Dragon Mage

by ML Spencer

  “I never want to hurt you,” he said, his voice gruff. “I won’t bother you again.”

  He started to push himself up, but her hand caught his arm. He sat back down, looking at her in confusion.

  “It’s too late for that,” she said.

  He sighed dismally. “I know. I already hurt you.”

  “No. I mean I already love you.”

  He sat frozen for a moment, just staring at her. How was that possible, after everything she had just said to him? He was exactly what she didn’t want, exactly what she didn’t need.

  She took his hand. He stared down at her fingers clasped around his, feeling suddenly frightened, though he didn’t know why. Part of him was shouting that this couldn’t be happening, that it was all his imagination. She couldn’t be sitting here holding his hand, telling him she loved him. It was impossible. Things like this didn’t happen to people like him.

  “Can I kiss you?” she asked.

  The question filled him with a terrified euphoria. It overwhelmed him, so much so that all he could do was stare at her in shock.

  She brought a hand up and touched his face.

  “Relax,” she whispered, drawing close, so close he could feel her warm breath feathering his cheek, smelling sweetly of honeywine and herbs.

  He felt her lips touch his, and his entire world was reduced to the feel of that kiss. He moved his own lips awkwardly, struggling to remember how he’d kissed her before, that time when they’d danced. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Her hand slid behind his back, and she kissed him deeper, and all thoughts and worries fled his mind. Just when he was about to put his arms around her, she pulled back just enough to look at him with a smile.

  “I thought you said you didn’t know how to kiss.”

  “You taught me,” he whispered.

  Then she was kissing him again. Something came over him then, and every thought and worry fled his mind, for he no longer felt clumsy and lost but profoundly thankful to be found. They stayed up late into the night, holding each other and talking. It felt so good to laugh with her. When morning came, and she rose to leave, Aram caught her by the hand.

  “I love you,” he said, gazing into her eyes.

  “I love you too.”

  She smiled at him, and it was the most beautiful smile. His heart burned with gratitude.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Markus returned in the morning, just as Aram was headed out.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “I figured I’d go down to the kitchens and get something to eat,” Aram answered. He set out down the corridor with a smile and made his way down to Hearth Home. It was still dark out, and when he exited the stairwell, the smell of baking bread permeated the air. There were only a few people out in the streets, and yet the roosters were already crowing, and the mockingbirds were at it, making a racket in the treetops overhead.

  He gathered a couple of fresh-baked loaves from Rienne, one of the Master Baker’s apprentices who had always been nice to him. He swaddled the loaves in a cloth and held them against his chest, determined to keep them oven-warm all the way up the long flights of stairs. He hurried as quickly as he could, but when he opened the door to his quarters, he didn’t find what he was expecting.

  Markus stood by the hearth speaking with two other people. All three turned toward him as Aram entered, and he recognized Ansul Stroud and Ethora Lorine, Wingmasters of the Lower and Eastern eyries.

  Looking from one person to the other, Aram asked, “What’s going on?”

  Ansul Stroud nodded at him in greeting. “The last of the Dedicants and their apprentices have arrived. Luvana is convening the Council.”

  “Right now?” Aram asked with a glance at Markus.

  “Right now.”

  Disappointed, Aram set the bread down on the table. “I guess we’ll eat this later.”

  On second thought, he broke off a piece for himself, tossing another to Markus. They donned their mantles and followed Stroud and Lorine down the stairs.

  When they reach the Council chamber, Aram was surprised to find it packed with people, many of whom he’d never seen before. And no one was sitting; rather, they’d gathered in several different nodes of conversation. When Aram and Markus entered, people turned to look at them with a mixture of expressions. Aram nodded greetings as he made his way through the crowd to where Luvana was standing, cradling a drink and speaking with an ancient-looking woman who wore the headscarf of a Dedicant Mother, though this woman’s scarf was green, like the leaves of a forest.

