by T. A. Miles
When his moment of receiving such honor had passed, the Empress stepped to the side of him, followed by Huang Shang-san and a final guard. In the soldier’s hands lay the final of the Celestial Swords. A narrow wooden shaft that spoke primarily of pliability was mounted with a short, serrated blade possessing a dagger’s tip. Beneath the pale head, which currently gave off a warm golden glow, were wrapped ornate tassels of deep red and orange-gold.
The Empress made an announcement and the minister at her side repeated part of it. Afterward, the footsteps of another came from behind the line. Tristus dared not look, accustomed to the etiquette of such ceremony as this, but when he was able, he stole a glimpse of the young man introduced to them as Jiao Ren coming to stand beside him. The youth had been referred to as a general. Tristus could not be surprised by the selection.
Jiao Ren was given the Spear of Heaven. The Empress retreated toward her throne with the Minister of Ceremonies in tow. She stepped up onto the dais before turning toward the court once again, addressing everyone. There were six blades of tremendous power at the center of everyone’s attention, and six bearers as well. The colors of the weapons bled into the air and mingled in a way that felt as meaningful to Tristus now as it had when there were only five of them—more so, because at last all six were joined, just as Xu Liang promised they would be. Six Celestial Swords to bring together Five Kingdoms.
“This will be a test of honor,” Xu Liang said to them while they made their way to the Temple of Divine Tranquility with a small entourage of soldiers and officials. “The outcome of this effort will aid the Empress in determining how much value to place upon the role of not only the Swords, but their bearers as well.”
“Of course, your station is fixed,” Tarfan said.
“I will remain Imperial Tactician and Tutor regardless,” Xu Liang confirmed.
“And, of course, you will remain a dwarf,” Alere said to him, in his way reminding Tarfan that preexisting stations and roles were irrelevant.
Tarfan harrumphed at the mountain elf’s unchanging directness, then said, “Wonder what it is we’ll actually find in the underground.”
“If you fear a dragon, you could still choose to stay with your niece.”
“Absurd! A perfectly able dwarf letting a litter of children use to play above ground go adventuring into the wilds of an unexplored cave without him? I’d never live it down. Dragon or no dragon, I’m going with you.”
Tristus laughed a little because he couldn’t help himself. He had begun to find Master Fairwind far more endearing than vexing by now.
After a few moments, he looked to Xu Liang and asked, “If little comes of this, and it’s made to seem as if the Swords are merely an archaic dream…” The manner in which Xu Liang looked at him—as if he’d either said something wholly preposterous or in a language he could not decipher—drew a pause from Tristus. It made him first feel as if he were being silently told that he was making no sense, but it settled in such a way that he felt more as if he were being advised against needlessly dallying with his question. “I…well, if this doesn’t convince the Empress that we’re needed, will we be asked to leave Sheng Fan?”
The question, finally completed, was met with comprehension, and Xu Liang gave a considered nod. “Alere, Shirisae, Tarfan, and Taya will be advised to return to their own lands. You, Tristus, will be permitted to stay, or to leave if you so choose.”
Tristus opened his mouth to ask why, but held his tongue at the recalling of the blessing he had received for taking injury meant for Xu Liang. He wondered now whether or not Xu Liang found his devotion cloying…perhaps contrived and self-centered. Of course, Tristus had no way of knowing any of what happened ahead of time. He had acted only out of fear that Xu Liang might be killed. If only there was a way to take back all that had been said—or at least very well implied in Vilciel. He never meant it to corner or impose upon the mystic. After all that had happened, he’d merely felt overwhelmed by the level of emotion that had developed in him. He should have been content to be devoted to him as a knight. He did not have to suggest that more than that would be welcome.
He imagined now that he’d been altogether wrong about the possibility that Xu Liang might have a heart like his own. He supposed that he’d been strongly hoping., rather like Shirisae had been strongly insisting. Only now…
Now he wondered if…
They arrived at the temple before his thoughts could complete themselves.
As to the conversation that had carried them there, Xu Liang concluded it with, “The Empress has placed her trust in this effort. Be guided by her faith, and by the Swords. The ancient gods put them into our hands for what we are about to face.”
Trenches of Fire
At the entrance to the temple, Taya worried well behind her smiles of support. Tarfan was proud of the lass for the strength and stamina she’d mustered for what had begun a simple summer’s journey to a near neighbor. Now they were in for multiple seasons…and maybe longer. While they didn’t hold the same obligations as the others, Tarfan wanted to stay for a while. He wanted to be sure all of his adoptees would be able to manage before he tied his journal closed on this adventure and headed back for home. He might have reconsidered if Taya pushed him to leave, but she wasn’t. He strongly suspected her affection for the pup held significant sway over her senses, but at the same time, he’d been watching her examine the various plants in Xu Liang’s garden. And she seemed to be getting on decently with the fire elf as well, which no one could argue the lasses enjoying some company with another female.
