Soul Hosts

by Joseph Isaacs

  Chapter 13

  Daughter Sky

  You don’t spit in the face of power without the wind blowing it back. –Nadra

  --

 

  "I might have a bigger mouth than you, Kolram."

  "I do not think that possible."

  “I hope I haven’t gotten Jazlyn in trouble.”

  As Wayden walked through the yard, Rory and Crag were talking under the chestnut tree, while Candy Darius and Cursed Darius dug Big D’s grave.

  “We have to tell the Fire Guard,” Rory said.

  "Bah, the Fire guard,” Crag answered. “Every time they come here 'to help' they leave with a pocket full of my coins. We can bury our own dead well enough."

  "But— what if this was murder? What if Rif did him in?"

  "Murder! Pish! How could that little Tulkarian have murdered Big D?"

  "He used magic like he did on them scagazi."

  "Rory, we've been through this. Children can't use magic."

  But Rif could use magic. It sounded like Arth wasn’t a murderer, but there was the woman inside of Rif as well. Wayden needed to talk to Rif.

  Wayden hurried into the main room. Too-tall was clearing dishes.

  “Have you seen Rif?”

  “He’s delivering Night's stew.”

  Wayden hurried up the stairwell, but slowed as he reached the fifth floor landing. He could hear Night and Rif talking.

  “You will be at the center of the juncture,” Night said. "I've seen it."

  “H-h-how?” Rif asked.

  “I see you blowing into the mouths of the statue...wait, I hear someone on the stairwell.”

  Wayden rushed down the stairs, and hid in an alcove on the third floor, before he could be spotted, unsure if he was running from enemies or allies or some combination of the two.

  Mavik touched his brush lightly to the canvas, though he still had no idea what to paint. Perhaps, Gar on top of the Beacon? No, Gar, already owned the Beacon. He'd want to see something grander. He stared at the view, hoping for inspiration.

  To the south, far in the distance, he could see the southern wall of the world. Instead of flame, this was a wall of glittering ice, stretching endlessly into the air. Once, while gathering firewood, Desha had brought them within a few feet of the wall.

  The wall was too frosted and thick to see through. It exuded no cold, cast no shadow. Mavik had touched it with a stick though, and the tip of the stick froze into solid ice and then broke into a thousand brittle pieces. Perhaps he could paint Gar breaking a hole through the wall? No, even Gar would doubt himself capable of that impossible feat. Mavik had to make the prophecy something believable enough that Gar would think it genuine. He didn’t fancy being sent flying off the side of the Nest without a wolf.

  To the east, in the distance, Mavik could see the tall, twisted spires of the Bone Palace where Ice King Dakarth sat upon his throne. Perhaps Mavik could paint Gar on the Throne of Bone? No, Gar would know that as a lie, too. Dakarth had been dictator for the last two thousand years.

  To the north, Temple Dark Fist burst through the ice, a stone fist raised in defiance against the sky. Surrounding the temple were four large black boulders, each a different shape: the Anvil, the Moon, the Maiden, and the Skull. Beyond that, far in the distance, was Deep Woods, the border between Raslonia and Helos.

  He could paint Gar in the Red Palace, but perhaps Gar would take that as an omen and invade Mavik's homeland. He needed to paint something before Gar lost patience, but fear was the enemy of creativity, and his mind felt as barren as the icy plains.

  An amber skywolf landed on the Beacon. Mavik didn't recognize the woman riding it. The woman pulled back her gray fur cape, and kneeled before Gar. "The Sky is the Master."

  "You may stand. Did you meet your contact?" Gar asked.

  The woman answered. "I did. He confirmed what we suspected. The Dracon plans to betray you."

  Yveka shot up from her throne, shaking her whittled wood at Gar. "I warned you."

  "Sit down, wench.” Gar stared at his knife. All eyes were on the Skymaster. The only noise was the wind whistling and flapping against Mavik’s canvas. Finally, Gar asked, “Can we trust Crow?"

  "Trust no one, but another contact bears similar tidings."

  "Unless they are both in on the trick together, and decided to feed you the same lie. I despise politics. Give me a sword over a parchment any day. What's the Dracon's plan?"

  "On the Three Moons' Night, he'll have his soldiers seize you, and you're to be sacrificed with the other magi. The Dracon will soul-steal your powers along with the rest."

  "I see." The orange light of the fire played off Gar's one good eye.

  "I'll have to talk to Dakarth about what to do about that."

  Yveka looked up from her whittling. Her wooden statuette had taken the shape of a wolf woman. "You trust the son of the Bone King?"

