Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

Stabbing his sword into the nearest ghost’s chest, he concentrated on materializing the being. When it did, his sword slew it, and he attacked the next one.

  The door had repaired itself—again—so he kicked open the door beside the stairwell and entered the adjacent room. Three human forms rose from the floor, almost as if they’d been painted there or were shadows peeling off. He didn’t hesitate but spotted—only barely in the dimness—the shuttered front window. He kicked it open with a grunt, shattering the glass, and blasted the room behind him with fire from his sword.

  A ghost slashed the back of his neck, and he cried out. Ignoring the pain for a moment, he jumped through the window and rolled off the porch onto the dusty yard. Setting the little girl down, he returned to the house door.

  He could hear the crunching of feet on the dirt road into the city. People whispered, and he sensed eyes watching his every move.

  The sword blazing his hands, Ilfedo sprayed fire over the house, but it refused to catch. The door broke in half under his powerful assault, and he spewed fire from the sword into the dark hallway. A rug on the stairwell caught fire, flames crackled along the wood, and soon the building burned. He stepped back, suddenly exhausted.

  Outside the house, he stumbled and lay down. He sensed a gathering of people nearby, and yet he did not rise. He was far off track, he knew, from the mission the dragon had bequeathed him. But, looking at the child he’d saved, he did not care.

  Seivar landed on the ground next to him. “Master, are you all right?”

  “I am now, my friend.”

  The little girl groaned beside him. She rolled onto her side, then stood. She gazed down at him, glanced at the burning house, and screamed, “Mommy!”

  From the buildings of that wooden city flowed a multitude. They ran out of their houses, shouting to one another in an effort to determine how and why they had been awakened from sleep. The people flooded down the streets by the hundreds, merging on the road leading to the cursed buildings of the old town.

  A little man ran ahead of the multitude, holding up his pink robes. His gray beard swept the street, and he urged those behind him to hurry.

  The city had come alive. The glowing Dewobins formed immense swarms that crisscrossed one another, traveling to the far reaches of the great cavern. Church bells rang, and early morning worshippers exited the buildings, joining the flood of souls headed for the dark and evil corners of their beautiful city.

  The little man ran all the way back to the house from which he had pulled Ilfedo. Beside him came the city mayor and the captain of the city guard with a contingent of twenty soldiers. The captain of the guard slowed as they passed the city center with its multistory buildings and decorative marble pillars. Thirty more soldiers clanked their short swords to their breastplates and swept into formation behind him. At a brisk jog they proceeded, keeping the masses behind them.

  “Everett,” the mayor demanded of the short bearded man, “what is happening? Why have you roused the entire city?”

  The little man laughed. “Praise be to God! Today he has sent us the Promised Leader of our exodus . . . a Lord Warrior.”

  “What? Impossible! What sort of claim is this?” The mayor slowed his pace and turned. “I am going to stop this foolishness and tell the people to go home.”

  The captain of the guard, Bromstead, a large man with broad shoulders, seized the mayor by the collar and dragged him along. The mayor kicked and protested, but to no avail. Bromstead was over seven feet tall, and a spark seemed to grow in his eyes. “If come a Lord Warrior has, then praise be, but if lied you have, Everett, you will pay the price for this at the stocks. Onward men, and keep the rabble behind you.” He glanced around at the faces in the crowd that followed. “And if it is true, then we will need to confirm it with Elhandra.”

  Everett smiled. Elhandra will see what I have seen, he thought. As will all the people. He lent speed to his legs, outran everyone to the house. He stood on the street, crossing his arms over his chest and gazing at the silent abode of those evil creatures. Where had the stranger gone?

  Bromstead released the mayor and held up his hand to the soldiers now forming a line between the house and the multitude. “Let no one past this fence! We cannot protect them beyond that. That crazed old wizard still lives here.” He glanced down at Everett. “Now, where is this Lord Warrior you speak of?”

  “Inside the house.”

  Bromstead punched the little man on the shoulder. “Inside?” he yelled. “If indeed inside he has gone, then he is lost to us! You let him go inside when you had him within your reach? Why not bring him to the edge of Kraylan abyss and push him in? Would that not be a kinder death?”

