Master of Dragons

by Margaret Weis

  “And what are you to do with these weapons?”

  “Hand them over to the Blessed.”

  “And what do they do with them?”

  “They take them to the palace. That is what I hear. The weapons are being stored there.”

  “The palace . . .” Rosa wrinkled her forehead. “Maybe the rumors are true.”

  “Maybe,” Anton grunted.

  Rosa sighed. Her hands squeezed together tightly.

  Anton kissed her cheek. “Don’t fret, Wife. It’s nothing to do with us, whatever may be brewing, except that it brings me more work, and that will mean extra rations. What are you doing this afternoon?”

  “I should go to the market. I meant to go this morning, but I didn’t want to leave Draca home alone.”

  “I’m fine. Truly I am,” Draconas piped up. “You can go, Rosa. I don’t mind being alone. I like it.”

  “We are out of meat,” said Rosa, and she gave Anton a meaningful look. “I was thinking of going to the butcher. Dimitri, perhaps. There’ll be nothing for your supper otherwise—”

  “The child will be well enough on her own,” said Anton, and he added in a whisper not meant for Draca to hear, “See what you can find out. If Dimitri’s not around, go visit the chandler, Carlo. Tell him about the weapons. You can have the Widow Meadows look in on the girl.”

  Draconas’s dragon ears caught every word. He picked up his bowl and went to wash it out, along with his spoon. Then he returned to his bed and crawled under the blanket. “I’m still feeling tired, Rosa. I think I’ll take a nap. Don’t worry about me.”

  Rosa kissed the girl on the forehead. “The widow will check on you, and I’ll be back in time to cook your supper. Sweet dreams, Draca.”

  Draconas closed his eyes and nestled beneath the covers. Anton departed. Rosa washed up the dishes and left shortly after, taking her marketing basket with her.

  Draconas waited until he was certain that neither was coming back, and then he slipped out of bed. Cautiously, he opened the door and peered out into the street. The forge was adjacent to the house. He could smell the acrid scent of molten iron and see Anton’s broad back and shoulders silhouetted against the glare of the forge fire. The ringing sounds of Anton’s hammer echoed up and down the street, which was crowded with people heading back to work after their dinner break.

  Draconas dashed out the door and quickly lost himself in the crowd. Behind him, an illusion of a little girl slumbered peacefully in the bed.

  12

  DRACONAS ROAMED THE STREETS OF DRAGONKEEP, MULLING OVER in his mind his conversation with Anton and Rosa and that pain in the backside, Malfiesto: Anora talking about armies, orders given to the blacksmith to produce large quantities of darts in a hurry. Draconas had been in human cities on the verge of war, and he remembered clearly the forge fires of the blacksmiths burning far into the night and the furious din of hammers pounding like war drums, turning out armor and swords, arrows and shields. Yet, he’d seen no soldiers in Dragonkeep.

  The darts were to go to the palace. Only the monks were permitted to enter the palace. Was the army composed of mad, dart-flinging monks?

  Draconas was familiar with the darts Anton was making—one such dart had felled Bellona.

  Humans had long played dart-throwing games. Draconas had watched them and even participated in a few. He’d known humans who could throw darts with remarkable accuracy, but he’d never known one who could throw a small metal dart—no bigger than his index finger—with such force that it could kill a person a furlong away. The impetus behind the dart was dragon-magic. The monk used his magic to increase the force of his throw. Perhaps the monk had even been able to use the magic to assist the dart in finding its target.

  Yet, Draconas considered, most of the monks he’d seen were mentally unstable, bordering on the insane. The dragon-magic in the blood did strange things to the brains of human males. An army of insane men was not an army any rational general would want to lead. Impossible to discipline, they could not be counted upon to obey the simplest command. Turn them loose on a battlefield and they could conceivably do more damage to themselves than to an enemy.

