In the Hall of the Dragon King

by Stephen Lawhead

When Prince Jaspin fled from the games, so disrupted by the sudden and unwelcome appearance of the Harrier and his grisly mementos, he flew at once to his castle at Erlott Fields. “Let the games continue,” he had announced magnanimously after disposing of his debt to the odious tracker (who demanded twice the payment he had been promised, and his dead companions’ shares as well). Prince Jaspin, being caught in an awkward situation, was anxious not to offend public sentiment, which held that anyone dealing with the Harriers was a villain himself, so he paid the savage and sent him off with a minimum of show.

  So Jaspin called for the contest to be resumed lest the people be too disappointed. Then he, with a handful of his esteemed confidants, left the field immediately, allowing that he had been called away on some detail of state importance.

  The prince and his cronies had run at once to the security of Erlott Fields and there held a hasty conference to discuss the situation.

  The meeting availed little in terms of correcting the damage already done, and since the prince could not reveal the actual source of his fear, he dismissed them all brusquely and retired to his own counsel in his inner chamber.

  Once the door to his outer apartment had been secured and guards posted to make certain no intruders would interrupt, the prince stole into the inner chamber, a small dark room with no outside window, a nook hollowed out of the massive outer curtain of the castle.

  There Jaspin sat down before the enameled box. Lifting off the lid and placing his hands upon the sides of the miraculous pyramid, he felt the pulse of power throb as the golden object began to glow. Soon his sharp features were bathed in the waxing light. He listened to the drumming throb of his own heart pounding in his ears and watched the opaque sides of Nimrood’s invention take on a misty appearance.

  Then, as always before, Jaspin looked into the clearing depths of the enchanted object and watched the thinning mist reveal the dreadful mien of his malicious accomplice.

  “Well? What is the meaning of this unexpected summons, princeling? Lost a pin? A throne?” The necromancer threw back his head and laughed, but the sound died in his throat. He then fixed Jaspin with an icy glare.

  Prince Jaspin quailed at the message he had to deliver. But having no choice, he plowed ahead and steeled himself for the wizard’s awful fury. “The Harriers have returned,” he said simply.

  “Good. They enjoyed the benefits of a successful hunt, I trust?”

  “N-no,” Jaspin stuttered, “they returned empty-handed—or rather one of them did. The other two lost their lives.”

  “You fool! I gave you but one more chance, and you have wasted it. You are finished! Hear me, you insignificant dolt!”

  Thinking quickly, in an effort to appease the raging sorcerer and avert further threats, Jaspin seized upon the one scrap of information he had and flung it forth like a leaf against a thunderstorm. “I know where they have gone, Nimrood!” he shouted.

  The seething sorcerer quieted his ranting but, still frowning furiously, demanded, “Where have they gone, then? Tell me.”

  “First, you must promise—,” Prince Jaspin started, but Nimrood cut him off.

  “Promise? How dare you! Listen, dog of a prince! I give my word to no man! Never forget that!” Then the black magician changed, instantly sweetening his tone, as if speaking to an unhappy child. “But I forgive you. Only tell me where the scheming wretches have gone and I will forget this trouble between us.”

  Jaspin told quickly the minute fragments of information he had been able to drag from the Harrier. “There are six, and there is a woman among them—the queen, I believe. It is fair certain they have gone to the ruins of Dekra—to hide, most likely. Everyone knows there is nothing there.”

  “There is more at Dekra than people know,” said Nimrood. The faintest trace of worry crossed his wrinkled face but was instantly banished by his haughty leer. “They will leave that place as they must. I will ready a special surprise for these bold travelers. Yes, I think I know what it shall be.” Then, speaking to the prince again, he continued. “You serve me well in spite of yourself, proud Prince. And you have earned yourself a reprieve from my anger. It may be I can use you yet.”

  “You are forgetting your place,Wizard!” Jaspin, incensed at the staggering insolence of the necromancer, rebelled. “It was I who hired you—you serve me!”

