Gold Dragon Codex

by R. D. Henham

  Vilfrand drove Kine back again, but the soldier slipped under the captain’s guard, twisting up behind him and landing a fierce blow with his elbow on the top of Vilfrand’s shoulder. The captain staggered and fell to one knee, allowing Kine to plant his foot between Vilfrand’s shoulder blades with a ruthless kick. Even that didn’t topple the hardy guardsman, though, and Sandon’s uncle surged to his feet with a powerful yell. Twisting, he backhanded Kine savagely, knocking the less muscular man to the side in a single blow.

  Unfortunately for Sandon, Malaise’s blindness didn’t last long. Wiping the spots out of her eyes with one hand, Malaise wove the dagger before her with the other to ward off another blow from Sandon. “We have her!” Yattak crowed—a bit prematurely, Sandon thought—and began chanting the words of another spell, burping a little between syllables of magic.

  With a grand sweep of his hand, Yattak released another flow of energy. Sparkling, it rushed toward Malaise in a whirl of crackling electricity. The draconian snarled, thrusting out one hand with a growled countercharm. Wind swept from Malaise’s spell, gusting out with phenomenal force. It quelled Yattak’s smaller electricity spell, crushing the sparkling arcs of lightning and rolling onward in a massive wave. Sandon was thrown back by it and rolled across the colored floor of the tower. He scrabbled at the cobblestones, catching his fingers in a particularly deep crack as his sword rattled past. Sandon reached after it, barely managing to get his hand on the hilt before it spun out of his reach.

  Yattak and Umar were less fortunate. The wind caught the pudgy wizard full in the chest and lifted him off his feet, rolling him as if he were a rubber ball right toward the edge of the tower. He slammed between two of the tower crenellations, wedged in between square blocks of stone with his backside hanging out in the air. Nearby, Umar howled in fear as he skidded toward the crenellation. He wasn’t as agile as Sandon, and although he clawed at the stones, he could find no purchase.

  The wind whipped through Sandon’s hair and clothing, tugging him so fiercely that he thought it would pull him loose of his tenuous grip. He cried out to the two wizards, but the sound was lost in the rushing of air all about him. He saw Umar slam against the lip of stone protecting the edge, then flip over it, only inches from falling to his death. Yattak saw it too, and the sight of his young friend in danger did more to motivate the wizard than the feeling of his own rump hanging over a thousand feet of air.

  “Umar!” Yattak pulled himself together long enough to coalesce more spell energy around his hands. Chanting wildly, the words half realized, Yattak hurled the spell at his young apprentice. It was a force spell, a ray of energy that struck Umar and knocked him out of the path of Malaise’s gust of wind. Umar screeched, plowing to the ground several feet to the left. He skidded along the stone of the plaza, then bounced to a shivering stop, eyes rolling up into his head. After one last hard bounce, the apprentice lay still.

  Unfortunately, the spell didn’t stop there. Yattak screamed as the force impacted itself, shooting out toward him as well as in front of him. It popped him out of the square hole between the crenellations, hurling him like an autumn leaf into the air above the plaza. Sandon could see the horrified o imprinted on the Red Robe’s lips just before he vanished below the lip of the tower.

  “Yattak!” Sandon screamed. He raced to the edge of the tower just in time to see Yattak cry out a single word in the language of magic. The wizard’s fall slowed, his robes whooshing out around his legs like a grandmother’s skirts. Sandon stared, jaws open, hands gripping the crenellations at the tower’s edge. Yattak looked up at Sandon as he drifted to the ground. Wafting back and forth like a strange dumpling in thick soup, the wizard lifted his thumb and gave Sandon an encouraging smile.

  Sandon turned back, enraged. Malaise’s wind spell softened and died, her laughter ringing out clear and loud in the open air. She turned on Sandon, flexing her claws. “No one to protect you now, boy.”

  She was right. Sandon could see Vilfrand and Kine dueling on the far side of the tower. Sandon’s father had sunk to his knees, his face covered in sweat. Malaise stood towering between him and them, her muzzle stretched into an evil grin. The draconian hissed with glee, “Now my master will have a true tribute.”

