The Dragon Token

by Melanie Rawn

  All at once Riyan cried out. “No—Goddess, no!”

  Tallain sprang to his feet, the map forgotten on the sand, and grabbed his friend to keep him upright. Riyan gasped for air, sense returning to his eyes.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  He shook his head and clutched Tallain’s forearms, unable to speak. Rage, fear, grief—Tallain marked the passage of each across the stricken face.

  “Rohan,” he gasped, “it’s Rohan. He’s dead.”

  Tallain wrenched away and took two steps—all that his knees would permit—across the bright sand. The glare hurt his eyes. He fixed his gaze on the faraway russet stones and dull green trees that marked the Cunaxan border. The image blurred, and he blinked, and it blurred again.

  Finally he swung around. “Riyan, we have a great deal of work to do.” He felt his lips curve in a thin, cold smile. “And we will do it very thoroughly.”

  “Tallain—”

  “Very thoroughly,” he repeated, and Riyan understood.

  • • •

  The ritual that observed the passing of a High Prince also served to commemorate all others who had died since he was proclaimed. Tradition held that their spirits—peasant or mighty lord, enemy or beloved friend—were privileged to gather at his pyre and greet him on the wind that scattered his ashes across the sky.

  This was the last vestige of a barbarian past when every princedom’s ritual included the slaughter of as many people as the High Prince had seen years of rule. It was not thought seemly that his death should be a solitary one. It was yet another tradition that Lady Merisel was credited with abolishing.

  Curiously enough, lore had always held that a Lord or Lady of Goddess Keep died alone.

  Roelstra’s death had come late in 704, thirty-nine winters after his accession. The wind that had carried his ashes skyward was crowded indeed—and much of it had been his doing. Plague had come during his rule, and he had held back the dranath that cured it until certain of his enemies were dead. The war that he started, and that ended with his death beneath a dome of starfire, had claimed hundreds upon hundreds more lives.

  Rohan, with seven fewer years as High Prince, would receive smaller but gentler welcome on the wind. The spirits of those dead during his rule would not come demanding to know why.

  But this time a High Prince’s death did not mark the end of a war. Rather, there was the knowledge that those recently dead in that war, and drawn to Stronghold as Rohan’s body slowly burned, would not be the last to die this year, or the next. Theirs were the spirits who would wait for Pol.

  With the steadying of the light as it slid across the continent, Sunrunners staggered back from the news that Stronghold was in flames and the High Prince was dead. And many wondered just how long those ghosts would have to wait before gathering on the wind summoned to honor the next High Prince.

  • • •

  At Fessada, where the Ussh River broke in twain, an angry young woman stood in a chamber watching her husband inspect the mourning gray laid out on their bed. Arnisaya had been born at Gilad Seahold, and was a Princess of Fessenden through marriage to its ruler’s younger son. Edirne was occupied in choosing among four tunics, all equally fine. She could almost hear the silent debate as he decided which would best become him while indicating grief for the High Prince. Not too much grief, of course, but what was proper for a prince. As he flicked invisible specks of dust from the clothing, Arnisaya’s fingers clenched around a large glass bowl.

  Edirne glanced at her disinterestedly. “It wouldn’t kill me, only shatter.”

  “Dragon’s teeth would shatter against that stone skull of yours!” She seized the bowl in both hands and crashed it deliberately to the floor. Shards flew in all directions like spatters of orange paint.

  “Control your temper, Arnisaya,” her husband advised.

  “When will you start behaving like a man instead of a gelding?” she hissed. “My brother Segelin and his family are dead at Seahold—unavenged! The enemy sails Brochwell Bay as if it were their private lake. Half the Desert is lost, most of Gilad, much of Syr—and all you can do is worry which tunic to wear!”

  He considered them again. “Is your own gown in order? Is it the correct shade of gray? We don’t wish it said we lack respect for the late High Prince.”

  Arnisaya nearly shrieked in her frustration and fury. “What does it take to shame you into—”

  “Into a fight that has nothing to do with me?” He picked through the jewels in a small coffer, holding various rings and earrings up to the sunlight. “You heard my father’s judgment. There is nothing in any treaty that compels us to defend anyone against an invader unknown to us. If one of the other princedoms had attacked Syr or Dorval or the Desert, then honor would have—”

  “Honor! A squiggle of ink on parchment to you, a sound you learned to make but not understand!”

  “—dictated that we come to the aid of the wronged princedom,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “We are under no obligation to anyone.”

  “My brother is dead!”

  “Yes. And it’s a good thing he paid the final installment on your dowry at the Rialla this year.”

  This time she aimed a silver wine cup right at his head. He brushed it away as if it were an annoying insect.

