Crown of Vengeance (Dragon Prophecy)

by James Mallory Mercedes Lackey

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  To all of those who have accompanied me on this journey: my dear coauthor, Mercedes Lackey; our mutual agent, Russ Galen; our skilled and long-suffering editor, Melissa Singer (without whom this book could not have been what it has become); my dear Dennis, always the ready gadfly; and of course, my beloved Diogenes, faithful friend and companion, this volume is respectfully dedicated. And to Rafal Gibek and Terry McGarry, princes among copyeditors, my deepest thanks for your yeoman labors on my behalf.

  —James Mallory

  Acknowledgments

  Many thanks to our tireless, unbelievably good copyeditors, Terry and Rafal. Authors rant when copyeditors are bad and never say a peep when they are outstanding.

  Well, we’re changing that. Thank you, Terry McGarry and Rafal Gibek. Without you this book literally would not have been possible.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Map

  PROLOGUE: Power and Pain

  CHAPTER ONE: The Fall of Farcarinon

  CHAPTER TWO: Child of the Prophecy

  CHAPTER THREE: The Song of Amrethion

  CHAPTER FOUR: The Veiled Path

  INTERLUDE ONE: Fear and Betrayal

  CHAPTER FIVE: The Way of the Sword

  CHAPTER SIX: Leaf and Sword, Flower and Shield

  CHAPTER SEVEN: The High King’s Army

  CHAPTER EIGHT: Battle City

  INTERLUDE TWO: Knowledge and Treachery

  CHAPTER NINE: First Blood

  CHAPTER TEN: Fire and Flight

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: War Magic

  CHAPTER TWELVE: An Empire Bought with Magic

  INTERLUDE THREE: Sorcery and Strategy

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A Parliament of Ghosts

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: To Fly Before the Storm

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: The Hero Tale

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Wind and Dust

  INTERLUDE FOUR: Invasion and Infamy

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: The Fall of the Hundred Houses

  Also by Mercedes Lackey and James Mallory

  About the Authors

  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  POWER AND PAIN

  The Endarkened cannot make, they can only mar.

  —Thurion Pathfinder, The Scroll of Darkness

  Before Time itself came to be, He Who Is had been: changeless, eternal, perfect. And all was Darkness, and He Who Is ruled over all there was.

  Then came the Light, dancing through the perfection of the Dark, separating it into Dark and not-Dark. Making it a finite, a bounded thing. Where there had been silence, and Void, and infinity, there came music, and not-Void, and Time …

  A world.

  At first, He Who Is did nothing, for it was only by the creation of that which was not he, not his, that He Who Is was able to perceive Himself, and He was spellbound by the discovery of His own beauty.

  But the Light was not perfection. The Light was change, a change as infinite as the changelessness of He Who Is. Time was swift to One Who had only known timelessness, and by the time He Who Is became aware of the danger, it was too late to avert it.

  But it could yet be repaired. And so He Who Is turned the Light’s weaving against it, for by its very nature, the Light implied the Dark. All things in its World possessed opposites, for no thing could be named if it did not possess an antithesis. Fire and water, time and eternity, leaf and star …

  Life and death.

  * * *

  The first life raised up by the Light was green: leaf and branch, bud and seed, flower and fruit to sweep over the face of the land. It changed the harsh stone, beautifying it with a thousand living shapes. It flourished for a time, until He Who Is conjured plague and blight and rot that swept across the land, devouring the green life down to bare rock, making the land stark and sterile once more. But plague and blight and rot were merely tools, and they did not slay all. The green life was reborn, and with it came red life: beasts of earth and air and water. Red life took on a thousand shapes and filled the land, until there was no corner of it that did not hold red life and green.

  And once more He Who Is woke from the contemplation of His perfection and rose up out of the deep darkness. He kindled the forests to flame, slaughtered the schools and flocks and herds, set red life to feed upon itself just as it fed upon green life, set green life to poison red. Hunger fed upon hunger until green ocean and green earth were red, and all the work of the Light was undone.

  But in the destruction of the red life, the Light realized He Who Is meant to take the world from them, the beautiful world of shape and form and time and boundary they had created. Light could not destroy the Darkness without destroying itself, but it could bring life to flourish again where destruction had walked.

  And to this life, it would give weapons.

  Once again, life was reborn from death. The new life was neither green nor red. It was as silver as the Light itself. Rot did not extinguish it nor did death destroy it. It was as changeable as He Who Is was changeless. It grew and changed and spread to all the places red life and green life had been, and then it spread farther still. Light itself coursed through the veins of silver life, and Light fell in love with silver life. Light left the high vault of heaven and scattered itself across the land, and silver life traveled to the places of the Light to rejoice in it.

  But He Who Is vowed He would win in the end. This time, He did not strike at once. This time He bound His war into time, to let His tools learn from the enemy He would ultimately destroy. To all the things of the Light, He Who Is held up a dark mirror. For the Bright World, a World Without Sun. For life and love, death and pain. For trust, treachery. For kindness, power.

  For skill … magic.

