Master of Dragons

by Margaret Weis

  Evelina put her cloak around her and cast her veil over her head and, acting in the guise of a servant, she ventured out of the palace and walked down the hill into the city. She went first to the pawnshop, and from there she went to another part of the city, a darker, seamier part. Although Evelina had never been in or even heard of Ramsgate-upon-the-Aston before now, she knew where to look for what she sought and found it quite easily.

  She was, after all, Ramone’s daughter.

  Evelina returned to the palace with the object safely in her possession.

  It was well that she went on her shopping expedition when she did. From that night on, life would change drastically.

  Around midnight, a messenger rode a lathered horse into the courtyard. Despite the lateness of the hour, Gunderson was there to meet him; the old man was always on hand during any crisis. He took one look at the messenger and called for men with torches and sent a servant running in haste to bring the king.

  The messenger was covered with the dust of the road and so exhausted he fell from the saddle. He was parched and could not speak for the dryness of his throat. Someone brought him water and he drank thirstily and then gave his news.

  “New Bramfells is attacked!” he said hoarsely. “Demons came upon us three days ago, surrounded the city.”

  He took another drink, then spit it out, coughing.

  No one spoke. All waited in grim silence.

  “They brought with them hellfire!” he gasped, when he could speak. “They called down the lightning from the heavens. We could do nothing against them. The rocks our catapults hurled at the demons burst apart in midair. A flight of arrows changed into a flock of crows and flapped away. I am sane, Your Majesty!” the man cried wildly. “I swear to God I saw it with my own eyes!”

  “I do not doubt you.” Edward took hold of the man’s shoulders, gripped him tightly. “Three days, you say? Has the city fallen? Do you still hold?”

  “Hold!” The messenger laughed, brittle laughter that cracked. “There’s nothing left to hold. The city is destroyed! We tried to fight the fires, but the flames were everywhere and they spread too fast.”

  All could now see, as they stared at him in the flickering torchlight, that his eyebrows and the hair on the front of his head had been singed off. Holes made by cinders riddled his cloak, and one sleeve was burnt away, revealing an ugly burn on his arm.

  Every man there could picture the disaster. Fire was the terror of every city. Buildings with thatched roofs and wooden beams stood jammed up against each other in order to conserve space. With no effective means of putting out a blaze, once fire started, it could eat a city alive.

  “Then there came a dragon,” the man continued, not looking at anyone, talking feverishly to himself. “A great red monster it was. We thought we were finished, but the beast did not attack us. It flew at the demons and . . . and . . .”

  The messenger blinked and faltered.

  “And what, man?” Edward demanded. “What happened?”

  “A whirlwind took the dragon,” the man said, awed. “A whirlwind caught the beast and twisted it, so that it nearly smashed into the city. The same wind fanned the flames of the fire, causing it to spread that much faster.”

  “The red dragon could have been Draconas,” said Edward in a low voice, taking Gunderson aside. “He must have changed his mind about killing humans. But it seems the warriors can protect themselves against him. What do you suppose is left of the city?”

  “Rubble and ashes, Sire. And the dead,” said Gunderson.

  Edward turned back to the messenger. “Others must have escaped, as you did. Do you know how many?”

  “A handful maybe, Your Majesty. Most were too afraid of the demons to leave the city. Better to lose your life than your immortal soul.”

  “They’re not demons!” Edward said sharply. “Stop saying that. They’re men, same as us—”

  The messenger stared at him.

  “No use, sire,” Gunderson advised. “He won’t believe you. No one will. The dragons are playing on every nightmare and superstitious fear we’ve ever harbored.”

  “Thousands of people in that city . . . children . . . burning to death.” Edward closed his eyes and covered his face with his hand. “God help them!”

  “One thing more,” Gunderson asked the messenger, who was on the verge of collapse. “How did you escape?”

  “God’s grace maybe, sir,” the man replied weakly. “I don’t know. I didn’t expect to.”

  Gunderson watched as his men bore the messenger away to be fed and doctored.

