Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

  The horse nickered as she patted his neck and scratched between his ears. “Well done, Avernardi. Well done.”

  Slipping around her neck, the viper tasted the air with its tongue and rolled its eyes at her. “Psst! I do not approve. One of these days you’ll missss the horse and hurt yourssself.”

  “Shush, now. I’ve practiced this several times, and contrary to what you think, it is actually quite safe.”

  She dismounted and looked back at the stream. Now, in the silence of the forest, she thought she could hear a waterfall. The sound was coming from upstream. Leading Avernardi by his bridle, she followed the water to its source: a large pool into which a stream of water fell from a solid face of rock. The grass in the area seemed particularly vibrant, and the silence was strange . . . as if time stood still.

  The scene reminded her of something, and she sensed that there was more to it than met her eye. She stepped forward, but her foot caught and she fell facedown. That was clumsy of me. She rose, dusted the dirt from her clothes, and gazed at the stone over which she had tripped. It seemed out of place and . . . what’s this? The stone was one of many that had been laid with evident care on an oblong mound near the water’s edge. A burial mound!

  Wait! Hadn’t her father told her that he had buried her mother in the western forests? Could this be the place where she began? There was the waterfall and the pool of clear water that fed a stream. This had to be the place.

  She knelt in the cold dirt and let her gaze soak in the moist air, lush trees, and rich grass. This was the place. She felt sure of it. Here her father had met the woman of his dreams. Here they had fallen in love. The woman that everyone had loved, the wife that was missed, and the mother that she had never known lay buried here. Father had kept this place a secret from her. Not the knowledge of it, but the location of it. It was his prerogative, she supposed. She had seen him disappear into the forest for several days, and had known he was spending precious hours in the sanctuary of his love. The tears that she had always wanted to shed upon her mother’s grave now fell unhindered to its surface.

  “Oh, Mother, if only you had lived, then I would know what you were like, and I would have known how to please you. But I have”—she wiped her eyes—“I have no way of knowing what you were truly like.”

  At this moment, when it seemed no one could give her comfort, she felt the ground tremble, saw Avernardi start, and turned to find the magnificent Albino standing there. He didn’t say a word. His scarred face glowed so that she could not see the marks upon his scales where he had taken her pain. But through the mask of light she saw tears form in his pink eyes. One clawed hand reached around her back and stroked her like a lost child.

  She accepted his love, walking to him and clutching his impenetrable neck. I lost my mother and he lost his daughter. In the minutes that followed she felt a stronger connection with the dragon. He was a grandfather beyond compare: gentle, strong, and full of love. And what a sacrifice he had made for her in Burloi. In her mother’s absence, the Creator had surrounded her with the deep, deep love of her father, grandfather, and her aunts—not to mention Ombre.

  When she pulled away from him she curtsied, and he acknowledged it with a nod of his bony head. Then, expanding his wings to their full span, he pulled against the air. The draft forced her to shield her eyes from the flying leaves, and when she looked again . . . he was gone.

  Her eyes searched the area, and, noticing a cluster of wildflowers nearby, she gathered them into a bouquet. Lilies and bluebells, asters and daisies—all smelling like different varieties of perfume—wafted on the breeze. She inhaled deeply; the mix was appealing, driving away the pangs of loss and easing her awakened grief.

  She walked to the grave and lay flowers on top of it. The stones and dirt that covered the mound had guarded her mother’s body from the woodland creatures. At the mound’s end, nearest the water, some of the stones had been torn away. She circled to fix the damage, but a hole had been ripped into the grave. A cavity the size of a woman’s body had been opened. “No,” she cried, for the body had been taken by some creature.

  Oganna fell to the ground and wept again, now for the indignity of such a deed and again for the knowledge of what this would mean to her father. To him, Mother had meant the world, the universe—even life itself.

  “Psst! Mistresss, are you all right?” The viper brushed its serpentine head on her neck.

  Boots crunched on the ground behind her. “What’s this?” Ombre asked. “Are you crying?” He knelt beside her and grasped her quaking shoulders with his strong hands.

