The Immortal Crown

by Kieth Merrill

  The grotto was filled by a deep pool that prevented easy access to the fountain that gushed from a natural cleft in the back wall. No one knew where the water came from or how it drained from the pool. Most assumed the rain and melting snow that sometimes fell at the top of the monolith seeped through fractures in the rock to find its way to the labyrinth of caverns and underground lakes the old legends said existed inside the mountains. Some caverns had been discovered. A few explored. Most remained unknown. The most intriguing of the legends spoke of a vast treasure hidden in the caverns by King Garnlot the Mighty in annum 685. The story was well-known to the postulants and the source of endless speculation and wild dreams.

  Celestine filled her skin-bag buckets and attached them to both ends of the yoke. She crouched and slipped the yoke across her shoulder, adjusting the pad lest the birchwood cut into her skin. She stood slowly, adjusted the position of the yoke to equalize the weight, and started up the trail.

  The stone steps climbed from the cave to the bottom of a high rock wall that formed the lowest of the terraces. A dirt path beside the wall connected the hewn steps with the mortared stone steps that ascended to the temple courtyard. As Celestine stepped onto the path, a hummingbird swept in and slipped its long bill into the red blossom of a wild trumpet vine.

  Celestine loved beauty and was fascinated by the miracle of living things. She stopped to watch. In the bright sunshine, the tiny hummingbird was a dazzling display of shimmering green and iridescent blue.

  The miraculous little bird moved from blossoms of red to orange to yellow. She longed to stay and watch, but she knew she needed to start the difficult climb back to the temple mount. Being late made the old matrons suspicious. She stepped to the outside edge of the trail to pass the hummingbird without disturbing its sweet nectar feast.

  When she stepped on the sodden grass of the outside shoulder, the ground broke away. She fell to one knee and tried to catch herself, but the weight of the water pulled the yoke downward and dragged her into the chasm.

  Ashar heard the girl’s cry. It was his day to fetch water for the kitchen, and he was on his way to the Tears of God. At first he thought it was the screech of a falcon, but when it came again, he realized it was a human cry, desperate for help.

  The stone steps were old, worn, and irregular. Running down was dangerous, but the terror in the voice compelled him to take them three at a time. At the bottom of the lowest terrace, he saw a yoke and skin-bag bucket caught in the foliage at the edge of the trail. From somewhere over the edge the cry came again.

  “Help! Help me!”

  Ashar scrambled forward and peered into the chasm. A girl had fallen into a tangle of picea trees growing from a ledge of rock. When he saw her face clearly, his heart almost stopped. She was a temple virgin. It was the daughter of the temple at whom he’d stolen glances whenever he could since the first time he saw her more than a year before.

  Ashar secured his foot in a tangle of roots, reached over the edge, and grabbed the end of the yoke.

  “Take hold. You’ll be all right,” he called to her. “Hold on! Hold tight.”

  The girl gripped the end of the yoke with both hands as he pulled her up. When she was close enough, he reached out his hand.

  Among the stringent rules imposed upon the postulants, rule seventeen stated that postulants must avoid all unnecessary interaction with the temple virgins and never make physical contact. Despite the rule, Ashar reached for her hand without a twinge of guilt. Certainly none of the disobedience he felt when he stared at her in the courtyard.

  She held his eyes and blushed. After what seemed like a long time, she put her hand in his.

  It was the first time Ashar had ever touched a girl. A shiver rippled through his body in a fluttering of feelings more marvelous than anything he’d ever felt before. Her hand was soft and warm. His heart was thumping so loudly he was certain she could hear it.

  He gripped her hand tightly. She had not taken her eyes from him. She blushed again, but this time with a smile, then looked down to place her feet. Ashar set the yoke aside and offered his other hand. She took it without hesitation. The quiver of delight came again. Holding firmly to both her hands, he guided her carefully from the tangle of green across the sodden grass to safety on the far side of the path. The hummingbird had flown away.