  “The warriors let him go,” Edward said. “They let that man pass safely through their lines. ‘Always leave one survivor to tell the tale.’“

  Gunderson pondered this, then said, “Aye, sire, I fear you’re right. They knew he would ‘tell the tale.’ They want us to hear it. Because we’re next.”

  “At least we have the cannons,” said Edward. “I’ll wager the dragon warriors won’t be turning cannonballs into crows—”

  “Father! . . .”

  Feeling a hand clutch at his arm, the king turned. “Marcus! What are you doing out in the night air? You’ll catch your death!”

  “Father!” Marcus said desperately. “You must not—Must not—

  “Must not what?” Edward asked, for that was as far as his son went.

  “I don’t know,” Marcus said, puzzled and anguished. He plucked at his hair with trembling hands. “I can’t catch it. It’s all unraveling.”

  “He’s out of his head with fever!” Edward exclaimed, concerned. “Where is his servant? You, sirrah,” he said angrily as the man came puffing up. “What do you mean allowing your master out of his bed at this time of night?”

  “I am sorry, Sire,” the man gasped. “He heard the commotion and was up and gone before I knew it.”

  “Take him to his bed and summon the physician.” Edward put his arm around his son’s shoulder. He could feel Marcus’s shivering. “There’s nothing you can do, my son. What’s done is done. Go back to your bed.”

  The servant had brought a blanket with him. He wrapped it around Marcus’s shoulders and, in wheedling tones, he tried to persuade the prince to come back inside.

  Marcus resisted. He stared into the night sky at the stars, which sparkled so sharply it seemed to Edward he would cut himself if he touched them.

  “It’s too late, Father,” Marcus said and his voice was calm. “Death has caught us.”

  Death had not caught Draconas. At least, not yet. He had searched unsuccessfully for the army of dragon warriors for a fortnight, and he had almost begun to think that perhaps Maristara had called off” the fight and gone home to think things over when word came from Lysira that the dragon army had reappeared. They surrounded a human city.

  Draconas warned Lysira to keep well away. He then tried several times to contact Marcus, to warn him that New Bramfells was under siege and that the king should immediately send reinforcements.

  As it turned out, Maristara had no thought of besieging the walled city. She had given her troops orders to destroy it, and they did so, burning out a city of five thousand people in less than a day. Even if Draconas had managed to speak to Marcus—and he was never in his little room these days—Edward’s force could not have reached the city in time.

  The law of dragonkind. Kill no human.

  Draconas had upheld that law and defended it for hundreds of years, as had other dragons before him. He tried to save the city without killing any of the dragon warriors. He swooped down on them with no intent to kill them—though they didn’t know that. He hoped to frighten them, scatter them, cause them to break and run. His hope was a meager one, for he guessed that Grald had trained them for just such an attack.

  Sighting Draconas, the male warriors continued their assault against the humans, leaving the female warriors to defend against the dragon. With incredible speed, the women summoned a cyclone of magic and sent it after Draconas. He had no choice
but to pull out of his dive and retreat or risk being caught up in the whirling, whipping winds.

  Draconas was forced to watch New Bramfells burn, watch the smoke billow into the air, watch it rain ashes and hot cinders back down onto the ground. He heard the screams of the slaughtered and smelled the burnt flesh, and he saw, as he dove at them, the faces of the dragon warriors looking up at him, cold and calm and unfeeling, as they went about their business of killing.

  “They can defend against one dragon or perhaps even two or three,” Draconas muttered to himself. “But what about hundreds? I think that might give them pause.”

  A day later, the city still burned. Draconas again searched for Marcus, but the little room was empty. The dragon warriors vanished inside their illusion. This time, Draconas knew where they were headed, and he had the feeling that they would not wait two weeks to attack the castle. Frustrated, unable to think of a way to stop them, he watched the smoke of New Bramfells snake up into the heavens as the few survivors, tiny as mice from this height, wandered among the rubble, searching for a life they had once known and would never find again.

  Draconas made a decision.

