Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

  Rain pelted Starfire and Specter as their feet rested in the sodden forest. The angel had vanished. Starfire crouched next to the weeping boy. The child’s eyes just about popped as he looked at her. His sobs ceased.

  “It will be all right, child.”

  Specter watched the dragon’s daughter pull the child to her flaming chest. His waterlogged trousers and shirt steamed until he appeared mostly dry. She touched the woman’s leg, examined the tooth marks, and closed her eyes. Flames played from her fingertips over the wound. The flesh closed and the skin grew over the wound. Not even a scar remained. The little boy, no more than five years of age, dropped the knife.

  “Be calm, child. She will be fine.” Starfire stroked the lad’s blond hair and smiled.

  The child returned her gaze and wiped his sleeve across his face, then sniffled. With a stiff lift of his arm, he pointed at the mountain lion.

  Starfire whispered, “You killed it?” And she hugged the child to her bosom.

  She remained there for the next half hour. At last, the woman on the ground moaned. Her eyes blinked open, and the little boy spun out of Starfire’s embrace and laughed. “Auntie Bray!”

  Flames roiled around Starfire, and Specter grabbed her skirt just in time for the flames to engulf both of them. The rain ceased; the forest disappeared. All around them rose walls of fire without heat. And before them stood the angel.

  Moroni’s face beamed. “Well done, child. You have followed the path of mercy and found truth and reward in a small quest. Yet now I have another word for thee: The prophets have been deceived. They have lived too long among the fallen in this world. But we, the angels of God, have seen the pure and righteous Lord himself. His throne is from everlasting to everlasting. His kingdom is above all others, and he executes justice on the world through the righteous. Though the prophets desire to know the heavenly mysteries, they cannot. For the mysteries of heaven are reserved to heavenly beings.”

  Specter frowned. Could it be true? Had the prophets been deceived? If so, then all that he was doing would mean nothing. What if by leaving Letrias alone they allowed him to prepare for a final towering deed of evil? No! It could not be. Albino and Patient served God’s will. Their hearts were humble and pure. Time had tested their allegiance. They stood true. He had trusted them and would continue to. Who was this angel to make him question that?

  “The quest indeed brought me great reward. To save an innocent life brings greater joy to me than a thousand fallen wizards. What would you have me do, Moroni?” he heard Starfire say. Her flames diminished, leaving them in impenetrable darkness.

  The glowing angel extended his hand. “If your desire is to save your husband and prevent Letrias from destroying your child, should you not go to the villain himself? His minions are spreading over Subterran like wildfires. They crop up in every corner, all with Letrias’s edict in their minds. They will stop at nothing to kill the man you love. But if Letrias falls, then so, too, will his followers.”

  Flames leaped from Starfire’s hair and again engulfed her. The angel narrowed his blue eyes down at her, and another flame rolled off her tongue. “I prayed to God, asking him to give me another life. I want to live among those I love, not as a phantom but as a wife and mother.”

  “Dear child,” the angel said, “I have been sent to grant thy desires. You will be joined with your husband—soon. But first this final task you must undertake. The choice is yours: follow the path to the Hidden Realm, where every hope of rejoining your husband will be extinguished forever, or follow me to the Valley of Death and terminate the perpetrator himself.”

  Starfire laid her small hand in the angel’s. A smile filled the angel’s face as the flame from Starfire’s tongue opened a new doorway, a window to a place Specter had never before seen. A vast valley opened before them. Dark towers rose from the charred ground, and lava flowed in numerous streams. Not a single being was in sight. At the valley’s center, the lava streams fell into a broad river of the same. An iron bridge crossed the river a hundred feet above it. At the bridge’s end, a single metal door rested in the hillside.

  Horror filled Specter. He tried to scream “No!” above the roaring flames as Starfire transported them to that dark place. But his voice was lost to the flames. Dear God, help us. She is falling into a trap.

  Then Moroni glanced at him. Hatred oozed from the fallen being like a sickening stream of poison.

  Starfire turned and, seemingly for the first time, she could see Specter. He struggled to speak; he wanted to tell her to turn around. Her beautiful, innocent eyes regarded him, and he lipped, “He is a false messenger!”