  “Unless Grald discovered how to cure the madness, just as I did,” Draconas muttered. “Marcus was insane until I taught him how to master the magic, not succumb to it. If I could find a way, so could Grald. And he’s had far longer to experiment. Maybe there are soldiers and monks in Dragonkeep. Maybe the monks are the failures. . . .”

  That opened up new and extremely disquieting possibilities. Obviously, the answer lay in the palace that no one was supposed to enter.

  Draconas continued his wanderings until he found what he was looking for—other children like himself.

  The children of Dragonkeep were expected to make their contribution to society, and in this they were no different from the children of Idylswylde or New Bramfells or Weinmauer or countless other human communities. Those children who lacked the dragon-magic were apprenticed to craftsmen or worked in the fields. They milked goats, tended sheep, fed the chickens. Those with dragon-magic lived with the monks and the holy sisters.

  Still, children were children the world over, and Draconas hoped to find some like himself who had sneaked out of the shop when the master went home for his dinner or had left the chickens to go off in search of fun. Draconas knew where to look for such rascals, and he soon came upon a group of youngsters skulking in an alley, playing at mumblety-peg.

  “Can I have a toss?” Draconas asked, joining them.

  “No girls,” said one of the boys.

  “You’re just afraid I’ll beat you!” Draconas sneered.

  Several of the boys snickered. The speaker cast little Draca an angry glance.

  “Oh, yeah? Let’s see you.” He handed over the knife.

  Draconas had been playing mumblety-peg for several hundred years. He could have beaten his rival handily at the game, but that would have alienated the children, and he wanted them to accept him. Draca demonstrated her skill, and the match was considered a tie, with the result that she was pronounced an expert mumblety-peg player and accepted into the ranks of boydom.

  Draconas and his newfound friends played at mumblety-peg until they grew bored, at which point they began to look about for other forms of amusement. The boys—six of them—ranged in age from nine to fourteen. One was an apprentice to a disreputable shoemaker, who had a taste for ale and generally took a nap about this time of day, leaving the boy to his own devices. Two were supposed to be working in the fields, but had thought better of it. Another was meant to be running errands for his mistress, an herbalist, and another was supposed to be home sick in bed.

  The sixth was vague as to where he came from. The others indicated with winks and nods, whispers and nudges, that he was a “runaway”—one of those children with the dragon-magic in their blood. Draconas kept a wary eye on this boy, who was constantly mumbling to himself and who, when given the knife for mumblety-peg, made a wild swipe at Draca. When the other boys told the runaway that stabbing fellow playmates was against the rules, the boy then sliced open his own forearm. Not the least bothered by this bizarre behavior, the boys simply took the knife away and told their friend to go wash off the blood at the public fountain “or the Blessed will nab you for sure!”

  This done, the boys suggested various means of passing the time. Some wanted to steal apples from the market. Others wanted to ogle the women who were doing their laundry in the creek, and still others wanted to go look at the destruction caused by the explosion, on the off-chance that they might find a dead body.

  The majority was leaning in this direction, when Draconas said, “Pooh! There aren’t any more dead bodies. I heard my father say everyone had been found.”

  Faces fell. The boy with the dragon-magic slammed his fist into the stone wall in disgust and drew back bleeding knuckles.

  “I know!” Draconas said, edging away from the boy, who was looking at her oddly. “Let’s go see the palace.
”

  Dead silence fell. The boys stared at her, some with awe, others nervously.

  “Why? What’s the matter?” Draconas asked.

  “We’re not allowed,” said one.

  “We’re not allowed to skip out of work and we’re doing it,” Draconas reminded them.

  “This is different,” said another.

  “If he catches us, the dragon will eat us,” said the youngest boy in a whisper.

  The others scoffed and knocked him around playfully and mussed his hair, but no one made a move to go. The boy with the dragon-magic had quit talking to himself and was staring at Draca with narrowed eyes.

  “I think you’re all afraid,” said Draconas loftily. “I dare you to come to the palace with me.”

  The boys looked uncertainly at each other.

  “Double-dare,” said Draconas, upping the stakes.