  He Who Is created thirteen instruments as eternal and changeless as He Himself, instruments whose sole purpose was the destruction of the Light and all the Light had made. And when His Endarkened had completed their task, the world would once more be what it had been before the Light had come. Changeless. Eternal.

  Perfect.

  * * *

  Virulan was First among the Thirteen, king of the Endarkened. He had always been king. He always would be—how not? His subjects were loyal to him, and to He Who Is, who had planted the Tree of Night, who had set the Shadow Throne in the Heart of Darkness, who had placed the Crown of Pain upon Virulan’s brow.

  Who had set him his task.

  At first, it had seemed that to accomplish the task they had been set would be a simple matter, for they could not die, and the Brightworlders could. And so Virulan and the Twelve took to the sky each night, slaughtering without cease until the terrible bright light by which the Brightworlders marked time came again.

  And time passed, and Virulan soon saw that this was not enough. The Brightworlders were too many. Slay a hundred, and a thousand sprung up in their place. Again and again, the Endarkened had scoured a place of life, only to return and find it fecund once more. No spells that Virulan and his Twelve could cast were terrible enough to do the bidding of He
Who Is.

  If he had been capable of it, Virulan would have despaired.

  But he was not, and so he sought counsel.

  He Who Is had granted them the boon of eternity, but all gifts must be paid for. The Endarkened did not sleep, just as they did not age, but an Endarkened who did not regularly seek a period of silence and contemplation would enter eternity in truth—not death, for they could not die, but the inability to perceive Time.

  Such an Endarkened would be useless to He Who Is and it would be his fate to be forever sealed away in a chamber in the Deep Earth. Virulan had no desire to lose the favor of He Who Is. Virulan carefully marked the passage of time by the shifts and changes in the Deep Earth and retired to his secret chamber regularly.

  This time, he had a greater goal than his own survival.

  “Dread and beloved Lord of Darkness and Endings, hear Your loyal and devoted acolyte…”

  The realm of time and matter was no fit habitation for the Lord of All Things, and so Virulan sought Him in His own place. Virulan knew himself to be a created thing, a tool, and like any tool, fitted for the needs of his task. To destroy the realm of time and matter, Virulan himself was a thing of time and matter. But not entirely. That part of Virulan that sought audience with his dread master was neither.

  It was a realm beautiful beyond description: lightless and empty and sterile. Virulan’s spirit rose to that place, and waited.

  WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME?

  Each syllable thrilled through Virulan’s entire being, bringing such ecstasy that he nearly forgot his purpose. To speak words in answer would be to profane this holy emptiness. Virulan opened his thoughts to He Who Is, knowing He saw all.

  THIS IS NOT A TASK BEYOND YOUR SKILL. I HAVE GIVEN YOU TOOLS.

  Before Virulan could shape a question, he had been thrust back into the world of time and form. But he was not in his bedchamber. He was in a place in the World Without Sun whose existence he had never suspected.

  The Black Chamber.

  It lay at the center of a vein of black glass a thousand miles thick. Virulan could feel the vastness of stone above him, and his heart swelled with pride: the Brightworlders boasted of their vast lands, but the World Without Sun was a thousand times greater.

  To any senses but his own, the chamber would have been unremittingly black. Virulan saw a thousand shades of darkness, hues that no other race had words for. The darkness showed him a chamber carved of the living rock. Every inch of the walls and ceiling was covered with deeply incised symbols.

  Master their meaning and Virulan would take within himself the faintest echo of the power of He Who Is. Virulan’s birthright was to command sorcery—and here was the grimoire from which he must learn

  But that knowledge came at a price.

  In the center of the chamber there was a long hollow spike of obsidian that stood heart-high. This was the Obsidian Blade, the instrument of sacrifice that made its victim one with the symbols upon the walls. For any other, what Virulan now contemplated would be nothing more than a gateway to the most agonizing death of all—but Virulan was first among the Endarkened, first shaped by the hand of He Who Is. He spread his great scarlet wings and thrust himself into the air. For an instant, his golden horns brushed the vaulting ceiling of the chamber.

  Then he fell.

  The Obsidian Blade pierced his body.

  The chamber rang like a crystal bell with his agonized screams; the glyphs upon the walls bloomed into dark fire, searing their meaning into his skin. He hung there, writhing, impaled, until his screams dwindled to sobs of agony, until his consciousness fled into a nothingness deeper than anything he had ever known.

  But when he rose up an eternity later, the sorcery that was his birthright thrilled through his veins with every beat of his heart. Virulan went from the Black Chamber to the foot of the Tree of Night and summoned his Endarkened to him. There he opened their heritage to them, a sorcery fueled by death, a sorcery great enough to give them the victory they craved.

  And once again, the Endarkened swept forth from Obsidian Mountain.

  The slaughter they wreaked now was a thousandfold greater than before. They glutted themselves upon blood and pain and gorged upon the flesh of their victims. The land around Obsidian Mountain became a wasteland where nothing lived, and each night they ranged farther.

  And it was still not enough.

