Birdcatcher savoured the texture of the cold metal in his broad hands as he sighted the red-haired woman along the barrel of the Andrak peacemaker. The street was crowded and a clear shot was going to be difficult, but he had tailed the woman all day to get this one opportunity and he wasn’t going to waste it.
The Port Authority of this strange land impounded his thundermaker upon his arrival the day before yesterday, leaving him contemplating how to assassinate the woman with the traditional methods which were much more risky. Luck played into his hands when a lone drunken soldier accosted him for sleeping in the park by the river the first night. Birdcatcher pretended to be helpless until the soldier was off his guard and then he killed him. The booty was the soldier’s weapon. Although it was like a thundermaker, it was significantly refined, sleeker and lighter. He examined it to discover that it held five thin metal pieces in a package and did not use single heavy metal balls with the magic powder. It had a sighting system that allowed him to focus more accurately on a target. It didn’t sit on the shoulder easily, like a thundermaker did, so he took some time working out that he had to rest it along his arm. He nearly threw it away in the beginning, seeing it as too complex, but now he was glad that he’d been patient. Somehow, when he sailed back to Kerwyn to collect his bounty for killing the Abomination for the Seers, he had to take this weapon with him.
The woman stopped to stare into a window. He couldn’t read or speak Andrak, but the picture of a flute on the sign told him she was looking into a musical instrument shop. He aimed at her head and squeezed the trigger.
Meg screamed when the glass shop window shattered and a man collapsed at her feet, bleeding from the neck. As she crouched instinctively something whizzed by her shoulder and smacked into the wooden window frame, and people near her stampeded, screaming and waving their arms to warn others. She heard a popping sound and felt a sudden sting in her side that made her roll onto the cobblestones. As she was lying on her back, staring up at the sun-tinged clouds, she remembered pointing at a group of Kerwyn soldiers in Summerbrook and releasing a fireball of energy that enveloped them. They were strangers shooting her friends and she was stopping them. ‘Stay where you are,’ a man’s voice said. His elongated face, moustached and sweating, swayed at the corner of her vision. ‘Help is coming.’
‘I’m all right,’ she said calmly, but when she noticed that he was shocked by her simple assertion she tried to stand and couldn’t move. Her spine tingled with familiar energy, but it was making her feel enormously fatigued and she wanted to sleep.
‘Stay still,’ the man urged and his face was joined by others staring down at her.
Birdcatcher scrambled across the rooftop and clambered down a ladder into an alley. He heard the shouting and screams and assessed his options, but when men in green uniforms appeared he burst out of the alley, startling pedestrians, and dashed across the street, narrowly dodging a horse and carriage. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed that he was being pursued so he kept running, pushing people aside. He had a vague idea of the direction he was headed, based on tailing the Abomination, but the city’s minor streets and alleys were unknowns. He turned left along another street that rose to a crest and headed right along a narrow alley that opened into a broad avenue of tall, wide trees.
A hundred paces on, the avenue bordered a park, so he ran for it his breath coming sharp as he reached his running limit. Hoping to have put distance between himself and his pursuers, he looked back to discover to his dismay that he was being chased by at least ten uniformed men. Ahead, the park of ornamental bushes and trees and statues was bordered by the river. He was trapped. He spent his last energy sprinting for a large fountain of a rising bird and slumped behind it, drawing stares of curiosity from the men, women and children who were walking and sitting around it—but when they saw the peacemaker and his wild eyes they screamed and ran as the Peacekeepers closed in, leaving Birdcatcher to fumble with the spare magazine taken from the soldier as he tried to reload his peacemaker.
The uniformed men yelled, but their words meant nothing. He saw their peacemakers and jammed the magazine into place. ‘I’ll kill you if you get closer!’ he yelled in Kerwyn. ‘Back off, all of you!’ He gritted his teeth. The Abomination was dead. He missed her with his first two shots, but he saw the third strike home with a spout of blood so he knew his job was done. The Seers offered him a lifetime’s fortune which was waiting for him now, in Port of Joy, and these idiots were all that stood in his way. I can take down five of them, he reasoned as he took aim on one. They won’t stay if I get a couple even.
