The Immortal Crown

by Kieth Merrill

  Drakkor gripped the leather bag slung around his neck and glanced to his left. The ruffians had finished their vile task and shuffled into an irregular formation behind the Peddler. The man from Black Flower had strolled to the short-legged horse and stood behind Drakkor. He held a club.

  “Give it to me!” Peddler of Souls demanded in a frenzied voice.

  The smallest of the hooligans wiped his nose with the back of his hand and left a smear of blood across his face. “Do it, boy,” he said and raised the blade of the short sword that moments before had sliced through the heart of a man in a scarlet robe.

  The Peddler’s bony fingers fluttered with impatience, but he chortled softly and was once again his smarmy self. “’Twas our agreement, lad, but you’ll get what you deserve, sure enough.”

  Drakkor slipped the bag from his shoulder and let it dangle by the strap. The Peddler snatched it like a ravenous bird plucking a mouse from a stubble of wheat. His fingers squeezed the leather sack like talons crushing the rodent. He closed his eyes in a gasp of ecstasy, unwound the leather stay, and opened the flap. He reached inside with a trembling hand. He paused, flicked a glance at the boy, then withdrew the bundle from the sack with his fingertips.

  His bloodshot eyes were wide with expectation. His lips quivered with unspoken greed. He uncovered the stone and held it in an open palm. The crystal caught the morning sun and cast a dappling of light onto his face. He wrapped his fingers into a fist and clutched his treasure to his heart. He nodded to the man behind Drakkor, who leaped forward as his club came up.

  Drakkor saw the Peddler’s nod and sensed the movement behind him, but it happened too quickly. He whirled as the cudgel thudded into the side of his head. The blinding flash of white became a sparkle of stars that disappeared into blackness.

  Drakkor awakened cold and wet on a coil of dirty rope that stank of fish and salt and rot. He was rocking side to side and struggled to open his eyes, but one of them was crusted shut with a scab of blood. The wound on his head was a prickling of needles. He scrubbed the dried blood away with the heel of his hand and looked about.

  He was on a ship. A fishing boat from Black Flower by the looks of her. He struggled to his feet against the violent rolling of the deck and gripped the railing. The sky was overcast and gray. There was an awful ache in his belly—hunger, seasickness, or some combination of the two. He’d heard sailors in the taverns at the wharf talk about the heaves. He felt a desperate thirst and wondered how long he had been on board.

  There was nothing on the right side of the ship but endless sea. The clouds were the same gray color as the water and merged in the distance without a horizon. Land was visible off the left side, so Drakkor reasoned they were sailing north.

  There were a few bearded crewmen at the far end of the deck, but no other passengers that he could see.

  “Huh!” The grunt startled him, and he turned around. “I thought ye was a dead one for sure.” There was nothing pleasant-looking about the man who spoke to him. He stood steady in spite of the pitching deck. Obviously a seaman. The captain perhaps. “Good of ye not to expire so’s I get paid the rest of what’s owed. ” Whatever he said next was lost in a howling blast of wet wind across the deck that slapped them both. Drakkor fell. The captain hardly moved.

  “How did I get here?” Drakkor asked as he struggled to his feet. “And who are you?” he demanded, but the captain turned about and shouted to a sailor wrestling a line.

  “Loosen the foresail ’fore it rips away and takes ye with it!”

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Ha! Always the innocent! As if ye don’t know!”

  “I don’t know.” Drakkor’s puzzled face was pinched tight.

  “Same place as where all them what’s begotten the wrath of the Scarlet Council get sent. The dungeons of Falconhead.” His scoff turned to a chortle, and he raised his eyebrows. “Less’en of course ye can pay this ole captain a peck more gold than the monks that put ye aboard.”

  “Monks?”

  The seaman nodded. “Hooded brothers of the poor defenseless buggers they say ye slaughtered.” The seaman shrugged, unconcerned. “I’ll have the boys bring ye a bit of bread and ale,” he said as he strode away on the rolling deck as if it were standing still.