  But Caritha came too, and glancing at the robbed grave, she clasped her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. She fell over the place and beat her fists into the mound until Ombre reached over and stopped her. Oganna watched tears rain from the woman’s eyes. Recovering her senses, Oganna reached over and comforted her.

  Confusion was written all over Ombre’s face, for he knew not why they wept. “Ladies, please, would either of you mind telling me what is wrong?”

  For a time, neither of them could. Then Oganna wiped her eyes and turned to him. “This . . . this place is where Father met Mother, and this grave is where he buried her.” With a trembling hand she pointed to the hole in the mound. “See? The body has been stolen.”

  “But how do you know for sure? You were only a baby—”

  “But I wasn’t,” Caritha replied. “This is the place where we buried Dantress, and here the dragon gave Ilfedo the sword.” Standing to her feet, she pointed to the waterfall and the pool. “He found her in this place, and it was in this forest that he won her heart.” There was a pause as she redirected her attention to the grave. “If I ever find the filthy and vile beast that dared to do this, I will—” She clenched both fists against her temples. “What creature would do this?”

  Ombre was blunt in his answer: “Carnivores scavenge for bodies. Something was bound to discover one out here.”

  “No!” she said sharply. “You don’t understand. Dantress was a friend of the woodland creatures; she had a special connection with them. I don’t believe they would have allowed this to be done. Why, then? It doesn’t make sense. Why? Why?”

  Finding no answer to give her, Oganna looked at the grave until Caritha exhausted her tears. Then she touched the burial mound. It may be empty, but her body did rest here for a time. “Good-bye, Mother,” she whispered. “Though I never knew you, I love you with all my heart.” With that she stepped back, pulled herself into Avernardi’s saddle, and waited for Ombre and Caritha to mount the other Evenshadow.

  Ombre wiped Caritha’s tears away with his handkerchief and smiled sympathetically before helping her up. “Come now, ladies,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.” As he straddled the horse’s back, he gazed upon the grave and said in a firm voice, “Ilfedo does not need to know of what we found here. Let him remember this place as he left it.”

  Oganna nodded and led the way westward into the forest again, leaving her tears where they’d fallen. Trees and forest undergrowth succeeded one another, and the way became more difficult to navigate. No part of the Hemmed Land was as wild as this.

  Avernardi placed his feet with care, but every now and again he startled a creature on the forest floor. Oganna patted his shoulders and spoke soothing words. Nuvitors were everywhere, and by looking high into the tree limbs she could see some of their nests. From the ground it was hard to tell what they were constructed of, though she guessed by their bulkiness that they were part clay and part wood.

  A low-hanging branch ahead of them forced her to dismount. The leaves crunched under her feet as she guided Avernardi through the forest. She passed by a murky pond. Green slime coated most of the water’s surface.

  Somewhere in the distance a coyote heralded the approaching night with a howl that made a shiver run up her spine. Time had flown. She looked up to find darkness closing in on the world. How many hours they’d traveled, she could not determine.

 
“Oganna,” Ombre called from the rear, “If we do not find our way out of these trees soon, we will have to set up camp in here. The horses can’t see in the dark, and I don’t want one of them getting injured.”

  “Don’t worry,” she called back, “the forest is thinning, and I can see a break in the trees ahead of us.” Before long she emerged from the tree line, leaving the western forest behind her.

  Ahead and far below her, under a velvet sky, vast wetlands stretched, riddled with twisted trees and bogs that thickened in the distance until nothing could be seen between the trees. Plumes of fire shot from a black mountain on the far side of the swamp, and lava ran from the crest. It was fearful yet beautiful. Foreboding, yet it enticed her and dared her to cross the vast swamp and set foot on its charred slopes.

  “Our journey is only beginning,” Ombre said. “We’ve gone far enough for now. We will rest here tonight. Tomorrow we will determine our next move.” He pulled the packs off the horses’ backs and began setting up camp.