  “Are you hurt?” he asked and looked for cuts or signs of blood. He caught himself thinking about her perfectly smooth skin, the azure blue of her eyes, and the way her tangled hair framed her face in a soft swirl of gold. He realized for the first time that she was nearly as tall as he was and while equally as thin, her body was graced with gentle curves—unlike his gangly awkwardness.

  “I don’t think so,” she said, but she touched a rip in her gown and winced. When her delicate fingers came back, Ashar could see a trace of blood.

  “You’re bleeding. Let me see.” She raised her arm and Ashar could see the tear in her gown and the bright red abrasion across her pale and perfect skin. Their eyes met, and Ashar was oblivious to everything in the universe except for the girl looking back at him.

  “It’s not too deep,” he assured her. He wet a piece of linen in the puddle from the spilled bucket and reached for the wound on her side then stopped in a sudden rush of awkward embarrassment. His face flushed, and he offered the wetted cloth to her. “Here, you should hold this tight until it stops bleeding.”

  Ashar retrieved the skin bags and headed down the trail to refill her buckets. He made a second trip to fill his own. When he returned, the girl was sitting against the wall. She was crying.

  “Is the pain great?” he asked.

  “No. I’ll be all right, but the matrons will be angry with me for what I’ve done.”

  “You’ve done nothing wrong. The trail is narrow and the edges soft. Any of us might have fallen just as easily.”

  “I don’t mean falling. I mean . . .” She looked at her hands.

  Ashar understood. She worried she had violated the edict of her appointment. That her status had somehow changed by touching a boy.

  “You’ve done no wrong. Nothing has changed for you,” he said firmly. “The piety of the matrons is mostly of their own making.” His own words startled him. “In my opinion,” he added hastily. “I will speak of this to no one. You need not worry.” He reached in his pocket for the apple he’d brought and offered it to her. “My name is Ashar.”

  She took the apple, her fingertips brushing the palm of his hand. She swiped a tear from her cheek and smiled as she took a dainty bite.

  “Thank you,” she said. “I am grateful for your help.”

  Ashar wanted to ask her name, the one given her on the day of blessing, but knew he shouldn’t. In the village, such a simple question would be natural and even expected between new friends, but for a postulant, such intimacy was forbidden. The name conferred upon girls on the day of their blessing as infants was never used again once they were given as temple virgins. The vestal virgins were all called by their designation. They were simply “daughters of the temple.”

  Ashar sat down beside the girl and leaned against the wall. He was content to sit in silence as she ate. When she finished the apple, he stood and offered his hand.

  “Come on,” he said. “I will help you to the top.” She hesitated, then took his hand and used his strength to stand.

  Ashar climbed the stairs with four skin-bag buckets of water hanging from a single yoke. The other yoke he carried in his hand. It was arduous by any measure, but he felt none of the strain. He walked slowly on purpose to make the climb last as long as he could. The girl didn’t seem to mind the slow pace.

  As they ascended the steps, Ashar paused to point out flowers and recite the names of the plants. Appreciating the beauty of the natural world was part of Doyan’s teachings. The girl was impressed and delighted by his knowledge. It was evident to Ashar that she lov
ed the splendor of nature and the fragrance of flowers.

  When she told him why she had fallen, he teased that she needed to come up with a better story than that a hummingbird had frightened her off the trail. “A dragon would be better, or at least a lion.” Her laugh was as musical as the chimes at the temple gates.

  By the time they reached the top, she was laughing with abandon and any blush of guilt was gone. When Ashar returned the yoke back to her soft shoulders, their eyes met again in that timeless way.

  “Celestine,” she whispered. “My name from the day of blessing is Celestine.” With a flash of her eyes and a quivering smile, she turned and left him standing on the path.

  “Celestine,” he repeated with a smile that made his cheeks hurt.

  In the three seasons between their meeting on the mountain and the joyous coincidence of Celestine being assigned as one of Ashar’s escorts, their secret friendship had grown. They stole shy glances across the courtyard, and during prayers Ashar did his best to kneel directly behind her, close enough to catch the scent of the flowers she wore in her hair. When they passed each other in the narrow corridors, there was the inevitable brush of shoulders and sometimes their fingers touched.