  “I’ll go,” said the boy with the dragon-magic. He had an eager look on his thin and blood-smeared face and he couldn’t seem to take his eyes off her.

  “Good for you!” said Draconas. She held out her hand to him and pretended not to notice when he recoiled and backed away from her. “You and I’ll go. The rest are too scared.”

  There was no question for the others now. Their honor had been challenged.

  “We’ll just go look at the palace,” said the eldest, clarifying the rules.

  “Of course,” said Draconas scornfully. “You don’t think I mean to go inside, do you? Who’s the leader?” Her gaze went to the eldest and she smiled sweetly. “I guess you must be.”

  “I am,” he affirmed, flattered.

  “Then you lead the way.” Draconas flashed a glance around at the others. “We’ll follow, won’t we, boys?”

  All agreed, though with mixed levels of enthusiasm. The eldest boy, his head held high, started off down the alley. The rest fell in behind. Draconas was slightly disconcerted to find the boy with the dragon-magic dogging his footsteps, his mad gaze fixed on Draca with rapt attention.

  Some males with dragon-magic had the ability to see through Draconas’s illusion, see the dragon that he was, not the little girl he was pretending to be. He wondered uneasily if this boy was seeing Draca or the dragon . . .

  The children wended their way through streets that twisted and turned, rambled into alleys, wandered uphill and down, and meandered around buildings that were all jumbled together in seemingly senseless order, judging by human standards. Grald had laid out the city and Draconas saw the dragon’s instinctive need to surround and defend himself with mazes and labyrinths in every twist and turn. Draconas’s dragon-brain being accustomed to mazes, he was able to keep track of the route they were taking. He now had a pretty good notion of where the dragon must have located his “palace”—somewhere near the mountain where Grald would have his lair.

  The gray stone walls of the Abbey rose up in front of them. Beyond the Abbey was a broad expanse of meadow land where sheep and cattle grazed. The eldest said that they should avoid the Abbey “because that’s where the Blessed hang out.” The boy with dragon-magic nodded his head emphatically at this.

  “The Dragon’s Son lives there,” he said, his voice low and reverent. He repeated this several times.

  “Dragon’s Son!” said one and rolled his eyes.

  “It’s true,” claimed the youngest. “I saw him. He has the legs of a dragon. And claws instead of toes.”

  “And a tail, too, I’ll bet,” the eldest sneered.

  “I didn’t see a tail,” said the nine-year-old.

  “Pooh, you didn’t see anything!”

  “I did so.”

  “Did not.”

  “Careful! There’s one of the Blessed!” Draconas warned, and the quarrel ended abruptly. The boys darted off down a side street. Now that they had made up their minds to this adventure, they were giving it their all.

  Draconas glanced back at the Abbey. He now knew where to find Ven.

  The children made a wide circle around the Abbey and were about a half-mile past it when they entered a part of the city that had the look of being very old. It was also very empty.

  The stone buildings had not been kept in repair and were in various stages of tumbling down. The streets were deserted.

  “I don’t like this. We’re not supposed to be here,” said one of the boys—the shoemaker’s apprentice—and he came to a halt.

  “Shut up,” said the eldest. “Or maybe you want to run home to your mama.”

  The boy looked defiantly at his leader, then looked around at the others. “You can all get eaten by the dragon if you want to. Not me.” He took to his heels and went racing back the way they’d come.

  “Piss yellow!” shouted the nine-year-old after him.

  Emboldened by this show of cowardice and caught up in the daring of their actions, the others forged ahead, picking their way through streets littered with debris. The rows of buildings came to an abrupt end at the edge of a deep ravine. The street continued on, leading to a bridge that spanned the ravine.

  “Stop here!” ordered the leader and he raised his hand. The others clustered behind him, careful to keep to the shadows.

  “There it is,” he said, awed.

  The bridge was crude, built out of piles of boulders that had been dumped into the ravine and then fire-blasted smooth on top. On the other side, at least two miles distant, stood the Palace of the Dragon.