  Gar snarled at Yveka. "You think you are so wise, woman. Let me tell you, I have sources in Raslonia. Dakarth wants to free his father, plain and simple. He believes once Asgaroth has risen, the rest will follow."

  "Dakarth is right. The rest will follow." Yveka's hair swung to the side revealing her swollen eye. "Asgaroth will be unstoppable. It will be you and me down in the slave camps, while Asgaroth rules, or perhaps he’ll use our bones for his next temple."

  "Let him try.” Gar lifted his knife. “These Immortals are no stronger than me. I'm a better Beast Tongue than the Dragonking ever was."

  "You're not invulnerable."

  Gar fingered his armband. "You'd be surprised."

  "You can't control Volkanus like the Dragonking did."

  Gar leapt from his chair and put the tip of his knife against Yveka's neck. "Why do you try me, wench?"

  Yveka narrowed her eyes. "Put that knife away before I put your last eye out with it."

  All eyes focused on the tip of Gar's knife. Then Gar sheathed the blade with a laugh. "May the Gods help me, I like this woman. Go into the Nest and stop causing trouble. We are talking important things here. Go, before I change my mind and feed you to the Beacon as kindling."

  “You have to be careful with fire, my husband. You might get burned,” Yveka said before disappearing into the doorway to the Nest. Gar took a step towards Mavik. Mavik's chest constricted. The canvas was blank, save a few dabs of blue. But then Gar reversed course, and paced the other direction.

  "What else?"

  “Gior has some new information. It's possible the Daughter Draconi may host Asgaroth.”

  “Interesting. Perhaps she is the answer to my problem.”

  "One last thing. A white female dragon was sighted near the Wall of Flames."

  In a flash, Mavik knew what he must paint. He dabbed his paintbrush into the pallet.

  "A female dragon?" The excitement in Gar's voice was palpable. The last known dragon clutch hatched almost fifty years ago and most of those had died in their youth. "If I can get hold of a dragon and train it to do my will, I'd be considered the Dragonking reborn. Is the dragon large?"

  "She’s no Volkanus. A mere thrice the size of your skywolf. Definitely, a she though, with a cat-like face.”

  Mavik vaguely recalled his tutor’s lesson on dragon anatomy. She’d pointed to their pet dragon cats to demonstrate male dragon's faces tended to be more horse-like than females. Mavik missed those two pesky little beasts. The dragon cats had been two more victims of the Sky Raider’s invasion.

  "Excellent. There is a possibility then of her laying a clutch of dragon eggs for me. Where do they think she came from?”

  “Some say she flew through the Wall of Fire.”

  Gar laughed at that notion. “Everyone knows the Walls are the edges of the world.”

  “Others say it must have been an unhatched egg. Those clutches can be underground a long time before they hatch. No real way of knowing.”

  “I see. Well done. You must be tired after your journey. Skarak, take her down to the
scullery. See she is treated well."

  Skarak pumped his fist. "The Sky is the Master."

  Gar nodded. "Dismissed."

  The huge Ozac touched the groove of stone, opening the trapdoor. The Ozac descended down a long stairwell, the spy trailing behind him.

  Gar glanced at Mavik. "Boy, how comes my prophecy? Done yet?"

  Mavik stared at the image he’d created. He’d more practice with watercolors, and this painting looked a bit clumsy to him. Still, the portrait was clear enough, Gar on the back of a white dragon, sword raised. The painting was gaudy, but Mavik guessed right that Gar would like it. A smug smile spread across his face. The Beast Master riding a dragon, like the Dragon King himself. Mavik just hoped it wouldn’t become true.

  Mavik touched his brush to the pallet carelessly as a flash for the Source coursed through his mind. He tipped the pallet onto the melting snow by his feet. On the ground, the warmth of the Beacon had created a pool of melted slush, into which the oil paints swirled. An image formed in the melted ice, so small that Mavik doubted anyone else could see it, though to him it was crystal clear. He could see the Anvil, one of the four rocks that encircled Dark Fist, face had opened when Emerelda held an amber snake against it.

  Mavik had painted a prophecy all right, but it wasn’t of Gar's glories. It was one of the secret doorways to the underground nation of the Weaver. It was his escape route.

 

  --

  Alaina

  Alaina, daughter of Gar Skymaster, heir to the eagle throne, petted her skywolf’s thick red fur. Red Paw licked the tears from her cheeks, but even the elixir of wolf slobber couldn’t cheer her up on this darkest of days.

  "Poor Laeko," Alaina thought, "She was like a mother to me."

  “And you let them take her,” thought Grandmistress Nadra, Fire-Whisperer, from inside Alaina's mind.