  “Peace, soldier. You are playing the part of a fool! If this man is the Lord Warrior foretold by the prophets, then he will return.”

  “Me, a fool?” Bromstead clamped his fingers around Everett’s beard and lifted him until only his toes touched the ground. “I have spoken to you of this before, and I shall not repeat myself. Mind your place, preacher.”

  At that moment the front window of the haunted house shattered, and the shutters flew open. A man shot through the window and crashed on the porch, cradling a little girl in his arms.

  The hundreds of people that stood in the street surged against the soldiers. The soldiers broke rank, thronging with the people toward the fence and staring. The stranger walked up to the house again, his body on fire, and smashed in the door. He went in and emerged moments later, the cursed house burning behind him.

  The crowd let out a startled cry, and Bromstead opened the iron gate. In place of the fire that had burned, a white armor covered the stranger’s body so that he glowed as an underground sun. Everyone glanced away for the brilliance of it, then looked again.

  A white bird flew out of the house. The bird soared into the air, screeching to the Dewobins so high above. The stranger slumped to the ground, and the bird landed beside him.

  Smoke billowed from the house’s doorway. Flames licked at its walls and roared up its roof.

  The old wizard, who had not shown his face outside of his abode, stumbled out of the house doorway, coughing all the while.

  Bromstead cheered and his soldiers did likewise. Their swords in hand, they surrounded the stranger, the girl, and the wizard. The old man pulled a short staff from inside his shirt and pointed it at a soldier, but Bromstead stabbed him through the heart. The old man fell and the people cheered.

  Ilfedo stepped away from the sudden onslaught of armed men. The world spun around him and he leaned on his sword.

  Standing forth, he surveyed the cheering crowd. Hundreds, maybe thousands—he could not tell. People had filled the streets and were talking one to another. Old men and women smiled at him, children danced, and several young women swooned while others gazed at him with their beautiful soft eyes.

  People. Here. Underground. He would not have believed such a thing possible. Yet here they were. A society of humans hidden away beneath the Resgerian desert. His knees wobbled and again he felt dizzy.

  The little old man who had pulled him from the house on that first occasion stepped from the crowd and raised his arms. The crowd grew silent, and the warriors marched into the street as the house began crumbling, flames creeping up every inch of its wood exterior and smoke pouring from its windows.

  Walking up to Ilfedo, the bearded fellow bowed. “Welcome, Lord Warrior, to the city of Dresdyn.”

  12

  WORD OF THE PROPHETESS

  The people of the wooden city of Dresdyn stared at Ilfedo with the same wonderment that the Hemmed Land had shown after he’d slain the first sea serpents.

  He sheathed his sword and trudged into the street. A hush fell over the crowd, and they parted like wheat, leaving a generous space around him.

  “Welcome, Lord Warrior,” the long-bearded fellow said again.

  “Welcome, yes, welcome indeed.” Another fellow shouldered his way through the people. He wore a pink sash around hi
s neck and a white turban with a bronze coin attached to its front. By the manner in which he carried himself, with back unnecessarily straight and thin arms folded across his chest, Ilfedo deemed him to be a person of some importance. The man eyed Ilfedo up and down and shook his head. “Everett, you told the truth. What a strange and wondrous soldier has dropped in our midst—”

  From behind Ilfedo walked a giant of a man. He wiped the blood off his sword onto his pink pant leg, circled Ilfedo slowly, and stood in front of him. “Your face is unfamiliar to me,” he said.

  The people and the city blurred and started to turn, as if on a great wheel. Ilfedo caught a deep breath, then sank to his knees in the street. High above the city, a bird screeched. He glanced up as a swarm of Dewobins veered around the Nuvitor as it dove. The people let out started exclamations as the bird landed on his shoulder and crooned in his ear.

  The silence that followed was extremely uncomfortable. Ilfedo’s body yearned for rest, as did his mind. Yet only stares greeted his unvoiced plea, until a woman emerged from the throng, carrying a glass pitcher. She wore a blue dress, almost purple, and he couldn’t help but notice her beautiful countenance. She gazed upon him with stern, sober gray eyes, knelt in front of him, and pressed the pitcher to his lips.

