“No, I can’t. But most of this is staying behind anyway.” Drake began to chortle and fuss, attempting to flap wings and kick away from Keane. His head turned toward the fresh kill, nostrils flaring. “Set him down, Keane, and let’s see how he handles a real carcass.”
Keane did so, pulling the blanket away as Drake began to run toward the basilisk. The young dragon latched onto the basilisk and growled, gripping hardened scales with claws and teeth. Maerek smiled and let out a soft rumble of pride.
The traders spent the rest of the night and most of the morning skinning the basilisk and stripping the carcass of usable meet. Maerek assisted in his dragon form, moving chunks of meat from the beach to the boat to be stored in the salt barrels. After the salt barrels restocked with basilisk meat to be cured on their journey back to Ruiska, Maerek looked at the remaining carcass and quickly judged his appetite. Excluding the head and hood section of the snake, as well as all the viscera and attached organs, there was about a quarter of the snake left. Drake was tearing into the liver, snout slightly bloodied and belly significantly enlarged from over indulgence.
“Why is it, every time we travel together, that half or more of our supplies is ruined?” Keane asked, joking and laughter in his voice. Maerek laughed as he tore a piece of flesh from the tail of snake with his claws.
“That snake meat may be a delicacy somewhere,” Maerek replied. He bit off a mouthful of the meat from his claws, swallowed, and then continued. “And I suppose that you all are wondering what happened the night we left Port Rasmú.” The traders nodded.
“We were told when and where to return to find you, as well as a few other things, but nothing about that man on the dock,” Ledría said, digging her toes into the sand.
“That man you saw me kill on the docks, wasn’t a man. He was a like me, a dragon.” All the traders stopped breathing for a second.
“Dragons don’t kill dragons,” Keane said softly, looking down at the ground. “You, you live a higher law than that.”
“The dragon’s name was Boshk. He was a liar, a coward, and an accomplice to the murder of hundreds, if not, thousands of my kin. He drank the tainted blood of my keep, of Moving Mountain, on a promise from someone named Vilheim that he and his line would be treated and feared as gods. What he didn’t realize is that the Vilheim was never in a position to offer such an agreement. And for Boshk to accept it and follow through with all it entailed…” Maerek paused, anger boiling inside. He slammed the sand with a fist, and then dug at it, claws tearing deep into the soft beach. “He was not worthy of kinship. He was a killer and would be until he was ended.”
“Boshk was the dragon that you were captive with? In the prison caves on the other side of the Blades?” Aelex asked.
“Yes, but not captive with. Manipulated is a better word,” Maerek replied. “I should have known something about him was wrong when he made me swear to Mearto’s rescuing before he would help me escape.” Maerek took another bite of the snake and swallowed without chewing. Drake, having completely glutted himself, dug a small pit in the sand and fell asleep. “And what am I supposed to do now? Will she ever come back? Where will I hide him in Ruiska?”
Ledría stood up and walked over to Maerek, placing a calming hand his wing. Her healing green light emanated from the palm of her hand and soaked into Maerek. Maerek let out a low rumble of comfort.
“I think it is best if we take some time to explain what we know, what your wife told us, everything” she said as she pulled her hand away.
“It’s been hard for me to keep my mouth shut about it,” Japeth said, cleared his throat, turned and spat on the sand, “or talk to you in any event, out of fear that I’d say too much before the time was right. But I suppose Ledría is right. Now is a good a time as any.” Japeth nodded toward Ledría
“She told us that when Drake was born, that she and your son would be hunted by someone,” Ledría said. “She didn’t say who, just that they’d be hunted. She would need to hide you and your son away in the Wiles in plain sight. She said to us, and even gave us some of her personal gold pieces she’d be savin’, to go buy a tavern, or an inn, or something that you could live in for a while.
“She also said that you’d be needing a cave or something up in a mountain to hide Drake until he was old enough to change into a human shape. Well, we did what she asked, and found a cave, a new keep for you and your son, to hide in.”
“We’ll run the tavern for you until you’re ready for it, Maerek,” Thomas said, smiling. “That way you can focus on taking care of your son.”
Maerek was about to take another bite but stopped and lay down in the sand. “And did she mention if she’d come back?”