One yelled again. He pulled the trigger and the target jerked backwards. The others dropped onto one knee and raised their peacemakers. Birdcatcher fired again and a second victim cartwheeled backwards. A wall of smoke and fury erupted from the remaining eight peacemaker muzzles as he ducked behind the fountain. Particles of marble and drops of water showered him as the bullets smashed into the fountain. He rose again and took aim—and felt something smack into his right shoulder and his left hip like he’d been kicked. As he staggered backwards three more bullets punched into his chest and his stolen peacemaker dropped from his hands as he flopped onto the grass.
‘I’ve never seen anything quite like it,’ the man in the white coat with glass discs on his nose was saying. ‘Remarkable. Witnesses swear they saw the bullet hit her and that she was bleeding profusely, and there’s a bullet hole in her dress up beside her heart region, but there’s not a mark on her.’
‘She’s awake, doctor,’ an invisible woman said.
The man in the white coat gazed at Meg. ‘Well, you are a marvel. Welcome back to the world. I’m Doctor Harbin. And who are you?’ His face was round and cheerful, and the strange glass discs made his blue eyes look larger than normal. His hair was hidden beneath a white cap.
‘Meg,’ she answered, conscious that under the white sheet she was naked. ‘Where are my clothes?’
The doctor smiled. ‘You can have them back, but the dress is bloody. When you were brought in we thought you had a wound, but somehow the bullet missed you. The blood on you must have come from the poor man the assassin shot.’
‘Is he—?’
‘Yes, unfortunately,’ he interrupted. ‘Did you know him?’
‘No,’ she replied.
‘Then you were a very unlucky bystander.’ The doctor slid off his white cap, revealing a full head of black hair with greying sides. ‘Although to escape unhurt is very lucky. Your papers say that you’re a foreigner?’
‘From Western Shess,’ she replied, but she was wary, wondering if the doctor knew what had happened in Port River.
‘Don’t know it,’ he said, taking her arm and encouraging her to sit up. ‘Is it far?’
‘Three cycles—months by dragon ship.’ There were two women in the white room and she was on a hard bed with wheels.
‘That is a long way,’ the doctor said. ‘What brought you here then?’ He signalled to a woman who nodded and left the room, but when he saw Meg’s concerned expression he said, ‘Rees is fetching your clothes and bag and a fresh outfit to see you home.’
‘I’m looking for my children,’ Meg explained. ‘I was told they were sold to a factory owner.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he said as he started washing his hands in a bowl. ‘Have you learned anything since arriving?’
‘Only that I can’t find them,’ she confessed as tears coursed down her cheeks.
The doctor nodded to the second woman who slipped an arm over Meg’s shoulder. ‘There, there, it will turn out all right,’ she crooned. The first woman returned carrying a bundle of clothing.
‘I’ll leave you to dress,’ said the doctor. ‘Then you can go home.’ He smiled, adjusted the glass discs on his nose and left the room.
‘He’s a good man,’ said the woman named Rees. ‘You were lucky he attended to you.’
‘Rees?’ the second woman asked. ‘Do you know anything about slave children?’
> ‘Why?’
‘Because our friend here is looking for her children. They came from overseas. Didn’t your sister buy a girl to work around her house?’
‘Shh, Nell,’ Rees warned. ‘You know it’s against the law to have a slave.’ She glanced at the green dress in Meg’s clothing pile. ‘Government has people everywhere.’
‘I’m not from the government if that’s what you think,’ Meg assured her. ‘I’m from Western Shess. It’s a long way from here.’
‘Government people lie,’ Rees accused.
‘It’s in her papers,’ said Nell. ‘Doctor said so.’
