The Dragon's Legacy

by Deborah A. Wolf

  No, she agreed, he would not. I suppose if the shadows do not mind, there is no real harm in it. Still… it is dangerous for you to spend so much time near them. You look like the piper in the old stories, the one who stole all the little children.

  The shadows whispered and hissed among themselves at this, with a sound like hot wind through dead leaves.

  Daru played a sterner note, and the shadows subsided.

  They are always with me, whether I play or no. He played the final notes of his odd little tune and let the music disperse among the shadows, swirling into nothingness like so many sparkling sand-dae. The shadows dispersed as well—most of them, anyway—and Daru sat still as death on the dark steps, hand holding the little flute in his lap. He did not open his eyes, and his intikallah still shot off bright-hot sparks in every direction.

  “They used to try and steal me,” he said, his voice ringing oddly in the empty dragonstone stairwell. “Sometimes they still do. Someday maybe they will succeed. They have stopped trying to steal Sulema… does that mean she is all better? She has come to the city and met her father, so will we be going home now?”

  Not for a long time, no, she answered. She still tires very easily. It may be some time before she regains her strength for such a journey.

  His smooth young brow furrowed like an old man’s. “Ashta says she may never go back home. What does that mean? Sulema is Ja’Akari. She belongs to the people. How could she not go back? This is not her place.”

  Hafsa Azeina felt herself fading, and shored up her music. The boy deserved an answer.

  There is no need for Sulema to hurry back to the Zeera, Daru. For now, it is enough to know that she will live. There are skilled healers in Atualon, and her father is here. It is right that she gets to know her father, and that he should spend time with her as well. He loves her. Her brother is here, and there are cousins… family is important. Blood is important. You know this.

  “Blood is important,” he agreed, “but her blood is the wrong color for Atualon. Her song is not here. Her song is in the Zeera.” Deep in the corners, the shadows shifted and chuckled, a nasty sound. “Your blood is the wrong color, too. It is blue and green. Like the sea.” He turned his bird-skull flute over in his hand, caressing it with his fingertips. “You are a long way from home. We all are. We should go home.”

  The absence from her body was beginning to burn as her song played itself out, but still the dreamshifter lingered.

  Is this a foretelling?

  Daru waited a long time, so long she could feel the mist of her substance tearing itself thin, so long that she wondered whether he had fallen asleep. His intikallah dimmed and spluttered as if he were unsure of his answer.

  “No,” he said after long last. “I do not think so. It is probably just a dream.”

  Probably, she agreed, as the world ran red with pain and she fled back to her mortal shell. It is probably just a dream. But she was a dreamshifter, and he was a dreamshifter’s apprentice. They both knew better.

  The song had ended by the time Hafsa Azeina returned to her body. She could feel her heart and lungs screaming, could hear the silence in her blood vessels as the blood forgot which way it was supposed to go. There was no song to guide her, so she flew up the dead bone and into her own mouth like corpse-breath, foul and poisoned, and when ka and sa recombined, she stiffened and arched her back and fell over as if she had been struck on the side of the head by a hammer.

  Khurra’an was roaring inside her head, but her blood roared even louder and she could not make out what he was saying. Certainly it was not complimentary.

  By the time she pulled herself together and sat up, the vash’ai was gone. She could feel his disgust with her carelessness through their bond, and sent a wordless apology.

  No, he rebuffed her. No. Stupid cub, you. Get us all killed. I am going to go break something’s neck and lap up its blood and pretend it is you. Then she was alone in her thoughts.

  But not alone in her room. Mattu Halfmask stood at a respectful distance, hands behind his back like a small child trying to conceal a forbidden treat.

  Or like a grown man, she thought, scrambling to her feet, concealing a knife. Tonight he peered out from behind the gilded eyes of a white crane, framed all in feathers the color of soot and blood.

  He stepped toward her as she swayed on her feet but stopped again when she threw her hands up between them. He pursed his eyes as he stared at the leg-bone flute.

  “I had heard…” His smile was sardonic. “No one I knew, I hope.”