  “I tire of your games of petty ambition,” hissed the sorcerer. “Once it suited me to further your childish schemes. But I have designs you cannot imagine. But serve me well, and you shall share in my glory.”

  The pyramid lost its crystalline transparency and became cold and solid once more.

  Quentin had begged and otherwise pestered Mollena into arranging a meeting with Yeseph for him at the earliest possible time. That meant the moment he opened his eyes the very next morning, the day after their limited tour of the ruined city.

  Toli sat opposite Quentin over their breakfast, pointing at objects around the room and demanding that his instructor supply the appropriate word that he might learn it. Quentin, although it seemed sometimes a colossal chore, beamed with pleasure at his pupil’s progress. Toli could already speak halting sentences, albeit simple ones, and could understand most of what Quentin said to him, though he could not always repeat it. When others were around, however, he usually lapsed into his native tongue.

  They were deep in concentration when Quentin heard the old woman’s shuffling footsteps on the stone steps outside the kitchen, where they were finishing their meal.

  “Mollena! What news? When can I see him?” he blurted as soon as he saw her creased, kindly face poke into view.

  “Soon … very soon.”

  “Mollena …”

  “Today—we will go as soon as you are ready.”

  “I am ready now!”

  “No, you have not finished your food. You must eat to regain your strength.”

  Toli watched this conversation, as he did most others, in an alert silence. But then he broke in, demanding in his own tongue to know what Quentin prepared to do. “What is it that my friend requires?”

  Quentin ate and related to him as well as he could the discussion between Durwin and Theido, their disagreement and the final resolution that had brought them to Dekra. Toli nodded and said, “This leader, Yeseph, he will tell us what we are to do?”

  Quentin would not have put it quite that way but, after considering for a moment, nodded his head in agreement. “Yes, he may tell us what we are to do.”

  Mollena, who had observed their talk with admiration for the growing bond between the two, now stood them on their feet. “Let us go, you lazy young men. It does not do to keep a Curatak leader waiting.”

  The three hobbled together over the jumbled stones of the deserted streets. Quentin, again, was impressed by the elegance and grace of the vanished Arigas’ city. Even in their crumbling state, the abandoned buildings spoke of a purity and harmony of thought and function. Surely, buried here were treasures beyond material wealth.

  As they made their way along, occasionally meeting a group of Curatak workmen hauling stone or erecting scaffolding around a sagging wall, Mollena explained to Quentin who Yeseph was and how properly to address him. Quentin listened attentively, careful to mark her words so he would not offend the man best able to answer his questions.

  They turned down a walkway, or narrow courtyard, lined with doorways that opened onto a common area of small trees and stone benches. “These are the reading rooms of the Ariga library,” Mollena explained as they passed the open doors. Quentin peered through some of the doors to see scribes busy over scrolls at their writing desks.

  “Where is the library?” he asked, realizing that he had seen no structure large enough to house the great library that had been described to him. He looked around to see if he had missed it.

  Mollena saw him craning his neck, looking for the library, and laughed. “No, you will not find it there. You are standing on it!” Quentin’s gaze fell to his feet, and his express
ion changed to one of puzzlement. “It is underground. Come.”

  She led them to the end of the narrow courtyard and to a wide doorway. Inside they crossed the smooth marble floor of a great circular room, ringed around by murals of robed men. “Those are Ariga leaders,” Mollena said, indicating the murals with her hands spread wide. “We know little of them now, but we are learning.”

  In the center of the round room, which contained no other furniture of any kind that Quentin could see, rose an arch. As they approached the arch, Quentin saw steps leading down to an underground chamber. “The entrance to the library,” he said.

  “Yes; notice how the steps are worn from the feet of the Ariga over the ages. They were lovers of books and knowledge. This”—she again embraced the whole of the edifice with a wide sweep of her arm— “this is our greatest charge: to protect the scrolls of the Ariga, lest they pass from human sight and their treasures vanish with the race that created them.”

  Quentin caught something of the awe with which the old woman spoke; he was touched as before by the mingled reverence and excitement, as if he were in the presence of a mighty and benevolent monarch who was about to give him a wonderful gift.

