When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Stop it, Attaris. You’re being unfair.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” the black elf rose. “I’ll leave you to talk. I’ve had enough of low cheer and dour faces.”

  Suleima nodded curtly as he left.

  The dwarven runewarden took another drink of the thick, dark ale. The sudsy liquid filled his mouth with a bitter fragrance that resolved into sweet notes of molasses as it slid down his throat.

  Suleima stared at him.

  “What?” the dwarf asked defensively.

  She remained silent a moment longer before answering. “When was the last time you’ve been out to your old home? To see Aradma?”

  “I haven’t. I don’t get the impression she wants to see me. She feels guilty for Hylda.”

  “I think it’s more than that,” Suleima said. “I haven’t been allowed there since Kaldor arrived.”

  Attaris sputtered into his drink. “Allowed? What? It’s your home, too.”

  Suleima shook her head. “At first I thought it was just that it was full. Aradma and Kaldor. Arda and Anuit. Fernwalker. Oriand.”

  “It is a full house,” Attaris acknowledged. “Where are you staying?”

  “With Yinkle. Odoune is too.”

  Attaris raised an eyebrow. “Surely that’s all it is then.”

  “Then why will they not let me inside when I visit?” Suleima asked. “Something is going on there.”

  “Have you asked Aradma about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said I needed to trust her on this.” Suleima frowned. “Yinkle told me the same thing later. She said to trust her on this.”

  Attaris stood. “This is silly. I’ll put this to bed right now. I’m riding out to see them.”

  “I can’t come,” Suleima said. “Rajamin’s joining me for lunch soon.”

  Attaris nodded. “I’ll tell you tonight there’s nothing to worry about. Meet back here for dinner?”

  She nodded.

  Attaris found Arda and Anuit tending to a bed of Faerie’s Breath in the garden of his old stone house in the mountains.

  Arda looked up when he approached and rose to greet him. “Hello, Attaris!” she said, bending over and hugging her friend. “Darkling claws are good for digging through soil, too.” She held up dirt-covered fingertips. “Who knew?”

  “That’s a sight I never expected to see,” he said. “You, digging around in the dirt.”

  “Kaldor thought it would be good for us to grow something together,” Arda said.

  Anuit looked up from the ground. “I need to enchant more self-cleaning fabric,” she said. “I’ll never get the dirt out of this dress now. The knees are ruined.”

  “Is Aradma inside?” Attaris asked.

  “No, she’s flying with Odoune,” Arda replied. “They’ve been helping the new monarchs establish a treaty to preserve their union in the future.”

  “And you’re at home playing in the garden,” Attaris commented. “It’s not like you.”

  “Attaris,” Arda said, “I’m thirty-three-years old. I’ve been questing more than fifteen years. I’m not retiring now, but there’s hope—for the first time in my life—for a normal life. Don’t I deserve at least a small break?”

  He smiled up at his friend. “That you do, lass, that you do. No one can begrudge you that.”

  “So did you come here just to say hello?” Arda asked. “Want to get your hands dirty?”

  “No,” he replied. “You see, there’s something… well, I mean… I left something in the cellar that I need, so I came to get it.”

  The two women exchanged glances. “Why don’t you wait here,” Arda said. “I can get it for you. What is it?”

  “No, that’s all right,” Attaris replied. “Don’t let me interrupt you. I know my way around this house; I built it, after all.” He stepped around the paladin and walked towards the door.

  Oriand stood in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I cannot let you in.”

  Attaris frowned. “Arda, what is this? This is my house.” He stared up at the troll. His voice lowered into a soft growl. “Step aside, or we might have a problem.”

  Oriand looked uncertainly over his shoulder at the two other women. “He’s a runewarden. We can’t let him in, much less down there.”

  Attaris’ anger deepened. “What in Dis does that have to do with anything?” He spun to face his old friend. “Arda, what’s going on here?”

  “Attaris,” Arda said with a pained look on her face. “She’s right, we can’t let you in. Kaldor brought something back. Something important. We can’t risk exposing it to any runewarden or divine magic.”