  “Sandon! There’s nothing you can do here!” Kine yelled. “Run!”

  verything seemed fuzzy, slow, like it was happening at a distance. Sandon saw Kine’s sword rise and fall, Vilfrand’s great strength overcoming the soldier. He saw Malaise preparing another spell, this one to capture and hold the youth in preparation of Lazuli’s arrival.

  The speck that was the dragon grew ever larger in the sky.

  Sandon threw himself toward the trap door in the floor of the tower plaza. He didn’t like abandoning Kine, but the soldier was right. There was absolutely nothing he could do …

  Here.

  Nod-nasa. It was Vilfrand’s reason for knowing there was a secret vault. When the captain said it, he thought his victory was all but assured. Where there was a password, there was something to hide and protect, right? To Sandon, however, it was even more important than a pile of steel or a mountain of gems. Sandon knew what the password did—and he wasn’t afraid to use it. Dragon or no dragon.

  Sandon sprinted down the tower stairs toward the hallway below that would lead him to his mother’s room. He took the stairs three at a time, stumbling and falling to his knees at the bottom of the stairs. He felt blood rise through the leg of his trousers, his knee bursting into pain to match the searing wounds that Malaise’s magic had carved into his shoulder. He couldn’t let it stop him. Sandon surged to his feet again, cursing under his breath, and limped as rapidly as he could toward the bedchambers.

  He threw open the door to his mother’s room and went immediately to the wall that concealed the secret passage. Unsure how Kine had opened it from the other side, Sandon began to feel around for some sort of a latch. He fumbled desperately at torch sconces and the bookcase, looked under the rug and behind the painting, and pushed on every rock in the wall. Nothing. At last, Sandon pounded his fists against the wall in frustration—and discovered that the whole thing simply sank inward if enough pressure was applied.

  Kine had apparently left that door unlocked.

  The portal felt sticky and wet, as it had before, sparkling against Sandon’s flesh in a strange wave of magic. He stumbled out the other side and blinked at the sudden sunlight that illuminated the cave. Everything was as they’d left it—a broken golem of stone and copper lying in a heap near one of the pillars; the wide, glittering mouth of the cave through which the last light of sunset poured; and the golden dragon construct resting, perfectly motionless, near the lip of the sheer cliff.

  Sandon ran toward it across the wide, pillared cavern. His steps were limping and labored, but the password throbbed over and over in his head. So loud, in fact, that he missed the sound of the portal activating again behind him.

  “Imbas kartu!” Malaise shouted, sending a burst of magic toward him. Sandon turned, sword again in his hand, but saw nothing.

  An invisible hand of air swept him up, slamming him backward. It pressed him against the wall of the cave, into the stone. Sandon wrenched himself out of its grasp and collapsed to the floor. He rolled away from the wall and tried to stand, but his injuries finally got the better of him. With his injured leg, shoulder, and the pain in his knee, Sandon toppled to the ground.

  Malaise walked toward him, eyes glittering. “So this is the cave of the great Acinyoshu, who was so very eager to go to war …”

  “You knew the gold dragon?” Sandon gasped. He gripped rocky formations on the wall, pulling himself to his feet as Malaise approached. She towered over him, her glittering blue-silver scales shimmering with each step. Even the setting sun, now orange and peeping in a thin sliver above the horizon, could do nothing to warm the sivak’s steely skin.

  “Too well.” The flight marshal licked her muzzle, the long tongue flickering out between sharp teeth. “He’
s the reason Lazuli chose this valley.” Her eyes flickered up to the golden construct. She frowned. “That small, pathetic thing holds no value for my master. Gold? Worthless. Where is the dragon’s hoard?” Her fingers closed around Sandon’s throat, lifting him clear of the ground. In her other hand she waved her long-bladed dagger close to Sandon’s chest. “Where have you hidden it?”

  Sandon choked out, “There … is … no … hoard! Mother used it … to build the … dragon!”

  “Liar!” Malaise screamed in a rage, hurling him to the ground. “That thing is made of gold! Where is the steel? Where are the jewels? No one in their right mind would trade good steel for worthless decoration!”

