Brother of the Dragon tb-2

by Paul Cook

  “And where do you go?” the creature asked, showing entirely too many ridged yellow fangs.

  The hot, stinking breath on her face made her sick. “Wherever — ” It came out so faintly, she had to clear her throat and begin again. “Wherever the Great Spirits guide us.”

  “Spirits? Ha! Who are these spirits?”

  Why had she spoken? Beramun wondered miserably, terror welling up inside her. Yet the stormbird expected an answer, so she stuttered, “They are th-the makers of all things — the s-sun, the moons, the plants, and the beasts of plain and forest.”

  “And I?” said the hideous creature, its face coming even closer to hers. “Was I made by your Great Spirits?”

  “Yes,” she said faintly, her legs wavering like grass in a strong wind.

  The black, slit-pupiled eyes widened. The monster threw back its head and roared. It took Beramun a heart-wrenching moment to realize the beast was laughing. Curiously, this display of mirth made the raiders draw together, anxiety evident on all their faces.

  “Pretentious vermin!” the stormbird bellowed. “No one made the dragons! We were born from Chaos, forged of fire and fury! The world is ours, and you worthless insects are merely pests to be tolerated or exterminated as we see fit.”

  The monster stretched up to its full height. “I am your master now. I am Sthenn, the Wakeful One, the Shadow Who Does Not Sleep, called Greengall, Deathbringer, and the Terror of Night. You live by my whim alone, and my whim is that you serve me. Is that clear, vermin?”

  Zannian rode up, his skull-topped hood propped under one arm. “Patience, Master,” he said, an edge in his voice. “They all struggle at first. They wouldn’t be plainsmen if they didn’t try to escape, but they’ll give no more trouble, I promise you.”

  Sthenn gazed down at the mounted man for a long moment, and his angry posture relaxed.

  “More and more,” he said, “I understand Duranix’s interest in humans. Such amusing, infuriating creatures. It will be delightful to discover whose are best — mine or his.”

  Beramun understood none of this, but seeing the stormbird’s anger fade helped her own fear subside, and her heart slowly resumed a normal beat. When Sthenn had reared up, she thought her life was over. Fortunately, the great beast was easily distracted, as Zannian’s intervention proved.

  She looked again at the youthful chief as he got his band moving again. Thief and killer he was, but he was brave, facing the dragon’s rage like that. In some savage way, he might even be honorable.

  Drawing the borrowed blanket close around her shoulders, Beramun hobbled along with the rest of the captives. She did not notice Roki frowning at her, nor did she remember the older woman’s warning about being wary of kindness from her human captor.

  Chapter 3

  The sun shone several days, then the clouds that had been lurking on the mountaintops like a pack of gray wolves swept down into the Valley of the Falls. A damp mist clung to every surface in Yala-tene, and when the feeble sun set, the dew turned to ice.

  Repairs on the foundry came to stop. Stone blocks grew too slick to handle safely, and visibility fell to just a few paces. Amero and his workmen tried to carry on, but the cold made their fingers stiff and clumsy, so Amero called a halt, dismissing the men with a sigh. He soon stood alone in his ruined workshop.

  Lately life was so full of delays. None of his recent projects had come to fruition. The town wall, though well advanced, should have been finished a year ago, and his bronze experiments could not resume until the foundry was repaired.

  When he was younger, it seemed he had all the time in the world to solve the questions that surrounded him. Now there was little time for anything but daily work.

  Shaking off his gloom, Amero resolved to visit Unar, the man whose eye had been injured when the furnace blew apart. He left the shattered building and stepped out into the frosty night.

  Finding a house in the warren of streets wasn’t easy, even on a bright, sunny day. To identify themselves, most householders painted their family’s totem symbol on their doors. Amero came at last to the door with the hook-billed turtle and knocked on the worn cedar panel.

  The door opened. Highlighted by fire was a face he knew well. It was Unar’s widowed sister, Lyopi. She held a flaming brand.

  “Amero,” she said. She was one of the few people in the village who called him by his given name.

  “I’ve come to see Unar.”

  “He’s sleeping, but you’re welcome.” Lyopi stood aside, and Amero entered the warm interior of the house.