Now if only someone could reach Alere—the blasted frost mongering…
Tarfan stopped his thoughts short while he accepted a final hug from his niece, and then turned toward the temple that might well have turned out to be a tomb for all of them. If there really was a dragon…
He mulled the thought over considerably—like a long and bitter chew on a tough portion of boar—while they broke away from the group that had followed them from the throne hall. By the time they’d passed through all the layers of corridors that made a Fanese temple a veritable puzzle box, Tarfan had begun to feel the warmth coming out of the hole. And what a hole….
The lot of them stood upon the edge of a great tear in the floor, looking into a glow that certainly had the color, heat, and smell of fire, and not of just any fire. He very nearly blanched, delivering a dissatisfied glare to the upper boughs of the virtual forest he had traveled with for many long weeks. “This bears all the evidence of a dragon to me.”
He expected to be coolly ridiculed by Alere, but the fair child of winter held his snowy tongue, regarding Tarfan with a rare look of regard. Tarfan couldn’t help that he felt a mild bout of pride in that moment. In fact, he felt rather full of himself just then.
“We’ll enter single file,” Xu Liang said, first in one language and then the other, diminishing any sensation of satisfaction Tarfan had collected.
The boy with the Sun Blade spoke in a way that seemed to be volunteering to take point. Xu Liang did not disagree, and down Jiao Ren went, into the mouth of a beast.
The order for entering the tunnel was determined based upon skill sets. Jiao Ren was the defensive commander of the Imperial City’s army and accustomed to taking quick action effectively. Alere followed next for his skill at observation and seeing well ahead of himself. Behind him were Tristus and Tarfan with Guang Ci afterward, just ahead of Xu Liang and finally Shirisae. Xu Liang’s skill with the mystic arts provided him with range, as well it was customary for him to take a rear position for the sake of assessment and command. Shirisae had proven tremendous skill as a defender, utilizing observation and judgment to prioritize strikes and to protect her allies. Barring the inclusion of Jiao Ren and Shirisae, this was a similar formation to what he’d determined to use during Xiadao Lu’s assault. It had been successful, discounting the unplanned emergence of a berserker
. Xu Liang had yet to decide how best to plan for that aspect of the knight, even knowing that it existed and what it could lead to. It seemed that the demon was not antagonizing Tristus presently, however. His injury had not brought forward any behavior of note, compared to what any of them were accustomed to. It may have been that the act of placing himself in harm’s way before the Empress had been a decision made independently of the demon, as opposed to one inspired by it. As it stood, the demon had not made itself known since Xu Liang’s walking dreams. And where those were concerned, the space beneath the temple was uncomfortably, though not surprisingly familiar.
The descent was steep and uneven. It was nothing that Xu Liang would have guessed that Han Quan would have been able to navigate alone at his age. He was not a sickly elder, but he had acquired some of the frailty that came with age. Perhaps, for different reasons, Han Quan would also not anticipate that Xu Liang would make passage over such ground. It could not be counted as an outrageous dismissal; Xu Liang would have also dismissed himself in a previous time of his life. But determination had seen him through many treacherous steps since his search for the Swords had begun. Now that they were all accounted for and represented in the form of bearers, he was beginning to feel a renewed energy, one that defied the weakness of his youth and that, in its own manner, had become a threatening ailment since the ritual at Vilciel. He would see this through.
Looking ahead, Jiao Ren appeared to have arrived upon a level surface at the end of a distance that would have amounted to several stairs leading down. The Sun Blade gleamed as if a torch, pushing back shadow where it loomed. The light of unseen fire draped the walls intermittently, just as the warmth in the air could be felt inconsistently. There were wafts of cool air moving sporadically through the passage. The effect was eerie and in some ways intimidating, seeming to confirm the presence of something larger than any man and perhaps more ancient than any elf.
Eventually, everyone had come to the base of the tunnel, which appeared to be the mouth of a vast cave. As he placed his feet upon a leveler surface, Xu Liang looked upon deep walls and a ceiling that could only have been carved out by nature or by some tremendous beast. The passage seemed to glow in places and in others it appeared to lay on the brink of an abyssal darkness.
“Remind you of anything, does it?” The voice of Tarfan traveled considerably from their position, testifying as to the vastness of the corridor.
“The furnace at Vilciel,” Tristus answered, speaking in lower tones than the dwarf had hazarded.
Xu Liang could not confirm their observation; it was nothing he had been conscious to. He did, however, look behind him at Shirisae, who returned his gaze with the answer he sought present in her golden eyes.
Words followed. “This is remarkably similar to the furnaces routing through the mountains upon which Vilciel was built.”
“Is it possible that a dragon built this?” Tristus asked.
“It was accomplished on the backbones of dwarves in Yvaria,” Tarfan reminded.
“Only the intricate parts, little one,” Shirisae told him. “The dragons bored through the rock to build the fire trenches themselves. It is their breath that remains burning within them centuries later.”
“The fires maintain a necessary warmth,” Xu Liang presumed.
“For them and their offspring, yes,” Shirisae answered.
“Eggs…” Tarfan murmured.
The image was already in Xu Liang’s mind, resurfaced from the constant pool of dream the Phoenix had been keeping for him since the resurrection.
