“Or what? You’ll dust the spunk out of me? You’ll deliver sandwiches laced with disappointment.”
I could feel the ice coming off him even though I couldn’t see his face. Good. Get him all riled up and maybe he would make a mistake. Zin still wasn’t moving. It was like she didn’t realize how much trouble we were in.
“Oh, trust me, mouse. I will do far more than that.” His tone was dangerous. “You’ve run all through this building without realizing how powerful the things were that you rushed right by. You passed a mask that would make you invisible and a sword that would cut to the core of truth. A rug that flies. And you were too fool to notice any of them. All you grabbed was an ordinary spear. A desert hunting spear for killing coneys and lizards. Fool.”
“Let’s play a little game, Redgers.” I didn’t like that he thought I was worthless. I didn’t like that he thought he was in charge here.
This is getting intense. Saboraak sounded nervous. She was never nervous. I think these people are listening to him. The crowd feels ... intense. Like they are falling in love. Especially the leaders from other Ko’Torenth cities.
With Apeq? Really? I didn’t see it.
With the idea of making him their king.
Uh oh. I needed to get Zin out of here. She was more vulnerable than ever if Apeq was gaining power – and so was Zyla.
“I don’t play games,” Redgers said.
“Well, no I suppose not,” I said, turning slightly. “You can’t call it playing if you always lose, right?”
He grimaced. “What’s the game? And stop moving.”
How could I convince Zin to run? She just stood there with her hands over her mouth staring at me.
I considered my words carefully. “What if you let the girl go and then we’ll square off man to man. You choose something off the walls to fight me with and I’ll choose something off the walls to defend me with and we’ll see who wins and who dies.”
“Ha! I almost want to watch that. You wouldn’t stand a chance. I know what each of these things does. I was there when they were wrought. I was part of the making of them.”
“I don’t believe you,” I said.
Zin’s eyes were glued to me as if she was fascinated by me – but that was ridiculous. I jutted my chin forward, trying to point without my hands, to encourage her to run down the passageway instead of staring at me. She needed to go. She needed to be safe.
“You don’t believe me?” His voice was low. “I don’t need to prove anything to you. Who are you to even ask?”
His words were low and threatening and they stirred something within me that crawled in my belly like a gnawing worm. I knew that tone. I’d heard that before. When I’d been no more than twelve, I’d run with a gang of boys my age and one day we grabbed a soft leather purse that wasn’t ours to grab and a Castelan’s guard came looking for us with four of his friends. He’d grabbed Sannin by the scruff of his skinny neck and dangled him up so high I could see the holes in his boots.
“You aren’t even worth killing,” he’d said when he stabbed my friend in his belly. “Not even worth the time to finish you off.”
He’d been gone with the purse leaving us there on the street frozen in horror at our suffering friend. I clamped down on the memory before I had to relive what came next.
Better to leave with only the lesson I learned – if people think you are nothing, they think taking from you doesn’t count – even if the thing they are taking is your life.
I needed to think of a way to make him think we were something.
And I needed to do it before he killed me with whatever magical weapon he was holding. If only Zin would run! If only she wouldn’t just stand there.
“I’m the guy who knows you have silver swirls in your eyes,” I said, gambling. He couldn’t call that bluff. Not without revealing something too big to share. “I’m the guy who knows what happens when they become too strong to resist.”
“Say that again,” he hissed.
“Let the girl go, and we’ll talk.” I pitched my voice low.
There was a long pause and then I felt something cold and hard press against the base of my skull.
“I don’t think so. I have plans for her. And after this little talk, I have plans for you, too. But first, I’m going to prove you wrong. I’m going to show you how I know what every item in this building does, and I’m going to let you see your future.”
Chapter Sixteen
“MARCH AND STAY SILENT. You too, girl, or he gets it.” Redgers pushed me forward and I walked carefully in front of him through the darkened halls. I didn’t know what he had pressed against my head, but I wasn’t in a position to find out. If I turned and tried to use the spear and that thing was magical, he could destroy both Zin and me in a moment. I needed to wait for the right opportunity.