  “There.” Mollena pointed down the darkened stairway. “Yeseph waits for you. Go to him—and may you find the treasure you are looking for.”

  Quentin stepped forward and placed his foot on the first stair. Instantly the darkened stairwell was lighted from either side. He turned to Mollena and Toli, who appeared about to follow him but then hung back uncertainly, and experienced the strange sensation that he might never return. Brushing the feeling aside, he said, “I won’t be long.” Then he proceeded down the stairs.

  He had just reached the bottom when he heard a voice call out, “Ah, Quentin. I have been waiting for you.” Quentin stepped forward into the huge, cavernous chamber to see more books than he had ever seen in one place. Shelves three times the height of a man held scrolls without number, each one resting in its own pigeonhole, a ribbon extending on which was written the title of the book and its author and contents. So taken was he by the staggering display that he did not see the small man standing right in front of him.

  “I am Yeseph, an elder of the Curatak and curator of the library. Welcome.” The man was dressed simply in a dark blue tunic over which he wore a white mantle edged in brown.

  “I am glad to meet you, sir,” said Quentin, somewhat disappointed. He had expected someone who looked like a king or a nobleman of stature, not a short, balding man who walked with a slight limp as he led the way along the corridors of shelves.

  “Come along,” the curator called after him. “We have much to talk about and much to see.” Yeseph stopped, standing between two tall shelves, and said, “I can tell a book lover when I see one—you belong here, you know.”

  Quentin started, as if to speak; the words seemed to fly out of his head—banished by a most remarkable sensation. It was as if he had been here before … seen it just like this … somewhere, sometime—long ago, perhaps. He had been here and now had returned.

  23

  Nimrood sat brooding on his great black throne, draped over it like a wind-tossed rag. Incensed at Prince Jaspin’s bumbling ineffectiveness, he nevertheless grudgingly considered that the chance encounter of Theido and Pyggin had brought about an even better possibility than he had planned—the opportunity of defeating that meddlesome hermit, that bone in his throat, Durwin, once and for all.

  As he mulled over these recent developments, a new plan began to take shape. He called for his servants to bring him the keys, which they did, as they carried out all his orders, with stumbling haste lest they displease their perverse lord.

  “Tell Euric I will see him in the dungeon at once,” snapped Nimrood to the quaking wretch who had brought the keys. He snatched the large ring from the servant’s trembling hand and flew like a bat from the throne, across the room, and out.

  In a further part of the dungeon, Euric, a man almost as depraved as his keeper, found Nimrood unlocking the door to a special cell. “Allow me to do that for you, master,” the swarthy, gap-toothed Euric croaked. He took the keys and in seconds swung open the reluctant door. Nimrood stepped into the darkened room. He clapped his hands, and fire leaped from his fingers to a torch sitting in its iron holder on the wall. He handed the torch to Euric and indicated that he was to lead the way.

  Through the chamber and a door at the opposite end they went. The second door opened onto a narrow hall lined with cells. They hurried past these cells and came to the end of the passage, which terminated in a narrow flight of stone steps twisting down into a black vault below.

  The two entered the vault. Nimrood clapped his hands again, and torches all around the room flashed to life. There in the guttering glare of the torches lay nine massive stone tables in rows of three. Six of the tables were occupied by prostrate forms of six mighty knights bedecked in gleaming armor, with swords clutched over their chests and their shields across their loins. Each one appeared composed and serene, only sleeping, in an instant to join the call to arms. But their flesh bore the ashen tint of dead men’s flesh, and their eyes were sunken like dead men’s eyes.

  “Death’s Legion,” hissed Nimrood. “Look on it, Euric. It is terrible, is it not? Soon it will be complete, and I will give the signal, and these, my army, will arise. With them I will conquer the world. Who can stand against such as these—the boldest knights the world has ever seen.” He moved along the slabs, calling out their names. “Hesterlid, Vorgil, Junius, Khennet, Geoffric, Llewyn …”

  Euric indicated the three empty biers. “Who will occupy these places to complete the number?”

