by Jeff Wheeler
“Sit, boy.” Griven said, sweeping his hand to indicate he didn’t care where. “I’ll check on our food.”
He disappeared through another door in the far left corner. The smells that wafted in told Cyril that the food was indeed on its way. Who it might be making such delicious scents he couldn’t fathom. He had seen no one else since arriving, nor heard other footfalls. Perhaps there were more secrets to this odd structure. All he knew was that he was ravenous. As if in agreement, his stomach rumbled.
He crossed to the other side of the table, the one nearest the wall. He was intrigued by the heavy drapes, and pulled one back to peek behind it. There were no windows. Instead, strange drawings marked the walls. Drawn in something dark, they looked as though someone had used charred sticks from a fire as an instrument. The designs were patterns, with spokes moving outward from a central point, surrounded by circles and webs at such an intricate level of detail he had to lean closer to make them out.
For reasons he couldn’t articulate, the drawings made him nervous. He let the curtain fall and moved to another, feeling his insides clench as he drew it aside. Like the first, the fabric concealed no window, only more of the odd markings. If anything, these were even more intricate than the others, the tiny spaces between the spokes and the circling lines filled with images so small he couldn’t make them out even when he narrowed his eyes.
Again, the crawling sensation of nervousness filled him at the sight. Were these spells? Had Griven drawn them? If he had, why here, on the rock walls of the dining hall? And why were they hidden?
Cyril heard footsteps approaching, and quickly let the curtain fall back into place, rushing to sit in one of the heavy chairs. His heart pounded, and his palms were wet. Why? What was he afraid would happen?
The door in the corner swung open, and a man carrying a heavy tray walked in, followed by a girl with a pitcher. Griven came in last, sitting at the head of the table even though it was two chairs away from where Cyril had seated himself. The man and girl laid their burdens on the large table, then left as quickly as they had come. Other than a faint impression of their age, Cyril could barely even say what they had looked like. A moment later Griven was lifting the lid away from the large tray, and all other thoughts and concerns were lost in the rich smell and dripping skin of the roasted meat in front of them.
A strange feeling tore through Cyril’s body. It was more than hunger. It was beyond craving. It was a need. He wanted to plunge his hands into the meat and devour it, rip it apart with his teeth, and swallow dripping chunks of it. His throat worked convulsively as he tried not to let the strange feeling show.
Griven, however, appeared as lost as Cyril was. He grabbed two chunks of meat with his hand, using his knife to spear each one as he tore into it. The nature of it made Cyril’s longing even greater. Unable to stand it any longer, he grabbed his own chunks. He didn’t need a knife. He shoved the food into his mouth with his hands, pleased to find the meat still red and blood-filled beneath the darkened exterior. The flavors and scents filled him. Juices ran down his chin. He reached for more. Needed more. If only he could have caught it himself, been free to hold it down and tear into the tender flesh while it still pulsed with life—
No!
He dropped the meat he’d been holding, staring at it in horror. His hands were covered in fat and blood. He wiped at his chin, horrified to find more of the same. What was he doing? These thoughts were not his own! He was acting like some kind of . . .
Beast? Is that what I am?
Mnementh.
He shoved his chair away from the table, feeling suddenly sick and dizzy. Was that how it would be now? Would they forever be connected? He looked up to find Griven staring at him, his narrow eyes glowing, mouth pulled back in a pleased grin.
He knew! Griven knew Cyril and the dragon were connected!
Panic filled him; his heart thundered against his ribs. Did Griven sense it? Could he hear the thoughts that filled Cyril’s mind?
He knows, but not fully. Mnementh’s liquid voice soothed. He is not as we are.
Cyril stumbled away from the chair. He needed to get away from there. His stomach clenched angrily, yet the food did not come back up. His body wanted the meat, even if his mind didn’t.
The door on the other side of the room wavered as he stumbled toward it, and his feet felt heavy and uncoordinated. He nearly fell twice, but finally grasped the latch and pulled it open. He fled into the dark hallway, hearing soft laughter follow him.
Griven.
He leaned one hand against the rough stone wall to keep himself from falling, and lurched toward the relative safety of his room. Once in it, he ripped away his clothes, using the material to scrub at his face and hands. He tossed them in a ball into a corner, then knelt before the chest, pushing back the lid. He dug through his clothes for something clean, something that smelled of home, and not this dungeon; this snake pit. He pulled on pants and a soft shirt his mother had made for him, and then his hands landed on the pair of balled-up socks near the bottom. The hard lump at one end told him that his treasure was still there, still safe.
Greedily he tore at the material, eager to have it in his hand. It dropped into his palm, the heaviness of it pushing his hand down. It was cool against his hot skin, feeling like a balm.
Riven stone!
So the dragon knew what it was.
Of course I know! His response was immediate and offended. I am not a fool. Besides, I am magic-born. We know of such things.
Yes, of course he would. He would know how the riven stone worked, and also what Cyril was planning to do with it. More importantly, he would know why.
We are of like mind, Mnementh agreed.