“It seems odd that such a beast could be living beneath the earth for any period of time without anyone knowing it,” Tristus said.
“Perhaps not,” Xu Liang replied. “There have long been tremors in this part of Sheng Fan. It could easily have been dwelling here for many years and we would not have known if it chose not to show itself.”
“But why would it choose not to show itself?” Tristus asked. “I mean I suppose that dragon sightings have always been rare in Andaria, but…”
“It might be a variety that lives primarily beneath the surface,” Shirisae suggested. “Or within caves, like bats.”
“Or primarily in shadowed places,” Alere put in. “Like the keirveshen.”
“They dwell in the depths surrounding the furnaces, yes,” Shirisae admitted, without taking offense. “But all of us know that the keirveshen don’t coexist well with light.”
“No, but what if this beast was itself related to the keirveshen?”
“How do you mean?” Xu Liang asked the white elf.
“Malek Vorhaven was once known as the Dragon Count of Eishencroe,” Alere answered. “And he was in possession of the Night Blade.”
“He wanted all of the Swords,” Tristus said. “I recall now that he was aware of the existence of the others.”
Alere nodded.
“What does that matter?” Tarfan wanted to know. “What does collecting sacred weapons and dragons lurking in caves have in relation to each other?”
“Everything,” Xu Liang answered, as his collected dreams and his knowledge of the Swords came into a sudden, clear focus. “The Spirit Dragons were the guardians of the Infernal Regions. They were charged to darkness. In legend, one was also committed to dwell within the world.”
“You mean underground,” Tarfan said.
Xu Liang nodded once. “It was the actions of the gods and the weapons they bore which condemned Chaos.”
“But you can’t be taking the old legend literally…”
“Whether it was legend which inspired the world we know, or the world we know which inspired legend…either scenario could lead to the existence of a type of dragon which exists beneath the surface of Dryth, related to the keirveshen, all of which have been flying beings as well as creatures of shadow.”
“Aye, and batlike fliers at that,” Tarfan conceded. “But dragons are lizards!”
“Dragons, in truth, are spirit animals. Their physical forms are an amalgamation of many things. The dragons of the sea mimic the forms and attributes of many creatures already within it.”
“And a dragon that lives in caves would naturally do the same,” Tristus followed through.
“Yes,” Xu Liang said.
“So it is a dragon, then,” Tarfan concluded. Afterward, he grumbled, “Curse it all.”
While Xu Liang related what they’d reasoned with the other two Fanese bearers, the remaining members of the company stood in the present warmth discussing little amongst themselves. There was little to discuss. None of them had any experience with dragons, not even the eldest among them, whose home city had once been inhabited by a population of such creatures. If the Phoenix Elves had learned anything important from the ruins they had come to inhabit, Shirisae elected not to share that information.
Alere made an effort to restructure the thought to one less suspicious; if her people had learned anything, she found it not important enough to share. It was most likely that, since it would not serve her to die or to contribute to the deaths of everyone else through withholding information.
The underground chasm they faced now was vast. Unlike what he imagined the furnaces beneath Vilciel to look like, these depths had no structure. It would be a simple task to put themselves in an indefensible corner, or to be cut off from any path that would take them back to the surface. Though he suspected the beast would be quite large, the size of it was difficult to envision. It seemed that anything with the form of a dragon would have difficulty maneuvering through the rocks. He considered that if it was like a bat, and the tunnels had already existed in form, it would simply tuck its wings and crawl through. But if it held the form of the Fanese portrayals of dragons, it would already have a shape suitable for either moving through or perhaps even burrowing through the earth, like a great snake…or a giant worm. The mountains surrounding the city we
re of a softer variety than what they’d come through in the north and what had been left behind in the Yvarias; it would be little effort for a creature aptly equipped.
“What if there’s a population?” he heard Tristus ask.
Alere had been perched upon a rock formation, looking over the shadows cast by fires that remained thus far unseen. He turned his head to look over his shoulder, placing Tristus more into his line of sight than Shirisae, who was stood more directly behind him.
“The purpose of our coming down here is to first and foremost learn what has been lying in wait beneath the city above us,” the Phoenix Elf said to Tristus.
“And to find a criminal, I believed,” Tarfan added.
“Yes, and that,” Shirisae said. “Though I don’t know that a man would risk sharing space with dragons or the keirveshen.”
“Vorhaven wasn’t opposed,” Tristus reminded.
“Vorhaven was no longer a man,” Alere said.
Tristus nodded, looking at him. “You’re right. At times, I still have difficulty separating out which parts of that experience were illusion.”
“I suspect that most of it was concocted of what was provided to Vorhaven from your own minds,” Xu Liang said when he returned to them.
“Yes, I suspect it was,” Tristus agreed. “I’m embarrassed to say that I carried a great deal into that house.”
A space of silence seemed to end the matter, but then Shirisae said, “You were also present in that house, Xu Liang.”
“My spirit was moving, drawn by the swords, perhaps. It is possible that I crossed paths with you. However, I did not linger. I was pulled toward another dream.”