Disconsolin looked upwards at Etezora, mustering his best statesman-like expression. “Your Majesty — ”
Merdreth screamed as Etezora brought her hand down hard across the elderly statesman’s face. “I did not give you permission to speak. Show proper respect, Dragonian.”
It was part calculation and part Hallows-induced cruelty that motivated Etezora’s show of power, but she had to play these two carefully if she was to extract the information she needed. “Your Queen and her court have fled,” she said, “and you only remain. Why is this?”
Disconsolin wiped the blood from his mouth. “Tayem, our Queen is a mighty ruler. But she is impetuous, and I sought to speak with you. See if we could come to some accommodation.”
Etezora strolled around the abject form of the statesman, playing with a beryl amulet she had acquired from Tayem’s dressing table. “Accommodation? You speak as if you have something to trade. But, as you witnessed, we now hold the Dragonian palace and all of Wyverneth. It seems you miscalculated.”
Disconsolin lifted his head higher, daring to look at the Cuscosian Queen. “With all due respect, your Majesty, there is much we can offer in terms of your adaptation to the new royal seat.”
“What exactly do you mean?”
“You acquired a city dispossessed of its people. I have held the position of administrator for over twenty sols. I know where its resources are stored, how to run the carpentry workshops, the deals we negotiate with the surrounding locals — even how water and waste systems are managed. Let me help you with this.”
Etezora stopped circling him and stood behind, an unnerving tactic she employed to the full. “So, you’re essentially defecting? You seem to abandon your oaths all too quickly, Dragonian. How do I know you will not reverse your loyalties again when the occasion allows?”
“I … I wouldn’t do that, Your Majesty. My loyalty is to Wyverneth and not to the upstart monarch of the Dragon Riders. I would see it successfully ruled by one such as yourself, observe as it rises to greater prominence under your rule.”
Etezora gave a pretence of considering his offer. “It is true there is quite a task ahead of us and having someone conversant with the city’s workings would be an advantage. But what of your wife? What use is she?”
“She would be a condition of my service. I do not ask for much. Simply a small wing in the palace and a meagre wage.”
Etezora couldn’t help laughing at the man’s presumptuousness. “Hah, Your employment could be extracted from you as the price paid for your continued existence. As for your wife — well, she may prove useful, we shall see.”
The conversation was interrupted by a mournful bestial groaning from one of the pens. “What is that?” Etezora demanded.
Tuh-Ma crossed to the offending stall and looked over the stable door. He picked up a pitchfork and extended it, prodding something behind. “Quiet, hell-wyrm, or Tuh-Ma will skewer you and put you out of your misery.”
Etezora approached the stall and gazed in. “Pitiable creature. I wonder why the Dragon Riders left such a beast behind.” She took a closer look at its curled form and noticed the softened, black scales. “It looks sick. Kill it quickly, Tuh-Ma. I don’t want it interrupting our conversation.”
A look of fear crossed Tuh-Ma’s face, quickly replaced by a determined look. The troll’s eagerness to please easily supplanted his natural phobia. Etezora turned her back on the scene and heard the stable door open followed by the sound of Tuh-Ma’s pitchfork puncturing the defenceless beast in its vitals. The blue-skin clearly had to repeat the lancing as the wyrm squealed in pain several times before it completely expired.
So much for a quick death, Etezora thought, without emotion.
She turned her attention to Disconsolin again, seeing how his eyes were wide with fear. “I’ll spare your life,” she said to him, “provided you show me a sign of your loyalty.”
“Of course, Your Majesty. Anything,” he replied.
“I need information. Tayem’s remnant of Dragonians — where do they intend to regroup?”
Disconsolin, his brow furrowed and pensive, looked as if he was battling with himself. “I do not know, Your Majesty. Your troops fell upon us so quickly there was no time for the Queen to discuss a destination. I only know they escaped from the northern gate.”
Etezora leant over him and felt the crackle of energy in her forehead. Her eyes and ears had become increasingly hyper-sensitive during this latest resurgence and she could hear Disconsolin’s heart beating in his chest, like that of a petrified mouse. It was a natural consequence of stress, but it had changed since her question about Tayem. The pulse seemed more erratic. Lies.