  He took it and drank until, refreshed, he stood and thanked her.

  Without a word she smiled, but only briefly. “The dark world is not for the Creator’s children, yet there they walk,” she said. “In time old, in time now forgotten, his children walked in light. But no more. Let the dead rise and slay them. May the desert winds drown them in sand and lay their land in ruin. Call from the ashes the souls of the damned, those cursed by their Creator until forever. When darkness has fully fallen and the spirits of the children are weak, then let their Lord Warrior speak. Let him bind and shackle, hew and spear. His arm is against them, his arm is for them. The Lord Warrior comes to doom them . . . the Lord Warrior comes to save them.”

  The crowd murmured as the woman combed her red hair away from her eyes, picked up her pitcher, and bowed to Ilfedo as she backed out of sight into the crowd. He thought he heard her mutter as she departed. It sounded like “Has he come to free me too?”

  The tall man gazed after her, then turned to Ilfedo, as did every other face. “What was that supposed to mean, Everett?”

  The bearded fellow shook his head and threw up his hands. “I have no idea. Though it sounded like another riddle, as are all things that woman ever utters. Yet we know the prophecy, at least in part. For now our visitor needs tending to. Leave the details for later, Bromstead.”

  “Please, Warrior, it would honor us if you would accompany me into our city.” The tall man shook Ilfedo’s hand with the strength of an ox. “I am Bromstead, captain of the city guard. Please, will you come with us?”

  Everett and Bromstead navigated Ilfedo through the milling crowds into the heart of the city, which seemed to be built on a rise in the cavern floor. The Nuvitor kept vigil, as it were, sweeping the crowds with its silvery gaze. Ilfedo couldn’t help but wonder at the number of dilapidated buildings mixed in with those that seemed well tended and lived in. Here stood a spacious hall with high walls, but its roof had caved in, and elsewhere a home that looked new; only, the picket fence that fronted its small yard had half-rotted away.

  In the city’s midst, down a broad side road, a stone-fronted church rose into view, with a belfry at its peak. Two dozen warriors kept the crowd from entering the building while they took him into the church and there tended to his wounds. There was a room for monks built off of the worship hall, having inside twenty cots and oil lanterns for light. Several pink-clad monks stood by, gladly fetching clean bandages and other supplies that Everett requested as he tended a long gash on Ilfedo’s leg.

  After they had finished, the men rose and bade Ilfedo rest for a while. “For we have many questions for you, and I’m sure you have some for us as well,” Everett said.

  Bromstead clapped his hands. “You’ve earned this much from us for ridding us of those creatures.”

  Bromstead lumbered out of the room, Everett shuffling after him.

  Lying on his side on a thin cot mattress with Seivar nestled against his chest, Ilfedo sighed. What a day. With the sound of monks’ prayers in the church around him, he fell deep asleep—on a bed of pink. Despite his weariness, he imagined Ombre walking in and discovering him in this strange place.

  “Um, Ilfedo, my dear brother, whatever brought you to this condition, we can reverse the process,” the imaginary Ombre said. “Pink—what is pink? Pink.” He raised one finger and gazed at Ilfedo as soberly as possible. “Pink is . . . evil. Yes, yes, that’s right. Don’t fall into the pit of evil, Ilfedo. God doesn’t like pink.”

  Ilfedo released the apparition to oblivion, chuckled, and smiled. Now for some sleep.

  The city of Dresdyn lay in deceitful peace as Ilfedo slept, and half a mile from the church, a bong sounded. A great factory building, painted pink, opened one of its thirteen heavy stone doors, and children rushed outside. Some smiled, but most just exhaled with relief and stretched their tired necks. The boys marched down the streets, and the girls, brushing strands of pink thread from their hair and dresses, followed. The army of youths formed columns down the streets, fanning into most every section of the city, and dispersed into their various homes. Soon the crowd thinned and silence washed over the emptied streets.