  Her eyes startled wide and she faced the angel. Moroni laughed and vanished. The walls of fire collapsed—and Specter’s feet rested on the floor of the Valley of Death.

  “Xavion!” Starfire glanced around the silent valley. Flames played across her face and along her arms as she turned to him and bit her lip. “What have I done?”

  Suddenly the valley seemed to erupt around them. Hidden doors in the valley floor swung open, and a host of darkly cloaked figures swarmed forth. On all sides the cloaked figures rushed toward them. He was standing near the iron bridge. Heat waves rose from the lava river. The iron door across the river opened, and more cloaked figures raced at him across the bridge. Specter could see no path of escape. The host numbered in the thousands. A third of their number wielded swords, another third of their number held scythes in their hands, and the remaining number strode forward, smiting their black staffs against the ground. Dark energy sizzled along the ground where the staffs struck.

  A chill ran down Specter’s spine. A wizard force of this magnitude he had not seen since the days of Hermenuedis. And from the size of the force now coming toward him and the dragon’s daughter, he could imagine that more wizards had yet to reveal themselves. He shoved Starfire to the ground and she cried out. “Stay low!” he ordered as he spread his feet wide. He slipped out of his cloak, dropped it next to her, and gritted his teeth.

  Eleven scythe-wielding opponents drew near. The rest of the host ran a couple of hundred feet behind them. He collided bodily with the first two and swung his scythe wide. His blade impaled one in the chest. The other fell to the ground, and he slammed his boot into the man’s throat. But a sharp pain smote his back, and he stumbled forward to the ground. He rolled, seeking an escape as three others swung at him. But a wizard’s staff struck his chest, and he knelt, gasping for breath. His lungs ached, and warm blood dripped down his back.

  Starfire stood before him, fully aflame. The wizard minions hesitated, and he cursed himself. He should have fought side by side with the woman. Taking on numbers such as these without his trusty sword—utter foolishness. As if to prove him right, Starfire ducked an enemy’s sword and opened her mouth. A flame rolled off her tongue and shot into her opponent’s nostril. The man screamed. Then he burst into flames and thudded to the hard ground.

  A wailing wind swept through the valley, and the wizards retreated twenty feet.

  “Xavion? It is really my ageless captain.” The familiar voice seemed to originate at the bridge.

  With a painful shifting of his weight, Specter stood and accepted his cloak from Starfire’s outstretching hand. He slipped into it, taking comfort in the shadow of his hood. His eyes roved the broad iron bridge. Smoke rose, and the heat blurred the faces of the hundred wizards standing on the bridge.

  The wizard ranks parted, and a tall, thin man dressed in black leather walked through their midst. The others bowed as he passed, and he laughed. “Xavion. Fearless commander of the Six.” Letrias smiled and raised the black staff in his hand. “Auron told me you tried to kill him in Burloi. But I said that it could not be you. You died over a thousand years ago.” His hand tapped his side.

  Specter frowned at his fallen pupil. God’s justice must fall on this man. But how? He looked around and saw no hope. Thousands now followed Letrias. Thousands. How could God allow such evil to flourish? Could he n
ot send the great Albino to wipe these people from Subterran? “This is between you and me, Letrias.”

  “Oh, and what? Do you think I will let this child of the dragon escape? Do you expect me to let her live? Fool, my old master.” Letrias advanced within twelve feet of Starfire—and Specter saw too late what hung on the wizard’s belt. Letrias unbelted the whip and snapped it through the air. It wrapped around Specter’s legs, pulled him off the ground, and smashed him against the hard earth. Shards of light danced before his eyes like dust, and his vision blurred. Letrias laughed and Starfire screamed. He felt her collapse beside him.

  Letrias stood over him and raised his wizard’s staff, swiveling it to rest the orb at its head on Specter’s chest. “You are beneath me in all things, old warrior. Now I will take what little you have left.”

  Dantress Starfire stirred at that moment. Her fingers touched his shoulder, and her voice pleaded, “Forgive me, Lord God. Do not let this man pay for my selfish sin!”