  “For once, our kind is going to have to take a stand, and we’re going to have to do it fast. No time for arguing or dithering, no tabling of motions or referrals to committee.”

  Draconas opened himself up to the minds of all dragons everywhere, letting them see into his mind, letting them see all that he had seen—the fall of the human city.

  “As specified in our laws,” Draconas said to the dragons, his colors red with flame and blood, “in time of dire emergency, any member may call a meeting of Parliament. It is such a time and I summon you to attend.”

  He closed his mind swiftly, before the flood of questions overwhelmed him, and flew to the meeting site.

  39

  BECAUSE HE HAD ALWAYS FELT COMPELLED TO VIEW HIMSELF AS AN advocate for the humans among whom he walked, Draconas had previously appeared before the Parliament of Dragons in his human, “walker” form. This day, he came before them as an equal, a dragon, one of their own. He was the first to arrive, and he did that for a reason. He wanted to greet every single dragon, look each in the eye.

  The dragons entered, one by one. Some, like Lysira and, astonishingly, the old irascible Malfiesto, greeted Draconas warmly, their crisp, sharp colors flowing beneath his wings and lifting him with their support. Others, such as Litard and Arat, barely glanced at him as they entered, and they kept their colors wrapped close to themselves, sharing nothing with him, yet all the while trying to bore inside his skull.

  Notable in absence was Anora. The speaker’s rod lay on the floor where she had last laid it down. No one stood in her place. No one picked up the rod.

  The mood was electric. Tension sparked and cracked among the dragons, who eyed each other suspiciously.

  Draconas had to do the impossible. He had to try to bring them together.

  “I have summoned you here—”

  “Such a summons may be issued only by the Minister,” stated Mantas, a young and hot-headed male.

  “In an emergency, any dragon may call a meeting,” Draconas returned, keeping his colors even and level. He knew he was being deliberately goaded. “In any event, you answered it.”

  He and Mantas had a brief eye-rapier fencing battle. Mantas broke contact, glanced away. The younger dragon rolled his eyes, indicating that he ended the confrontation merely to save time, not because he was in any way intimidated. Draconas gave an inward sigh and plunged ahead.

  “Our first order of business is to elect a new minister.”

  “There is no need. “We have a Minister,” Reyal, one of the female dragons, stated in colors of ice-blue. “Anora is our Minister.”

  “She has betrayed us!” Nionan, a female who had always liked humans, struck in. “Anora has forfeited her right to rule over us.”

  “She did not betray us,” Litard retorted. “She is trying to save us. Draconas is the traitor. He has betrayed his own kind to side with the humans who would destroy us—”

  Nionan’s colors flared orange. Litard snarled and a brawl of minds broke out in the Hall. Colors swirled and clashed in the center of the cavern. Dragons shifted positions, leaving their accustomed places to form factions. Lysira and Nionan hastened to Draconas’s side. So did the elderly Malfiesto, who, unfortunately, took this opportunity to start lecturing the young hot-heads on their sins.

  Into this miasma, Draconas dropped the image of the human city of New Bramfells. He showed the dragons the flames, the destruction, the dying humans. He held up before them the image of the dragon warriors, and he displayed their power. The dragons watched, some grieved and shocked, some impassive, and at least one grimly pleased.

  “It is not ordinary humans who will destroy us,” Draconas told them. “These humans are the enemy, these with dragon-blood in their veins and dragon-magic in that blood. Not long ago, all of you were appalled at the very suggestion that such a terrible crossbreeding might occur. Now some of you promote it.”

  “Such humans can be easily controlled by us,” said Mantas, who had become the leader of the opposition. “We have let humans go their own way too long. It was all well and good when they were killing each other, but now they threaten us. Maristara is right. They need to be controlled. Brought under our wise ruler-ship. Told what to do.”

  “No human has ever done what he was told,” said Draconas dryly. “I see no reason why they should start now. Even those with the dragon-blood will go their own way soon enough, and then how will you bring them to heel? For they will fight you with your own weapons!”