  Back at the factory an enormous wooden screw twisted out of the building’s end, as women shuffled outside and stared at each other over the top of the mechanism. “One, two, three, four.” Wearily they pulled on the screw’s ridges, and it turned again, spearing farther out of the building. As the screw turned, the roof split open with a metallic crack, and Dewobins rose like a gentle cloud of pink mist. The women pushed the screw against the building. The Dewobins spread to the distant walls of the cavern, joining with the other innumerable, glowing specks of pink that were their brethren.

  As the factory’s roof closed, the women lifted their skirts and walked in the directions their children had taken. Their homes welcomed them with the yellow glows of lantern light, and their children threw open the doors, pulling them inside. A day had ended in the life of the working class of Dresdyn, and though they had no way of knowing it (for they had been in the factory all day), only the stranger in their city could bring an end to this hard cycle.

  The Dewobins’ steady soft light flickered. The tiny birds flashed on and off, fireflies that had gone to their secret nests, out of reach from all but their own kind. The pink glow, upon which the city’s days depended, dimmed, swathing the cavern’s heights and breadths in unadulterated blackness. Only the flickering yellow light from lanterns hung in house windows warded back the night as a thin mist flowed down the streets.

  The long room in which Ilfedo awoke to find himself was modest. He rolled aside the pink sheet and stretched his legs over the edge of the cot. But he pricked his foot on a sliver in the rough floor and had to pause and pull the sliver out. As he tied both boots on his feet, a wail sounded from the corridor. The sound echoed among the rough-hewn beams along the walls and the gently arched ceiling. He strode out of the room, between the rows of empty bunks with their neatly folded pink silken sheets. The Nuvitor glided from an overhead beam and perched on his shoulder.

  The room opened into the sanctuary, a broad room with white walls and brown twisted pillars. The pillars supported a low ceiling with crisscrossing beams. Most of the wood resembled oak, with some pine as well. The wood grains were close together and filled with small knots. An array of thick brass pipes filled the rear wall of the sanctuary, and the organ to which they belonged sat in a half circle of smaller pipes at their base. A large lantern hung from the ceiling, its flickering light bouncing off the polished organ pipes.

  The soft prayers of pink-robed monks filled the church. Unwilling to disturb their devotion, he stood at the back of the room. Two monks stood beside the organ, and another sat on
the bench. His hands struck the keys and pulled on various knobs, while his feet slid across the pedals. The organ belted forth a deep, majestic song, and close to fifty monks stood from the benches, songbooks in hand, and sang.

  Ilfedo followed the wall to the pillars at the front. He walked to the thick doors, grasped the cold iron latch, and pulled it open. The door made not a sound, and he closed it gently behind him. But as he turned and set his foot on a lower step, the little man, beard still sweeping the ground, smiled up at him. “Good morning, sir.”

  “You are Everett?”

  “Everett Matthaliah at your service, stranger.” The little man pointed at the church. “I am the shepherd here at the Church of the Seekers.”

  Ilfedo gave a start. “Your family name is Matthaliah? Strange. So is mine.”

  “That is strange,” Everett replied, stepping onto the same step as Ilfedo. He eyed their feet and slowly raised his gaze up to Ilfedo’s. “I don’t believe in coincidence, yet, looking at you and me, there is no family resemblance.”

  “Well, I am not sure whether or not I believe in coincidence, but I have never met another Matthaliah. My parents died when I was but a youth. My father was an only child, and his father was also an only child.” Ilfedo circled the little man, and then faced him again and laughed. “At the very least we are distant cousins.”

  “Perhaps—but for now, with your permission, let us put this matter aside. I think you need to see some things.” Everett stepped back into the street, and Ilfedo followed him. “You must be hungry, Ilfedo. Did you sleep well?”

  “Very. In fact, other than a few aches and sores, I feel strong.”

  The little man stroked his long beard and threw its draping length over his shoulder. “Remarkable,” he said. “You are either very resilient or enjoy the Creator’s favor.”

  “I would like to say a little of both.” Ilfedo nodded. “But truly, yesterday’s experience was a nightmare.”