Rees glanced conspiratorially towards the door before she leaned towards Meg. ‘Are you really looking for your children?’
‘A girl and a boy,’ Meg replied. ‘Emma and Treasure.’
Rees looked up at Nell who was nodding slowly. Rees sighed and said to Meg, ‘Now, you never heard anything from me—is that fair?’ Meg nodded. ‘Good,’ said Rees. ‘What does your daughter look like then?’
PART NINE
‘When I look into the hearts of all who would be heroes I find one common element—hope. Without hope, there could never be heroes.’
FROM ONE MAN’S JOURNEY INTO THE FANTASTIC BY LUCA THE DRAGONEER
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
He did not expect to see a town around the base of the vertical finger of rock, but there was a sizeable one called Bretan’s Sword. The flight from Lightsword to this place that he knew as Dragon’s Tooth revealed a world more vastly altered than he imagined. ‘There are no forests,’ he said on the first afternoon of the flight over the old Plains of Ky.
‘It is very bare if you don’t like crops, but there haven’t ever been forests in this area,’ Luca informed him, ‘at least not in recent times. Apparently, in the ancient period before the Bretan kings, a lot of the land was forest, especially to the west. Of course, the old tales tell of magical forest-dwelling creatures called the Lendel who were meant to protect the forests from the evil Amuchki, but in the end they failed, and the legend goes that Amuchki had all the Lendel killed and their forests cut down and turned into great ships.’
‘That’s not true,’ A Ahmud Ki asserted.
‘Of course it’s not true,’ said Luca, laughing. ‘The old tales are just old tales. They resurface now when the people who protest against factory owners exploiting the land resources want to make a point. Like a moral against tree-felling.’
The young dragoneer’s dismissal of the ancient past angered A Ahmud Ki, but he couldn’t prove that the Andrak, as they called themselves now, were wrong—totally wrong—about everything, even the names. Only when he retrieved the artefacts of the past that he believed were still buried in the base of Dragon’s Tooth would he be able to show that the past had been real and was still very real, but the closer they came to Bretan’s Sword the less certain he was that what he was hoping to find still existed. Like the castle plateau in Lightsword the dramatic finger of black granite rock jutting from the earth looked smaller and worn down by the centuries.
As the dragon egg descended on the outskirts of the town Luca smiled and said, ‘I hadn’t picked you for a tourist when you wanted a quick ride out of Port River, but you’re certainly choosing to visit all the big places.’
‘Where else do the tourists go?’ A Ahmud Ki asked.
‘There’s plenty of interesting places. Most go to the castle, here, and Anedya in Central Andrak; the Shimmering Dam and Cennednyss in Western Andrak; and the Great Scarp in Northern Andrak.’
‘Cennednyss? The old ruined castle where Abreotan’s sword was hidden?’ A Ahmud Ki asked, his interest aroused.
Luca was puzzled. ‘Cennednyss is a rock where there used to be an old castle, though it’s all collapsed and washed away. There’s only a single turret standing, which is why it fascinates everyone. I’ve never heard of a sword, though.’
‘I read a book once,’ A Ahmud Ki offered to explain the anomaly. ‘It was full of your Andrak tales.’
Luca grinned. ‘That’s how we get the tourists to come.’
When the dragon egg was secured, rooms booked at a stay-house and good food eaten, A Ahmud Ki headed for Dragon’s Tooth alone—Bretan’s Sword as the local people called it—and as with the castle in Lightsword he found it fenced, guarded by Peacekeepers and an official in a blue uniform demanding payment for a guided tour. ‘Was a fortress for one of the Bretan kings called Draca,’ the official told him with authority. ‘Has underground chambers and some were carved into the granite rock that towers above us. The tour guide will take you through the lower chambers first and then into the upper ones. Marvellous carving effort by the ancients. They cut into pure granite with their primitive tools. Must have taken years to do. You can’t go to the very top because it’s all eroded and collapsed now. They say there used to be ghosts up there.’ He chuckled as if the idea of ghosts was amusing to him. ‘Four notes and you’re in.’
