When Dragons Die- The Complete Trilogy Box Set

by K. Scott Lewis

  Esteri looked deeply into Tiberan’s eyes, and he could see her accepting that he spoke the truth. “Faerieholm,” she said. “It was a place where the veil between the Otherworld and Ahmbren was ever thin, a place in the mountains of warm water pools, open caverns, and hot springs underneath the cold sky. It was there my people met the faerie who took joy in being in Ahmbren. It was they who granted us the secrets of witchcraft. In the time of my grandmother’s grandmother, Valkrage went into the mountains and closed off the doorway to the Otherworld. He hid things beneath the waters of the pools and locked them frozen in time. He took away the sacred land of my people, and exiled all the faerie who were with us to this world. They have stayed with us and kept our magic alive. It was a long time ago. He told us to keep secret its location and set a spell over it that none of our faerie witchcraft could break. The troglodytes—even Klrain himself—could not open Valkrage’s Vault. It is a matter of Time.”

  Tiberan nodded thoughtfully. There was none in all of Ahmbren’s history greater than Valkrage, than Eldrikura, with Time magic. “If it is so safe, then why the secrecy?”

  Esteri shrugged. “It is Dragons’ business. When you see Valkrage, you can ask him.”

  “Valkrage is dead,” Tiberan told her, “and the Otherworld is no more.”

  Esteri looked visibly shaken. “This was not known to me. However, if he is dead, we owe him no more secrets. How is it that the Otherworld is no more? My faerie familiars have told me thus, but I did not believe it.”

  “They are the last of their kind,” Tiberan said. “They, and any others who were in Ahmbren when the Black Dragon died. It was his death that destroyed the Otherworld.”

  Esteri regarded him for a moment. “It was the Black Dragon that drove my tribe from Surafel in the First Age. We fled his terror and withdrew into the world of ice and snow.”

  “The world has moved on,” Tiberan told her. “All the Great Dragons are dead. My people carry the spirit of the Green Dragon, and to my knowledge we are all that remain of their legacy.”

  “If Valkrage is dead, then Faerieholm is either locked away forever, or his magic died with him and it is open again,” Esteri said thoughtfully. “But with the troglodytes there, I will not risk my tribe’s return. As long as they are distracted, they will not trouble us on the plains. We can wait to return to Faerieholm until after they have left.”

  Tiberan nodded. What she said made sense, perhaps, from the perspective of her tribe, but he realized that this too was but a symptom of the Glavlunders having become too used to withdrawing from the world. They were good people, wise in their own way, but stubborn, and winter was their master. He knew that he must go into the mountains.

  “Where is this place?” he asked. “I would see it with my own eyes, troglodytes or no. Wizards’ business is as convoluted as Dragons’ business, and Valkrage was both.”

  “I will take you there,” Illeski said. “Once you see it, you will see it is impenetrable. I will not risk anyone else in the tribe going, with troglodytes in the mountains, and if they are this close now, it is good we leave Hearthmoot. If Klrain is dead, then the troglodytes are only a passing threat.” He looked visibly relieved.

  Tiberan said nothing.

  “Then we will see you at the next Hearthmoot,” Esteri told them, “unless we meet first on the plains. May Keruhn favor you.” She embraced Keira, burying her face in the black wolven mane. She then turned to Tiberan. “You watch out for her, and don’t be so stubborn to forget that she watches out for you too.”

  Tiberan smiled at the elder woman and bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality,” he said. “You have honored the name of Keruhn, Lord of the Hunt and the Hearth.”

  Esteri didn’t respond to that, but her eyes twinkled brightly in her otherwise thoughtful face. She mounted her wolf, and she and Henriki began their journey away from the White Sea to their hearth’s hunting grounds in the Ice Plains.

  Keira came to him not long after with a saddle harness and bags of provisions. “I have made this under the guidance of the Hearthmakers Circle,” she said. “I knew, in time, we would have to venture out together in the Glavlunder way.”