  Letrias crushed the staff’s orb into Specter’s ribs.

  Everything turned blindingly white. His body floated into an enormous chamber. The great white dragon strode toward him, its eyes narrowed. “Specter?”

  “Master.” He knelt before the creature and gazed back into its pink eyes. “How did I come here?”

  The dragon frowned. “Has my daughter entered the Hidden Realm?”

  “No, my master. She was deceived.”

  “Deceived! But how came you here?” The dragon roared with terrible deafening power, and its scales radiated blinding light.

  Specter clenched his fists and stood. “An angel who calls himself Moroni intercepted her as she opened the portal. First he sent her on an innocent errand of mercy. But then he offered her an opportunity to take down Letrias himself. I tried to pull her away, but the angel drew her and me into the Valley of Death.”

  “The Valley of Death? My Starfire has fallen into Letrias’s lair? What hath she done?” The dragon and the room vanished. The Valley of Death rose around Specter, as real as it had been only a moment before.

  Letrias leered down at Specter. At his belt hung the whip Prince Brian had so skillfully utilized in the ancient battles. Specter’s chest burned as if a red-hot poker pressed against it. He screamed and Letrias smiled.

  “Hold him down,” the wizard ordered as he kicked Starfire’s hand off Specter’s shoulder. Several caped figures loomed out of the wizard ranks and pressed their booted feet on his chest and legs. Specter struggled to move. He needed to free himself, swing his weapon. But the wizards held firm as Letrias knelt and drew a dagger. He held the pointed blade against Specter’s wrist. As Specter widened his eyes and fought, Letrias grasped his chin and stared into his eyes. “Let us see if the great white dragon or your God will save you from me this day.”

  The dagger severed Specter’s right hand at the wrist, detaching him from the scythe. Specter screamed again. As blood fled his arm, he glanced at the sky. The dragon would come. It must! But he saw no flash of white and knew that the dragon could not. He spat in Letrias’s face and smiled. “With God as my witness, I will live to see you impaled upon a spike!”

  Wiping the spit from his face, Letrias frowned. Then he raised the dagger above Specter’s other wrist.

  Gentle fingers entwined with Specter’s, and flames rolled over his body. Letrias’s eyes widened and shifted to Starfire. The fire engulfed Specter. Letrias and his armies, and the Valley of Death, gave place to a wall of fire all around Specter. He rolled on his side, and Starfire returned his gaze. They were safe within her transporting flames. “Forgive me, my dear guardian,” she said, gazing at his missing hand.

  4

  IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ULION

  The walls of fire fell, and Specter found himself lying in a meadow on a mountainside. The scent of flowers filled the air. Yimshi’s bright rays bathed his already hot skin, and he winced. He clutched his stub of an arm and struggled to stand.

  “What on Osira . . .?” Patient the shepherd ran toward him, climbing the mountain slope with the aid of his staff. The aged man pulled Specter to his feet and gaped at the stub of an arm.

  Specter swallowed. “She went on without me! She has gone alone to the Hidden Realm.”

  Patient frowned. “Alone?”

  Above a distant green mountain peak, a flash of white caught Specter’s eye. The mighty white dragon shot overhead with a sound of thunder and slammed into the meadow. He gazed down upon Specter and the shepherd. Smoke rose from the dragon’s nostrils. It didn’t speak. Its enormous hand pushed Specter to the soft ground, and soothing strength poured into his body.

  “My masters! Please. I must go. She sent me here and continued on to the Hidden Realm—alone.”

  The dragon’s claws dug into the ground around him. Its hand pressed gently against his chest. “God is in control, Specter. Calm thyself. It was not my daughter that diverted you to this place; it was I. You have served long and well. I foresee you will play a key role in coming events. But for now your mind must be put at ease, your body reenergized. I am sending thee away to a distant place to forget war, suffering, and betrayal. Forget it all. Live at peace as you so fully deserve.”