  “Arda!” Oriand cautioned. “Be careful!”

  “Oriand, Attaris is an old friend. I trust him with my life. Step aside. We’re going to be gracious and offer him some tea. It is his house after all. He built this stone for stone.”

  Oriand frowned but acquiesced. Arda sat with Attaris at the long dining table. “We can speak here,” she said, “but I can’t let you down into the cellar.”

  “So Suleima was right,” he said. “There is something going on here. Something you don’t want the Church to find out about.”

  Arda nodded. “I can’t give you details, but you’ll have to trust me that Kaldor has a plan for all of us.”

  “And Aradma’s in on it,” he stated.

  Arda nodded. “We all are. But even Aradma can’t go into the cellar.”

  Attaris cocked his head. “Why not?”

  “Because Rajamin tricked her into accepting ordination as a priestess of Athra.”

  Attaris frowned. “I didn’t know of this. Why would she do that?”

  “To help split the kingdom into states,” Arda said. “To slow the flow of vampires into the land.”

  He considered, stroking his beard. “I never joined Rajamin’s Church,” he finally said.

  “I know.”

  “That is something,” Oriand stated.

  Anuit came in from the garden, dirt all over the front of her blue skirt.

  “You should have let Suleima in,” Attaris said. “You didn’t have to let her in the cellar. Now she suspects something.”

  The three women looked at each other. “We’re going to have to move it. We need to find someplace safe,” Anuit said.

  Attaris placed his elbows on the table and rested his chin on folded hands. “I don’t like it,” he stated. “I don’t like it one bit. But for our friendship, Arda, I’m going to trust you. I’m going to go back to Suleima and tell her how you invited me in for lunch, and there is no cause for worry.”

  “Thank you, dear friend,” Arda replied. She leaned forward and patted his shoulder.

  Attaris returned to the Torchlight Tavern that evening. Instead of ale, he ordered bourbon, straight up. Rajamin and Suleima had been waiting for him at a corner table, out of the way of the rest of the patrons. A crowd had gathered, and a gypsy fiddler played for an unseelie dressed in a flowing skirt and a halter top that left her green torso bare as she danced.

  “That’s good bourbon,” Attaris noted. He took a deep breath.

  “I can’t abide the stuff,” Rajamin remarked. “Too earthy.”

  “Well?” Suleima asked. She sipped at her own glass of bourbon.

  “As I said,” Attaris stated. “Nothing to worry about. They invited me in, and we had a nice lunch.”

  Suleima frowned. “Then why me? It’s Oriand! I know it. I betrayed her when she was the Matriarch. She hasn’t forgotten. It is an act.”

  Rajamin breathed a sigh of relief. “I’m glad it wasn’t what we suspected,” he said. “I’m glad they weren’t singling out runewardens.”

  Attaris raised an eyebrow. The bourbon warmed his breast. “You never told me you charged Aradma with Athra’s spirit.”

  Rajamin shrugged. “It wasn’t important to mention. She agreed to it.”

  “She has a destiny,” Suleima said. “It makes sense.”

/>   “What do you mean?” Attaris asked suspiciously.

  Rajamin regarded him for a moment. “It’s something Suleima and I have known for a while. Aradma is Athra’s herald. That one,” he indicated to the opposite corner of the room, “intends to turn her from her path.”

  Attaris turned his head. Athaym sat in the far shadows, watching the green unseelie dancer.

  Attaris turned back to the ratling. “You can’t be serious.”

  Suleima tried to calm him. “I know it sounds strange, knowing how she has never warmed to the Church of Light. You know me to be a true friend to her. I wouldn’t believe it if it weren’t true.”

  Attaris set his bourbon down hard. “This sounds like what you told me of Rin’s cult on Vemnai,” he said. “Aradma was supposed to be Soorleyn’s herald, too. How is this any different?”

  “It’s not in my hands,” Rajamin said. “I understand your concern, and I felt the same when the goddess revealed her will to me.”

