The Withering Flame (The Year of the Dragon, Book 6)

by James Calbraith

“They fear me. I must smell of him to them.”

  “Do you know what they are?”

  The girl shook her head. “I’ve never seen anything like them before. I only know that they should not be here — and neither should you.” She prodded Nagomi on the back.

  “Thank you, Kyokō,” the priestess said. “That’s the third time your family has saved me. I wish I could do something to repay—”

  “You’ve killed him. That’s more than enough. Now go. Whoever is waiting for you out there, must be worried.”

  Torishi! Nagomi remembered suddenly. Oh, no. How long have I been here?

  She chased down the slope. The cold wind rushed in her face, dampening the last words of farewell from Kyokō:

  “I’m sorry for your loss…”

  Her mouth and throat were full of a burning liquid. She jerked up, coughing it all out.

  “Thank the Spirits,” she heard Torishi’s reassuring voice. She opened her eyes. They were both sitting on the pier next to the Bishamon-maru. She spotted Koro nearby, calm and quiet, with his legs dangling over the pier’s edge.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  “What I feared would happen,” answered Torishi. “We were spotted. The guard stomped out my fire and threw us off the ship. We’re lucky that was all he did.”

  He rubbed a bruised arm with a wince.

  “I’m sorry,” Nagomi said sheepishly. “I guess we have to find another way out of here now.”

  “Never mind all that.” Torishi scowled. “Have you spoken to the boy?”

  “He will come soon. But he didn’t want to commit to anything.”

  “I’m not surprised. You ask for a lot.”

  He stood up. Koro jumped up as well. The blue stone on his neck dangled, reflecting the ship’s lantern.

  “It’s a warm night, we can sleep on the pier,” the bear-man said, gazing at the stars. “We did all we could have done. For now, let’s just rest. We’ll figure out what to do in the morning.”

  The Overwizard put his hands to the large brass ring in the middle of an oval door and turned it with effort. The airtight lock released with a soft hiss.

  “This is what I wanted to show you last night,” he said to Dylan. They were in the basement of the wizardry tower. Water dripped from the ceiling of the short, narrow corridor, an unhappy reminder that they were a few feet below the Kiyō Bay.

  “Will this take long?” Dylan glanced at his pocket watch. “I need to talk to my son.”

  “Problems?”

  Dylan cleared his throat. “He wants to stay in Yamato. I have to change his mind before he’s gone somewhere else again. I still haven’t decided what to do myself.”

  Curzius smiled a genuine smile. “Perhaps what I will show you may help you decide.”

  The door opened, revealing a small square room. Almost the entire space of it was filled with a complex machine of valves, springs, dials, and paper tapes with ink indicators running back and forth. The noise was deafening: the pinging, the screeching, the bubbling of liquids in the tubes and beakers.

  “What is this? Some kind of divination machine?” Dylan asked, raising his voice over the din.

  “It’s just like that little apparatus you carry in your pocket. A mogelijkheid meter. One of my predecessors, Von Siebold, built it.”

  “I met a Von Siebold once,” Dylan said, leaning over to read one of the dials. “It’s enormous — what’s its range?” His own pocket meter could only reach as far as the centre of Kiyō from Dejima’s walls. The detection range of the machine in the room must have stretched for miles.

  “All of Yamato,” boasted Curzius, spreading his hands. “And beyond, in good weather. This here,” he patted a jumble of coiled copper pipes and glass tubes, “tracks the levels of magic in the Sea Maze. My own design,” he added, and smiled proudly.

  “Impressive, indeed,” said Dylan, nodding. “But I guess you didn’t bring me here just to boast of Bataavian engineering.”

  “You’re right. I came here to show you this.”

  He gathered a pile of papers from a small wooden podium and shoved it in Dylan’s hands. “If you’re as clever as you seem, you’ll have no trouble reading these.”

  Dylan scanned the notes, a table of three columns: dates, values and comments, marking the location or event of a particular peak or valley.

  “Impossible,” he said, after getting to the fourth page.

  “The numbers don’t lie, Commodore,” the Overwizard replied. “Why are you surprised? You’ve been to Satsuma. You saw what their wizards are capable of.”