  Focusing his eyes on the dagger Malaise waved about, Sandon struggled to catch his breath. Worthless decoration? Malaise might be looking at the gold dragon on the ledge, but she hadn’t realized what it was! Clearly, the flight marshal thought it was only a lump of metal. “It’s the statue missing from the city square, isn’t it? Did your mother move it here to cover the vault door?”

  Kicking Sandon’s sword away, Malaise grabbed him by the collar of his tunic and hurled him toward the giant golden construct. He rolled over hard stone and sharp edges, striking the construct with his shoulder as he came to a stop. “Vilfrand said that your father would give him the hoard when he stepped down from the throne. To pass it on to his son, the captain said. Tell me, boy, did he also give you that knowledge?”

  Sandon looked at the construct, and then at Malaise, an idea forming in his head. “Yes.”

  Malaise grinned triumphantly. “Move the statue, then, and open the vault. If you do, I may—may, mind you—consider keeping you alive. My master, Lazuli, is a generous dragon to those who properly worship and revere him. You could be a servant to him—perhaps even a soldier in his guard.” Shoving Sandon forward toward the construct, Malaise licked her lips in anticipation. “Open it.”

  “I’ll have to crawl inside the statue,” Sandon protested. “It could be dangerous—I don’t know how stable that thing is, and gold is heavy!”

  The draconian scowled. “Then you die in the service of the greatest lord of all—the noble Lazuli. Now move.”

  Dodging her kick, Sandon crawled into the big construct. He shot a longing glance after his sword only to see Malaise hiss in pleasure at depriving him of the weapon. Not that he really cared, but he wanted to keep the big draconian off balance. As long as she thought he wanted the sword, she wouldn’t notice how eagerly he was climbing between the golden statue’s claws, opening the cagelike hatch in the lower portion of its neck, and sliding into the leather-covered chair nestled within the dragon’s chest.

  “Have you found it? Is that the portal to the treasure?” The draconian chortled. Her big dark eyes glittered and her hand flexed around the hilt of her long-bladed dagger.

  “This is definitely it,” Sandon muttered.

  The flight marshal heard him and strode to the front of the statue to have a better look inside. “Well? Where is it?” she demanded.

  “Right here.” Sandon grinned. He gripped the lever that jutted up between his legs, squeezing as hard as he could on the handle marked “flame.” “Nod-nasa!”

  The dragon’s jaw opened, great cogs spinning wildly. Something inside the gold dragon made a gassy whoof, and there was a shudder from tail to nose, the golden scales shivering with the force of it. The silk-covered eyes opened, revealing two massive orbs of amber. From somewhere behind Sandon, within the deep chest of the construct, a wash of heat flowed out.

  Fire erupted from the dragon’s mouth, licking in torrential waves over its nose, claws, and the stone immediately in front of it. The flame engulfed Malaise utterly, consuming her in a single wafting rush. Sandon heard the draconian scream, but even that lasted only a few seconds before she was overwhelmed by the roar of the inferno. Sandon felt the seat behind him growing intensely warm, the leather steaming slightly and the metal to either side of him starting to glow. He yelped, taking his hands off the lever. The fire slowed, then stopped, trickling out in a dull yellow hiss before it stopped altogether.

  A thin waft of smoke trickled out the dragon’s golden nostrils. More rose in wispy plumes from a massive black spot on the floor that stretched more than forty feet into the cave. Sandon lifted the hatch, snatching his hand back from the metal before it burned him, and stood to appreciate it. Two rows of pillars, one on either side of the dragon’s mouth, were ashy, their paint chipped and flaking from heat, and the stone floor had a strange rippled-looking quality that was new. Of Malaise, nothing remained save the soles of her boots—twisted into curls like two pieces of bacon—and an ivory hilt sticking out of a melted pool of steel.

  If she’d burst into flames when she died, like Kine had said she would, Sandon sure hadn’t noticed it.

  “Swords afire,” Sandon breathed, staring at the blackened scar.

  With a gasp, he scrambled back into the hatch of the dragon construct. He felt the seat and found it incredibly warm to the touch. “Gnomes,” Sandon remembered. “There’s always a flaw in the things they make. Well, here’s one, at least. If I leave that flame spout on too long, it’ll roast me too!”

