Dragon Dawn

by Mark E. Cooper

  Midday found him under trees steadily heading west. He had made up the time lost, but he was falling behind again. He wanted to howl with frustration. The peddler’s horse was tiring. As it stood now he would enter the gates well after nightfall. Too long after. He kicked his heels and the horse lumbered into a half-hearted trot before falling back into a tired walk once again. He could stop for a candlemark to rest the horse, and maybe make up the time lost, or he could continue on losing more time. There was a third option. It did not appeal, but he knew the clans did it quite often. With a curse, he jumped down and jogged through the trees leading his horse by the rein. Two candlemarks of running in armour was sheer torture, but he would not slow. When he judged it was time, he remounted and pushed the horse into a mild trot. Wonder of wonders, the horse accepted this and gave good account of itself. Two candlemarks later, Brian again traded the saddle for his own two legs again. In this way he managed not to lose more time, but neither did he regain any.

  The sun was down when his horse stumbled toward East Town. At the end, the poor beast was weaving back and forth across the road in exhaustion. It could go no further. Brian jumped down. He unbuckled the saddle and dumped it with the bridle to the ground. He left them where they fell. With nothing but his sheathed sword in his hand, Brian pushed himself into a run. He didn’t notice the horse trying to follow him.

  On he ran through the night. The moonlit road was his only guide, but he never wavered. In his mind he saw only the fortress and what he had to do there. He must not fail the Lady. He fell into a rhythm of gasping breath and pounding feet. The boundary stone came and went. He didn't slow. He knew what it said.

  East Town 1Lg

  One league to reach the town. He could do that… he would do it. The fortress was a mere nothing from there. He had walked the distance with Julia many a time. Of course he could run that far! There was no doubt of it. A league to the town and then another half a league or so to the fortress. Yes, he would make it in time if he pushed himself just a little harder… he forced a burst of speed from his tired legs…

  There, that’s better.

  The town was before him. He knew it well. The darkness shrouding East Town was no hardship. He could find his way from here with his eyes shut, not that he would of course. He had a mission to perform. Falling foul of a street thief was no part of that, and as for meeting a drunkard in his cups… woe to the man who delayed him this night.

  East Town was alive with candlelight leaking through shutters, the sounds of singing from some of the homes, and music over laughing from the inns. Brian cared not. There was only Athione and his duty for him. East Town was nothing to him except a means of measuring his journey. Almost there now. Almost there... almost there... It was a mantra in his head that matched the pounding of his boots on stone. A mantra to help him keep pace and only broken by his sudden realisation that he was not almost there.

  He was here. Athione.

  “Ho the gate!” Brian gasped. “Open!”

  “Who are ye?”

  “Captain Brian on a mission most urgent! Open the gate!”

  “The Captain’s dead, everyone knows that! Be off before I call the Captain of the watch.”

  Oh for the love of... “It’s me Uncle Gerard! Open the gate for the God’s sake!”

  A shocked silence then, “Is it really you, Brian?”

  “It’s me uncle!” Brian shouted. He was so desperate to get inside that he would be climbing the gate any moment. “Open the God be blessed gate!” he roared at the top of his lungs.

  Eeeeeek!

  Brian sprang into the fortress before the gates finished opening. He found himself ringed with steel. Shadowed faces watched him warily as if they believed a ghost had arisen to haunt them.

  “Close and lock the gate, uncle, and swear to me it will stay that way,” Brian said making no sudden moves.

  “I swear it, Captain. No one is leaving this night,” Gerard said firmly and with respect. He had obeyed the authority he heard in his nephew’s voice instinctively. The gates boomed shut and the locking bars drove home with a thud. Swords were lowered as the guardsmen realised just who it was they threatened.

  “Bring a light here,” Brian ordered and snatched the torch the moment it drew close enough for him to reach. He waved the flaming torch before him and realised the God was smiling upon him. The guardsmen were all older men—veterans. “Listen to me lads, and listen well. There is a man here in Athione who is not what he appears to be. He’s a sorcerer posing as one of us—”

  Who, what, and where was shouted all in one breath from the outraged guardsmen.