  The reality of what had happened appeared in Drakkor’s head with sudden clarity. The Peddler of Souls and his ruffians had put on the robes of the monks, lied to the captain, and paid him to deliver him as a fugitive to the dungeon at Falconhead.

  Drakkor gripped the railing and turned his face to the buffeting winds and blowing spray. The taste of salt increased his ache of hunger. Why, he wondered, did the Peddler pay to lock me away in the dungeons of Falconhead rather than murder me with the monks of Dragonfell?

  He could only conclude that for all his blasphemies and blathering, the Peddler of Souls was an ignorant and superstitious man who dared not kill him on the off chance there was more to the prophecy than he supposed and the boy he betrayed was indeed some child of destiny.

  The thought brought a strange surge of hope. He pushed his hand to the wrap of rabbit skin against his hip and laughed out loud. Whatever the myth, whatever the history, whatever the source of the magic and power of the stone of fire, it was his! His fingers fumbled through the soft fur and embraced the stone of fire. He jutted his chin into the wind and inhaled deeply.

  The Peddler had betrayed him. Drakkor had assumed he would and laid his plan accordingly. He smiled at how right he had been and how perfect the action he’d taken. He wondered if the greedy fool had discovered yet that he had been outsmarted by a boy. The crystal stone in the leather bag handed to the Peddler had been filched from a statue of she-dragon in the great hall of Oldbones Keep. There was nothing mystical or magical about it.

  Drakkor withdrew the stone and held it in his hand. He gripped it tightly and felt the strange fire-and-ice sensation of its power. The words of the prophecy came into his mind as if the sorceress was whispering inside his head. To rise immortal and reign forever as god and king.

  He had no idea what it meant. He was an uneducated child. What lay behind him was a blur of memory stained with blood. If the prophecy were more than myth and he was somehow a part of it, then what lay before him was a destiny he could not control. And if he was not . . .

  He gripped the stone more tightly as the thoughts found a place in his mind. The wind raged and the sea reached up to swallow the ship, but Drakkor felt no fear, and in that moment, he vowed that by the will of she-dragon or the old gods of the tower or by his own strength and cleverness and blood if that is what it took and not the gods at all, he would learn to use the magic of the stone. The words echoed in his head with the howling of the wind: To reign as king, to rise immortal, to be a god.

  On the morning of the ninth day at sea, as shrouds of mist whirled away to reveal the cliffs of Falconhead, Drakkor slipped over the railing of the foredeck and dropped into the frigid water. He took but one possession: the stone of fire.

  Drakkor dropped a bundle of sage on the fire. It erupted in a shower of sparks that carried his memories into the night.

  It was many years before he had learned what happened to the Peddler of Souls. He had delivered the cart of dead men to the gates of Oldbones Keep and reported to the sorceress that the child of no man had been killed with the monks, the stone of fire stolen from his hand, and his body thrown into the inlet of the eastward sea called Eye of the Skull.

  In the days that slowly piled into years, Drakkor liked to imagine the Peddler of Souls fondling his worthless crystal and cursing all gods old and new for his most undeserved misfortune.

  CHAPTER 6

  The chanting of the temple virgins stopped. Scarfs woven from black silk were draped across Ashar’s shoulders and wrapped around his upper arms. Celestine’s eyes twinkled as their faces drew close. Her fingers touched his neck.

>   The daughters of the temple took an end of the silk and, holding it over their heads with both hands, lead Ashar through the portal and into the darkened hallway. As they went under the arch, the melodic chant began again. Master Doyan matched his pace to the cadence and followed seven steps behind.

  As a postulant, Ashar had passed the portal every day but had never been allowed beyond. He wondered what marvelous sights and mysterious rituals were hidden in the complex of buildings beyond. The warren of passageways and clutter of structures had been built one upon the other since the time of First Landing, a thousand years before.

  The temple itself was the crowning structure of a massive ziggurat. The stepped tower spanned the entire breadth of the ridge. The lowest rampart continued along the sheer face of the granite cliff as if the foundation of the temple was part of the mountain rather than put there by human hands.