  Oganna grabbed a tent stake, Caritha grabbed the other, and they helped Ombre build their white canvas shelter. Once the stakes had been driven upright into the ground, about eight feet apart, they tied a pole to rest on top of them and draped the canvas over that. Then they drove other stakes to stretch it to the ground and rolled the rest beneath to make a floor for their tent. The task was soon completed, and the horses lay down by the tent door as Ombre heaped wood and lit a fire. Caritha and Oganna huddled in the open tent door, the fire in front of them gradually filling the tent with warmth.

  Neneila slithered to the fire. Heat waves distorted the creature as it coiled and closed its eyes.

  They sat and Ombre sat beside them, on Caritha’s side. The distant rumble of the volcano and the chirp of a cricket lent the only disturbance to their surroundings. Oganna lay down and pulled a blanket around her shoulders before looking again at the swamplands and the volcano. Was her father right? Could the Hemmed Land be destroyed by the sandstorms?

  The ground shook, and the volcano spurted a plume of white fire. A thin curtain of ash veiled the stars from view and dusted the dismal terrain in the distance. If there was a cursed land, she thought, maybe this was it.

  14

  SOVEREIGN IN A STRANGE LAND

  The streets resounded with three cheers of “Hail the Lord Warrior!”

  Ilfedo ascended the steps to the high double doors fronting the city hall, the Nuvitor perched on his shoulder. He held the sword of the dragon in his hand so that the magnificent armor of light and Living Fire covered his plain clothes. On both sides of him warriors decked out in red and bronze armor stood four rows deep. Pink plumes composed of Dewobin feathers waved atop their gold helms, while at their belts swung bronze short swords sheathed in velvet.

  Pink light fell upon the scene from the Dewobins glittering as they flitted far above the city.

  The pink flag of Dresdyn hung from every house for a mile in all directions. It had the most curious and yet memorable design of any standard he’d ever seen: a tiny Dewobin planted against a large white oval with a man in silhouette to the left side, holding a small yellow sun in his outstretched hand. All through the streets people thronged toward him, lifting their voices in song. In their hands they carried iron lanterns, casting a pallid yellow glow over the ground.

  He turned up the steps again and nodded to the guards. “Are they ready for me?”

  “They have been prepared for several hours now, my lord.” The guard smote his fist to his chest. “As—have—we—all.”

  The guards pulled back the tall doors and saluted him. The Nuvitor spread its wings, flying up to the Dewobins again, and Ilfedo shook his head, for a moment thinking back to the man he used to be. From where he stood today, that man seemed so far, far off. Even the woman that man had loved . . . Dantress. Dantress, why couldn’t you be by my side for moments such as this? He closed his eyes and imagined her standing beside him. She slipped her hand into his, and though she didn’t look up at him, he detected the beautiful smile playing across her lips. Oh, he was the envy of every man.

  Ilfedo stepped through the doors, and they thudded shut behind him. His daydream faded as pink-clad council members and other governmental figures swept forward from the enormous room before him.

  For the next two hours—he kept time by the oak clock hung at the pinnacle of the cathedral-ceilinged room—an elaborate ceremony centered around him. A polished blue marble pillar rose from the center of the room. It didn’t reach the ceiling, for it served no practical purpose; rather, it was an ornament created to commemorate the glory of a past era.

  He had learned much of this culture in the past days. Similar to the Hemmed Land, these people knew little of their history. However, they possessed records dating back a hundred and fifty years. As he went through the ceremony, he went over what he’d learned from Everett Matthaliah, one of the city pastors and the man who had pulled him from the haunted house. He chuckled to himself. Everett Matthaliah, you and I are somehow related. We’ll probably never figure out through which ancestors, but I feel sure that we are.

  A hundred and fifty years ago a nation beset by war fell apart. They possessed knowledge and skills of science that allowed them to fly with the birds and harness the power of the sun to light their cities. An exodus occurred in which the remnants of that nation divided. One faction traveled in search of a land far north. But the remaining smaller faction was caught in the desert and found refuge underground. Under the guidance of a Lord Warrior, they built the wooden city using materials they had carried from their homeland. They took the name Dresdyn from a pink flower that used to flourish in their former land, for the tiny Dewobins reminded them of the dresdyn flower.