  Hafsa Azeina turned her back to him as she replaced the flute in her box. She clenched her fists, hard, and shook them out again to still the shaking.

  Too close. She had cut it far too close.

  Stupid cub…

  She continued to ignore Mattu as she washed her face with chill water from an ewer and dried it on a soft cloth. Both the water and the cloth went pink with her blood. She scowled and rolled her shoulders free of stiffness before turning to face her uninvited guest.

  “Yes?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest. She was still scowling.

  Mattu Halfmask turned half away from her again, and looked out the wide window overlooking the palace yard.

  “I love to watch my sister’s troupe rehearse. She wrote this play herself, you know… it is about a young boy who mistakes a mymyc for a horse and tries to ride it. This spectacle will give her the audience she so desires, and she is quite beside herself with excitement.”

  His hands were empty, and still clasped behind his back. Hafsa Azeina stepped closer for a look. Down in the torchlit yard, a handful of fools were play-acting. Two of them, dressed head-to-foot in black, stood close to each other and pranced like a horse, while another waved a red halter and chased them around in a circle.

  Several of the Ja’Akari stood in a knot, watching the rehearsal and laughing. Their vests hung open as if they had been sparring. The young Zeeranim were watched, in turn, by a group of young Atualonian men with short straight swords at their hips and fatuous looks on their faces. It was a lovely night, fragrant and warm, and the torches and the stars winked at each other playfully.

  She could not remember the last time she had seen such a ridiculous display.

  “I can see why they call it a spectacle,” she said. “Whose idiot idea was this?”

  “Oh, it was Leviathus’s idea, a grand celebration of his sister’s return, but Ka Atu was only too happy to oblige.” Mattu grinned beneath his mask. “It will be a grand celebration—fools and wrestlers, fireworks and dancers. Some of your barbarian warriors have even agreed to a demonstration of their fighting skills. Of course there will be magic. I am surprised that Leviathus has not tried to talk you into a performance.”

  She snorted. “He knows better than to ask.”

  “Does he? I wonder. He does not always know when to keep that pretty mouth of his shut. Not two days ago, he asked me if I knew anything about the Nightmare Man.”

  The breath froze in her lungs.

  “I told him nothing, of course. My dear cousin has so much on his mind these days, what with watching his father fade away, his sister nearly die, and his beloved stepmother almost kill herself with death-music. Now he has this spectacle to plan.” He waved out into the night. “I figured I would save him a bit of worry, and come straight to you. You were bound to find out in any case, sooner or later, unless you do kill yourself.

  “Tell me, Queen Consort—where would your ka fly off to, if it were separated from your body when you die?” He shuddered theatrically. “Somewhere dreadful, I assume. Stuck in Illindra’s web, perhaps? Into the shadow-realm of Eth? Or would it simply fade away? I have always wondered.”

  Hafsa Azeina leaned her back against the window frame and looked out into the night, letting her eyes grow cold and distant, and running an idle hand over the sill.

  “Did you come here to speak in riddles? I am tired, Mattu. Perhaps I will feel like playing your game another da
y.”

  White teeth flashed at her. “You were always my favorite, Hafsa Azeina. Sharp as that flayer’s knife. Not like my sister’s fools, or her foolish audience… who would ever be short-sighted enough to try and ride a mymyc? That idiot would surely have a short life.”

  “Idiots often have short lives,” she replied. “Good night to you, Mattu.”

  “Oh, very well, if you will not play, I will simply say what I have come here to say and be done with it. I dug around in the musty old box of my memories and found a bit of something that may interest you. Do you remember my brother Pythos?”

  “I remember the stories, though I never met him.” The second-eldest son of Serpentus Ka Atu, Pythos had been killed when Wyvernus seized the Dragon Throne.

  “It was rumored back then—I remember well, though I was not much higher than my mother’s knee, and not expected to understand what the adults were whispering back and forth over my head—that Pythos had taken an interest in his twin siblings. An unhealthy interest. It was said that he had been seen visiting the herb-sellers’ carts on market day… also that he had been to visit a certain child-seller in Eid Kalish.”

