by B. V. Larson
-5-
To the surprise of all, Therian marched unflaggingly up ancient stairway cut into the dark basalt rock of the mountain walls. Where the steps wandered close to one of the steaming vents that gave the Dragon’s Breath Peaks their name, the way became slippery with wet moss. To his pride, Therian never once stumbled, though many did behind him. In past years, some had tumbled to their deaths that way.
The gray skies had the good graces not to rain upon the procession, although light flurries of snow did gust and swirl about their cloaks. Ahead of Therian, King Euvoran’s massive casket was borne by a bevy of sixteen tongueless slaves. Therian strode at the head of the procession of mourners. A sure-footed ox of a slave followed in Therian’s wake, bearing the book in its locked chest. The slave was followed closely by the Chamberlain, who occasionally sneered at the large low-born arse that Therian had seen fit to place before him. Next came a rank of Dukes, Barons and Counts, heads bare, helms carried in crooked arms as a gesture of respect. Behind the High Lords marched their Ladies and their heirs. A throng of hardy Knights followed the High Ladies, and last, back a bit from the others, came the cowled Dragon priests and priestesses, swaying, beating their drums and crooning as they marched.
The Dragon-worshippers—male and dressed in robes of red if they followed Yserth, or female and dress in black if they honored Anduin—marched behind the highborn. They beat upon their grim drums of ancient, stretched manskin and thus kept the measured pace up the mountainside. Their incense braziers produced a great cloud of colored, perfumed, intoxicating smoke.
Reaching the plateau at long last, Therian resisted the urge to slump down into the soft snow and pant like a spent dog. Looking back down at the long procession that snaked up from the silver towers of Corium, he felt an intense welling of pride. That he had made it at all, without help, without having been borne upon a litter, seemed a miracle. Truly, the secrets of the book had helped him.
The stone cairns of fifty Kings and seven Great Kings lay scattered upon a broad plateau that cut into the side of the Dragon’s Breath peaks. The Great Kings were reckoned as those few who had ruled for more than a century. King Euvoran was to be laid to rest as the eighth Great King, the highest honor possible. All of the tombs, large or small, looked like unnaturally rounded hills carpeted in white snow.
In the midst of the tombs was a great black wound in the earth. The slaves had spent several nights burning great logs upon the surface of the land that they might thaw the frostbitten ground enough to allow them to scrape their way down into it. Near the hole was a great pile of stones, ready to be piled atop the grave.
Therian stood there looking back at the procession as it crested the mountaintop. Steam blew in white gusts from his laboring lungs, but he didn’t collapse, as his body was wont to do. He thought of using Seeker as a prop, but refused to slump over his father’s sword. Better to die here than to have someone notice him using the sword of a dozen ancient heroes as a crutch.
The slave bearing his book came up to him and halted, head politely kept down. The Chamberlain came next, and it did Therian a world of good to see the man’s breath puff from his face. Even better, the Chamberlain seemed surprised—no, shocked, that Therian had made it to the plateau unaided.
“My heartfelt condolences, milord,” he murmured, then filed past to take his place around the gravesite.
Many others came up, each lord greeting him with a mixture of sadness and surprise. Few had any personal words for him.
Baron Sloan was different from the rest. A large man from one of the northern provinces that had been abandoned to the glaciers, he clasped Therian’s hand in both his own mailed bear’s paws. “Milord!” he bellowed. “They had told me you were a frail lad, a shadow of your father’s strength. It does my heart good to see it is not so. May the Dragons allow your father to rest in peace.”
Therian’s eyes narrowed. His first instinct was to jerk away his hand and deal harshly with the boorish lout. He checked himself with difficulty. The northern lords had rude customs. Perhaps the man meant no insult. He told himself it was best to measure a man before deciding how to deal with him.
Baron Sloan watched with interest as these thoughts passed over Therian’s face.
“Long live the King,” Therian said coldly.