  The palace was far different from the crudely constructed buildings of Dragonkeep. Smooth marble pillars decorated an elaborate marble portico. Marble steps flowed outward in graceful curves from immense double bronze doors adorned with the heads of dragons. Marble walls were topped by countless marble spires and battlements and turrets. The palace was very beautiful, and it was all very false.

  The palace was an illusion, and not a very good one.

  The illusion of the forest that surrounded the city of Dragonkeep, hiding it from the eyes of both humans and dragons was a supreme illusion and close to perfect. Draconas had not been able to penetrate it until Grald had lifted the spell, and he still had trouble seeing through it, though he knew it was there. Perhaps Grald had worn himself out casting that illusion, which, even after it was cast, required a certain amount of energy to keep in place. The palace was an ordinary dragon-illusion, meant to fool human eyes alone and it was doing a good job of that, judging by the gape-jawed wonder of the youngsters. Draconas glanced at the boy with the dragon-magic and saw that he was as wide-eyed as the rest.

  Draconas saw no pillars or spires or marble stairs. What he saw, when he looked across that bridge, was the side of the mountain pierced by the dark opening at its base. Draconas crept nearer.

  “Don’t let them see you!” said the leader, and he reached out and dragged Draca back into the shadows.

  A cadre of monks guarded the bridge on the city side of the ravine. Draconas noted, as a point of interest, that there were no guards posted on the palace side of the bridge. Apparently the dragon was concerned about people from the city entering the palace, not about those in the palace leaving to enter the city.

  The Blessed did not make very good guards. They wandered about in a desultory manner, gazing with their mad, unfocused eyes at the sky or the clouds, or staring blankly into the empty city streets, or peering over the edge of the bridge into the ravine.

  “Why? What would happen if they did see me?” Draconas asked. “Would the dragon really eat me?”

  “No. At least, I don’t think so. But the Blessed wouldn’t like it. They don’t like anyone getting too curious about the palace.”

  “I wonder what’s inside,” said Draconas.

  “A whole ‘nother city, replied the leader. “So my father says.”

  “Truly?” Draca regarded him with admiration. “Tell me about it.”

  “No one knows,” the leader admitted. “But the people who live there send letters that say how beautiful everything is.”

  “Someone must have gone in there and come back
out again. Don’t the Blessed go inside?”

  “They go in,” said the boy with the dragon-magic. He stood staring at the illusion with a wistful hunger in his eyes. He was biting his fingernails. “The Blessed go in and they come back out, too. Some of them. But they don’t talk about it.”

  One of the boys pointed at the lengthening shadows. “Hey, fellows, it’s almost suppertime. We better be getting back. My mistress will be hopping mad.”

  Having found what he sought, Draconas was more than willing to leave. He and the others started to retrace their steps, when he suddenly realized that one of them was missing.

  “Hey, where’s that kid?” he asked. “The runaway?”

  “Don’t worry about him.” The others shrugged. “The Blessed’ll find him and take him home.”

  “Either that or he’ll throw himself off the cliff,” said the leader, and the rest snickered.

  Draconas looked back and saw the boy still standing in the shadows, leaning up against the building. Draconas wondered how many of the “blessed” children had flung themselves off that cliff onto the sharp rocks far below.

  “C’mon,” said the leader. “Race you home!”

  Draconas proved remarkably fast, for a girl.

  13

  WHEN ANTON AND ROSA RETURNED FROM WORK, THEY FOUND Draca puttering about the small house, doing chores. The widow dropped by to tell them that when she had checked on the child, Draca had been fast asleep. Rosa was pleased with Draca’s unlooked-for help around the house and invited her to assist with their supper. As the two chatted and laughed while preparing the simple meal, Anton sat at the table, waiting to eat, and thought about their daughter, who had been gone so many years. It was good to see Rosa with a child again, good to hear her laugh. He sighed deeply. Rosa seemed to have put all thought of sending Draca back to the Blessed out of her mind.