  “A child-seller?” She did not mask her surprise. “He could not have been much more than a child himself.”

  “Thirteen or fourteen at the most,” Mattu agreed. “Fifteen when he died. It was rumored at the time that he was interested in selling off his competition, but before he could act on his plans Serpentus was deposed and killed—or killed and deposed, I am not clear on how that works—and my brother was tossed down the side of the mountain. Lucky for me, I suppose. His Draiksguard were all executed, of course, as was his secretary, but our old wet-nurse is still kicking around here somewhere, and Pythos’s body double—and better yet, his favorite concubine. They were both very young at the time, and she was rumored to have been with child, but no child ever surfaced.”

  “Why was his body double spared, when the guards and servants were executed? That seems unusual.”

  “Ah, that is a curious story as well. The official version is that the lad was visiting sick relatives in the countryside when Atukos came under siege.” He smiled, and his eyes lit in the torchlight. “Darker rumors would have it that this boy was a distant relative… some by-blow of a cousin of Serpentus, or some such.”

  “This is all very interesting, but I am not sure what it has to do with the Nightmare Man. Or with me.”

  “Intrigue, and rebellions, and plots against the king? And you are forced to return Sulema to Atualon just as the old king breathes his last. This is the very stuff of nightmares, or I am one of my sister’s fools. I will leave it to you to sift through rumor and innuendo. As for myself, I believe I will head down to the yard and enjoy my sister’s play, and the sight of your young barbarians. Their penchant for flaunting their tits is causing tongues to wag among our older citizens, you know. That is a spectacle in itself.”

  He stepped away from the window and sketched a mocking little bow.

  Hafsa Azeina nodded to him, reluctantly. “I appreciate the information, Mattu. I may have misjudged you.”

  He laughed at that, and turned to stride from her rooms. “Oh, Hafsa Azeina,” he shook his head. “I doubt that very much.”

  * * *

  Once she had made up her mind to do a thing, Hafsa Azeina never hesitated.

  The hairdresser she had summoned gathered up the dreamshifter’s locks in both hands, tugging and twisting at the tangled mess, unable to hide the dismay in her voice. “It will all have to be cut away.”

  “Not cut,” she replied, and scowled irritably at her own reflection. She hated mirrors. “Combed out. I wish to save as much hair as possible.”

  “But, Meissati…”

  “You will address my mistress as ‘Queen Consort,’” Daru corrected, as he had been instructed.

  “Queen Consort, forgive me,” the woman stammered, “I will need to fetch my apprentices. And oils. And…”

  Hafsa Azeina raised her hand, forestalling any further protest. And smoothed the scowl from her face. Again.

  “Make it so.”

  “Your command, Meissati.” The woman bowed her way out of the rooms.

  Hafsa Azeina smoothed the scowl from her face. Again.

  Cool as rain, she reminded herself, calm as a windless day.

  Timid as a tarbok, scoffed Khurra’an. Why would you disguise yourself as prey?

  The better to lure them in, she replied.

  Ah… an ambush predator, then. Like the mymyc.

  Exactly so.

  The Ja’Akari do not approve of liars. I do not think your Zeeranim would like this.

  What of you? Do you approve?

  I am a cat, he answered, which was no answer at all. Enjoy your game, Dreamshifter. I am going to go find something to eat. He sauntered from her rooms, tail-up and laughing.

  Hafsa Azeina glanced at the mirror, and smoothed the scowl from her face. Again.

  Serene as a mountain lake, she reminded herself, confident as the stars, steady as the moons.

  There she saw it, at long last, peering out at her from her own eyes.

  The face of a queen.

  THIRTY - THREE

  He sat deep in the saddle as Ehuani danced and arched her neck, ears swiveling this way and that as she listened to his request and thought about whether or not she might grant it this time. Finally the pert little ears pricked forward and she acquiesced, stepping lightly underneath herself, flowing from ears to tail into a lovely, light canter.