  “Silence your breath, Nadra.” Alaina brushed old feathers away, uncovering a layer of new red feathers springing up beneath the old gray blanket. The feathers stuck to Alaina's fingers. Red Paw let out an annoyed growl.

  "Don't be a baby," Alaina said, rubbing her furry head. She looked around to make sure no one had heard her. Sky Raiders considered it unseemly to treat your skywolf like a friend, as the dirt-dwellers treated their pets. Not that she’d any friends left to lose. The other young Sky Raiders seemed afraid to talk to the Skydaughter, after what her father did to that Ozac boy who called her lime-skin. She could still hear his screams in her nightmares.

  Laeko, the ancient librarian, was the only one who had understood Alaina's love for Red Paw. She’d said, "In the old days, the wolves were considered a rider's soul. If a skywolf died, the owner would mourn for a year, until they were given a new wolf, and a new soul. For that year they would be the Shunned, and none would talk with the soulless for fear of losing their own soul."

  Poor Laeko, she thought again. Father, why did you have to toss the Weaver's statue off of the Nest? Laeko, why did you have to denounce him?

  A few days ago, Laeko had shouted, “Gar, you think yourself a god, but you are just a vain fool. You are nothing and your legacy will be dust.”

  Gar had laughed. “I should have sent you down to the slave camps when you made that false prophecy about me. Me killed by fire. I don't die so easily. I was going to send you down to the slave camp soon, anyway. The Dracon will pay nicely for a prophet. The fool doesn’t know false prophets from real ones."

  The memory of Laeko being dragged to the camps haunted Alaina's dreams. She hadn't slept more than a few hours since Laeko had been enslaved.

  "Your father thinks he is the Dragonking reborn, but he’s a barbarian,” Nadra said, “Your whole tribe is nothing but a gaggle of thugs."

  Alaina wished she could tell Nadra she was being unfair, but her father, despite his wealth, was neither gentle nor refined. Gar had all the external trappings: paintings, silks, wines, sculptures, but you could throw a dress upon an Ozac and it would not make him the queen of the fairies.

  Where to go? She didn't want to stay in the kennel. The smell was making her nauseous. The Temple now displayed her father’s statue. That would make her even more nauseous. Her chamber was too small and cramped. Not the training room, she couldn't deal with combat lessons today. Not the Beacon, she would say something to cross her father, and earn a bruise around her eye to match Yveka's. The archive would be nice, but it was closed and barred since Laeko's arrest.

  Alaina missed the archive. It had been her true home. Laeko was always saying things like, "I found a book you'll enjoy" or "you have to read this." Sometimes, she read aloud to Alaina. They huddled up in front of a fire. Laeko could have been a mummer, with the way she acted out characters with such exuberance.

  "Poor Laeko." Alaina thought.

  "Poor Laeko?” Nadra said, “The fool sealed her own fate. You don’t spit in the face of power without the wind blowing it back."

  Footsteps echoed in the outside corridor. Alaina heard her father’s voice. She went to the kennel door and listened at the key hole. Her father was saying, “...four thousand for her. Why do you think I bother to keep her around?"

  Then she heard her step-mother's voice, "Don't you have enough with the others? Do you have no heart?”

  “Silence, wench. If I wanted your opinion, I would have asked for it."

  “Why do you bother talking to me at all?" Yveka asked. "If all you want to hear is the sound of your own voice, find a canyon with a strong echo and you can listen to yourself all day.”

  The sound of a slap on bare skin resonated down the hallway.

  "As I said, a barbarian," Nadra said.

  Alaina's stomach twisted. Her father was cruel to everyone.

  The wolves let out a howl and the iron sky gate on the far side of the kennel rattled and fell open with a clang. The cold hand of the wind blew in, Desha and his skywolf in its palm. The winged beast landed, kicking up straw. Desha dismounted in one graceful leap.

  Desha's leathery face was handsome, but his eyes were cruel. ‘Handsome on the outside, ugly on the inside,’ Laeko used to say. His frequent boasts about his finger necklace did not endear him to Alaina.

  “Skydaughter, may the winds be with you,” the Tulkarian bowed. “It’s a glorious day. Will you be taking Red Paw for a fly, My Lady?”

  Red Paw looked up excitedly as if she understood this suggestion, and began to pant.

  "Why didn't I think of that?” Alaina wondered. “A flight might lift my spirits."

  Desha stared at her curiously.

  Alaina grabbed a fur robe from a hook on the kennel’s wall. “Yes. A fly. I'm just leaving now.”

  She took a saddle from a nearby rack and placed it upon the winged wolf's back, clambering onto it, and tightening the straps.