  “Master, I cannot find peace! Not now! Letrias has raised an army. Where on Subterran can I rest? His evil touches every corner of this world with penetrating fear. Even in Emperia your subjects feel it. Not because they lack security but because they bear the knowledge of the wizard’s rise! I am constantly reminded of it, driven to it. It is inescapable.”

  The dragon raised its head and gazed into the distance. Its chest rose with long, deep breaths. “Another prophet dwells in Subterran, my friend. And within the boundaries of his mountains there is no fear. For the inhabitants of his land know nothing of Letrias. They are innocent of everything save the beauty and glory of God’s creation. Among them is unending peace, true tranquility.”

  “Listen to him.” The shepherd knelt in the grass, his soft gaze unwavering. The old man’s hands grasped the shepherd’s staff.

  Specter surrendered to the dragon’s strong hand and relaxed his body. He had to admit the cool grass soothing his tense muscles greatly calmed him. “A long time ago,” he said, “a warrior captain led his famed Six into battle. He taught them honorable combat and vengeance upon the practitioners of sorcery. Sweat and blood strengthened his bond with them. Companionship grew into brotherly love. I never had a family, or a sweetheart. The tender embrace of a woman might have softened the blow when Letrias led my men against me. I have not known true peace since my childhood. I look at all that has happened since Letrias’s rise—and I tremble for this world. My only pleasure is to heap just retributions upon my remaining apprentices.”

  “And so your own words verify our greatest fears,” Patient said, standing with a frown. “Whom do you now serve, Specter?”

  “I serve God’s will through you, my masters.”

  The shepherd shook his head. “It is not the will of God that I hear coming from your heart, Specter. Rather, I see revenge falling like a mist in front of your eyes, clouding the purity of your missions.” The shepherd took a backward step to glance up at the dragon. “You may now go, my friend. I will look after this warrior myself. It is now the time for me to remind him of the things that matter most.”

  Albino’s great hand lifted from Specter’s chest. The dragon nodded at the shepherd, spread its wings, and crouched. The air formed a white-and-blue vortex above and behind the creature. As if sucked into a tornado, the mighty creature shot into the vortex, its wings folded to its sides, and it vanished.

  “Come! Come.” The shepherd beckoned to him and climbed the mountain’s green slope.

  Specter sat up. He glanced about him at the green slope. Patches of red maple trees grew on the mountainside. A flock of snow-white sheep grazed at the meadow’s border, and small white goats bleated to one another as they bounded up the slope. He stood to follow Patient, then hesitated. Even though he knew the Valley of Dea
th was a very great distance away from this place, he could still hear the tramp of Letrias’s army in his mind. They were powerful enough to crush the Hemmed Land.

  He chided himself. That valley lay a long distance from the Hemmed Land. And now that Razes had fallen, Letrias had one less finger with which to claw.

  A hand grasped his shoulder, and he shook himself back to the present. The old shepherd frowned up at him, blue eyes searching Specter’s face. “You must settle your mind, for I have something to show you.”

  “Forgive me, my master. My mind wandered to a distant memory. But I will not let it happen again.”

  “Clear your mind and follow me.” Patient climbed the mountain’s gentle slope, and Specter walked after him.

  Flocks of sheep, some at least fifty in number, crossed the path as they climbed. But the shepherd parted them with his staff, nudging first one reluctant white body and then another to the side. The old man smiled, laughed at the animals, and shook his head. “Wonderful is God’s creation. Marvelous is the handiwork that we are privileged to behold. Specter, my friend, do you not find all of this pleasing?”

  “I do.”

  “You speak the right words without conviction, warrior. Have you forgotten to listen to your soul, your eternal body? Think on the beauty of God’s creation. Meditate on it, for in it you will find God’s greatest attributes revealed. Namely his eternal power, glory, purity, resurrecting power, and of course love. What is life without beauty? What are we without joy?”

  “Would you like me to answer you, prophet? Or do you desire me to listen?”

  The shepherd chuckled and glanced over his shoulder. “I have always appreciated your straightforward reaction to the events and people around you, Specter.” He turned away and hiked around a boulder. “Perhaps you should answer my questions. It may illuminate some things.”