Cyril rolled the small dark silver-colored stone between his fingers. It was heavy, but perfectly balanced. It shifted easily between his fingertips as he moved it from one to the next. As he moved it faster, the silver color began to glow. Faster and faster he shifted it, until the rock moved through the air almost of its own accord, and the light blurred into a solid glowing line in the air.
With his free hand, Cyril summoned his Destructive magic. A ball of darkness rose above his palm, shifting and coalescing until it was a perfect sphere of midnight.
They were both perfect.
Cyril clapped his hands together sharply, striking the silver of the riven stone with the black Destructive magic. Lightning shot away in all directions, filling the room with an electrical charge that lifted his hair from his head.
Then it dissipated, and with it, the weight of the web that had been cast over him. Immediately his stomach settled, and his heart returned to a normal rhythm. He heaved a great sigh, then shook his head. He should have known. Should have suspected that Griven would not trust him so quickly, or offer something so powerful without a catch. He’d only realized it when Griven had grinned at dinner (if you could call what they had done something so civil as dinner).
Griven had not known what kind of connection would be made with the dragon, but he was no fool. He had cast a web spell over Cyril, trapping some of his thoughts and emotions, monitoring them.
You’re good, Cyril thought, his mind finally his own again, but I have some tricks of my own, old man.
He tucked the riven stone back into its hiding place. He would have to be more careful from now on. The connection with Mnementh was temporarily broken as well, the riven stone doing its work completely, but he knew that would be easy enough to restore. They shared something Griven did not, and he could tap into it at any time.
He was almost ready.
- 6 -
“Sit still now,” Griven said, his tone clipped and humorless.
He sensed it. He could feel that he’d lost his hold on his acolyte, but he didn’t know how. Cyril fought to hold back a triumphant smile. Griven might suspect, but he could never truly guess. Riven stones were extraordinarily rare. There were only a handful in existence as far as anyone knew. After all, it was unusual enough for
people to travel through the Divide, let alone a stone, but then for someone to find it and recognize it for what it was? Even his father had never suspected such a thing. Especially from Cyril’s mother.
She had pressed it into her son’s hand on the night before his tenth year began.
“I know not when you will need this,” she’d whispered into his ear, leaning over him in the darkness, “but need it you will.”
Her breath had been a tickle on his face.
“She’s seen it.”
She. The seer. The woman Father had forbidden her to visit. Oh, how furious he would be if he knew.
“You’ll keep our secret, won’t you?”
He’d heard the sadness in her voice, and the fear. He’d nodded then, accepting her gift and her secret. He hadn’t realized yet what it could do, that small heavy stone, but it was a gift. The only one he’d ever gotten. He was loath to give it up. Later, when she’d explained how it worked, he was glad he’d kept it. Later still, when he’d first had need of it, he was even gladder.
No, Griven might sense that he’d lost his web of power, but he could not know how. Perhaps he thought that somehow Cyril was strong enough to break it on his own. If so, that was good. Let him be nervous.
The razor-sharp edge of the long blade slid along Cyril’s skin, Griven’s hand steady and sure. Cyril felt the soft sigh of movement as a swath of hair slid down his bare shoulders and onto the floor. Dark hair, he saw, with only a hint of his father’s red. Good. His father had no place here. Not in this.
It only took a few minutes to shave away the hair, leaving his head as bald as Griven’s. Next came the taetaus. Griven had ground some kind of red rock into a powder, adding other powders from small glass jars and vials, and then a drop of shining liquid. He stirred it all into a paste, dipping in a small brush and dragging it along the freshly shaved skin. A shiver rippled over Cyril, though whether it was from the paste or something more he didn’t know.
“The taetaus will allow the use of your Neutral as a conductor,” Griven had explained, “to infuse the magic into the ring.”
A gold ring, as it turned out, that Griven had already prepared with spells, ready to capture and contain. Ready to be filled with dragon magic.
And your own, Mnementh cautioned. He will do more than use your magic for this fusion: The circle to represent unending magic, the gold to contain my own, and the pairing of our balance and our breath of life to complete it. He will weave your essence with my own into the very soul of this object. Man with beast. Merged.
Can it hurt us? Cyril sent his question silently.
Only in that one moment, when he holds the power between us and the ring. As he draws from us both, we will be vulnerable.
He hated that word, Cyril could tell. A creature as mighty as a dragon must loathe being vulnerable.
And after? Cyril asked.
Once it is done, it is done. The ring will contain the power, but we will be restored.
The ring would contain the power. Just the idea of it thrilled him.
He must not be allowed to have it. Even to touch it. Once it is complete, it will carry the combined power of us both, stronger than either.
No, he must not be allowed to have it, Cyril agreed.
He had opened his thoughts completely to Mnementh, and now the bond between them was uncluttered by Griven’s clumsy intrusion. It was stronger than anything he’d known before.
What will you do with it?
The ring? I will hide it where Griven can never reach it.
Between worlds. Good, Mnementh approved. There was a pause. Then, What will you do with him?
Cyril felt a slow smile spread across his face.
Nothing. I will leave him for you.