Uh oh. This is bad.
What was bad? Saboraak?
Zin was moving now, shaken out of whatever had frozen her. Her mumbling was too quiet to pick out words, but her whispering raced faster and faster as we were pushed forward.
“The thing about magical items,” Redgers said, “is that you don’t control what they will do when you make them. It takes study to find their true capacities. But you can guess. The raw materials give hints of what they might be – and the more powerful the raw material, the more powerful the item.”
Interesting, but hardly important when someone was threatening you. Zin’s muttering grew louder. I could almost make out a word here and there. “Prophecy” was one of them and “sacrifice.” Two of my least favorite words.
What was going on with Saboraak? It wasn’t like her to stop communicating. Why hadn’t she answered my question?
“For instance,” Redgers continued. Maybe he just loved listening to his own voice. “The item I have pressed against your skull is an interesting one. The first of its kind – though I hope to have nine more soon. When I unleash the magic within it, white-hot fire blasts from the end that is currently pressed to your head.”
I swallowed but whatever was in my throat wouldn’t budge.
“Curious, don’t you think?” Redgers asked.
“Do you have one that shuts people up? I could use that right about now.”
When you were scared witless there were only two alternatives. Panic, or pretend you were braver than you were. I’d never seen any point in panicking.
You should be panicking now! I am!
Saboraak? Saboraak, why are you panicking?
I hated that she didn’t answer me. What was going on up there?
Bataar couldn’t handle Apeq’s speech.
Well, the guy was a windbag.
“If I had a device for quieting people, I would use it on the girl,” Redgers said.
At the same moment, Zin’s chanting grew loud enough to hear the words. I recognized them from the little handwritten book I carried.
“Into the belly of the stone,
Death below but not alone.
Rising to challenge the flame,
Not for might and not for fame,
Twin of heart, twin of mind,
Only together a future find,
Bird and Smoke,
Flame and Oak,
Cast the lot and wait.
Cast the lot and hope.
Cast the lot and die.”
Pleasant stuff, Zin. Just keep on chanting that.
He stood up in the middle of Apeq’s speech and challenged him for the right to lead Ko’Torenth. He says he’s marked by the prophecies. That this is his destiny. They must meet for judgment on the ko’tor’kaen in two days time.
I leave him alone for a few hours and he starts a political war. As if we didn’t have enough to deal with. I rolled my eyes but ended up clenching them in pain when the rod in Redgers’ hand hit the back of my neck.
Things are ... dicey ... here.
Just get out alive, Saboraak. I sent you guys to find out news for Hubric, not create news!
Y
ou don’t need to remind me.
Just get out fast.
That may prove ... difficult.
Saboraak? Saboraak?
I’ll be out of contact for a while. I need to focus. I don’t want to flame anyone innocent.
Oh, Skies and Stars! They were in a battle up there and I was stuck down here being held captive by a servant. I needed to find a way to change my luck and get Zin away safely. What was I waiting for anyway? If Redgers was going to use that thing he would have done it already instead of marching us down an endless spiral staircase.
“Here we are,” he said, as Zin opened a door and stepped inside.
I’d wait to make my move until he was walking through the door.
I’d wait until ...
Skies and Stars!
The blood drained from my face so fast that I saw stars blinking across my vision. Horror made my knees wobble like jelly.
No.
Not this.
No.
Chapter Seventeen
ZIN WAS SHAKING SO hard I thought she might fall, like a tree in a windstorm. Her hands were both clasped over her mouth again, as if she were holding back a thousand screams.
I swallowed hard. My own limbs felt shaky and my belly was roiling like the storm had shut itself inside me and was going to try to come out any time now.
It wasn’t enough reaction.
Not to what we were seeing.