  The ground floor was a single large room, as in most houses in Yala-tene. A dull red fire crackled on the hearth. As Lyopi dropped the burning stick onto the fire, Amero saw Unar was propped on a heap of furs, a soft willow poultice on his injured eye.

  “How is he?” Amero whispered.

  “The eye is lost,” Lyopi replied. “Old Memmet the healer removed the stone chip, but could do nothing for his eye.”

  He took her hand and squeezed it gently. “I’m sorry. Better it should be my eye.”

  “Don’t say foolish things.”

  She pulled free of his grasp and moved to the dark periphery of the room. Without a word, Amero followed.

  Lyopi seated herself on a stool by the wall. Not seeing another chair, he sat on the floor at her feet.

  For almost a year, Amero and Lyopi had been together, as intimate as mates but still undeclared to the rest of the village. Some gossips believed he was taking advantage of a lonely widow, but in fact, it was Lyopi’s choice that they remain apart. By custom, to be Amero’s mate, she would have to live in his house and give back her first mate’s property to his kinsmen. Because Lyopi did not want to relinquish her home, she and Amero remained friends and occasional lovers — a situation that suited her fine and Amero found tolerable.

  She pulled the thick, loose braid of her chestnut hair over her shoulder and leaned back against the stone wall. Her brown eyes, usually so warm and full of life, were dull as they regarded her injured brother.

  The silence stretched for several long seconds, until Amero asked, “Why so sad, Lyopi? Unar’s strong. He’ll live.”

  Her gaze shifted. “Yes, but what will he do? A one-eyed man is a poor hunter.”

  “There are other things a man can do besides hunt.”

  She uttered a short, bitter laugh. “We’re still plainsmen, Amero. Hunters. Living inside a pile of rocks hasn’t changed that.”

  “Unar will always have a place in my workshop, if he wants it.”

  She made a quick gesture, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Even in summer?” she asked, knowing he usually employed helpers in his shop only during the idle months of winter.

  “Even in summer. Unar’s not the only one who doesn’t hunt, you know.”

  Lyopi offered a fond smile, which soon faded. Leaning her head against the cool stones behind her, she closed her eyes.

  Thinking she looked very tired, Amero rose to leave. She reached out and caught his hand. “No. Stay.”

  Suddenly embarrassed, he replied, “I didn’t come here for that.”

  Sometimes she seemed to read his mind almost as well as Duranix. “I know,” she told him, putting a hand to his bearded cheek. “Stay anyway.”

  So he did.

  Across the fog-shrouded village, another light burned far into the night. Tiphan lived with his father in a modest one-story house close to the Offertory. Like everything else in his life, Tiphan’s home was as tidy as he could make it. Sensarku acolytes cleaned it for him daily, just as they cleaned the Offertory grounds.

  Tiphan sat at the one table in the house, peering closely at the document before him. For five nights he’d yearned to study the arcane manuscript he’d bought from Bek the bookseller, but every night his father had stayed awake, talking, prowling around the house, and generally making himself a nuisance. Finally tiring of the delay, Tiphan had sprinkled yellow tane pollen on Konza’s dinner. Soon the old man was snoring away
on his pallet.

  Once Konza was asleep, Tiphan removed the prized manuscript from his secret cache. By the light of a fat lamp, he puzzled over his newest acquisition.

  Behold the Way to Bind the Sun, it began. To command the stars, the beasts, and the flowering things, know this: As embers carry the fading heat of the fire, so do certain stones, gems, and wood of trees carry the dying light of heaven. When the gods a wakened in the Age of Twilight Sleep, they rose by their natures into three realms — Good, Neutral, and Evil.

  Tiphan’s fingers grew stiff from tracing the line of ornate script. He flexed his hands, closed his eyes briefly, then resumed reading.

  Each did claim the spirits then living, and they fought a great war over who should rule the spirits of life. At first Evil was strong, and dealt Good many a blow. The Neutral lords saw this, and said, “Let us aid Good, that Evil will not next try to destroy us.” So the alliance was forged, and Evil subdued. Yet, as are all gods, Evil is immortal, and perished not. The minions of Evil turned to living stone by the servants of Good and Neutrality, inhabit the world to this day.