  Arguments broke out again, and the colors blazed hotter and led nowhere.

  “Listen to me!” Draconas thundered and, though many cast him baleful glances, they subsided to hear what he had to say. “Another human city is going to be attacked and destroyed as was New Bramfells. Thousands more humans will die.”

  “Those with the cannons,” said Mantas coolly.

  Draconas drew in a breath, commanding patience. “We can stop Maristara and Anora and the dragon warriors from committing this atrocity. If we all join together and act to protect the city of Ramsgate—”

  “The humans will fire the cannons at us and try to shoot us out of the sky,” said Mantas.

  “I will speak to them,” Draconas said. “Make them understand—”

  “Bah! Humans have no capacity for understanding. They are ruled by their fear—”

  “In that, we’re much alike,” Draconas returned.

  The young dragon bristled. “I say let them die! Let others of their kind see what happens when they dare to threaten those who should have been their masters centuries ago and would have been, but for some misguided thinking. You listen to me, Walker. If you side with those humans and try to save them, you will find me there to stop you.”

  “And me,” said Litard.

  “And me, as well,” said Reyal.

  The three dragons rose from their places, their claws scraping against the stone floor, and their wings twitching, eager to fly.

  “The session of Parliament has not ended,” said Draconas.

  “Oh, yes, it has,” returned Mantas, his head snaking around to regard those who remained. “It has all come to an end. You just don’t know it yet.”

  The three dragons departed and, after a moment’s hesitation, others followed until only four, Draconas, Lysira, Malfiesto, and Nionan, remained.

  “The Parliament—” Lysira began.

  “There is no Parliament,” said Draconas. He had not only failed the humans. He had failed his own kind. Despite what Mantas said, Draconas knew it and he grieved the loss.

  “The Parliament of Dragons is dissolved.”

  40

  THE LADY IZABELLE SHIFTED HER EMBROIDERY STAND TO RESUME her seat by the fire. Marcus, sprawled in the chair opposite, had fallen asleep. She regarded him suspiciously, wondering if he was truly slumbering or shamming. The human was
pale and gaunt with dark smudges beneath his eyes. He was restless in his sleep, twitching and tossing his head. He looked ill. She smiled, satisfied.

  It must be a dreadful experience, Anora thought, smoothing the embroidery with her human’s hand, having one’s soul pulled out and stitched into the fabric of my magic, imprisoned within an embroidery frame.

  The dragon wasn’t truly stealing his soul, of course. Dragons do not believe in souls. She had merely borrowed the human term. The enchantment she’d placed on Marcus was a type dragons had concocted during the ancient wars, when they had fought each other. If a dragon could lure or trick or force another dragon to look into his eyes, that dragon could catch hold of his foe’s colors and wrap them up or steal them or drain them or whatever he chose. So does the snake charm the rabbit. Anora had not been certain the spell would work on Marcus, for she had never attempted it on a human. Snagging him had been laughably easy, however.

  Anora kept Marcus’s thoughts wound around the spindle of her mind. Stitching them into a portrait wasn’t really necessary, but it amused her and added to his torment. He knew what she planned. He’d seen it all quite clearly when her mind had locked onto his. A pity, but one of the drawbacks associated with using this spell was that the caster was forced to open his mind in order to trap his opponent’s. Anora had considered the risk and decided it was worth it.

  She’d severed the human’s contact with Draconas, and although Marcus knew her plans, she was not worried about him revealing them to anyone. The prince might wriggle and squirm, but she had fast hold of him. He could not escape, not until she freed him. For Marcus, freedom would come only with death.

  The human mother rustled into the room. Ermintrude was nearly as pale as her son. Her face was drawn and troubled. Her dimples had vanished. Going to Marcus, she felt his forehead and his pulse and she gave a deep sigh.

  “I think he is improving, Your Majesty,” said Anora in the guise of the lady.

  Ermintrude didn’t hear. She was concentrating on her son to the exclusion of all else. She smoothed back the hair from his forehead, then, seeming to remember they were not alone, she turned to Izabelle.