  * * *

  “What must I do?” Virulan cried. His scream echoed back from the stony vault that was the roof of the world and brought no answer.

  Save one.

  “You must use the tools He Who Is has given us, my king.”

  Uralesse was first among the Twelve, as Virulan was first among them all. Only he would dare to approach Virulan when Virulan walked in the Garden of Night. When he saw his king’s gaze upon him, Uralesse groveled low to the ground, his great ribbed wings wound tightly about his body in submission, his horned brow pressed against the stone.

  “Do you say I do not?” Virulan growled. His fangs ached to rend Uralesse’s flesh, even though the words he had spoken were words Virulan had long held in his own mind. He had taught his knowledge of sorcery to his people—but only a fool would give up every advantage, and so Virulan had not taught them all he had learned.

  “I say only that the first among us is surely greater than any of us,” Uralesse said, unmoving.

  “You are wise, my brother. Rise, and walk with me.”

  Uralesse rose gracefully to his feet and allowed his wings to open fractionally. For a time they walked together in silence.

  “The Bright World continues to live,” Virulan said at last.

  “Yes,” Uralesse agreed, his wings drooping in sorrow. “Each pure thing we make becomes tainted once more. It is as if life replenishes itself as water inexhaustibly fills a spring.”

  “I shall learn the Bright World’s secret,” Virulan said. “And I will make of it talons for their throats.”

  “Let it be so, my king,” Uralesse said.

  * * *

  Now Virulan worked the greatest sorcery he had ever imagined. He returned to the Black Chamber and there he studied the runes and the glyphs until he was certain his spell would succeed. Then he sent his Endarkened into the Bright World once more, but this time not to slay. This time, he ordered them to bring its creatures to him alive.

  It was a reaping that would long endure in the stories the Brightworlders told one another. The chambers of the World Without Sun became filled with life: weeping and lamenting, profaning the beauty of the Endarkened realm by its very existence. Night after night, the Endarkened flew, and harvested, until the World Without Sun could hold no more.

  In a space above the Black Chamber, Virulan had made a place. Its only entrance was through an opening in its ceiling, and it contained only one object: a gigantic mirror of black obsidian. As his subjects had hunted, so had Virulan prepared the mirror. And when it was ready, he ordered all the captives slaughtered at once.

  The Endarkened had learned to love the pain of their victims, learned to cherish each scream and tear. Torture was their highest art, but today, Virulan did not call for art, but for blood. And he received it. The halls of the World Without Sun were awash in blood, a red and stinking tide that flowed through halls and down staircases, rushing ever deeper into the Deep Earth until it came to the place where the Obsidian Mirror waited. Hot fresh blood poured through the opening in the ceiling and filled the room to the brink.

  And the Mirror drank in the life, the power, the blood, until all the blood was gone, and only the Mirror itself remained.

  Then Virulan and his brothers feasted. And when the feast was done, Virulan went to stand before the Mirror.

  “Show me what I wish to see,” he commanded, and the Mirror did. It showed him the Bright World as the Brightworlders saw it. It showed him their lives and their fates. For a very long time, Virulan watched, and learned. He left the Mirror only to seek the silence and stillness that preserved his exist
ence; at each Rising he returned to the visions of the Mirror once more. A thousand Risings came and went before he had learned what he must know.

  And then he left the Obsidian Mirror, and went to the Heart of Darkness, and seated himself upon the Shadow Throne, and summoned Uralesse.

  “I have learned what I wished to know,” he said without preamble when Uralesse groveled before him. “And I would hear your counsel.”

  “Tell me how I may serve you, my king,” Uralesse answered.

  “The Brightworlders cannot be slain,” Virulan said flatly.

  Uralesse raised his head in shock, his pupilless yellow eyes going wide. “He Who Is has said it must be,” he protested.

  “And so I have summoned you, for you will hear the Brightworlders’ secret and understand. He Who Is made us to destroy all the Light has made. He has not set us to destroy the Light itself, for that is a task He reserves for His own, once ours is done. But ours will never be done, my brother. He Who Is has given us great sorcery—but the Light has given life the ability to multiply itself, increasing faster than thought. Once you spoke of an ever-filling spring and I thought it merely clever poetry. But it is not. And we are few!”

  His last words were a howl of anguish.

  “Then we must be more than we are,” Uralesse said strongly. He dared to sit back on his heels at the foot of the Shadow Throne, but did not rise. “You who are the wellspring of all sorcery, who have dared to gaze upon the naked ugliness of our foe—you know their secret! We will take it and use it against them!”

  For a long time, Virulan gazed at his counselor in silence. “Let it be so,” he said at last. “Summon our brothers.”

  * * *

  When all the Endarkened were gathered together, it was a communion of such beauty that Virulan nearly wept to behold it. Rugashag—Shurzul—Khambaug—Bashahk—Dhasgah—Gholak—Lashagan—Marbuglor—Arzhugdu—Nagreloth—Orbushnu—Uralesse—each was more glorious than the next. And each one of them was dedicated to only two things.