  “Aram,” Luvana said, motioning him over. When he reached her, she set her hand on his back and introduced him to the woman she was speaking with. “I would like you to meet Carlova, Dedicant Mother of Lorinfel.”

  Aram gave a short bow, bringing a hand to his brow. “Very pleased to meet you, Dedicant Mother.”

  Reaching out, the woman clasped his hand with her own cold and bony fingers. “The wind brought you, Champion Raythe.”

  Luvana said, “Dedicant Carlova will be coming with us to the Hills of Eranor. She is very skilled at hardening the strands.”

  Aram looked at Carlova in curiosity. “Forgive me, but I’m not sure what that means.”

  “Watch,” the old woman said, and Aram saw the strands of aether between them snap tight, as though under tension. As they stretched, they began to glow, the light physically wrung from them. Reaching out, Aram groped at the air between them and found it solid, like touching a brick wall. It was a useful technique, one he’d have to remember.

  He looked at the Dedicant Mother and smiled. “That could be helpful.”

  “I can only do it over a short distance.” The old woman gave him a bleak smile, releasing the tendrils and letting their light fade. “But perhaps it’ll come in handy.”

  “I’m sure it will.” Aram was about to say something further, but the sound of his name turned his attention away.

  Glancing behind him, Aram saw Ansul Stroud motioning him over. Markus stood at his side, conversing with a woman next to them. The Wingmasters and their captains had gathered around a table with a map rolled out on it, weighted down on one end with two cups and on the other with a small knife and a stone from the hearth. Someone had set an arrowhead just off-center on the map, and there were a bunch of dark pebbles scattered across the parchment, forming a trail, while another path of lighter pebbles approached from the opposite direction. Aram gazed down at the map, recognizing the rolling curves that formed the Kemeri Mountains and the jagged line of the gorge. The arrowhead, then, must be the Hills of Eranor, and the dark pebbles must be Kathrax’s army. It didn’t look like they’d made it very far from Eld Anoth.

  “How recent is this information?” he asked.

  “Yesterday evening,” answered Stroud.

  “That doesn’t make sense.” Aram frowned. “They could have been most of the way to the hills by now.”

  He studied the map harder, feeling like there was something he was missing. The Army of Araghar was barely a half day’s march from the fortress they had conquered. Which didn’t make any sense, for why would they linger?

  “They’re waiting for something,” he muttered.

  “Waiting for what?” asked Stroud.

  Aram set two fingers on the map, at the head of the swath of pebbles. In two days’ time, they should be most of the way to Eranor. “Do you have scouts to the west?”

  Stroud answered, “The West has gone silent.”

  Aram noticed that many of the people in the chamber had halted their conversation and were looking at him. He felt suddenly hesitant, almost regretting that he had mentioned anything. His gaze slid from the grouping of lighter-colored pebbles to the arrowhead.

  “What are you thinking?”

  Aram looked up, not realizing that Luvana had come up beside him.

  “By waiting, they’re letting us arrive first,” he said. “By the time they get to Eranor, our forces will be pretty well entrenched. So, what
’s so important that is keeping them there?”

  His question went unanswered. He looked up and glanced around the circle of people gathered around the table, all staring down at the map with faces equally long. None of them had an answer, he could tell.

  “Whatever they’re waiting for, it must be worth it.” Aram sighed heavily. “I wish Vandra were here.” She would know what to do. Markus caught his gaze, his face tightening.

  Aram was quiet after that, letting the more experienced minds hash out strategy, for he felt far out of his element. Almost unconsciously, he withdrew to the side of the room, working his way toward the corner, where he felt more comfortable. There, he leaned up against the wall, his mind gnawing on the problem of what could possibly be important enough that would cause the enemy to give up a strategic advantage.

  “You look like you’re feeling disregarded.”

  Aram looked up into the face of Elder Sabrien, one of the oldest members of the Council. He was a frail man with youthful eyes that held a sparkle of mischief in them.

  “Not disregarded.” Aram conjured a faint smile. “More like out of my depth.”