We stood on a wide rock shelf overlooking a cavern. The shelf stood over a platform built right beneath it that was as big as all of the Jadefire House of Marvels, but the cavern was even larger. Faint purple light glowed from the depths of it, but from the door, I was not close enough to the edge of the shelf to look down at whatever was glowing.
I didn’t need to.
What I could see was bad enough.
Five men and four women were hanging from the stalactite roof. Their feet were manacled to the rock above and their clothing – black leather with a thousand buckles and straps, faint writing scrawled on all of it – was torn and dirty. They weren’t wearing their usual colored scarves, but I could still identify them by those leathers.
Dominion Dragon Riders. The very ones whose dragons Saboraak had freed. They hung limply, their skin wrinkled and shrunken like old apples.
That alone would turn my bowels to water, but what I saw was worse.
Chanting rose up from the mouths of hooded people clustered under them on the platform in a ring. Their hands linked around a table and on that table were nine rods – just like the one that Redgers was pressing against my skull.
From each of the limp Dragon Riders, a line of silver flowed into one of the rods and as that line pulsed and wavered, little swirls of silver fell from it, settling onto the people in the ring. Their eyes swirled with silver. The same silver I’d seen in staring eyes throughout Ko’Torenth.
“Welcome to the home of the Midnight Artificers,” Redgers said in a low, proud voice. “The items we make are truly amazing.”
The items.
The magical items that lined the halls and shelves of the Jadefire House of Marvels. The magical bracelet worn by Bataar to heal him. The magical clasp he wore to help stay unnoticed.
Oh, Skies and Stars, no!
My hands felt dirty from having touched them. My eyes were dirty from having looked at them.
“Remember when I mentioned raw material?” Redgers asked, his tone smug now. “This is what I meant. The raw material we use is – ”
“Souls,” I said in horror.
“Yes.” I could hear the satisfied smile in his voice. “When the magic began to run out from the wells of the earth, we set our minds to finding a new way. Kav’ai proves difficult to bend. The Dominion holds back their greatest source of magic – for now. But there is a magic in a person. The magic of their soul. And that magic can be tapped and extracted and affixed to an item. What sort of soul a person had determines what sort of item you can fashion.”
“That’s why you’ve been keeping Zin here.” That suddenly made sense. She was unique – precious. They must see that.
“She’s a puzzle that one. Strong. But what sort of item can we fashion from her? We have yet to decide. You, though, will be easy. You’re a Dragon Rider like these others. You’ll make Dragon Flames to use against our enemies.”
Ice filled me and this time when I tried to swallow, I retched instead.
“Exactly,” Redgers said.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my sleeve, trying to force the nausea aside. I felt feverish, my head spinning like a juggled ball.
“And the men with the silver eyes? The ones like you who are consumed by their own demons in the streets?”
“An apt description. Tor. I like that. Consumed by their own demons. Hmmm. We should test that theory. There is a build up, yes. And yes, you can see it in the eyes, but that’s one of the dangers of this business. We’re hoping we can find ways to mitigate the effects now that we’ve been joined by Dominion Magikas.”
As he said those words, one of the figures below looked up, his hood falling from his head and his face clear in the silver light. He looked familiar. A face surfaced in my memory. Cormaz. One of Shabren the Violet’s Magika associates. He smiled wickedly.
“I’m afraid you’ll need to remain here now, Zin,” Redgers said. “We can’t keep you in the main house when there is a chance you could tell someone about this.”
Beside me, Zin began to keen, a quiet, high-pitched, chilling sound like a wounded rabbit.
We’d been above this place all along. Zin and Zyla had been living here. I’d juggled hardboiled eggs and strolled through the house like nothing was happening and all that time this had been beneath us. Horror, torture, death.
Right beneath our feet.
I moved so quickly that I surprised myself, spinning and stabbing with the spear while I ducked to avoid the rod. Something hot washed over my left cheek and ear, searing my vision with bright light and blinding me, but I felt resistance against the point of the spear. I pushed forward, leaning all my weight against that point. I felt something give, and then I fell forward.
