out to delicately touch his tattoo. “I’ve looked at my face in the mirror enough times. Your mark is different from mine. There’s an extra line here.”

  “Our tattoos are not the same. Not precisely.” He extended his forefinger with the gentlest of touches, no stronger than an infant’s breath against her cheek, and traced the markings she couldn’t see. “Mine has an extra loop. It is a locking element that prevents my memories from ever being released.” Unerringly, he touched the exact spot on the side of his face, even though he couldn’t see it. “This cross-mark means my memories are sealed as surely and securely as I was sealed in the vault inside Mount Vada.”

  “The vault that held you in the mountain wasn’t permanent either,” she pointed out. “Maybe your memories aren’t gone forever.”

  “Nothing is impossible,” he admitted. “But I was placed deep in the mountains, and someone meant for me to forget. Now that I have awakened, it is a mystery I was meant to solve. Am I a weapon? Or a monster? Was I locked in there by the wreths? Or maybe even by Kur himself? I do not know.”

  She absorbed the soothing heat in the water for a moment. “I feel the same emptiness inside my mind, but at least I’m aware of what happened to me, what I did. I have Utho’s letter.” The stillness around them deepened as she thought about her lost memories. Thon had said that her tattoo was missing a locking element. Did that mean she could reverse the punishment the Bravas had imposed?

  She longed for that, but was also afraid, hesitant. Perhaps it was a blessing that those memories had been purged from her. What would it feel like to know every expression on the faces of the children she had slaughtered? Their screams, their weeping, how their poor teacher had fallen under her ramer.

  “Don’t you want your memories back?” she asked him, but he refused to respond. She continued, “I would like to know why I did what I did.” Then she whispered, hardly daring to voice the words at all. “Or if I did what they say I did.”

  45

  DRESSED in black leather armor and finemail-lined cape, Utho was impressive among the fighters in the Commonwealth soldier escort gathered for the departure of Kollanan the Hammer and Adan Starfall. Utho was glad the two men were going back to their respective kingdoms with their unsettling stories about wreths. Given the imminent Isharan threat, the Commonwealth could not afford to be distracted by ancient legends.

  Looking sad, Konag Conndur stepped out into the courtyard as his brother and his younger son prepared to leave. They would each have an armed escort of twenty soldiers as they followed separate routes over the Dragonspine to their kingdoms. The soldiers wore iron helmets with swooping cheek guards, swords at their sides, and leather body armor marked with the open-hand symbol of the Commonwealth.

  Giving the konag a farewell embrace, Adan said, “Remember what we said, Father. If Queen Voo returns, you must meet with her.”

  Kollanan said in a gruff voice, “Meanwhile, I’ll be gathering my entire army. Don’t underestimate the wreths, Conn.”

  Prince Mandan arrived late, dressed in rich purple silks, as if he were attending a grand function of state. He frowned in surprise to see the armed escort. “Forty troops, Father? What if we need those soldiers here in Osterra? What if the Isharans attack?”

  “They will attack,” Utho said in a low voice. “Sooner or later.”

  Conndur said, “We have enough forces to defend ourselves.”

  Utho warned, “We must have a realistic view of the true danger, Sire. We can’t have the common people looking for wreths under every bed, when the Isharans might send godlings and warships to the Confluence at any moment.”

  As he mounted up, Kollanan shot a sharp glance at the Brava and spoke with bitter sarcasm. “Yes, maybe the frostwreths meant no harm when they destroyed Lake Bakal and killed all those people. With their new fortress, I’m sure they have only the best intentions.”

  “We’ll spread warnings across Suderra and try to be prepared for whatever the wreths do next,” said Adan. The two kings turned their horses, impatient to be away from the crowded courtyard. “I know the Utauk tribes are also on the lookout. If anything changes, we will send another warning. The three kin
gdoms must stand together.”

  Conndur looked deeply troubled. “Even if our armies stood against the wreths, would they not sweep us aside like insects?”

  “Insects can sting,” Kollanan said and urged his horse into a trot, leading his escort soldiers out of the gate in a thunder of hooves. Adan’s group followed.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Utho continued Prince Mandan’s instruction, although it meant interrupting a tutoring session in the arts. As a Brava, he had to make sure the prince knew how to kill.

  When Utho stopped at the doorway to the studio chambers, Mandan was attempting to paint a bowl of old fruit, some pieces merely wrinkled, some brown and rotting, or covered with a burst of gray-blue mold. The tutor frowned at the bowl. “Let me get some fresh fruit, my prince. A painter should concentrate on more attractive subjects.”

  “A painter should depict the world around him,” Mandan corrected. “And a konag needs to see the rot as well as the freshness.”

  The tutor clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You are of course right, my prince.”

  Mandan’s expression lit up when he saw the silent Brava standing at the door. The tutor looked up, sniffed. “We can’t be interrupted in the middle of a lesson.”

  Utho ignored him. “My prince, come with me.”

  The tutor sputtered, but Mandan set down his paints. “Utho has important training for me, in preparation for becoming konag.” The annoyed tutor couldn’t gather his paints and palette quickly enough, leaving the bowl of rotten fruit behind.

  Utho handed a plain shirt to the prince. “Today we go out to the archery fields so I can train you to handle different types of bows.”

  “I already know how to shoot a bow,” Mandan said.

  “In war, you need to shoot without thinking, without flinching.” Utho imagined that Mareka and even his little daughters had shot arrows at the Isharans who came to rape and burn and kill, and when they ran out of arrows, he hoped they had used sticks and knives, fighting to the last.…