  Tiberan examined the leatherwork and nodded. “It is fine craftsmanship,” he told her.

  Cloudpaw wasn’t exactly keen on being fitted with a harness for provision bags, but he suffered it well enough. Soon, Tiberan and his companions, along with the huntmaster Illeski and his hearthmate, Osku, set out towards the narrow trail that led into the craggy heart of the Ice Mountains.

  14 - Choros-Nalcht

  Aradma had been thrown and left in an open pen on a farm of subterranean yolisks, wingless flies roughly the size and girth of pigs, with soft, scaled bodies and large multifaceted eyes. Hairy bristles protruded between mottled gray-black scales that glistened with an iridescent sheen.

  It had been three months since she had been brought to the shadow of Taer Koorla, the living tower at the heart of the Underworld. She and the other unseelie had been left at the outskirts of the city with the yolisks, not permitted to enter further into troglodyte civilization. She was choros-nalcht, a nameless creature without meaning.

  Worse than that, the Fae court in her mind told her. You have been bound to him as a demon is bound to a sorcerer. Your will is no longer your own.

  She crouched on the ground of the farmyard. It had been carved from the rock floor of the cavern, a hollow crater recessed into the ground. The crater floor served as a yard for the yolisks, and a bone and insectoid-claw fence ringed the perimeter. The farmers lived up outside the crater and only took a passing interest to the elves’ fate. They only entered when they took a yolisk ready to harvest for food. From what few words they had spoken in the past three months, Aradma had gathered that she and the others would live out the rest of their days here unless they found a way out. It was a test of sorts, a rite of entry into the society. But in the time she had been here, she had not yet found such a way.

  Athaym had left her. When she was first delivered, he had said only, “When you are ready, you will join me.” Then he had left. The troglodytes removed their collars and chains and dumped the lot of them in the crater.

  As Aradma was wont to do, she observed before acting. She’d believed the fence would not be difficult to scale, but she knew the easy way would be foolish. Sure enough, not an hour later, one of the unseelie scaled the fence. He made it five steps before the kranochs revealed themselves. Lion-sized beetles, black and blue, lived clustered on the cavern walls and ceilings. Later, Aradma would see them used as mounts for squads of troglodytes passing by the farm on the road leading to the city. The kranochs had flown down upon the unseelie escapee and cleaned the flesh off his bones. She could still hear his screams in her ears.

  Two more had tried the next day with the same fate.

  The crater floor itself seemed to be covered with some sort of living growth. Every once in a while it pulsed beneath Aradma’s feet and hands, as if blood flowed through it. It wasn’t exactly soft, but neither was it hard like rock. Scattered throughout the strange floor were clusters of polyps that pulsed and trembled every so often. When they did, they emitted a gas and sputtered a thick, sticky fluid that carried a sweet, musky odor which made her crinkle her nose in disgust.

  The first time that happened, she gasped in horror, for in response to the spurting, the yolisks emerged from the single hole in the middle of the crater. The first had poked its head out, revealing a monstrously large face that reminded her of flies that clung to dog shit. Its bulbous, faceted eyes took in everything, and it had paused for a moment while it regarded the elves that huddled on the ground around it.

  Impatient, a swarm of its companions pushed it out onto the surface. More of the polyps spurted, suffusing the air with that sickly sweet odor. The fly-like yolisks, with their hideous scales and bristled bodies, poured out of the orifice in the ground. They ignored the elves and descended upon the polyps. Then they sat still, extending their proboscis
es over the pulsing mounds in disturbingly tender caresses. They cleaned the polyps of the sticky fluid until they were dry. When they finished eating, they returned to the hole and descended into the ground once more. There were more polyps than there were flies, so some of the mounds were still slick with fluid. Aradma walked over to the yolisk hole and looked inside. She could see the shadows of their bodies staring back up at her, ever present and close under her feet.

  The sight horrified her, and she had retreated from the hole towards the edge of the farm.