  Alaina whispered, "Fly" and Red Paw launched herself, whistling through the sky gate, bulleting into the brisk morning air. For the first moment all day, she felt good. Then the tears erupted, freezing in her lashes. She hadn’t wanted to cry. A Skydaughter's heart must be ice, but left alone in the sun, ice will melt. The sun was strong upon her skin.

  There was something healing about being high above it all. Far below, the Sky Raiders with their whips dwindled into insignificant dots. Up here, the sky was what was important; the endless stretch of blue, that one could sink into forever. This wolf, this flight, this moment, they were hers, and hers alone. She liked feeling the frigid wind against her face. It hurt, but it was real. It whispered, 'You are alive, you are alive.'

  She spied the splintered remains of the cracked stone statue which had been the cause of Laeko's enslavement. The stone head of the Weaver statue was covered in a thin layer of snow. To her right, lay the canvas tents of the slave camp. Laeko would be down there now, shivering, toiling, gathering firewood, digging graves with the other slaves.

  “Red Paw and I could fly down and rescue her, and not come back,” Alaina thought.

  "You know very well they would track you
down in a heartbeat,” Nadra said, “Someday you’ll be the Skymistress. Isn't that what you want: to be the queen of your little ant hill?”

  Did Alaina want that? Would she be like Gar, sitting on a mountain watching slaves toil below? She thought of one of the books from Laeko's library called The Tyrant's Daughter. In the story a princess was the daughter of a tyrant. The tyrant had cut out his own heart and placed it on a pedestal where it petrified. The princess did her best to protect herself and her little sister from their father’s wrath. She vowed she would never be like her monstrous father.

  The tyrant died and the princess became queen. As part of the ritual, she cut out her own heart and lay it on the pedestal. She swore to herself she would never let her heart turn to stone like her father’s had. But there was much plotting and treason in the kingdom. After each betrayal, she sent someone to their death. The princess’s heart became harder with each killing. Eventually, her own little sister plotted against her. When she asked her sister why, her sister had replied, 'Because you've become like father.' The Princess shrieked, 'Liar' and plunged a dagger into her sister. Then the princess went into the Heart Chamber. She wanted to weep, but her tears had turned to ice. She reached out to touch her heart and found it had become stone.

  It was just a story though. Alaina wouldn’t become like that. Would she?

  Red Paw passed over the tundra and the boulder known as the Anvil. The winds were at their back and it was a short notch of the sundial later that they reached Dark Fist. As she drew closer, she could make out the faint beating sound of the Heart Stone. Perhaps the story was real and the Tyrant’s daughter’s heart truly beat beneath Deep Fist.

  “Heart Stones are real,” Nadra said. “Left to us by the Ancients some say. Others say the Immortals made them.”

  Usually there were a few Raslonian bone guards posted outside the opening, but not on today which struck Alaina as odd. There were marks in the snow, as if sleds had pulled something heavy. Around the tracks, the snow was flecked in red.

  She flew inside Dark Fist through the breach. Red Paw spiraled downwards. There were no guards inside either, which again was unusual. She landed in the inner ring, next to the podium, where the bodies of Asgaroth and the Dragonking lay, covered in slithering bands of crackling energy snakes. The drumming noise was louder from inside.

  No one knew what caused the sound. Some spoke of Heart Stones beneath Dark Fist, saying the hearts were what powered the Walls of the World. Others said a giant slumbered there, and some day it would awake and ravage the world. Still others claimed it was the heart of the Shadow Queen herself and she would rise up with an army of wraiths. Alaina liked to imagine it was the princess's heart from The Tyrant's Daughter.

  Alaina examined the Immortals’ bodies through the amber shell of Guardian magic. The Dragonking's face was covered in a thick red beard. He was a large, ugly man with overly large ears and bushy eyebrows. Asgaroth, on the other hand, was clean-shaven and handsome with chiseled cheek bones and a square jaw. His charcoal black eyes stared lifelessly at the crystalline ceiling.

  Alaina stopped short, her breath caught in her throat. Streaks of red were strewn across the floor here as well. She touched one of the crimson stains with a gloved finger-and tasted it. Blood.

  Footsteps sounded from behind her. She spun just in time to see a figure dashing through a doorway on the west. Alaina felt the Pull towards whoever it was, like she felt to the prophet slave boy. Could it be him? Had he escaped somehow?

  She knew her duty. She pulled out her dirk. Desha’s mantra sprung to mind, ‘Have steel in hand and heart when preparing for battle.’ The well-sharpened blade reflected the amber Guardian magic. She prepared to take her first finger.