  Their Lord Warrior was a man of many gifts. He built for them an optical scope of some sort that gave light to the city, pulling it directly from Yimshi. According to Everett, the city scope still stood, though it was housed in a long-ago-abandoned structure. The people of the city believed a spook inhabited it now. How it was possible for an instrument to bring sunlight to this city, Ilfedo couldn’t guess. He thought it curious, considering that the city was underground. Yet there were certain tie-ins with the Hemmed Land’s history—for instance, the reference to their ancestors having the ability to fly.

  “Lord Ilfedo, are you prepared to undertake the title of Lord Warrior for our people? Will you serve them as you do your own and thus fulfill the long-prophesied time of exodus? Will you lead us out of this place and bring us to a new and better home?”

  Ilfedo stood before the assemblage. Most of these men wore the same pink as the rest in their society. The Dewobins were useful for more than just citywide illumination.

  A broad-shouldered fellow with a pitted face lumbered toward him, raising on a pink pillow the golden scepter of office. It had four large rubies along its three-foot staff, and a diamond arrowhead at its end. It had been held in keeping for such a day as this, for it had been unclaimed since the death of the Lord Warrior over a hundred years ago.

  As the fellow knelt at his feet, Ilfedo said, “By your invitation, I accept this gift and the duties it entails. And by your law I take my place as ruler over this people to lead as I see fit, with wisdom and justice. And under the watchful eyes of Creator God I pledge myself to rule well.” He took the scepter and tucked it under his belt; he would rather hold his sword and maintain the magnificent attire that it bequeathed him than sheath it and be left in nothing but trousers and a short-sleeved shirt.

  “All hail the Lord Warrior! All hail the Lord Warrior!” The officials stepped back and bowed, holding their gaze to the floor as he walked down the aisle toward the exit doors.

  Five trumpets sounded from the balcony above as twelve guards, attired in the armor of their forebears, marched into position behind him. The doors swung outward, and he strode onto the hall steps.

  The mayor and Bromstead, captain of the guard, stood beside him and raised his arms. Bromstead was such a giant of a
man that he towered over Ilfedo, yet when their gazes met, Ilfedo knew beyond a shadow of doubt that here was a man to be trusted.

  Releasing his arm, as did the mayor, Bromstead grinned down at Ilfedo and bellowed for all to hear. “Hail Ilfedo, Lord Warrior!” Under his breath he said, “My Lord, if you would please raise the scepter for the people to see.”

  Ilfedo took a deep, comfortable breath, and sheathed the sword of the dragon. It seemed only appropriate to put away the sword and let the people see him holding the symbol of his new office. He stepped forward as the Living Fire peeled away his armor of light. Within moments he stood before the people in the clothing he had first arrived in—simple and practical. Grasping the scepter in his hand, he pulled it from under his belt and pointed it at the Dewobin sky.

  Then it happened. A force beyond his control seized him. It lashed itself around him with an invisible hold that constricted his body. One of the scepter rubies started to shine. He fought the constricting force. If only he hadn’t let go of his sword.

  But the scepter had him now. It threw him down the steps, and those assembled gasped. Bromstead rushed to his side, grabbing for the scepter. His fingers slipped over it without touching it, and his eyes narrowed.

  Then a voice whispered from the scepter, and the crowd stumbled back. “Who is this that touches mine scepter?” Ilfedo felt a cold loathing seep into his soul. Smoke wafted from the scepter’s diamond head as another ruby lit and the voice said, “Thought me dead, people of Dresdyn? Thought me long gone? Buried me, you did, didn’t you? Yet I live on in here, and no other may lay claim to my office. I built this city; I ruled your grandfathers. I brought light to this place, and I cut it off from you too.” A wave of darkness emanated from the demon, knocking Bromstead to the ground.