  “One is for Ronsard, who would be here now if not for Pyggin and his men—but I have given them another chance. They bring him now by sea; the other is for King Eskevar, who shall be commander of my Legion. Very soon now he will join in his new regiment. His will is strong; he lingers yet. But my will is stronger, and he shall be mine ere long.

  “Look how still they sleep; even death does not diminish them.”

  The necromancer’s eyes glittered with excitement as he beheld his handiwork.

  “And who is the last slab for, Great One?” asked Euric. He fully enjoyed his participation in the black arts as much as did Nimrood.

  “The last I feared would have to remain empty. The great knight Marsant died in that petty war against Gorr, and the ignorant barbarians burned his body.

  “But now it appears I shall not lack a full complement of warriors to lead my soldiers into battle. Theido, that troublesome renegade, will be joining us at last. He will no doubt thank me for the opportunity to serve his king in death as he once served him on the battlefield in life.”

  “How will this be accomplished?”

  “Did I not tell you? The gods decree that I am indeed fortunate. Pyggin found him wandering the wharf of Bestou where they await the sailing season. It seems the foolish knight wishes passage for himself and his companions to Karsh—they will come here!

  “Since they are so eager to die, I will not disappoint them. Pyggin will deliver them to their destination, all right. And with a courtesy they do not expect. Ha!”

  Euric’s face glimmered in the dim torchlight. His eyes rolled up into his head ecstatically as he contemplated his foul lord’s intricate machinations. He bowed low, saying, “You shall rule the world, Nimrood.”

  The harbor of Bestou remained wrapped in rain and fog for several long and vacant days. Then, on a quiet afternoon of drizzling damp, the sun broke through in a sudden burst of beaming brilliance, and all the sailors abiding in the inns and taverns of the town streamed down to the quay with their scant belongings stuffed into rucksacks and canvas bags. They came as if on signal. That night they would sleep aboard their vessels and sail with the dawn.

  When the rising sun was merely a dull promise on the eastern horizon, Theido and the others made their way down to the docks and boarded the wherry with a few other passenger
s to be delivered to various ships lying at anchor in the harbor.

  Ships were already streaming toward the pinched opening of the harbor to be the first to take to the open seas. Durwin and Alinea could hear sailors calling to one another from ship to ship, captains cursing their crews’ winter-dulled skills as they made ready to put off, the splash of the oars in the green water.

  As they pulled farther into the harbor, the humped back of Tildeen rose in the thin spring mist that hung over Bestou like a gossamer cloud. Gulls worked the air with their slender wings and complained of the activity in their harbor as they hovered and dived among the ships. Trenn stood in the front of the boat, directing the rowers to their ship, and Theido sat in the rear, pensively watching the land recede slowly behind them.

  “You appear wistful, brave Knight,” observed Alinea. She had noticed Theido’s somber mien. “Tell us, what could trouble your mind on a morning such as this? We are on our way at last.”

  “I slept ill, my lady. A fearful dream came over me as I tossed on my bed. I awoke sweating and cold, but of the dream I remember nothing. It vanished with the dawn.

  “But the feeling of doom lingers, though the dream has departed.”

  Durwin listened to his friend, nodding and rubbing his chin with his hand. “I, too, felt ill at ease last night. I take it to be a confirmation of our quest. Sometimes we must enter the course by the least likely gate—the god has his own way, often mysterious and always unpredictable.”

  “Well, we go, and none will stop us,” replied Theido, squaring his shoulders. “Come what may, the gods will not find us sitting idly by. It is good to be moving again.”

  “I only hope we may be in time,” said the queen. She turned her lovely face away for a moment and was silent.

  “Yes, Jaspin and the regents will convene their council soon, I think. His crown is bought many times over; it only remains for him to lay his hand to it.”

  “Time will not be hurried,” offered Durwin. “We can go only as fast as we may. I will pray to the god that our purpose will not be thwarted. He is a god of righteousness and loves justice. He will not see us fail.”