  It was fashioned after Etemenanki, the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth in the old world that was destroyed in the season of fierce winds. “A reminder,” Master Doyan had taught, “lest we forget the foolishness of mortal beings.”

  Looking north from the center of the outer court, the temple was perfectly framed by the monolithic tower of rock that jutted into the sky. A perpetual mist swirled about the top where the hallowed fane was placed. When the first rays of morning light struck the tower of the temple, it glowed against the purple shadows of the monolith and seemed to be suspended in the air. For those who embraced the tradition of Oum’ilah, God of gods and Creator of All Things, the temple was above the earth.

  The virgins of the temple moved to the rhythm of the haunting recitative. The sound rebounded from the sides of the chamber as if the walls themselves were singing with a hundred throbbing voices.

  Immersed in the hypnotic sounds and isolated in the darkness, the reality of what was about to happen suddenly fell upon Ashar like a massive stone crushing the breath from his body. He gasped for air and turned in desperation for Master Doyan to save him.

  Bonded as they were—master and pupil—the old master reached into Ashar’s mind and saw the cloud of darkness that invaded Ashar’s soul. A spirit of destruction from the realms of Ahriman sent to prevent him from swearing an oath of devotion to Oum’ilah. Or was it from the realms of she-dragon and the rising chaos of the dark world?

  The greatest victory of all is mastery over self, Master Doyan spoke to Ashar’s mind.

  Ashar knew it was possible for kindred minds to communicate by the power of thought, but he had never experienced it until now. Master Doyan’s voice speaking to his mind gave him courage. He recited a maxim from the Codices of the Navigator: “Fear and faith cannot abide. Embrace the one and the other flees.” He closed his eyes and focused on a bluish presence surging gently in the center of his head. He opened the portals of his inner being and passed through the gateway to a place of safety. The darkness gave way to light. Ashar could breathe again.

  The temple virgins led him and Master Doyan to the end of the passage. The imposing iron gate blocking the entrance to the inner court swung open, and they stepped into sunlight.

  Nothing in Ashar’s imagination had prepared him for the wonder of the place. The virgins unraveled the silken ties, bowed reverently, and backed into the shadows of the ornate portico that surrounded the inner court. He knew he shouldn’t look at the retreating daughters of the temple, but he couldn’t resist. Celestine’s hair flowed softly like a river of golden light. At the last moment before she disappeared into shadow, she turned and locked her eyes with his.

  Do well, dear friend. Her thought spoke gently in his mind.

  Every waking hour of every day for twenty-four seasons had been centered on this day. The lessons, the learning, the teaching and training. The rules, rites, and rituals. Meditation. Removing the barriers between physical reality and the intuitive, mental realms of the supernatural. The discipline of body, mind, and spirit.

  “Mastery of self,” Master Doyan called it. Demanded it. He taught that self-mastery did not end with acceptance into the order but was an endless pursuit and challenge of life. Today was the day of passage. The cleansing. The anointing. The oath bound by blood. The hope of ultimate investiture. The end of probation. The beginning of being.

  Anticipation of the infamous inquisition known to all the postulants had filled Ashar’s walking hours and turned his dreams to nightmares. He could hardly believe he had passed and it was behind him. There was still the prolonged and intensive questioning before the Council of Blessed Sages, but he was well prepared. And best of all, Celestine had been selected as a participant in his day of days. At the thought of her, he shivered with delight from the crown of his head to the ends of his toes.

  A large robed man who Ashar had never seen before suddenly appeared. His face was darkened by the shadow of the hooded cowl. The man bowed slightly and beckoned them to follow.

  Ashar’s imagination of what was hidden behind the walls of the temple was replaced at every turn by the reality of this place. The complexity and beauty was truly wondrous. Whatever he thought he had understood about the ritual of ordination to the brotherhood of priests and Holy Order of Oum’ilah, the reality unfolding surpassed his loftiest expectations.