“We both know you are withholding information. Now tell me all. Your reluctance is irritating.”
“I assure you that is everything I know. The Queen accepted my refusal to join the evacuation. She would not have told me, even if she had a fixed destination in mind at that time.”
“Very well,” Etezora said. “I can see you need to be persuaded. Guards, tie this woman to that post.” She pointed at an upright supporting the stable roof. Merdreth screamed as the soldiers grabbed her roughly and bound her. At Etezora’s instruction, they pulled her hair backwards, securing a rope around her neck, locking it in place so it was immobile.
“Let her go,” pleaded Disconsolin. “Have mercy.” Yet his words fell on seemingly deaf ears.
“Tuh-Ma,” Etezora said. “Do you remember how to remove the fyre-drench gland from a dragon?”
The troll swallowed, and then nodded in the affirmative. “Tuh-Ma will need to be careful. Dragon spit is very dangerous.”
“That’s the whole point,” Etezora said. “Now do it quickly before this woman faints on us.
Taking a knife from his belt, Tuh-Ma entered the stall and returned, carrying a sac dripping with blood, skewered on the end of his knife.
“Give it here,” Etezora demanded.
“Be careful Mistress. See how the green fluid already eats into my weapon.”
Etezora took the knife from the blue-skin and soaked up the viscous green liquid with a rag passed to her by a guard. All the while, Merdreth struggled against her bonds and shrieked her protests.
“Stuff a cloth in her mouth,” Etezora said, “I can’t stand to hear her pathetic crowing. Now, I need another rag.” Tuh-Ma obliged by pulling a piece of loose material from his tunic. Etezora took the cloth and used it to soak up the dragon’s bodily fluid. As she did so, the material began to smoulder gently.
Tuh-Ma looked on in wonderment, then nodded as he understood what she was about to do. Etezora noticed his absorption and handed the cloth back to him. “Would you like to perform this part?” she said.
The troll nodded, and took the cloth from her, careful to handle it by an unsoaked portion.
“You need to hurry,” Etezora said, “before it eats through the cloth.
Tuh-Ma approached the frightened prisoner. “Tuh Ma will ask, and your husband will answer,” he said to her.
“What are you doing, beast?” cried Disconsolin.
“Tuh Ma does not ask you darastrix sthyr, and I am no beast.” He emphasised the point by kicking the man in the belly. “Now, once more. Where is the Dragon Queen?”
There was silence, the prisoners glancing at each other.
“Proceed Tuh-Ma,” instructed Etezora. “The man is stubborn. He needs convincing.”
With surprising dexterity the hulking troll gently rubbed his fingers on Merdreth’s eyelids, massaging them open and then closed.
“You enjoy your sight, darastrix aesthyr?”
Merdreth could not reply but closed her eyes. Tuh-Ma then rubbed his thumb nails with the cloth, smearing a layer of fyredrench across the pointed horn-like envelopes covering the tips of his fingers. The spit started to react with the tough keratin, and wisps of smoke rose as the finger nails dissolved. Tuh-Ma reached over the struggling Merdreth and pushed his finger nails into the corners of her eyes in a sa
distic gouging motion.
Merdreth uttered a muffled scream, while Disconsolin begged the troll to stop. After what seemed like an eternity Tuh-Ma stepped back and Etezora spoke quietly as Merdreth whimpered in pain.
“Disconsolin, do you want Tuh-Ma to stop?”
The statesman had lost his powers of speech, it seemed. His mouth simply opened and closed like a carp. “Yes?” she continued, “then tell me where Tayem and her riders are.”
“No, you don’t understand. I can’t. Please leave my wife alone, we are no threat to you.”
“That’s not what I asked.” This time the voice was harsh. “Tuh-Ma, proceed.”