  Brian raised his voice over the shocked and questioning men, “This man is here to steal something precious from our lord’s treasure—something worth more than our lives and even Athione itself. He must not have it! The sorcerer must not leave this place. He must die here far from his people and any other who might save him. Hear me well all of you; HE MUST DIE! If you do nothing else in your lives, kill this man and you can say you did your duty when you kneel before the God in judgement.”

  Brian saw the resolve harden upon their faces. For just an instant, he thought he saw a scene other than the one before him. A memory arose sharp and clear within his mind. It was one of Renard’s visions. One of the futures the dead mage had forced him to watch while he learned all that he must do… and not do. This was one of those times. This night, this moment was pivotal—

  Brian paled as he realised that something was different from the vision. In panic he swung around. “Where is Travus?”

  “I sent him off to fill the lamp, Captain.”

  Brian went cold. “No matter,” he lied, feeling sick. It was wrong, the vision was wrong. “We can do it without him. We must.” He turned resolutely toward the citadel. “Follow me... quietly.”

  * * *

  The guardsman looked up in surprise to see his Captain striding toward him. Captain Marcus was supposed to be leading the men chosen to support Lord Jihan against the Hasians. He snapped to attention and saluted, but then he saw the boy hurrying to keep up. He didn’t recognise the lad. He was wearing filthy clothes that had seen hard use. The boy had also. His face was a mass of livid bruises, and the poor thing seemed half starved. He opened his mouth to question the boy’s presence, and it was at that moment Captain Marcus killed him. He died with a look of surprise in his eyes and a question unanswered upon his lips.

  “At last,” Ravelyn said letting the seeming dissolve. His body shimmered and the illusion of Captain Marcus dissolved to leave a black clad sorcerer in its place—a gaunt-featured man wearing soiled robe and trailed by a boy one step from collapse. “This is what I came for, boy. Behind these barriers we will find a treasure to make the world tremble.”

  The dazed boy just stared in exhausted silence. He was still in shock from his trip across Julia’s gap. Cenon had always enjoyed flying, but being forced to carry Ravelyn—a man many times his weight—across the gap had been terrifying. He was exhausted from lack of sleep and poor food. All he wanted to do was lie down and sleep, something Ravelyn would not permit.

  “How…” Cenon croaked. “How will you open it?”

  Ravelyn ignored the boy as he studied the iron barred gate, looking for a ward or other magical trap. There did not seem to be one. It was just as it appeared, a gate set into the stone walls of the fortress. He grasped his magic. Simple iron would resist him but it would succumb if he put enough effort into it.

  He put more than enough into it, as the melted lock attested.

  The gate swung open and a few steps brought him to another barrier this time made of wood. The instant Ravelyn came within a pace of it he knew it was a formidable barrier indeed. Darius had created a very nasty piece of work to protect his lord’s most precious possession. Ravelyn tested the magic with a needle thin probe of his own devising. He waited a moment and then nodded in satisfaction. Another probe and another followed. Sometimes a nod of satisfaction followed a probe,
other times—most of the time—a scowl would appear upon Ravelyn’s face.

  “Very nasty,” Ravelyn mused. “It’s a shame you do not know enough to help me, boy.”

  Darius had devised a spell that would recognise Lord Keverin or his heirs and allow them to enter unharmed, yet should another person attempt entry without Keverin in attendance, that person would cease to exist even as a corpse. There was only one way to best the spell—brute force, and Darius had foreseen even that. To break the spell, Ravelyn must not only be more powerful than Darius—he believed that he was—but he must also be willing to sacrifice years of life to do it.

  “Darius was a clever man, and a powerful one, but he could not have guessed that I would be willing to accept the sacrifice. Aging yet another year does not appeal to me boy, but a year is nothing compared to the book. A year or a hundred years matters not. I must have it!”