  Tiphan paused. He was beginning to see where the treatise was heading.

  These stones are Power, and the sage who finds them may use their Power to effect all manner of change — the sun to go dark, the summer to yield snow, the dead to rise and walk among the living. All this and more is possible.

  Next to this last sentence was another’s handwriting in scarlet ink: Circle of standing stones, ten leagues east of the mountains, between the headwaters of Thon-Thalas and Thon-Tanjan.

  If Bek had spoken truly, this was the hand of the great elf priest Vedvedsica. To the Silvanesti, “the mountains” were the very range where Yala-tene was located. The two rivers named were known to all plainsmen. A great battle had once been fought there by a Silvanesti host, led by the warlord Balif against the nomad warriors of Karada, sister of their own Arkuden.

  Tiphan’s hands trembled. To think there might actually be such a circle of powerful stones so close by! With such stones, could he have power like the great Vedvedsica?

  Konza snorted and mumbled in his sleep. Tiphan cast a quick glance over his shoulder. The old man soon settled down, his breathing deep and even.

  Tiphan tiptoed to the hollow in the wall where he hid his cherished manuscripts. He had two other tomes, spellbooks really, describing in cursory terms how certain spells were to be cast. Also in the hole were fragments of various

  Silvanesti works — treatises on astronomy, herbalism, even animal husbandry and metallurgy, subjects that some people like that fool Amero found fascinating.

  Tiphan drew out the particular piece of parchment he sought. Called a “map,” it was a large triangular fragment, the corner of a larger sheet of the finest sheepskin. In four colors of ink, the map showed the plains west to Khar, the forest at the Edge of the World, part of the Silvanesti’s forested homeland, and the southern range of the mountains. Two fine lines of blue ink snaked south and east to the distant sea, showing the Thon-Tanjan in the north, the Thon-Thalas in the south.

  Tiphan smothered a laugh. The unspeakable Bek’s manuscript was a real treasure. All that remained was to collect the stones of power. He could leave tomorrow, before the rising of the sun. Konza could oversee the cleansing of the Offertory and preparation of the dragon’s meals, but Tiphan would need help on his journey, someone to carry his provisions and to hunt along the way.

  Who should he take? Who could he trust? Sorting through the ranks of the Sensarku in his mind, the answer came quickly: Mara and Penzar.

  Tiphan returned the map to his cache. With the stone in place, no one could tell what was there. He donned his warmest garment, a black panther cape and hood covered with white dove feathers. On a stand a few steps away, his father’s brazen robe gleamed. The stand that should have held Tiphan’s bronze robe was empty.

  Tiphan stifled another laugh. What had seemed so high a price a few days ago he now deemed cheap. Konza had asked about Tiphan’s missing robe, but so far he had fended off the queries. Once he returned laden with stones of power, no one would question his judgment on anything ever again.

  He lifted the door latch and stepped out into the night. Yala-tene glittered in the soft, pearly light of Soli, the white moon. Tiphan skidded down the frosty lane until he reached the house of the Sensarku women. Next door was the house of the male acolytes.

  Unlike the other villagers, the Sensarku lived in communal homes, treating each other as kinsmen. Townsfolk thought this odd, but it was considered a great honor to be chosen to join the Sensarku. Some of the proudest families in Yala-tene willingly gave their sons and daughters over to Tiphan’s keeping.

  Walking straight into the women’s house, Tiphan took a lit lamp from its niche by the door. Raising it high, he called, “Mara? Where is Mara?”

  Midway down the row of sleepers, a girl sat up, rubbing her eyes. “I am here, Tosen.”

  “Come. I wish to speak to you.”

  Holding a rabbit-fur blanket around her shoulders, Mara padded on bare feet past her dozing sisters. At seventeen, she was not the eldest of the female acolytes, but her devotion to the great dragon and to Tiphan was unquestioned.

  She pushed a tangle of curly auburn hair away from her freckled face. “What is it, Tosen?”

  “We have a task to perform, Mara. A very special task,” he whispered, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “You must prepare for a journey.”