There were no ghosts, thought A Ahmud Ki. They were called dracabeorn—undead conjured to life by Dragonlord magic. And there was no king called Draca. He paid his admission fee and walked through the gate.
There was nothing for him at Bretan’s Sword. The original underground chambers that housed Andrakis’s army of golden warriors and his Dragonlord treasures were intact, but empty, except for one converted into a shop selling souvenirs and another acting as a museum of ancient armour and weaponry. He hoped to find a suit of golden armour among the museum pieces, anything that linked his world to this one, but nothing dated back that far. The world of Andrakis, of Mareg, of King Dylan and himself, the world of the Aelendyell and the Haagii might never have existed.
When he returned from the tour of Bretan’s Sword to his stay-house room he locked himself in and refused to venture out with Luca who invited him to savour the town’s night-time delights. ‘You have to see the fireworks,’ Luca urged. ‘It’s the Summer Herald Festival. There’ll be plenty to eat and drink and dancing and so many girls!’
‘I’ll come later,’ A Ahmud Ki promised reluctantly.
‘The Democratic Light,’ said Luca, as he was leaving. ‘It’s a drinking-house two streets from here. Ask anyone. They’ll know where it is.’
Left alone, A Ahmud Ki sat on his bed against the wall, gazing out of the tiny window at the fading golden afternoon light playing across the white-rendered walls, red roofs and cloud-speckled sky and wondered what he could do to retrieve his lost power—the power Mareg took from him. Meg holds the secret, he told himself. Her fragment of embedded amber is the only remaining magic left in this world. But how do I get it from her? He scanned his vast memory—the collected memories of the Dragonlord Andrakis, of the Aelendyell Ieldran and of his personal memories—searching for references to the Genesis Stone and recited what he recalled.
‘In the days before the Elvenaar and men,
When the world was fertile and fresh,
The Alfyn were young and joyful,
From the northern skies came balls of fire,
Dazzling stars that fell to the earth,
Bright and awesome to behold.
To a fallen star the Alfyn came,
The glowing stone, the orb of power,
And sensing then the life it breathed
Named it the Genesis Stone,
And from it brought all five Ki.
And the Alfyn each a sliver took,
And were eternally transformed,
Into the firstborn lore bearers.’
He stopped and reflected on what he’d recited. The source of the verse was the original Aelendyell Book of Lore he stole from the Chanter’s Well before he escaped into the wider world of men. He’d delved deep into the lore of his Aelendyell heritage in a determined effort to understand it, but he never saw the truth of the Ki through other eyes until he faced Mareg in the belief that he was the Dragonlord’s equal. He believed he acquired the Ki though his birthright, through his Ithosen training in Ranu Ka Shehaala, through his study in
Targa and finally through his absorption of Andrakis’s psyche, but those were mere vehicles of learning, not the answers to the source of power. The power didn’t come from spell books or special words or hand motions or belief in Berak N’eth or being male or female. He was blinded, like everyone in his time, by the teachings of those who misinterpreted what the Alfyn Great Ones had always known. The Alfyn truth wasn’t handed down as it might have been. Magical power came only from the Genesis Stone and anything made from it—fragments of amber. The rings given to every Aelendyell Lore Bearer were made of amber. The figurines of Fareeka worn on necklaces by the Ranu Ithosen had amber gems in their hearts. Even Abreotan’s sword, the Dragonlords’ nemesis—that, too, was amber-encrusted, the slivers of the Genesis Stone adorning it to make it a potent weapon. The truth regarding the source of power had surrounded him throughout his life and not once had he recognised or even guessed at it.
But Mareg must have known—all of the Dragonlords must have known, he conceded bitterly. Mareg took my Fareeka symbol and cut off my ring finger to remove my Aelendyell lore ring to steal my magical power. He knew.
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