  Master Doyan followed the hooded man, and Ashar followed Master Doyan. Silence was required. Ashar kept his chin down in a well-practiced posture of humility, but his eyes could not be stayed. They flitted up and down and to and fro. He didn’t want to miss a nuance of the grandeur. The trio passed through a vaulted chamber. Master Doyan glanced over his shoulder and cast his eyes upward with the hint of a smile. Ashar took the gesture as permission to look up.

  What he saw was so stunning that he stopped and turned in a full circle. The legend of the Navigator and the crossing of the great deep was presented in a massive mosaic created from tiny bits of colored glass. The strange vessels. The winds. The waves. The monsters of the deep. And, not to be forgotten, thirteen shining stones lighting the way. He felt light-headed and realized he was holding his breath.

  They ascended the one hundred forty-four steps on the outside of each of the first two levels of the ziggurat. They followed their guide along the top of the second level on a terrace made narrow by the wall of the third layer that rose a few feet from the edge. There was no balustrade.

  When they reached the face of the east side, the outer wall fell away into the chasm. The width of the terrace was the same, but being a step from death made the walkway seem only half as wide. The fear of falling twisted Ashar’s gut like hands wringing water from a cloth.

  Fear and faith cannot abide. Fear and faith cannot abide. He chanted the mantra in his mind and added, Don’t look down. A fundamental discipline. You are master of your mind where perception is reality. Master Doyan’s voice. So easy to say, so difficult to do. Ashar’s eyes were frozen on the river at the bottom of the chasm. It was so far away that the whitecaps of the rapids appeared to be standing still.

  His eyes caught a glint of reflected sunlight and movement below a canopy of trees near the river far below. As he stared to see what it was, he was overwhelmed by a rush of vertigo and threw himself against the wall.

  He lifted his face to the sun and breathed deeply. If I do poorly before the council, an impatient Sage might choose to throw me from the tower. The humor chased his dizziness away. Faith returned, along with the courage to walk the precarious path.

  Master Doyan turned left through a cleft in the wall. Ashar stepped forward and followed. Pools of dusty sunlight fell through tall shafts open to the sky. The passage was intermittently blinding white or obscured by black shadow. His eyes could hardly adjust.

  “Because I’ve never had a pupil who memorized the Codices of the Navigator the way you have or known many who understood them better,” he said in a whisper, “I believe you deserve to see the chancery.”

  Ashar had heard that the records of a
ll time were kept in the library of the temple. He had often wondered where it was and whether he might ever be allowed to go there someday.

  “You must keep our little detour a secret,” Master Doyan said. It was precisely this kind of camaraderie that made him the favorite of all.

  Not far in front of them, a passage opened to the right. The man in the hooded vestment was waiting, so Ashar assumed the detour had his blessing.

  They entered the passage and descended broad stone steps beneath an arched ceiling that ended at a brighter opening below. The chamber was lit by the amber glow of thirteen windows equally spaced on the walls of an oval room and placed slightly higher than Ashar’s head. Stone buttresses supported the high dome of the ceiling. There was a circle of amber glass at the apex with the ensign of the temple.

  The room was a hive of priests engaged in a variety of tasks. They were mostly young and of the first order. Conversation was soft. For the number of people moving about the room, the stillness was haunting. They wore the habiliments of the brotherhood of priests with the sash and emblem designating their order as keepers of the history.

  The chamber had the distinctive smell of parchments made of skins. It was strong but not unpleasant. A dozen scribes in isolated cubicles of finely carved wood were writing on thin layers of calfskin vellum. Some had ancient codices propped up on willow stands wrapped in leather for easier transcription. One old man was bent over a thin sheet of hammered copper, etching a copy of an ancient codex using a stylus with a pointed end.

  Below the windows was a warren of compartments. Some were empty, but most contained bound codices, scrolls, or histories written on tablets of clay. Two young priests, not much older than Ashar, moved from cavity to cavity methodically removing, cleaning, and replacing the precious records.