Baron Sloan nodded and bowed his head. “Long live the King.”
The Baron was one of the last to pass by before the High Ladies arrived. Most were cold and cordial, or at best, curious. But the Maiden Sloan, the daughter of the boorish Baron, saw fit to speak more personably as had her father.
“Milord, it does us all good in these dark times, at this, our darkest day, to see you looking so fit. What is your secret?”
For a stunned moment, Therian could hardly comprehend her words. Her beauty was fresh and lusty, the sort so rarely seen among the cold, thin-boned, dry-veined maidens of the court he had grown up in. This girl had not spent her youth in a tower, working needlepoint and practicing her curtsies.
His mouth opened, but it was a moment or two before he spoke. “My only secret is your beauty, milady. It breathes fresh life into my veins.”
It was her turn to be surprised and embarrassed. She began to speak, but at the tittering of the ladies behind her in line, she stopped and flushed a charming shade of lavender instead.
“Long live the King, milord,” she managed.
He echoed her words, and the next High Lady came up to greet him. He barely noticed the rest however, as he made frequent glances toward the Maiden Sloan.
The benediction went laboriously, as all such things do. The red-cowled Dragon Priests of Yserth consulted the auguries, declared King Euvoran passed on. They begged the Slumbering Dragons not to awaken in rage at his passing, nor to otherwise disturb his rest. A dozen goats were ceremonially slaughtered, six to Anduin and six to Yserth, lest one faction or the other feel slighted. Later, the goats would be eaten at the feast. Therian was left to ponder that in the ancient times young men and women were sacrificed at such gatherings. Had his father meant that he should bring back such customs? It was a grim thought, and it made him look to the chest with the book inside it, which the hulking slave still dutifully carried behind him.
#
That evening, while the funeral feast went on downstairs, Therian’s chambers were dark and still. A hidden panel in the far wall gently clicked open, and two stealthy forms slipped inside.
Both the men were masked. One man held a hooded lantern, which he thumbed open far enough to allow a shaft of light.
“Quickly now, we must find it,” commanded the second, larger man. “Disturb nothing so greatly that he may suspect.”
The two quickly worked through the room. Soon, an odd discovery was made.
“Hold the light higher, damn you!” growled the larger man.
Muttering in a surly fashion, the other came close and complied. The two stared down into a drawer along the bedside. In the drawer lay an ornate dagger and the bodies of thirteen rats, sliced open and drained of their blood.
“Is this the secret?” chortled the larger. “He now drinks the blood of vermin?”
“Nay, milord,” said the other, with an odd accent. He directed the light to the glass cage that sat near the fire, with the dark coil of scales inside. “I believe he feeds the rats to the serpent.”
“Vile stuff!” hissed the leader.
They searched further, but found nothing more of interest.
“It must be in the chest that huge slave bears. There is no other way.”
“No other, milord.”
-6-
The feast was in the nature of the Hyborean people, who saw fit to make as great a celebration of death as of birth. Just as they might feast at spring thaw, they might likewise dance at the first snows of winter. And so it was that King Euvoran’s funeral was not necessarily a glum affair. The attentions that Therian paid the Maiden Sloan were considered by none to be vulgar—but neither did they go unnotice
d. Even the Chamberlain allowed himself a slight smile at the proceedings.
Therian felt each of the hundred eyes that watched him. He was not perturbed. Who else would fascinate the crowd at the funeral of a King other than the heir-apparent? Normally shy at such gatherings, afraid that his frailty would be revealed, he felt unusually powerful this night, and he danced publicly for perhaps the first time in his life.
“You dance as a young lord should, my Prince,” said Maiden Sloan, smiling at him warmly.
“Surprisingly, I find your steps quite unlike the cold, precisely-practiced motions of the other court ladies,” he told her. “You have a life in you, milady, which cannot be overvalued.”
She blushed and turned her eyes downward in a manner that Therian found infinitely pleasing.