“She didn’t,” Keane said.
“But she is protecting you,” Ledría commented, smiling. “She said that she’d hunt Erith and end him. When that is done, she would return.”
“We have to trust my wife’s judgement,” Maerek said, looking over at his son. “I have a place to raise him, to teach him how to have honor, to sing to him of his forebears.” He blew a stream of smoke out of his nose, and then changed into his human form, quickly putting on the tunic and trousers in the satchel before the wind took the smoke away. “I have you, also, an extended family, a keep of my own. Drake will come to know and love each of you, as I do.” Maerek grabbed the satchel strap to sling and secure over his shoulder when he heard the metal amulet bounce in the pack. He reached in and pulled out the necklace Mearto made for him. The charm glinted at the predawn light. Carefully, he held it to his lips and kissed the metal, still being able to smell the hint of her musk.
Lilac and sea salt.
EPILOGUE
The wolf chased a jackrabbit in and out of the tree-line and brush at the edge of the desert. It was the first suitable prey for his appetite he spotted since he began his journey across the desert landscape of Tessír, and he was gaining on the rodent. The jackrabbit juked and made serpentine motions from tree root, to bush, to desert and back, trying to ware out its pursuer. The wolf finally was within striking distance, and reached out, slapping the hind legs of the jackrabbit, scoring its flesh with his dew claw. The rabbit tumbled in a spray of dirt and blood, and then in the next instant, the wolf clamped down, crushing neck and head with his jaws.
As he devoured the small meal, bone, entrails and all, he pondered back to the message that brought him here. His master, his true master, Vilheim, appeared to him in a dream, instructing him to travel to the edge of the desert and wait. The instruction seemed to contradict other messages and orders he received. He was supposed to meet another servant of Vilheim, one that would stand out because of his power. This other servant was supposed to use the wolf in some other part of their mission to end the School of the Faye and take over the government of Tessír. The wolf also hoped that in time, he would get his original body, his human body, back.
As a human, he was known as Kosai, a junior ranking member of the Capital Guard. Vilheim restored memories to him, memories of the Barracks, of the School where he learned his craft, of the betrayal by Mearto and the other teachers and of his forced transformation conducted by the Head Teacher. Those memories seemed palatable to him when compared to the death of his Father.
When Kosai was changed into a wolf, he knew only the present and scavenged in the desert before joining a nomadic tribe. Later, they were attacked by the capital guard. The Captain, known by name and position, led the assault, and Kosai assisted the leader of the tribe, Iserum, in killing the Captain. When Vilheim restored Kosai’s memories to him, it was then he learned that the Captain was his father, and the Tessírans, as well as the Seer, planned the attack knowing that the Captain would die.
“They’ll suffer,” Kosai growled before biting down on a leg bone of the rabbit.
“Yes, they will,” came a reply from behind a tree. Kosai turned, hackles raised, teeth barred, snarling at the surprised visitor. The man walked out from the shade of the tree, hardly making a noi
se. His wind torn cloak flapped noiselessly behind him. His face was shielded from the sun by a thick hood that cast a dark shadow over his face. “Peace, Kosai,” The figure said. Kosai calmed, recognizing the voice and knelt on one leg, in a strange canine like bow.
“Forgive me, Vilheim,” Kosai whispered. “There is no smell to you now, and you look, weaker, more diminished.”
“I am,” Vilheim said as he reached into his cloak and pulled out a glass vial. “Erith, my other servant that you were to assist, has failed me. The female dragon, your former teacher, killed him not long ago, though not without significant injury. As he was destroyed, so too was the power, my power, I placed within him, return back to the true source from which I took it.”
“I see,” Kosai said, eyes staring down at the ground. “It went back to the Faye. Do you wish for me to avenge him, and you?”
“No.” Vilheim uncorked the glass vial as a purple lightning zapped around his hand. There was a thimble full of oily black liquid inside the bottle that gave off its own purple glow as it sloshed in the container. “I must keep to my original plan.” Vilheim paused and reached inside his cloak again and pulled out a small, leather pouch bound up with a leather cord. “But I must trust you, now, to its completion. With this, I will restore you to your previous form.” Vilheim lifted the vial and then tossed the pouch in front of Kosai. “The eyes of the Seer will assist you.”