  Sabrien nodded back toward the table where the Wingmasters had gathered with their captains. “They find you intimidating.”

  “Intimidating?” Aram wondered if the man were joking. “I’m barely more than a recruit. I have very little experience in any of this.”

  The old man raised his thinning white eyebrows. “Perhaps not, but you have something better. We’ll call it ‘informed intuition.’”

  Aram frowned. “What do you mean?”

  Elder Sabrien spread his hands. “You’re a True Savant. Consciously or not, your mind is always reading the strands. You have insight that others lack. To you, it might feel like a gut feeling, but for the Gifted, that kind of feeling is far more than just a hunch.” He inclined his head toward the others. “They know this. They’re just having a hard time reconciling your youth with your capabilities.”

  Aram glanced to Stroud and the other Wingmasters. “I don’t feel very capable.”

  “You don’t give yourself enough credit.” The old man patted Aram’s arm then walked away, inserting himself into a conversation Luvana was having with some of the other Dedicants. Aram wondered if Sabrien was a Dedicant himself. He seemed to know a lot about the Gifted, and Aram wondered how he had come by the knowledge. By the looks of him, Aram guessed that Sabrien had to be well over a thousand years old. He looked even older than Esmir, who was old for even an Auld’s generous span of years.

  Aram wandered back over to the table and listened while the Wingmasters finalized their plans. Apparently, it had been decided to risk the dragons and fly the Wings to Eranor. Stroud’s argument was that, like a flock of birds, they would be protected by sheer numbers.

  “They can’t bring us all down,” he argued.

  “No,” said Aram, gazing at the map. “But they can kill a lot of us.” To him, even one dragon lost to lightning was too many. He bit his lip, thinking hard. “If you insist on taking the dragons, you should wait till nightfall. Their sorcerers have to be able to see us to strike. If we’re lucky, there’ll be cloud cover.”

  Luvana nodded her approval even as Stroud looked like he was about to differ. But he kept his silence, gazing at Aram for long seconds. At last, something in his face softened, and he gave a terse nod.

  The Council broke up shortly after that, the Wingmasters and their captains striding with purpose out of the chamber, determined to take advantage of the enemy’s hesitance. Markus left with one of Stroud’s captains, mired in some conversation. He was a lot more outgoing than Aram was, fitting seamlessly into any social situation he found himself in.

  Aram was undecided about whether to return to his quarters or to try to find Calise. He had no idea what the proper thing to do was, after what had passed between them. Did she want time to herself? He didn’t want to come off as smothering. But he also didn’t want her to think he was avoiding her.

  If she had been a woman of his village, he would have been planning a marriage proposal. But the traditions of the Auld were different than those of his own people, and here marriage was a rare thing, perhaps because of their longevity. He wondered what it would be like to be married to the same person for centuries. If it were Calise, he thought those centuries would be happy ones.

  As he walked, Aram let his gaze trail along the elaborate wall carvings. On this level, the patterns had a repetition to them that were absent on other floors. He stopped and studied the intricate design, made of one strand woven about itself with hundreds of different crossings. In his mind, he envisioned what form the knot would take if someone were to tug those crossings tight. He imagined it would look like a turban knot, or perhaps a knob knot.

  He was still pondering the carvings when he heard footsteps and turned to find Elder Sabrien approaching him. Seeing Aram’s interest in the wall, the old man beamed.

  “Do you know how to read Elaric?” Sabrien asked.

  “No. What’s Elaric?”

  The old man gestured at the wall. “The Kingdom of Elara existed during the Age of Chaos, after the Sundering. The language of Elara was not written in letters but rather as a system of knots tied in cord or, sometimes, graven in stone.”

  Aram sucked in a breath, for he had wondered if the walls of Skyhome had something to do with magic. His interest intensified, for the parallel between a knotwork writing system and the actual binding of aether was too uncanny to be coincidence. He raised his hand and ran his fingers across the textured stone.