  “The difference is,” Suleima pressed, “the Matriarch—Oriand—tried to force her will, her understanding of the gods. Oriand tried to make prophecy happen. We’ve done nothing. The goddess will either make it so or she won’t. It is not our place to force the hands of gods.”

  Attaris searched his own inner feelings for Modhrin’s prompting. His connection to the Lord of Storms felt strangely silent on the matter. One thing was sure, however. Modhrin valued hearth and home, and loyalty to friends and family. This felt like too much conspiracy. He stood.

  “I’ll have no part in this,” he said. “As a runewarden for my god, this is not Modhrin’s way.” He left Torchlight Tavern behind, heading back to his empty apartment.

  * * *

  Aradma stood at the top of the cellar stairs, looking down into the darkness. What was it down there that they were so scared she might see? Athra’s Jewel. A machine in the likeness of a woman. Surely there was no danger in such a thing.

  “Aradma,” Kaldor said softly beside her. “Come away from there.”

  Aradma shook her head, jarring herself awake. “I must have been dreaming,” she said. She looked at the dark windows. “It’s still a few hours from dawn.”

  “It’s calling to you,” Kaldor said. “The bit of Athra inside you wants what’s down there.”

  “The gods want to live,” Aradma confirmed. “They want to walk among us.”

  Kaldor nodded. “Something they have never been able to do before,” he said. “They’ve manifested as visions and sometimes taken physical form, but they’ve never been able to sustain it.”

  “Malahkma has,” Aradma replied, “in a manner of speaking. She lives in the blood of every vampire.” She felt a twinge in her heart from the webbed piece of the Kairantheum around her spine. “The other gods want what she has nearly attained.”

  “They—” Kaldor drew in a deep breath. “I see it now. They want to be free of the Kairantheum.”

  “They’ve finally become aware of their own nature,” Aradma said. “I can feel Athra’s presence, her desires—even though her connection with me is weaker than any true priestess. I am not her devotee and she knows it. I’ve always been able to see the Kairantheum, even though I didn’t know what it was until you came to me. Through me, Athra has become aware of it as well, in a way that she had never been conscious of it before.”

  “I think it’s time to deal with the vampires, so we can focus on the larger challenge,” Kaldor said. “There are enough wizards who have mastered the sun spells. Between that and the Faerie’s Breath, the vampires no longer pose the threat they once did. Hammerfold will spread south and cleanse Roenti of the hungerbound.”

  “There is still Sidhna,” Aradma said. “She is different than the others. If I had stayed to fight her, I would be dead. She is at the source of this.”

  “She is in Artalon,” Kaldor remarked. “It is time we go there. This contagion has proved a distraction for too long. We need to cleanse the city and put Sidhna to rest. Too long has she suffered at the hands of dragons and gods.”

  “I pity her.”

  “As do I,” Kaldor agreed. “But it’s more than that. We need to retake Artalon and unlock its secrets, before the gods awaken to our purpose.”

  “We don’t even know what our purpose is,” Aradma said.

  “Artalon is the key,” Kaldor responded. “Of this I am sure. It will bring balance to the Kairantheum and control back to Ahmbren’s people.” He considered for a moment. “Perhaps it is the Light’s blessing that we don’t know what that means yet, given your connection to Athra.”

  Aradma snorted. “It’s ironic. I’m a druid. The trolls believed I was a warden of Rin’s domain, opposed to the works of Athra. I defended the fruits of civilization to Oriand when I left her in Vemnai years ago. I argued that civilization was the natural result of our rational minds. Now that goddess seeks to use me as well.”

  “We will never escape the machinations of gods unless we unlock Artalon’s mysteries.”

  “Sidhna will not be easy to defeat,” Aradma said. “I know. She would have easily bested the three of us.”

  “Now there are four of us,” he responded, “and I still have Archurion’s knowledge of magic.”

  Aradma nodded. “We’ll wake the others at dawn. Let’s return to bed. I would spend these last hours at home with my husband.”

  They made love, and then lay in each other’s arms until the sun graced their windows.