  “Journey? Where?”

  “Over the mountains, to the east.”

  She blinked, her brain still befogged by sleep. “When do we leave?”

  “Tomorrow before dawn.”

  That woke her up. “Tosen, I bring the dragon’s meal to the Offertory tomorrow! My father selected a fine yearling ox — ”

  “Lower your voice, girl! This is more important! Do as I say. Dress warmly and pack food and water for the two of us for twelve days.”

  “Two of us, Tosen? Are we going on this journey alone?”

  “No, Penzar is coming, too. He’ll bring his own supplies.” Mara let out the breath she was holding. Eighteen-year-old Penzar was a fine hunter and tracker. He could certainly supply game for them, wherever they were going.

  “It will be done, Tosen,” she said, bowing.

  “Say nothing about what we do, even to your sisters,” he murmured. “And bring a weapon.”

  “Weapon?”

  “We’re going to the wilderness, beyond the eye of our Protector. Do you have a weapon?”

  “A bird stick. A quartz knife.”

  “Bring both.”

  Tiphan returned the lamp to the wall niche. “Good night, Mara. I’ll see you at the entrance to the Offertory when the morning moon sets.”

  “Yes, Tosen. Good night.”

  When Tiphan emerged from the women’s house, a raw wind was scouring the street. He faced away from the wind and hurried to the men’s house. The scene with Mara was repeated as he roused Penzar, telling him they were going on a special journey.

  The boy scrubbed a hand through his sandy hair, causing it to stand out from his head in short spikes. Blearily, he said, “Leaving? Has the Arkuden cast you out?”

  “No, fool. I have an urgent task to perform on the far plains. You and Mara will serve me on the journey.”

  “Mara?”

  “Yes. She’s strong, keen-eyed, and a good reader of weather signs. You’ll be our hunter and tracker. Bring your hunting spear and supplies for yourself for twelve days.”

  Penzar nodded. “Aye, Tosen.”

  As Tiphan left he was startled to see sleet falling. He headed home, the tiny particles of ice stinging his face. Sleet began to pile up in silver drifts against the houses. His breath plumed out, hanging in the air like smoke as he skidded across the frozen streets.

  Duranix had told him there would be no more snow. He thought of the seedlings the villagers had planted. Ice was not snow, but it certainly meant woe to the tiny fruit tr
ees. Had the Protector been wrong, or had he, Tiphan, misunderstood?

  Alone in the empty street, Tiphan shook his head. The Protector was never wrong, and it seemed unlikely that he, the Protector’s chief servant, would be wrong either. Trust the dragon and believe in your own wisdom, he told himself. Believe, and all will be well.

  Little noises teased Amero’s ears. He didn’t want to notice them. He was too comfortable. Snuggled deep under a pile of furs, his nose buried against the back of Lyopi’s neck, he was content. The noise was probably Unar, bumping around the dark interior of the house.

  The noise grew louder. Someone was hammering on the door. Amero bolted upright. He heard loud, unintelligible talk in the street outside.

  Lyopi pushed herself up on one elbow. Tendrils of hair had worked free of her braid and stood out around her face. “What is it?” she said crossly.

  “I don’t know. I’ll find out.”

  He made for the door. “Amero,” Lyopi called, “you might want some clothes.”

  He looked down at himself and grinned. “It is cold out.”

  The room resounded with more blows on the door. Amero pulled on his leather breeches and buckskin shirt. When he opened the door, he caught his foreman in mid-knock.

  “What is it, Huru?” asked Amero, squinting against the morning light. People were running in the street.

  “Sorry to wake you, Arkuden, but there’s trouble.”

  Lyopi appeared behind Amero, wrapped in a black bearskin. “What trouble?” she asked.

  “Ice fell all night. The fields are covered with half a span of sleet. The orchard planters are furious. They say the dragon lied to them, told them winter was done.”

  Amero sighed, scrubbing his fingers through his short hair. “I knew this would happen. Where are the planters?”

  “At the Offertory, demanding an explanation. Old Konza can’t handle them.”

  “Konza?” Lyopi’s dark brows rose in surprise. “Where’s Tiphan?”