  Ravelyn grasped his magic and stepped forward to lightly touch the door. The moment he touched the ward he threw his head back and howled in agony. His magic roared through him and into the ward’s matrix attempting to overload its delicate construction, but Darius had been a skilled mage. He had foreseen the result of such an attack, and he had allowed for it. Ravelyn’s magic raced through the matrix and into solid rock, where it dissipated harmlessly.

  Cenon stumbled back as the ground beneath his feet grew hot. He realised that now was the perfect time to escape. He could fly back over Julia’s gap and meet the sorcerers that were even now searching for him. He knew that Lord Mortain—may he live forever—would not have recalled them. Beltran and the other two would still be within the pass trying to breach the ward Ravelyn had left behind to slow them, just as they had breached the others. Now was the perfect time, but he couldn’t make himself move. Magic sang through the air and in his blood. The door screeched as if in pain, and Cenon winced as it soured the beauty of the magical song. He watched the door glow in intricate patterns. It looked as if a mad spider had created a blue glowing web over the wooden door, and then again and again, each one separate yet designed to interlock at key points. Ravelyn did not see the pattern, or if he did he thought it of no import.

  Cenon liked it because it was pretty, and because it was, he concentrated on memorising the pattern. When he was sure that he had it in perfect detail, he filed it away with his other memories. Memories like that of his mother and how her scent always reminded him of fresh baked bread. Ravelyn might control his body, but his memories were his own. Ravelyn’s power called to his and it answered. Without trying, Cenon was floating a yard above the floor. It was one of the few things he knew how to do, but it had never happened on its own before. As his mother would say, there’s a first time for everything.

  Ravelyn was unaware of Cenon’s antics. If he had known, he wouldn’t have cared. He was in too deep to concern himself with trivialities. He drew hard on his magic knowing as he did that Darius was receiving his sacrifice. As he slowly aged, Ravelyn had time to fear that he had miscalculated. What if instead of a year of his life it was ten years, or a hundred? He grimly refused to be distracted. He poured his magic into sensitive pathways within the matrix. Another hard pull on his magic and he felt the first thread snap. A moment later the ward collapsed and its magic silently imploded along a preset course.

  “No!” Ravelyn howled and desperately parried thinking it was Darius’ final vengeance upon his lord’s enemy.

  The lance of fire was not aimed at him, however. Instead, it burned through the door to destroy something within the vault. With a curse, Ravelyn smashed the now unprotected door with his magic and charged inside the vault. The fire lance had hit a table in the centre of the vault and destroyed it, but all was not lost he realised with abject relief. His hasty parry had deflected the lance wide enough not to vaporise the badly burned chest lying amid the ashes of the table. He flipped open the lid.

  Inside lay a heavy leather bound book entitled: Bridging Worlds: Translocation for Sorcerers.

  * * *

  Travus was becoming a little tired of being the new man in the barracks. He felt more like a servant than one of Athione’s newest guardsman. Fetch this, fetch that—he could have stayed at home and worked the farm if he wanted to do drudge work. He had thought being a guardsman would be exciting, but all he did was stand where he was told and fetch what he was told… that was unjust, he grudgingly admitted. He was new, and still learning the life, so of course he would have to stand more watches than the others, but it was at times like this that he wondered if he would ever be accepted as other than the new man.

  Travus stopped to look around and realised that he had taken a wrong turn. The bowels of Athione were a warren of interconnecting tunnels and corridors. There was nothing to distinguish one from the other except an occasional cryptic message left by some guardsman long ago. He scanned the walls holding his newly filled lamp high, but they were blank. Nothing had touched these walls, probably not since Athione was built.

  Ploink... ploink...

  Travus cocked his head. Was that water dripping? With a suddenly glad heart, he knew where to go. If he followed the sound to the great cisterns, he knew a shortcut back from there. He hurried on toward the sound. He quickly made his way along dusty corridors, ignoring door after door leading to storerooms. Most of them were empty, and even the ones with something inside were rarely used. Who cared to read an old account book or wade through the accumulated rubbish to investigate the contents? Not he.