While they danced, Therian knew that the Chamberlain watched them. The Chamberlain also watched the slave who sat his great arse upon a chest in a quiet corner.
It wasn’t until near midnight that a wave of weakness overtook Therian. At first he thought it was the wine. Indeed, he had taken more than was wise, especially after the previous night’s sickness. He took another sip of wine and choked on it. A gasping, coughing fit commenced.
When the fit had passed, it left him for dead. For the first time that day, he felt his old weakness descend over him like a clinging darkness, a veil of great weight and pain. He hated it with more loathing than he ever had in all his life, for now he knew what life could be without this burden.
“Milord, are you ill?” asked the Maiden Sloan, leaning over him in concern.
Therian lifted his head by force of will. He looked around the hall, which was full of people trying to appear as if they weren’t staring. He forced himself to smile weakly.
“I believe I’ve had too much wine this eve, milady. I must take my leave,” he managed.
She bit her lip. Instantly, he hated the look of concern and pity on her pretty face.
Therian gestured to the slave with his burden, and the man rose and came close. Therian struggled to his feet, batting away the slave’s hand that came up to support his elbow. “Away from me, man,” he growled.
“I beg forgiveness, milord.”
“And I give it. Follow me.”
With as much dignity as he could muster, Therian left the hall, standing nearly straight and stumbling only twice. In his chambers, he collapsed on the bed, sucking air like a cod in the hold of a fishing boat. Waving his hand, he directed the slave to put down the chest and depart.
Therian checked the cage for more rats, but to his disappointment, he found they were all dead. He was too tired even to call a servant and request more. Climbing mountains and dancing far into the night? Absurdities for a weakling like himself, he chided. He should have known there would be a grim price to pay for his display of strength that day.
Exhausted, he fell into a deep sleep. His dreams were haunted by his father’s grasping fingers and the concerned gaze of the lovely Maiden Sloan.
-7-
The paneling opened with a quiet snick that seemed loud in the depths of the night. Therian blinked awake, but for a moment, he lay still half-dreaming. There were whispered voices, the muffled thumping of boots on carpeted flagstones.
A jolt of fear gripped him. He rolled off the bed and dug into the drawer of the nightstand for his dagger.
With an oath, the traitors were upon him. They kicked him in the ribs and a hand clasped over his mouth, lest he cry out. Therian struggled and tried to slash them with his dagger.
They chuckled at his efforts.
“You’re right, he’s as weak as a cat,” muttered one.
Their laughter and abuse brought some strength into Therian’s limbs. He managed to overturn the glass cage containing his dark pet. The cage exploded upon the flagstones with a loud crash. The serpent slithered forth onto the hearthrug that Therian struggled upon.
“Ice-blue devil!” hissed the leader, kicking Therian in the skull. In another quick motion, he stomped the writhing serpent, crushing its spine. Still living, the snake thrashed beside its stunned master.
“Devil’s spawn, both of them.”
“Surely, the nightwatch will have heard. Slay him now milord, and let us begone.”
“No! We can’t spill his blood here. Roll him up in the rug, we’ll carry him back into the passages. Quickly now!”
Like a captive village girl, Therian found himself rolled into a smothering carpet and borne rudely away into the darkness. If further discomfort were possible, he found his squirming serpent rolled up into the carpet with him. Mad with pain, the pet bit and tore at its master’s flesh.
Coming to his senses somewhat, he found he still had the dagger in his hand. He clutched it tightly. He dug for and grabbed the head of the serpent to stop it from biting him. He found himself wishing the snake had been venomous, as it might have saved him from an even more ignoble death.
Struggling to move his arms, he wriggled and tried to draw his two hands together. Slowly, the dagger and the serpent came closer.
-8-
“He wakens, milord,” said the barbarian, who was the shorter of the two kidnappers. Despite the icy drafts his body prickled with sweat.
“Keep going.”
The two men huffed and heaved as they made their way down a black, narrow passage into the bowels of the castle.