  It was like riding a song, like riding the wind. Ismai let the approval flow through him and into her, and felt her respond with a burst of life.

  Life.

  Grief caught up with him once more. It poured through him like a hot summer rain and tore through his body like a sandstorm, scouring him bare and bloody. His mare pinned her ears and skittered sideways, going all stiff through her back again. He leaned forward in the saddle, pressed his face into her soft mane, and let the tears flow as they would. Ehuani curled her neck and bit him gently on the foot, forgiving his momentary lapse. She slowed to a sweet and ground-eating trot, and he let her go as she pleased, not much caring whether they rode toward the evening, or toward the dawn, or down the throat of a dragon.

  His mother would have loved Ehuani, would have run her slender hands over the mare’s silvery hide, would have admired the strength in her and the fire. Likely she would have started planning breedings as soon as she laid eyes on her, in her mind’s eye a line of straight-legged and deep-chested foals trotting one after another. Much as she had done with his older sisters and his brother, he thought, much as she would have done with him.

  The sword at his hip tapped lightly against his leg, reminding him that she had made him a gift with her own hands, with her own voice had declared him the son of her heart. She was so beautiful. No woman had ever been so beautiful as his mother, none had given so much of herself to her pride and her children.

  They said the babe would live. Another sister, praise Atu. Doubtless they would hold a sharib for her naming. As she grew, every woman in Aish Kalumm would coo and dimple and exclaim that this child was growing up to be as beautiful as her mother.

  His heart hurt. He let Ehuani go where she would, and at a pace of her own choosing, much as the Ja’Sajani had done with him since the day a rider brought this fell news from the City of Mothers. East, west, up, down, it did not much matter to him. His heart would not find what it needed most, not in any direction. She had gifted him the sword with her own hands. Her favorite son. He thought of Tammas, whose duties would surely keep him in Aish Kalumm now, he thought of Dennet and Neptara and especially little Rudya, who would be so lost without her Amma. He should go to them. They had said he should go to them, to grieve with his family. To welcome his new little sister into the pride.

  His heart rejected the idea. He did not want to see them, any of them, not even little Rudya and certainly not the red and wrinkled bratling whose birt
h had killed their mother. He wanted… nothing. He wanted nothing. If Ehuani had not been with him, he would not have cared if the stinking bonelord rose from the sand and swallowed him. His heart felt already as if it had been eaten, and the rest of him had staggered on without realizing it was no longer whole.

  Since he had given Ehuani her head, it was no real surprise that she took the path to comfort. She was an intelligent horse, even among the asil. For all his dark thinking about the bonelord, Ismai paid some small mind to the world around them, to the ground beneath his mare’s hooves and Akari Sun Dragon high overhead—too high overhead, really. It was late in the day to be taking this path. But he did not turn back. He had Char’s torch in his saddlebag, and tarbok-and-goat pemmican and waterskins enough to last him a handful of days. The blackthorn oasis would provide sufficient water and grass for Ehuani’s comfort…

  …and he wanted to see Char again. She was only a child, but she was the gentlest and wisest person Ismai had ever known. Certainly she was nothing like the women in his family, with their bright eyes and sharp tongues and quick strong hands, and neither was she like Sulema, fervid and noisy as a campfire at sharib. She was still and deep, like a secret pool of water sweet enough to soothe and nourish even the sun-baked heart of a lost boy.

  Death stalked beside him. Ruh’ayya’s mood had been as black as his own since the news had reached them. The messenger was Zeeravashani, and his sleek golden queen had taken Ruh’ayya away from the humans for a day and a half. When they returned, the other queen fairly shimmered with outrage, and she gave Ismai such a look of green-eyed hate that he had staggered back a few steps. Ruh’ayya had a torn ear, a torn face where claws had raked dangerously close to an eye, and deep gashes and puncture wounds from her muzzle to the tufted end of her tail.

  Ismai had ignored his own hurts long enough to tend hers, and she was very stoic about having her wounds cleaned and medicated and stitched up, but when he asked what had happened she would say only that Paraja was angry with her. He did not press the matter.