  “But this means—”

  “They are ready for their first Vriesmatic! Perhaps one has already been born. We’ve been getting some very odd values from the central regions.”

  Dylan scratched his scarred cheek. “There has never been a Prismatic born outside a wizard nation before.”

  Curzius nodded. “And somehow, they gathered all this potential by themselves, cut off from the rest of the world for centuries. Impressive, isn’t it?”

  “You must’ve helped them.”

  The Overwizard shook his head.

  “All we did was provide them with books, advice, and a little equipment. Now do you see, Commodore? It’s not about silver, silk, or crude elementals, not even about the trade ports and navy bases. The greatest secret, the greatest potential of Yamato is its people.”

  Dylan ran through the pages again.

  “Yes, this is all very impressive, Overwizard, and I’ll be sure to file it in a report as soon as I get back to Dracaland. But — ” He handed the papers back to the Bataavian. “I don’t see what impact this will have on my plans. One Prismatic will not change the odds.”

  Curzius smiled again. “I happened to have a chat with our Qin friend yesterday.”

  “Li? What did he tell you?”

  “He told me you deserted your post. Surely, that’s a court martial offence in any army. How will you explain yourself to your superiors?”

  “I don’t think this is any of your business. What do you want from me, Overwizard?”

  Curzius sighed dramatically, put away the measurements, and crossed his arms on his chest. “Look, Commodore, enough deceit. Let’s talk honestly. I don’t like you, you don’t like me. This is fine. I have some admiration for your son, but that is neither here nor there. But I need you. Or rather, that which you represent. You and I — Bataavia and Dracaland — we must work together to save Yamato.”

  “Oh, that is rich!” Dylan laughed. “Now you ask us for help! After all these years of secrets and tricks! And what makes you think Dracaland would not rather ally with the Gorllewin?”

  The Overwizard scowled. “The Grey Hoods? They are a nuisance, not a real threat. I’m talking about something a lot worse.”

  Cryptic again, Dylan thought, annoyed.

  “Worse than a hundred-foot dragon?” He laughed, but the look on the Bataavian’s face stifled his laughter.

  Curzius pursed his lips and shook his head. “What do you think happened here last night? There are forces at play in Yamato you have no idea about, and even I can only guess at. Go talk to your son, and then we’ll talk again.”

  There were no dragon saddles on Dejima — there were no saddles of any sort, nor reins, nor any other tack; there was no place for horses in the island’s overcrowded animal enclosure. Only a couple of cows, a few pigs, and a family of goats, led by a bearded patriarch whose bleating would announce in regular intervals to the entire city that the Bataavians would not willingly go without meat and milk in their diet.

  The tack Bran had improvised after the battle on Ganryūjima was now in tatters; the reins barely held. He had been flying bareback since then, but dragons, even as small as Emrys, were not bred to carry a rider saddle and stirrup-less. Bran’s thighs were sore and bruised, his calves and feet ached from constant work.

  He covered the dragon’s neck with a thick woollen blanket, then tied two large jute coffee sacks to it with st
raps and fashioned them into saddlebags, in place of the old ones, torn at the stitches. He wasn’t going to fly out without supplies this time; if he was to venture into a war zone, he needed to be prepared.

  He remembered the strange vision in the Waters of Scrying. He told no one about it; he still wasn’t even sure if it wasn’t all just a dream of a concussed mind. The presence of Ifor in the vision was a mystery, but the shadows in the mist were hardly a riddle. Bear and fox. Torishi and Nagomi. They were in danger, again, of that he was certain.

  He finished stuffing one of the sacks with dried fruit, cheese, and hardtacks, and turned to pick up another bag of supplies he’d obtained from Dejima’s warehouses. He saw Dylan enter the dockyard.

  “What are you doing, son?”

  “I’m not getting on that ship,” said Bran, taking out a bar of lye soap and a box of sewing utensils from the bag.

  “Be reasonable, son,” Dylan said. “What will I tell your mother if she learns I found you, and I lost you go again?”

  “You mean after she forgives you for sleeping with your Reeve?”

  Dylan glowered.