The feelings that filled him then were not his own. Mnementh’s pleasure, his anger, his fury at being held captive for so long, his desire for retribution of the theft of his power by Griven was so strong it was overwhelming. Cyril felt himself wobble and nearly fall from the chair.
“Be still!” Griven hissed. “The forms must be exact!”
With force, Cyril pushed Mnementh’s feelings to the back of his mind. The forms must be exact. He didn’t want anything to go wrong. Not now. Not when they were so close.
And when it was all over, he would return home and show his father exactly what he’d learned.
- 7 -
“It’s time.”
A pressure filled Cyril’s chest. He wasn’t sure what it was at first. Dread, excitement, fear, anticipation . . . It felt as though his whole life had led him to this exact moment.
“Don’t worry,” Griven said, misinterpreting his hesitation. “It’s no worse than what you felt the other day”—his dark eyes burned—“and when it’s done, you will be witness to the true power of the dragon.”
He means to use it on you first, Mnementh said.
But Cyril had already known that.
It didn’t take much of a leap to figure out why Griven had needed an acolyte, or why he’d paid so handsomely for one. How much, the boy wondered, had it taken for his father to sell his only son?
“Are you ready?”
He opened his mouth to form the word, to affirm his commitment to the plan, but at that moment a pounding echoed through the hall.
Both turned to look toward the front room. Who could it be? Who would visit this alien and profane place? There was a reason it looked as if it had been heaved up from the bowels of the earth. A reason it looked as if it had been melted and reformed. Griven was Destructive first, but he was also Creative. His unholy creation mirrored his blasphemous heart.
“Go and see who it is,” Griven hissed, shoving him toward the door. “Send them away. I have work to do.”
And with that, he disappeared through the doorway, down into the depths of his lair.
Cyril walked slowly into the front room. His mouth was dry. His heart beat like a rabbit’s. He gripped the bar that secured the door, his hand closing over it on the far end. All he had to do was push it down. The counterbalance would lift the other end and clear the latch, allowing the door to swing open. It was just another way Griven used clever deceptions to impress and intimidate.
The knock came again, startling him.
Whoever it was, they weren’t going away. This was stupid. Why was he afraid? He had nothing to fear. Not now, and soon enough not ever again. Annoyed, he pushed down on the bar. The door swung open. He paused in the shadow of it, but no one came in. Grinding his teeth together, he moved into the doorway.
The light of the sun nearly blinded him. He threw a hand up over his face. Not even a week he’d been here, and already he was like a cave dweller. The sun threw a swath of light into the room, as if sniffing out an adversary. Cyril took an uneasy step backward.
Standing outside the door, framed by the sun, there was a figure. His face was invisible, the glare a halo of brightness around him. Cyril squinted, ducking his head and turning it to try to get a glimpse of the stranger.
“Who is it?” he asked. “What do you want?”
“Cyril?”
He gasped, the use of his own name striking him like a hammer on a string, sending reverberations through his entire being. He licked his lips and tried to swallow, but his mouth was too dry.
“Who are you?” he whispered.
“I am called by many names,” the man answered.
What kind of answer was that?
“Why are you here?”
The man’s face began to appear amidst the bright light, Cyril’s eyes slowly adjusting enough to see. The face was strange. It was twisted and pulled.
“Your mother sent me.”
The words rocked him. His mother? How did she know this man? Why would she send him? Did she know somehow? Despite what his father said, she had always seemed like the stronger one. She knew things no one else did. For this man to show up now, it could be no coincidence.
He stared into the twisted face. The eyes were pulled in such a
way that they looked sad, yet the mouth smiled. It was scars, he realized. His face was twisted with scars.
“Why are you here?” he asked again, only this time it meant so much more.
“You must choose,” the scarred man said softly.
Cyril wanted to protest. He wanted to claim he had no idea what the strange, crazy man was talking about, but he would be lying.
He knew.
This man, this stranger covered in scars, was more than he seemed. He was Wardein; those of legend sent to guard and protect people in need. Cyril had always thought it no more than legend, yet as he stared into the man’s face, he knew it was not. This man was a Traveler of the High King, sent to offer him pardon.
Like the bar on the door, his life was balanced on a fulcrum. In this one moment, it could still swing either way.
He could go home to his mother, his bed, and the fields of tall grasses on the plains. He could walk away from Griven and his dark schemes. He could walk away from Mnementh. He could even find another place. A place where he could start again, without the veil of darkness hanging over him that this place had created. He could wash away the stain that covered him. This man, the Wardein, was giving him what his father had refused to let him have.
A choice.
Right now, in this moment, Cyril could choose who he would become. He could choose the light or embrace the darkness.
He was young, and he was strong. Stronger than he’d ever realized. Stronger than his father had been willing to believe. He’d wagered money on it, and he’d been wrong. His son was as strong as . . .
A dragon.
Below his feet, the floor vibrated. Mnementh waited. The power waited. Griven would make his ring. The Ouroboros, he called it. The dragon between worlds, born of Neutral magic. It would be a ring imbued with all the power of a dragon, but also more. It would contain a piece of Cyril’s edah. The essence of who he was. The two combined would create such power as he could only imagine.