  “I will stay here and watch Fernwalker,” Oriand said after Aradma woke and gathered them. “Odoune will come to see her, of course, but better she stay here with me lest they learn of your departure too soon. Bringing her to Yinkle, with Suleima there, will only raise suspicions.”

  Aradma frowned for a brief moment as she regarded her daughter. “Fernwalker, where is Ghost?”

  The elf girl shook her head, green ponytails bouncing. “I haven’t seen Ghost since Lovers’ Night.” Fernwalker looked sad.

  “Nor Keira,” Oriand remarked. “I think they left Windbowl together.”

  I’ve gotten too busy. How could I not notice?

  Anuit unrolled the carpet outside. They each took a small pack and went out to it. Aradma hugged Fernwalker as the others joined Anuit on the rug’s center. Kaldor wore his long gray coat with its multitude of inner pockets. Arda was once more dressed in her paladin’s armor and had bought a new leather duster to replace the one left behind in the Surafian desert. Her sword hung at her back and her pistols at her hips. She looked eager. Happy. Anuit wore a black dress with a flowing skirt and a hooded cloak with an elbow-length cape. The hood lay on her back, her black hair cascading over her shoulders. She touched her fingertips to the carpet. It rose, hovering two inches off the ground.

  Kaldor smiled at Aradma. “Are you ready to take back our world?” He held out his hand to her. She took it, and stepped up onto the carpet to join them. At Anuit’s command, the carpet rose high into the air and shot south over the tops of the Windmane Mountains.

  37 - The Gold and the Red

  Tiberan, Kristafrost, and Eszhira explored God Spire during the day. They had found a half-score of sleeping vampires and disposed of their bodies, but hadn’t found nearly enough to account for the undead horde that ruled the city’s night. They couldn’t determine where the undead slept, for their mists sank to the most secret places to keep their slumber safe.

  They explored the upper apartments and found a curious chamber behind what Kristafrost guessed had been the Archmage’s quarters. Tiberan knew this room from the memories of the Green Dragon he held in his mind. A circular dais and a matching ceiling panel sat in the room’s center, each with geometric sigils laid out across them. This chamber had held Sidhna frozen in time for over a thousand years while they searched for a cure to restore her from being an undead revenant into life. This must be where she had awakened when Valkrage died and his time magic failed. There was no sign of her now.

  “We should hurry back,” Eszhira said. “It�
�s getting late in the afternoon, and we’ll want to be under the sea before nightfall.”

  Tiberan nodded. Something about this place…

  He turned and followed her out of the chamber.

  They passed by the grand hall of the throne room, heading towards the central stairwell, when Tiberan stopped. He felt something approach on the periphery of his awareness. Something living.

  “Wait!”

  “What is it?” Kristafrost asked. “We don’t have much time.”

  “Someone approaches,” he said. “Someone living.” He felt their presence getting stronger. Four… no, five. “They’re landing on the balcony.”

  The three of them moved down the side of the throne room, keeping to the shadows. They hid in an alcove to see the approaching party.

  A large, intricate carpet descended from the sky and floated over the platform. It hovered, and then landed at the balcony’s entrance beneath the threshold to the open end of the arched throne room hall.

  Tiberan started. Aradma sat aboard the hovering carpet with three other people he didn’t know. Two women—a dark-skinned human and a fair-skinned darkling—and a black human man.

  Five. Where is the fifth?

  He closed his eyes for a second, and then he knew. Aradma carried a child within her, though she wasn’t showing yet. Another child. It had been nine years. She held the man’s hand and kissed him on the cheek before walking into the hall.

  “It’s only a matter of time,” she told him. “Once the sun goes down, they’ll swarm here.”

  “Good,” the man said. “We’ll be ready.”

  Eszhira started forward, but Tiberan caught her shoulder.

  “It’s Aradma!” Eszhira whispered. Kristafrost had already left their place of concealment, running forward to greet the group.

  Tiberan hissed. “I am not here. I was never here.”

  Eszhira looked at him with stunned eyes. “You mean not to tell her.”

  “It’s been nine years for her,” he said. “She’s happy. It was yesterday for me.”