  “As your superior officer, I order you to sail back to Qin,” he said.

  Bran raised an eyebrow. “You’re not my superior officer. You didn’t let me join the army, remember?” He put the last of the supplies into the coffee sack and fastened the leather belt, tying it to the dragon’s chest.

  Dylan tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Is that… is that a tarian around you? Bran, are you shielding yourself from me with a tarian?”

  “I can’t risk you using the Binding Word on me again,” Bran replied, checking the straps.

  Dylan leaned against a stack of straw-wrapped barrels. “What is so special about this place?”

  Bran tilted his head, curious. “What do you mean?”

  “The Overwizard seems terrified of something. He fears for his own future, and the future of this country.” He wiped his face with a tired gesture. “He told me you’d understand what he meant.”

  Bran swallowed and nodded, hesitantly. He’d finished setting up the tack already, but he still pretended to busy himself with straps and buckles.

  He had hoped to leave telling the story of the Eight-headed Serpent for the last. He knew nothing would entice Dylan to stay in Yamato more than the discovery of an ancient, powerful magic he might put to his own — and Dracaland’s — use. But it was too late, if not Bran, the Overwizard would eventually spill all the secrets in order to secure Dylan’s cooperation and save his little island.

  He bit his lower lip.

  “I guess you know more about the history of these things than I do,” he started slowly. “The Wizardry Wars, the Abominations, the necromancers… ”

  “Sounds to me like all the more reason to leave this place as soon as possible,” said Dylan, after Bran finished his tale. “And yet I can sense how anxious you are to stay. Why?”

  “I could ask you the same thing,” Bran replied. “Why won’t you board the Soembing? I’m sure you’d be more useful back in Qin. Yamato doesn’t need you. It doesn’t… it doesn’t need the Dracaland.”

  Dylan looked to the sea. “That’s not what Curzius said — and he was right. Dejima can’t stand against the Abominations alone. Besides — even without what you have just told me, I wouldn’t want to miss all this excitement for the world. A looming civil war? Spies? Negotiations? This is my life — this is all I know. But you… I don’t understand what’s keeping you here.”

  “My friends are here.” Bran’s voice broke. “There’s a war looming, you said so yourself. I fear for their safety. It’s only natural…”

  There was an open accusation in his voice. He stared at his father’s face, gauging a reaction. He expected indignant scorn, or flippant contempt; in Dylan’s world, emotions and relationships played a distant role to politics and diplomacy. A war was just a game. He did not — could not — care for casualties, even those close to him.

  “We have a few wounded. Including Gwen.”

  But Dylan stared back, prolonging the silence. He, too, studied Bran’s expression, deep in thought.

  “I understand,” he said.

  “You — you do?” Bran blinked.

  “I’m not the monster you think me to be, at least, not all the time.” He stood up and straightened his uniform, then glanced at the overloaded Emrys. “Your dragon needs a saddle. And stirrups.”

  “They don’t have dragon saddles on Dejima.”

  “Why won’t you wait until Edern arrives with the mounts? I can lend you one of theirs. You’ll fly twice as fast with proper tack. And meanwhile, you could help me in the morning.”

  Bran glanced at his dragon. With the thick, drab blanket, and the reins and bridles made from various lengths of straps of leather, tied together, with the coffee sacks hanging on its sides as if on a pack mule, Emrys looked thoroughly miserable.

  “What’s in the morning?”

  “Me and Curzius are meeting with the city Magistrate. I could use an interpreter whom I can trust.”

  “And what makes you think I'd want to help you at all? To help you turn Yamato into another Qin?”

  Dylan ran a finger along his scar. “If you think Dracaland treats the Orient badly… You should see what the Grey Hoods can do to a place once they conquer it.”

  “That's it? Your best offer - the lesser of evils?”

  “There is no offer, other than that of the saddle. But ponder this, son — ” He laid a hand on Bran’s shoulder. “The Queen's Navy is not here. There are no admirals, no viceroys, no orders to bind my actions. Just me, you and Gwen - and Edern, if he can make it by tomorrow.”