  Travus stepped into a huge cavern. Athione’s cisterns were very deep and very wide. They could almost be called lakes, if such a thing were possible. Underground or not, possible or not, they existed. They were larger by far than Lord Keverin’s great hall or even the entire citadel itself. They extended under the mountain too far to see the other side.

  Travus’ footsteps echoed loudly as he followed the narrow walkway across the still waters of the cistern and around the peculiar arrangement of ancient pipes that climbed up into the darkness overhead. The walkway led to stone steps that in turn led back up into the fortress proper—to Janna’s kitchens to be exact. He didn’t want to follow them all the way. Perhaps halfway up he turned right and followed a corridor than ran level all the way to its end. He should be directly above the oil stores now. Turning left, he was back on his original route and could not get lost from there.

  Travus was just congratulating himself when he saw a pair of dark figures just ahead. He made to call out to them, but then he strangled the hail unuttered. In shock, he recognised the black robe.

  A sorcerer here!

  It couldn’t be. His eyes were playing tricks on him. He shielded his lamp all the same, and crept after the two. It couldn’t be what it thought, of course not! Ha, he was foolish even thinking it, but creeping up on them would be good practice.

  He swallowed nervously and fumbled at his side for his sword.

  * * *

  Brian and his men entered the citadel with their swords drawn almost in time to catch the sorcerer leaving. There was shocked surprise on everyone’s face, even Brian was taken off guard. A moment later, there was pandemonium as swords were raised to attack and the sorcerer battled them with magic. Brian roared as unseen hands picked him up and threw him hard at the wall. He managed to protect his head and was back on his feet in time to see the others charge to the attack.

  Whoosh! Fire lanced from the sorcerer’s hand and a man died, then another and another. Brian dodged to one side and attempted to close on the sorcerer from the shadows. That was when everything changed. Out of the darkness came Travus. He almost seemed to appear from thin air, but no, Brian could see the door to the vaults was open. Travus raised his sword as if to attack the sorcerer, but then he hesitated. Instead of swinging his sword, he charged forward and snatched the little lad away to safety. That was his moment—the moment he forefilled his God given destiny. The lamp he had been carrying tumbled in the air and smashed into the sorcerer’s face just as he called upon his magic again.<
br />
  Whump!

  “AEiii!” the sorcerer screamed in agony as flames ignited by the fire he was about to cast engulfed him. He staggered around the hall in panic. The guardsmen scattered from him in horror as the stench of burnt meat assailed them.

  Brian had only moments to act. He charged forward and swung his sword in a mighty blow before the sorcerer could even think to extinguish the oil with magic. The sword landed with a terrible meaty sounding Ka-chunk, and the man’s screams cut off in mid-breath. The burning figure swayed for an awful moment and then toppled to lie in a burning heap of wool and flesh.

  Brian watched the burning figure, but it did not defy death and rise. He began to breathe a little easier. He had not failed. By the God, he had not! He stepped forward and drove his sword down with all his weight into the dead man’s back directly over the heart. He would not risk failure now.

  “Put him out,” Brian said turning to look for Travus. He couldn’t find him at first and was puzzled when a moment later he found the man staring up into the shadows. “What are you doing?” he said, moving to join him.

  In the corner of the hall, very high up, was the little lad Travus had saved. The poor boy was shaking with fright, and tears ran over his cheeks. Travus was trying to coax him down as if talking to a skittish horse, but he was having no luck. The boy seemed to be in shock. He was white as snow in wintertime. He seemed set to stay up there all night…

  Brian gaped up at the boy when realised that there was nothing to climb in that part of the hall. By the God, another sorcerer! There had been nothing in his vision about this. Then he saw the book the lad was clutching, and he paled.

  “Bar the doors!” Brian roared at his loudest and men leapt to obey. “Guard all exits!”

  “Captain?” Travus said. “He’s only a lad.”

  “He’s old enough to know a sorcerer’s tricks,” Brian said with grim finality. “I want him down and that book in my hands.”