The grotesque parody of a stunted man stepped forward and pushed his thumbs into the eye sockets of the wailing politician again, slowly pushing his nails under the eyeballs. With an accompanying shriek from Merdreth, they popped out of their sockets. Merdreth slumped in her bindings, unconscious from shock and pain. The experience was too much for Disconsolin. He heaved the contents of his guts onto the floor and sobbed uncontrollably.
“Well, Dragonian?” Etezora said. “Shall we awaken your wife, and let Tuh-Ma continue his ministrations?”
“No, no,” the man spluttered. “Tayem invoked the Vicrac. They have retreated to the hills. There is a sanctuary amongst the Whispering Mountains. A place called Herethorn.”
“Herethorn?” Etezora said. “The place is a myth, spoken of in legends told by the extinct Gigantes.”
“They know the way,” Disconsolin said. “Every Dragon Rider learns of the Vicrac by rote from the earliest of ages.”
Etezora observed the man, attuned her hearing to his heart beat, and knew he told the truth.
“Shall we go after them right away?” Tuh-Ma asked.
“We will depart by first light. You,” she spoke to one of the guards, “call for Graywood the physician and also the Royal Scribe. Order them to attend to this woman’s wounds and take down Disconsolin’s directions. Captain?” she turned to the other. “Make preparations for our journey. Choose one thousand of your best men. We will track down this rump of Tayem’s army, destroy their remaining dragons and see if this place Disconsolin speaks of truly exists.”
On the way back to her chamber, Etezora relished in the re-vitalisation that coursed through her veins. Only an hour ago she thought she was in for a restless night, but instead she looked forward to an ancient’s sleep.
29
Tir ti rinov wurunwa di loreatis (Don't ever dream of dying)
Milissandia stirred from a restless sleep, her body feeling as if weighed down by heavy chains. Strange images still lingered in her mind, spectres and suggestions of events she could not explain. Not for the first time since the unexpected visit from her estranged father, she felt the need to spend the night alone. This might have meant an evening without the physical warmth of a companion, but it provided the opportunity to evaluate her path — painful though this was.
She had sat in front of her fire, staring at the flames for hours the previous evening, trying to make sense of the confused emotions that engulfed her since Wobas re-entered her life. Did she really hate her father as much as her response suggested? The question burned in the forefront of her mind, and she needed to understand why she felt it with such intensity. Yet after worrying away at the problem like a tongue passing over a sore tooth, she eventually tried to seek solace in slumber. She had prepared a calming herbal draught hoping to get much needed sleep — yet it still deserted her.
“Krut,” she said out loud as the early morning light shone through a crack in the curtains. There was a busy day ahead, collecting herbs, fungi and seeds she needed to prepare the healing potions that were her stock-in-trade. Mundane foraging perhaps; but as it transpired, the activity was to provide a watershed moment in her life.
Milissandia possessed skills coveted by both Cuscosians and inhabitants of the Dragon Vale. She was known as the healer of the hills, a free spirit with knowledge and lore to administer various forest fruits. She used these carefully selected specimens to produce medicines, tinctures and unctions used to heal and sooth a vast range of ills. It had always been her belief that these talents were inherited from her mother, Carys. Yet now she had an increasing sense there was something running deeper in her blood. Although she shied away from such notions, it was as if a greater power guided her. Frequently she might be dressing a wound when a muse descended, and her hands gestured over the malady without volition, her lips uttering words she never read in any tome or grimoire.
With great effort, she kicked her feet out of bed, and pulled a lime-green wrap around her shoulders. She drew the curtains which let the morning sun stream into the room. Looking out beyond her small garden, she could see across a lake to the lowland woods of the Dragon Vale. It was in these woods that she collected the raw materials for her craft — natural ingredients that when cooked, blended or distilled, transformed into the potions she used to such great effect.
The sky burned with a violet glow, taking on a contused appearance. Have you been betrayed, Sol-Ar — or are you the betrayer? She thought. Her father perhaps knew more of this import, but she was hardly going to ask him.
She decided not to dwell on the foreboding, focusing instead on the day ahead. She needed to replenish her store of medicines that treated the mind. These required particular fungi and cacti. She would blend the pulp from these plants to help ease a patient’s torment, though the medicine would never completely cure them — that was beyond even her capabilities.