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s a ballad.”

  Aram was amazed. He glanced up and down the length of the hall, wondering how long a ballad it could contain. Imagining that each individual component of the knot formed a word, it was entirely possible that each section of the corridor between doorways could contain an entire stanza. He thought immediately of Master Ebra, of how excited the bard would have been to have seen such a masterpiece.

  “It’s called the Eyana Eman,” the old man said.

  At that name, the entire world shifted under Aram’s feet.

  “What?” he whispered.

  That had been the ballad Master Ebra had recited in the longhouse, the night Aram had created the rupture. It was uncanny, and he doubted it was coincidence. Why had the bard chosen that particular ballad to play? How had he known of it? He thought back to Master Ebra’s brilliant red aura, a color he had never seen before on a man. And had never since.

  “The Eyana Eman was originally woven into a tapestry composed of forty-six panels that were later translated into forty-six tablets,” Sabrien informed him, running his fingers over the stone. “The walls of each floor of Skyhome each contain one tablet.”

  “Where’s the Ballad of Raginor?” Aram asked, his voice breathless.

  Sabrien’s brow furrowed. “On the fourteenth floor. You know the Eyana Eman?”

  “Just the part about Erok and Raginor.” Aram glanced down the hallway. An excited tingling caressed his skin like the light touch of a feather, and beads of perspiration broke out across his brow. He had only heard it once, but he recalled the Ballad of Raginor word for word.

  “That’s how I came here,” he whispered. “The ballad…”

  It had been the words of the ballad that had moved him to create the rupture in Anai. Somehow, his mind had taken the scant references in the lyrics and reasoned that the Veil had something to do with his father’s disappearance. It had been quite a leap to come to that conclusion, and yet, all along, he’d been right. Perhaps it was the same kind of ‘informed intuition’ Sabrien had told him about. Regardless, the Eyana Eman was important, not just to him, but important enough to be carved across all the floors of Skyhome.

  “I’ve got to go,” he whispered then turned to hurry down the corridor, the refrains of the Ballad of Raginor echoing in his mind. By the time he reached the stairs, Aram was running.

  Chapter Ninety-
Three

  Aram spent the remainder of the morning wrestling with the words of the ballad the bard had sung that night in the longhouse so long ago. The lyrics detailed the mythical events that had led up to the Sundering of the World. It spoke of a battle between Ahn, the Father of All, and his immortal lover Senestra, who had brought the Archons into the world to serve Ahn’s children, the Auld. But the Archons had turned against the Auld. The ballad labeled them ‘the Disavowed,’ for they had broken their oaths. Aram was convinced that Ahn’s champion Raginor had been a true Champion in every sense, and that his lover Erok had been his Warden. Raginor had been slain in the ensuing battle between the gods, and his death had provoked Erok to bring about the Sundering, separating the world of magic from the world of Men.

  Aram knew that, somehow, the Eyana Eman was critical to their current situation, though he didn’t know how he knew it. Just as when he had first heard Master Ebra recite the ballad in Anai’s longhouse, Aram’s intuition was screaming at him, and he couldn’t ignore it.

  All day he walked the halls of Skyhome, studying the flowing, interlaced knotwork, wishing he could read it like a script. He was convinced that he could, given time to study it—which he didn’t have. So, instead, he appeased his mind by walking the halls with a ball of twine in his hand, transcribing the language of stone into a language he understood better than any other: the language of cord. By the time he arrived at the lowest level, he had amassed a collection of small, braided panels, each composed of hundreds of knots. These, he carried back to the eyrie and laid them out across the terrace in the sunlight, where he compiled them into one, large tapestry.

  When the entire ballad was assembled, Aram hung it on the wall and then stood back, running his gaze over the woven text. He stood there for perhaps an hour, until he had the entire structure of the ballad memorized. Yet, the more he stared at it, the more disappointed he grew. He had been hoping that, compiled, the complete ballad would offer him some important insight or piece of knowledge.