From inside the rolled carpet, Dragon Speech could be heard. Sorcerous words they were, words that did not sit well in the mind. They were words that once heard, could not be repeated back, and could only be heard again years later in the throes of a feverish nightmare.
A flash of sickly green light shone through the very fibers of the carpet itself and a coldness did touch those who bore Therian. The cold leeched some of the strength and warmth from their shoulders where they pressed against the carpet. Startled, they thought to hear the distant moaning of lost souls.
“Sorcery!” cried the barbarian, letting the burden slip down to the rough-hewn stones.
“Silence dog!” howled the leader. He dropped Therian and rained blows upon the rolled carpet. He kicked and punched the carpet until silence reigned again. The barbarian backed away, holding his lantern aloft, eyes wide with fear.
“Do not flee,” hissed the leader.
“Slay him here,” said the barbarian.
“We must bear him down to the hidden docks and slip him into icy depths. I will double your gold.”
“I care not for the gold.”
“Then know this: the sun will not return to your lands if we should fail in our venture.”
With great reluctance, the barbarian hefted the burden again, though somehow it did feel different, perhaps heavier than before. They continued down the damp stone steps.
They made it perhaps a dozen paces farther. Without warning the carpet exploded upon them. Bursting from it was no faded blue, sickly prince of frail stature and demure demeanor. Instead a wolfish wraith who wore a leering mask of preternatural joy stood proudly in their midst. Its eyes shone with wicked gleaming. It cackled at their shock and fright, and did peer into the masked faces of each for a moment before striking the leader senseless with a single blow.
Swearing an oath to the High Mother of his land, the barbarian raced down the passage and away from the demon. Behind him, he felt sure he heard the padding feet of his pursuer. He reached an exit and struggled with the trick stones, but could not open it. He howled with the terror of a trapped beast, and indeed, he would have gladly chewed away his own hand to pry that door open.
The barbarian’s curses, threats and pleading promises were at long last answered. The correct touchstone had finally been pushed. The door swung silently open, revealing a dark hall in an abandoned wing of the great castle. Rushing forward in relief, the barbarian cringed at the unnatural keening that welled up behind him to sweep over him and seemingly over all the land. Cobwebs that hadn’t stirred for years swayed and shivered at the passage of the sound, brushed by the tainted
breath of evil.
Stumbling and breathing in ragged gasps, he ran into the dark hallways, running for his very immortal soul.
-9-
The initial wave of ecstatic power that had swept over Therian was ebbing already. He could feel the grip of it loosening. Soon, he would be only a strong man, not a creature of unnatural strength. Not long after that, he would be only an average man, and much later, a weakling again. Rather than chase the barbarian, he bent down to pull the mask from the taller of the two conspirators, who lay stunned on the passage floor.
The mask came away to reveal the face of the Chamberlain. As Therian bent over the unconscious man, an unspeakable snarl twisted his lips. Without thought, he grasped the throat and lifted the man with one hand beneath the chin and pressed the traitor’s shoulders against the cold stone walls.
Strangulation roused the Chamberlain, whose eyes grew wide in terror of the horrid visage that faced him.
Therian’s luminescent eyes of bestial yellow gazed back in hate. “You have betrayed me, and all my fathers. I justly curse thee,” rasped Therian in a voice that was not entirely his own.
In the forbidden Dragon Speech, Therian spoke evil words that did consign the victim’s soul to serve the slumbering Dragons in their Abyss.
When the dagger pierced his chest, the Chamberlain gazed into nothingness and cried out in recognition, “Anduin!”
In that moment Therian learned that the legends were true, that the Dark Mistress, the Lady of Death and greatest of the Dragon Queens, could be truly seen in the final moment of a foul death.
The Chamberlain’s eyes glazed in a permanent rictus of unimaginable horror. Like a leaf caught in a flood, Therian was overcome by Anduin’s unspeakable bounty.