After downing a bowl of ripe juju berries and grains, Milissandia picked up her bag and knife, then set off across the water meadow, following a route towards the Vale beyond. Once she reached the lake’s edge, she untied the rope securing a small wicker boat and pushed off with a spoon-shaped paddle. Using strong purposeful strokes, she sped the little boat across the glistening water. A gentle refreshing breeze kissed the surface of the lake as she approached the northern margin, and the clear blue water turned a green-red colour as she glided over the first clump of fyrereeds signalling an end to this part of the journey.
She came to a stop on a small shingle beach, got out and pulled the boat clear of the water. Instead of taking her usual path into the woods, she followed the beach to its western edge until she reached a sheltered lagoon. It was here that the skjall anduleso lived.
Milissandia had nurtured the colony of small tree serpents for many sols now. The wriggling creatures could be extremely timid, but came to recognise she presented no threat to their sheltered existence. Spending most of their time in the higher reaches of the gnarlwood trees, they took to the ground at times to devour leafy plantains and reeds growing in the lagoon. Unlike most serpents, these diminutive creatures possessed sticky toe-pads and strengthened skeletal structures in their feet that helped them climb the smooth bark of the gnarlwoods. However, it was their ability to change colour that fascinated Milissandia. Quite by accident, she discovered that the chemical secreted when they camouflaged themselves was also a cure for skin sores and lesions suffered by the Dragonians. Far less serious than the incurable dragon blight, she referred to it as dragon rash.
She smeared some juju paste onto a mat of reeds, and then sat patiently, waiting for the sickly sweet odour of the juju paste bait to attract the anduleso. As she did so, her mind wandered back to Wobas’s visit again.
It was true his quest for the secrets of the Dreamworld drove her from him when she was a young child, but now she felt a sense of guilt for rejecting his overtures of reconciliation.
Was it the images that flooded her mind the previous night that stirred these feelings? She wished she could remember their substance. Perhaps her desire to understand the dream images was the source of her torment and served to deprive her of precious sleep.
“Questions, questions, questions,” she mused as the first of the tiny aduleso settled close by and started to feast. She reached out quickly and picked up the tiny creature, careful not to damage its delicate
skin. The sticky pads clung to her hand as she stroked its back repeatedly with a juju catkin. The animal uttered a curious purring sound as its body secreted a photosensitive mucus that reflected the colour of its surroundings.
She removed the mucus with the absorbent flower spike, the catkin serving as a sponge. Once she had placed the saturated catkin in a small earthenware jar, she repeated the process until the jar was full.
The morning had all but passed before she completed the task. The lure of the lagoon tempted her to stay and rest a while longer, but she knew she should move on and renew her assortment of fungi. Not only were they needed for medicines, but they would act as her meal for the evening.
Bidding a fond yet unreciprocated farewell to the tree serpents, she retraced her steps along the beach and followed a well-trodden path to the tree line. After walking for a periarch or so, she stepped off the main route and traced a path using waymarkers left from a previous visit. They led to a shaded copse rich in mushrooms, toadstools and tree fungi. This was her special place, a place to dream, a place to harvest jewels of the forest.
She settled into the task of picking the ripe fungal blooms, taking in myriad colours that clothed the multitudinous fruiting bodies carpeting the pungent forest floor. Vibrant red shrooms gave way to speckled white-caps, while a rare variety of golden-yellow bracket fungus occupied niches in the soft bark of a mangor tree. This precious tree heterotrope was a much sought after culinary delicacy. She was particularly careful to segregate the edible fruiting structures from other pathogenic species. Elsewhere, she had to identify other mushrooms containing psychotropic compounds desired by many of her clients.
She laboured tirelessly through the afternoon and now settled under a shady tree to take refreshment. She leaned back against the trunk and took a deep draught from her skin of sweet juju-berry juice. It was like nectar to her parched lips. Such was the soporific effect, she wasn’t aware she had dozed off until a stinging pain in her right hand wrenched her from slumber.
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