  And now she was here. Ashar would not face this important day completely alone. She would not stand beside him before the Council of Blessed Sages, but he knew her thoughts and perhaps her prayers would be with him. He sent a small prayer of gratitude to Oum’ilah for this small and wondrous gift.

  CHAPTER 5

  A gust of wind pelted Drakkor’s face with the first drops of rain and blew away his memories. He closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sky. It had been a long time since he had allowed such reminiscence of Dragonfell to linger.

  He huddled beneath his cloak beside a fire some distance from the camp. His men roasted rabbits and prepared shelters for the night. None were troubled by the rain.

  Drakkor’s eyes moved from one man to the next. All but one had crossed the river without incident. The man gone missing had made the mistake of dismounting when his horse panicked in the strongest current and both were swept downstream. No one searched for him.

  Those of his men on the far side of the fires were easily seen. Others were silhouettes crossing a blaze of yellow. Sounds of their camaraderie melded with the nickering of horses and floated to him on the swirling wind.

  How would they fair in the battle ahead? “Hardly a battle,” he mused aloud as if the fire could hear. It would not be the kind of battle any of them expected. Killing an armed man determined to take your life was very different than killing a monk unwilling to fight.

  Do any of my men have some measure of compassion secreted away beneath their ragged beards and boiled leather?

  He doubted it. They were bound to him by more than treasure, or pleasures, or a promise of a place in his kingdom to come. Each of his men had sworn an oath, though the ultimate consequence of their vow was beyond anything they truly understood.

  There were no punishments nor flagellation in the rites of avowal, but those who joined themselves with Drakkor sealed their oath by repeating the words he had chanted as a boy in the chamber of fire at Oldbones Keep—“Saleem nostranu ‘rosnona se o vasen pusson.” And then they drank his blood. He gripped their hearts and controlled their minds and bound their souls to his. Not because he put riches in their hands and allowed them to satiate their lust, but by some power of darkness they dared not whisper.

  Drakkor took the stone of fire from its place beneath his heart and turned it slowly in his fingers. It caught the flame and ignited a thousand tiny fires within. A thousand points of light on a polished wall of black stone. The walls of Oldbones Keep. It was hard to imagine it had been so many years since the sorceress of Dragonfell had put the mystical stone into his hand.

  His destrier snorted and pawed the rock with the iron on its hooves. The sound stirred a memory that crept up like a creature of the night emerging from its hole to greet the moon.

  Age of Kandelaar

  Annum 1059

  Dominion Dragonfell

  The iron shoes of the short-legged horse were a hollow echo on the wooden bridge. The first streaks of yellow light glistened across the inlet of the eastern sea as Drakkor rode through the gates of Oldbones Keep. He was in company with five scarlet-robed votaries of the cult of she-dragon and the man-at-arms who rode with them.

  The day of the prophecy had come.

  The child of no man rides forth to gather that which was lost. And they believe it is I!

  His thoughts were sluggish after five days and nights of the “celebration of the chosen”: the veneration, the ritual of consecration, the invocation of ancient spells, the feasting, drinking and intoxicating fumes, and, toward the end of it, the tattooing of his body. Drakkor had been in a semiconscious stupor for much of it from exhaustion, exotic herbs, the juice of the poppy, and loss of blood. Through it all, he made certain the stone of fire never left his hand.

  He had been awakened the day before by the grating of rusted hinges and the thump of a wooden door. He was sprawled on a hodgepodge of pillows in an upper chamber graced by tall windows. He rolled over and tried to make sense of the noise through the fog in his mind.

  A person entered the room, closed the door, and slid the locking timber into place. By the time Drakkor’s bleary eyes could focus, the person was standing beside the couch.