  After two days, it became clear that the farmers weren’t going to offer any food or water. Hunger and thirst gnawed her stomach, and she knew she had to eat for herself and the life growing inside her. The next time the polyps burst, she waited until the yolisks had their fill—there was no telling what they would do if she smelled like their food while they were still hungry—and then went to one of the untouched polyps after the giant bugs returned to their hole. The smell didn’t stop her now, so great was her hunger, and she cupped her hand over its surface, scooping the goo into her mouth.

  It wasn’t nearly as odious as she expected. It wasn’t good by any stretch, with a pungent mixture of sweet center and bitter aftertaste that wafted to her nose from the back of her mouth, but she could stomach it. She put her face to the polyp’s small orifice and squeezed, pressing more of the fluid into her mouth. It satisfied her hunger and sated her thirst, and then lulled her into slumber. The unseelie followed her example, and so they had lived now for three months, eating and sleeping amid the flies.

  Now, she crouched on the ground. Her pregnant belly had swelled so large that the cotton shift to which they had stripped her no longer fell below her waist. It had begun to stink anyway, and she had shed the last article of clothing in favor of the clean air. She cradled her belly and coolly regarded the distant tower. Taer Koorla they had called it.

  The whole underground valley glowed with the eerie blue-green light cast by lichen and fungi. The unseelie crowded around her. They didn’t speak, but they lay on the ground close, bodies huddled together for comfort and warmth. They all stank, but by now her nose had become accustomed to it. They looked at her with lost eyes, devoid of the seelie glow. They were no longer seelie, their minds having fallen to the broken Fae memories inside them. They would have been beyond her power to heal, even if she had had her connection to Life.

  She felt Athaym’s touch on her soul. His shadowy grasp slithered around her heart, and she could almost sense Life beyond it, just out of reach. She spent her time meditating and trying to push through, but so far her efforts proved futile.

  She still could not speak. Even when the unseelie formed words towards her, Athaym’s commandment over her soul held firm. Every time she tried, the black smoke choked her, so she maintained her silence.

  The tower loomed in the distance. Every once in a while, she thought it moved. It must have been a trick of her eyes and the darkness. It was too far away to be sure. The outline of thorns and globules encrusted its black silhouette. Even far away, its presence could be felt. That was where Athaym waited for her. His presence too could be felt there through their dark bond.

  Two months ago, one of the unseelie men had descended into the yolisk’s lair. The large flies, though disgusting, had seemed harmless above the ground. When he invaded their nest, however, they swarmed him and sucked him dry. She hadn’t witnessed his death, but she had heard it.

  How to escape? There is a way out.

  Over time, the flies did not remain harmless. Every few weeks, one of them emerged and grabbed one of the unseelie, dragging them back into their nest. Aradma knew if she waited forever, they would eventually all be taken.

  Oh, Fernwalker, she thought. I will come home to you.

  She pressed her lips together, drawing a grim breath through her nose. She continued to stare at the dark tower, then closed her eyes in meditation once more as the huddled mass of unseelie pressed in around her.

  She considered trying to overpower the troglodyte farmers who came in to harvest the yolisks. That the wingless flies were considered food revolted her. The guards were armed, however, and she wasn’t. The unseelie weren’t coherent enough to carry out any kind of planned attack, and she couldn’t speak with them in any case. Then there would be the problem of the kranoch beetles beyond the fence. What would killing the troglodytes get her? She could already climb over the fence. The problem was the kranochs.

  There had to be another way out.

  The yolisk hole.

  She opened her eyes and stared at it again. Its silent, circular pool of darkness mocked her. Just beneath, even from this angle, she could see the shadowy edge of those compound eyes. If only she could get them to clear the hole.

  Of course, she didn’t know where the tunnel led, but it was a chance she needed to take.

  Why go to him?

  If this was a test, as she suspected, the way out led deeper into his clutches.

  The tower. The living tower, the Fae court murmured in her mind in unison, as if with one voice.

  Then, the king’s voice rang clearly in her ears. Because you can only go forward. Here you are static. You must move and seek opportunity. There is opportunity in change, even if the path is into darkness. You have done it before.