Zin’s keening was louder and over it, shouts bubbled up from below. I blinked back purple afterimages, fighting to clear my vision.
A little help here! Saboraak called.
Ha! Same to you, old girl.
My vision was clearing, though ghosts still danced across it.
Skies and Stars!
Redgers lay beneath me, blood bubbling from his lips. I’d hit him with the spear, alright. It had gone right through his chest. I snatched up the rod from his hand. No need to let him blast me with it again. My face and ear felt strange. Tingly but numb.
Footsteps echoed behind me. Someone was running up the steps. We had moments. Just moments. Think, Tor! Think!
I scrambled to my feet, locating Zin in the afterimages still clouding my vision. I grabbed her by her upper arm as gently as I could and guided her toward the door.
“Hurry!” I said.
“Into the belly of the stone, Death below but not alone,” she whispered.
“We’re in the belly, alright. Let’s hope it digests slowly.”
The first hooded figure was cresting the top of the stairs. I pointed the rod at him, feeling sick at my own actions. It wasn’t right to use an object made from a person. People weren’t resources to be used and harnessed. Desperation trumped conscience.
Fire, you flaming –
The rod fired just like a dragon, white-blue flame licking out of the end of it in a terrible blast. It struck the man in the chest, flinging him backward through the air like a doll thrown by a toddler. He struck the figure behind him, knocking them both backward. No time to watch them fall.
I maneuvered Zin past Redgers, ignoring his spasms.
“Take the book.” I pulled it from my pocket and shoved it in her hand. “Close the door behind you. Get out of this house. Don’t stop to take anything with you. Climb up through the lev
els and look for Saboraak. She’ll bring you to safety.”
Don’t make promises I can’t fulfill!
There was no one else. If Saboraak failed, then that was it. There was no lock on the door to this cavern. Not on the house side at any rate. I’d seen that when Zin opened it the first time. We couldn’t both flee – not and survive. She’d have to go on her own and I would have to hold them off for as long as I could so she could escape.
Your death will help nothing!
Great. I wouldn’t even get that right? Someone should have told me that the odds were stacked so badly against me!
Seriously, Tor! This is no joke! You must flee.
I pushed Zin through the door and slammed it behind her, spinning to put my back to the door.
I’d always been good at long odds, though. People liked an underdog. Time to show these swirly-eyed maniacs why that was.
Chapter Eighteen
I DIDN’T LIKE RAISING that metal rod. Not now that I knew what it was – who had died to provide it. My hand trembled as I thrust it forward. I willed it still. I could buy Zin minutes to escape if I was strong – if I didn’t let them kill me in their first try.
Maybe they’d want to take me alive. Maybe they’d want to suck my soul out just like they had to all those other Dragon Riders. Would it hurt? Would I remain conscious but stuck in an object forever? Fear made my head buzz, painted my thoughts a jagged purple, made me feverish so that sweat sprang up between my shoulder blades and dripped down my temples.
It felt like minutes had passed, but it had only been seconds. Redgers still gurgled unpleasantly between my feet. The Midnight Artificers were still scrambling for weapons. Nine of them had already claimed the half-made rods.
I trembled as I watched them raise the rods in firm, sure hands. Nine to one.
I’d seen worse odds.
Maybe at least Saboraak would survive this. Maybe she could find Hubric afterward and give him her report. Maybe she could bring Zin to him. I was glad Zin was free. She was so wounded, so bruised, so helpless. There was something about her that made me flinch at the thought of harm coming to her. I wasn’t the self-sacrificial type. I wouldn’t play the hero for anyone, but she needed saving and what kind of man wouldn’t step up to do that? Right? Even someone like me knew that. Even street scum had enough honor to know that he couldn’t walk away from her without scarring his soul. If I’d left her to her fate and run, I’d never sleep again – not really. Never enjoy a hot drink on a cold morning. Never share a kiss with a pretty girl – certainly not Zyla! Not with a free conscience, anyway.
Dragon Chameleon: Episodes 1-4 Page 27