  It was the sorceress. She was alone. Her manner had changed. She showed little of the fawning adoration of previous days. Instead, she spoke with an urgency that confessed her fears. “You must be swift in finding the missing stones of fire,” she said and pointed to the fur-wrapped stone Drakkor held close to his chest. “You must let this one stone speak to your mind and guide you to the rest.” She balled her fists. “By the will of she-dragon, you are the chosen one. Yours is the hand of might, and you must gather them all, and quickly.”

  She wrung her hands, then turned and walked to the window. The hooded cowl fell to her shoulders. Drakkor had never seen the full of her face before. There was a time when she might have been beautiful. It was a fleeting thought before she spoke again.

  “Return swiftly and bring the stones of fire to me, and I will make you prince of Dragonfell.” What little mystique remained of her vanished as she bargained like a crone selling trinkets in the market. But her words sank deep inside him like a seed. “Give them to none but me.” Her voice was wet with phlegm. She coughed, deep in her throat. An awful rasping, gurgling hack. “Promise me! My hand alone! I am the one who . . .” She threw a furtive glance across her shoulder as if someone listened in the shadows. “I am the one who is to be—” She stopped and held his eyes a long time.

  He saw distrust and fear, and when she spoke again, her voice trembled. “When you place the stones of fire in my hand, I will reward you beyond imagining.”

  I am the one who is to be . . . The sorceress’s unfinished words had teased his imagination all morning. What was it that she had almost revealed? Drakkor knew that which went unsaid was always closer to the truth than words spoken aloud.

  The sound of the horses’ hooves changed as Drakkor and his cortège left the bridge and turned west on the road that would take them to Black Flower. The warmth of the sun on his back soothed the persistent pain of his wounds.

  “Ho,” the man-at-arms shouted.

  An overturned farm cart blocked the road with its cargo of wooden crates spilled out. The horse and driver were gone. The narrow road cut into the slope that rose steeply on the south; the other side fell away to the water on the north. There was no place to pass.

  They had hardly reined their horses in before the bandits fell upon them. They sprang from the rocks on the uphill side of the road. Six of them held swords and cudgels. The hooded monks were the first to fall. The wool of their crimson robes soaked up the blood without a stain.

  The man
-at-arms reached for his sword, but his weapon did not clear its scabbard before he was also lying in the road with his life gurgling to an end from the slash across his throat. There was no grace nor skill to the killings, just wild bludgeoning with clubs and knives and slashing swords.

  The attack happened so swiftly that by the time Drakkor turned his short-legged pony, the monks and man-at-arms were dead or dying and their riderless horses were racing back the way they’d come.

  Drakkor dragged his horse’s head around, prepared to flee if he could or fight if he could not. To his astonishment, none of the bandits seemed interested in him. They have no intent to kill me. The thought came in a puzzling rush of relief, and then misgiving.

  The assailants finished their grisly deeds and stood over the murdered men. Blood dripped from their hands and weapons. They made no effort to lift the purses nor take the boots or satchels. They were not bandits. The startling reality hung in the deathly silence.

  When the killing was done, all of the men turned to look at Drakkor. Two of the men strode forward. He had seen the smaller man before at Black Flower wharf. He was one of the lowborn sots who scrounged for odd jobs on the waterfront and lived on cheap wine and garbage.

  “Well done!” The Peddler’s unmistakable voice cracked the stillness. He emerged from hiding like a snake slithering from under a rock. “Load ’em quick now and be done.” He scowled at the thugs.

  Two of the six hurried to upright the cart while the others dragged the bodies of the dead to where they could be loaded in. The still-hot blood steamed in the cool of the morning.

  The Peddler of Souls strode to where Drakkor sat on his horse, wide-eyed and disbelieving. He waved for him to dismount.

  “I thought you was never coming out,” he said. “Even wondered if maybe they killed you or that old hag twisted your head and got you to thinkin’ about breaking our agreement.” His guffaw did not hide the venom of his suspicions. The Peddler held out his hand. “I’ll be takin’ what’s mine now.” He grinned. Even standing at arm’s-length, his breath fouled the air.