  I have done what before? she asked.

  Survived him.

  She frowned. It seemed the Fae were now confused as to who she was. She was not her mother. She wondered for a moment if she ran the same risk of falling to the Dragon personality that lived within her, as the unseelie had fallen to the Fae.

  No. The Dragon inside her no longer felt like a separate entity as it had during her first year of life on Ahmbren. She had absorbed it, not the other way around.

  Her attention returned to the hole. If only the yolisks would clear a path…

  She slapped her head suddenly, and nearly spoke aloud. Remembering the smoke, she kept her mouth shut and thought to herself, Aradma, you are a fool.

  Simple fear and revulsion kept them from escaping. She had spent too much time meditating inward, trying to attack the barrier Athaym had placed on her soul, rather than take a look around and see what was a simple solution.

  Intellect and instinct. This is what Athaym had told her about the troglodytes. They had no passions, hopes or fears… just cold, animal instinct, and a calculated reason that set them above the animals of the Underworld. The philosophies of the surface races most often pitted reason against emotion. This was true of the Vemnai and the Church of Light, and each tried to find a way to balance passion, desire, and lust against mental discipline and adherence to a set of principles. They rarely thought about instinct. For the troglodytes it was different. They didn’t have the problem of emotions warring to dominate their will. They had simple, animal action, reptilian input response patterns hardwired into their nerves.

  And they value rational thought.

  It was disturbing for a moment to realize this was something that she and the troglodytes had in common.

  You will come to me of your own choosing, Athaym had said.

  No. She would move past him. She would escape this.

  For a brief moment, she thought of Kaldor. She knew he must be searching for her. She only imagined that Athaym had some magic that kept her hidden from the human wizard. Then she banished the distracting thought and focused back on the task at hand.

  She waited.

  It was not long before all the polyps sprayed their juices to the air again. She stood, rising from the mass of unseelie. She was prepared to leave them there—she was not going to sacrifice her freedom for them, for they were lost already to their own insanities—but when she stood, they stood.

  Soon the yolisks emerged, swarming over the ground. By now, the giant flies had become accustomed to seeing the elves and paid them no heed. They moved thickly around them, hair bristles brushing up against Aradma’s side as she let them scuttle past her. She was unable to escape a shudde
r.

  When the last yolisk emerged and was feeding peacefully on its polyp’s sugary fluids, she hurried towards the hole.

  The unseelie followed her, laughing and cooing in those strange nonspeech sounds into which they had degenerated.

  Aradma knelt, grabbed the hole’s edge, and slipped into its darkness. It was not long before she couldn’t see, but she kept pushing forward.

  The ground and walls grew soft and moist, and pungent mud pushed up between her toes as she walked. She hoped it was mud. The whole place stank, and she could no longer discern which scent came from what. The passage grew smaller, and eventually she had to crawl on hands and knees, and then even lower, on her belly. The unseelie followed behind her.

  She heard a scream. The yolisks had returned and grabbed one of the stragglers. She kept moving. She was pretty sure now from the stench that it wasn’t just mud that slathered her skin from head to toe.

  She became lodged between a bend in the tunnel, and she panicked for a moment. She struggled, but could not move. She calmed herself and steadied her breathing. It was her belly. If she hadn’t been pregnant, she could have slipped right through.

  It wasn’t that tight. Maybe if she could slowly wiggle, she could keep moving forward. Back wasn’t an option. She continued to hear new screams as the yolisks caught and dragged the tail of their exodus. There wasn’t enough room in the tunnel for a swarm of the flies. She imagined they must be coming in one by one, catching and dragging an elf out, then another would enter the passage.

  The unseelie woman behind her pushed her feet, and suddenly Aradma slid forward into a slightly larger bend of the passage. The unseelie followed, and the room widened enough for them to stand. At the far end of the room a faint light shone from glowing lichen, and she could see a hole in the floor. A rushing sound filled the air.