Vilheim stepped forward and placed his free hand on Kosai’s head. The liquid in the vial popped and hissed as the purple lightning surged up and out of the bottle and shot down at Kosai. Kosai howled in pain as the electricity burned within him, contorting muscles, bones and ribs expanding, shape changing, becoming upright, paws growing, and becoming hands, skin shedding fur and becoming tight, thin, and tense.
The next moment it was over, but the physical pain was replaced with a pounding, crippling headache as images and Vilheim’s voice seemed to fill his very being.
“The world is breaking,” Vilheim said in his mind. “The Seeps continue to grow as the Faye tries to fight back against a foe it cannot comprehend. Through you, Kosai, I will bring this world to its knees. And through you, the world will look up to us as gods, givers of life and death, and there will be peace.” As Vilheim spoke, knowledge, understanding, and information poured into Kosai’s mind, becoming instantaneously known to him, as if he had spent a lifetime learning it. He knew what to do with the eyes of the Seer. Everything was so obvious to him now.
Before Kosai could open his eyes, he knew that Vilheim exhausted the last of his life-force in transforming Kosai back into a human body and imparting to him the knowledge of what needed to be done. He wasn’t surprised to find the wind tattered cloak laying on the ground, or the empty bottle, etched with emblems of power crumbling and disintegrating into sand. The emblems on the glass bottle, Kosai now understood as preservation emblems, had faded. Vilheim was gone, his spirit returned to the Faye, but still tethered to members of the governing council of the Tessíran government, as well as to Kosai. There was a something like an invisible thread there that Kosai could feel within him, and he could trace that thread back to the soul of Vilheim. That thread was the key to what Kosai was commanded to do.
Cautiously, Kosai picked up the cloak in his human hands, and wrapped it around his shoulders. His former skin lay in front of him. Kosai picked it up, closed his eyes, and made his connection to the Faye. Power surged through him, and he pushed that power into the wolf hide, transforming it into a usable pair of trousers.
Dressed, he pondered back to his time at the school, and at the same time, sensing that thread that connected him to Vilheim, and to the governing council. Kosai was to harness a power that only the Head Teachers of the School were permitted to use. When Kosai was a student at that school, he knew that the channeling the Faye by Conduits was strictly elemental. A Conduit, when trained could mend or render flesh, create fire, move wind, grow plants. Channeling, when done right, was creation within the elemental world. This new instruction involved a specific channeling, known to the school as The Unspoken. It was a skill reserved only for the head teachers and was used to manipulate the mind and soul of another person, to erase or reconstruct as the caster of the Unspoken saw fit.
Kosai knew now, with the knowledge imparted to him, that the Unspoken could be used for much more than altering the mind and soul of an individual.
“Necromancy,” Kosai whispered as he stared at the pouch that held the eyes of the Seer. But there was more to be done before Vilheim could be brought back. The world was breaking, the Seeps were expanding, and the cause of it was the method that the Seer used in tainting the blood of dragons and distributing it among his allies.
Those allies were the governing council of the Tessíran government, and with Vilheim dead, his gift of immortality, was also revoked, leaving those allies vulnerable. Kosai knew, with what Vilheim imparted to him, that the governing council would be anxious to begin their own hunts, and with the employ of the School of the Faye, taint more dragon blood so that they could retain their power indefinitely. There was no room for competition prior to Vilheim’s return. The governing council needed to be stopped. If Kosai failed, the world itself would break.
“With all your vision, you have nearly doomed us all,” Kosai said as he stared at the pouch containing the eyes of the Seer. Cautiously, he reached down and picked up the pouch, and tied it around his wrist.
His years in the desert as a wolf, traveling with the nomadic tribes, taught him how to live and navigate within the desert. Kosai closed his eyes, feeling that connection to Vilheim, and at the same time, faint connections to the others that Vilheim was tethered to. When Kosai opened his eyes, he knew where to go, following those faint connections and lines, back into the desert toward Ante Peril. There he could begin to rectify what the Seer had so carelessly twisted, and end those who were his master’s enemies.
A Dragon's Betrayal Page 31