  Sandon took a moment to look at the myriad levers, twist handles, and buttons that were scattered almost at random around the egg-shaped compartment. He pushed his hands through two D-shaped handles, pulling them back toward him gently at the same time. It was a guess, but it worked. The handles flexed and slid smoothly toward him, long thin pipes of copper trailing behind them. He could move them back and forth and side to side fairly easily with just the motions of his hands. As Sandon did so, the dragon’s wings lifted. Its body lurched forward when he pushed both handles forward, and when he shifted the handles up, the dragon construct wobbled and stood on four uncertain feet. Whistling, Sandon twisted the handles back and forth, discovering how cunningly they flapped the wings. With just a slight flick of his wrists, the wings flapped easily and the silken sails between the heavy boning filled with puffs of air.

  “Fire … flight … I wonder what these other buttons do,” he mused. He wished he could take a moment to experiment, but he knew better. Somewhere out there, Lazuli was approaching the keep—and his father. As much as Sandon wanted to inspect each and every lever and knob, he just didn’t have the time. He’d have to learn while he flew.

  “If Mom could do it …” Sandon gritted his teeth, twisting a few knobs until he found the combination that caused the dragon’s wings to flap in rhythm. Slowly, careening from side to side, the great construct lifted off the ground. Sandon turned the nose of the golden dragon toward the opening of the cave and pushed the handles forward.

  he ground dropped away, leaving Sandon’s stomach feeling as if it were lurching toward his feet. One minute he was above the cliff, and the next he was in open air, with nothing but his trust in the lurching golden construct keeping him from screaming his head off. Sandon looked out through the protective cage at wings that flapped in broad strokes and the trail of several years of dust behind him. The constructed dragon stretched many horse lengths long, its wedge-shaped head cutting through the wind, the silken frill of sail along its neck fluttering wildly with the force of takeoff.

  Something near the rear of the dragon snapped, and Sandon heard a high-pitched ping. He leaned forward in the cage that comprised the gold dragon’s chest, trying to see past the forelegs that were curled beneath him. The dragon shifted in the air, wings automatically compensating for whatever had gone wrong. Gulping, Sandon stared down at the levers and dials in front of him, wishing that his mother—or the gnome builder, for that matter—had thought to label more than half of them. He tried to keep his mind off the fact that fields were sweeping past beneath his feet like patchwork on a quilt, and stared at the various knobs. One was marked “claws” and another “roar.” A third had a sort of squiggle on it that in Sandon’s best guess looked like a person screaming, and a row of five small, brightly colored levers had no writing at
all.

  “Great,” he muttered. Sandon twisted the levers to gain altitude, gently testing the construct’s ability. Flying turned out to be a relatively easy skill he picked up swiftly. All he had to do was twist and pump the D-shaped handles that wrapped around his hands, and the machine did as he asked. “Those gnomes are amazing!”

  There was another jolt from the rear of the construct, and the magical engines that thrummed along somewhere within the dragon’s belly twanged out of tune. “Great.” Sandon found a big iron wheel with a handle on it and spun the crank curiously. The dragon shook from side to side and the front legs extended gingerly, cogs catching here and there as the levers released. On a hunch, Sandon pushed the knob marked “claws” and saw the long, swordlike claws at the end of the forearms open and close, rotating at the wrist as he twisted the knob back and forth.

  “Claws, fire and flight. This is going to be fun!” He looked ahead cheerily, feeling the twilight wind toss his hair … and all of his cheer drained away, leaving him with nothing but a small, hard knot in his chest.

  Ahead of him in the sky, turning away from the keep with a lash of a long, royal blue tail, flew Lazuli. The blue dragon was nearly twice the size of the construct, his dark scales absorbing the reddish orange of the skies. Lazuli’s eyes fairly flowed with anticipation, so wide and so clear that Sandon could see the golden speck of his construct’s reflection deep within them. The Blue was massive, larger than Sandon had imagined. His jaw could open wide enough to swallow a man whole—or encompass the entire neck of the construct in which Sandon rode. There was an eagerness within the Blue that blazed in his every movement, from his wide-stretched claws to the lolling tongue that hissed out of his mouth into the wind.