  Dylan looked at Bran expectantly. The boy closed his eyes and focused on locating the Tylwyth and his mounts. They were close, closer than he’d expected. The dragons were tired, confused, and eager to land; Bran shuddered under the strength of their bewilderment. For days, they had been flying over the open sea, through the fierce storms and the wall of lashing rains and furious winds, with no sight of land, or even as much as a ship. Edern was in a hurry.

  Emrys stirred. There was another Farlink close by, itching at his finely tuned senses. Somewhere on Chinzei. Two mounts, four riders. Uneasy, and somewhat lost in a strange land, but proud and determined, with a clear task ahead of them.

  He opened his eyes and gasped for breath. “The Black Wings are coming,” he said. “Two dragons. Not sure if both are headed for Kiyō.”

  His father frowned. “What about Edern?”

  “He will be here first, but not by much. And…” he hesitated, but there was no point withholding any information anymore, “he’s lost one of his dragons in the passage.”

  Dylan cursed under his breath. “Two out of three — I can still work with that. But my offer stays, son… saddle and all the tack if you wait a day.”

  Bran considered his odds. He had no way of knowing the precise distance and time of arrival of either Edern or Black Wings. Staying in Kiyō any longer seemed an unnecessary risk, of the sort Dylan himself would always advise against.

  And yet, he’s here now. He risked his career, maybe even his life, to find me.

  It was a sobering, unexpected thought. Followed by another, more urgent one.

  Nagomi is waiting for me.

  “Ungh.” He grit his teeth, angry at his helpless indecision.

  Emrys raised its head and moaned quietly, feeling Bran’s confusion.

  Dylan reached out and touched his shoulder. “We have a chance to make it right this time,” he said. “And it will be a lot easier with your help.” There was little conviction in his voice, and even less honesty — but it was enough for Bran to give his father one last chance.

  “Fine,” he said at last, patting his mount on the neck. “I’ll fly tomorrow, after the meeting. Whether Edern gets here or not by then. But you better not try any…tricks.”

  Dylan raised his hand. “Tomorrow, you’re free to go wherever you please. Off
icer’s word.”

  CHAPTER IX

  “I’ve been through some tough storms in my life,” said Edern, “but I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t even know when and where I lost Afal. I’m sorry.”

  Two dark purple bruises marked his handsome face, and one of his cat-like eyes was bloodshot from a blow. His left arm hung limp by his side, but he refused help from the Bataavian doctor. “Leave it. It will heal on its own.”

  The dragons — Edern’s own mighty Silver, Nodwydd, and Cenhinen, a young Forest Viridian, not much bigger than Emrys, looked no better: mopey, with patches of loose scale peeling off their skin, broken claws, limping. The three beasts — including Emrys, who had flown out to meet them over the Kiyō Bay — stood on the square courtyard of the Magistrate building, taking nearly the entire space with their bodies and wings, spread out to dry. Guards struggled to keep a curious crowd at bay at the entrance; it seemed the entire city had come to take a peek, not only at the monsters, but also at the foreigners who had arrived with them.

  Most of the locals blamed the Westerners for bringing the Shadows to Kiyō. For once, Bran believed they were right. He shut his ears to the abuse thrown at him by the crowd. He knew the attack would be the talk of the city for years; this was worse even than the MS Phaeton incident, and more mysterious. The atmosphere in Kiyō was hostile and tense. Overnight, the city’s face changed from a welcoming merchant’s smile to the angry scowl of a frightened commoner.

  “I know you’re all itching to go back to Qin,” said Edern, “but the dragons have to rest if they’re to have any chance of making it through that storm again in one piece. And so do I,” he added, wincing.

  Dylan laid a hand on his healthy arm. “You did well, dancer,” he said. “But we’re not leaving any time soon.”

  “Oh?”

  “Change of plans. A lot has happened since I wrote you the message. There’s a war here, too — and these people need good soldiers.”

  “You want me to train them, like I did in Qin?” Edern gazed around at the carved eaves of the Magistrate compound, at the flat, angry and curious faces of the men crowding at the entrance, beyond the iron-bound gate. The Yamato officials stood nervously, as far away from the dragons as they could within the confines of the courtyard. Edern studied the weapons of the guards. “Do they even have firearms?”