  “Understand something, Arnisaya,” he said quietly and in his taut, long-nosed face was a cold warning. “My father chose me to rule after him, even though my brother Camanto is the elder. And after me will come our son Lenig. This war is nothing we need concern ourselves with. Nothing is going to interfere with the order of things in Fessenden—not war, not alliance, not anything.” He paused long enough to settle on an unusual dark moonstone earring to complete his ensemble. “But I would remind you, wife, that the succession is now assured.”

  She sucked in a breath and her high color paled. “You wouldn’t dare.”

  “No? As you’ve pointed out, Segelin is dead. There is no one to side with you, should I decide on divorce—which you make more attractive with every one of your tantrums. I’m beginning to wonder why I Chose a hawk, when a sparrow would have suited me just as well.”

  Arnisaya fled the room before she grabbed something really fatal and killed him with it. In the chill marble hallways of Fessada she slammed blindly into someone whose arms caught her fast.

  “Let go of me, damn you!”

  “Peace, dear sister.” Camanto steadied her, in no hurry to loosen his embrace. “You’re quite astonishing when you’re furious, you know. Pity my brother doesn’t have eyes to see it.”

  “Damn him!” She raked her tumbled hair back from her face. “He’s a coward and a fool! No wonder your father wants him to be the next Prince of Fessenden—they’re exactly alike!”

  “So you’ve discovered that, have you?” He grinned, looking like a lean, blond wolf.

  “What can he hope to gain by staying neutral? Pol will chew him up and spit him out—and I don’t like to think what the Vellant’im will do.”

  “On the contrary,” Camanto said, leading her to an antechamber where they could be private. “My esteemed father has firm legal basis for his actions—”

  “For the lack of them!” she hissed.

  “Granted. But Pol is as stupid about adhering to the law as Rohan ever was. As for the Vellant’im—” He shrugged. “They want the Desert. Now they have most of it. My father will make some sort of arrangement.”

  “You’re as craven as he is! You’re worse than Edirne!”

  “Oh, no.” Camanto laughed and tilted her face up with one finger beneath her chin. His brown eyes were bright and bitter. “No, sweet sister. I have neither my father’s cowardice nor my brother’s icy blood. I have . . . intentions.”

  “What kind?” she asked warily.

  “Certain things they wouldn’t approve.”

  Arnisaya’s breath caught. “I’ll do everything I can to help.”

  “You are the most impulsive woman I ever met,” he
said with a smile, and after a moment added, “Have you also discovered—finally—that you married the wrong brother?”

  • • •

  At Dragon’s Rest, Prince Miyon of Cunaxa was hard put to master himself. Dead, finally dead! he kept telling himself, barely restraining laughter. Feeling his lips begin to curve, he dug the sharp prongs of a ring into his palm, the discomfort reminding him of the sobriety demanded by the occasion.

  “What’s to become of us now?” he murmured, shaking his head.

  Edrel of River Ussh, whose grief marked him as if it were years instead of only moments old, raised his eyes to the Sunrunner who had brought the news. “It’s certain? Absolutely certain?”

  “Yes, my lord.” Hildreth twisted her rings. “Poor Sioned. . . .”

  Miyon recalled that the two women had grown up together at Goddess Keep. Hildreth misplaced her emotion, however; it was Pol who deserved pity.

  Aware that they were looking to him for instructions, he repressed another grin and said, “You both know better than I how such rituals are arranged here. Please see to it. I wish to spend some time alone.”

  He escaped to the gardens, found a secluded bench screened by shrubs and a willow tree, and rocked back and forth with silent laughter for some time. But not even glee at Rohan’s death could cancel his lingering fury at the trick his daughter had played on him. Had Meiglan still been here under his thumb, life would have been much simpler. Now he would have to choose his meal instead of nibbling from both ends of the loaf.

  Could Pol withstand the invading Vellant’im? Indications were he could not. Radzyn, Remagev, Stronghold—the three shining jewels of the Desert were lost. And at the smoking ruins of Tuath Castle in the far north, Miyon’s own bastard son camped with his Merida brethren, soon to descend on coveted Tiglath. With its capture—and Birioc had damned well better not destroy it, or Miyon would have his head—Cunaxan steel could be shipped safely and swiftly to the Vellant’im. More importantly, Desert troops would be kept out of reach of that same precious steel, unable to rearm. He thought of the swords, shields, spears, and arrowheads stockpiled in his armories, and smiled. Birioc had bought himself into partnership with the Vellant’im with that treasure; Miyon intended to buy a princedom. Maybe two.

  Not that he would forgive his future allies for gutting Stronghold. It was easier to believe Rohan dead than that seemingly eternal pile of stone gone. Now he would never ride through its gates and take possession of what was rightfully his. Well, he would think of that while the ritual was going on—it would put a properly somber look on his face.

  And the mourning period would at least give him the chance to think. With Laric departed for Firon to reclaim his princedom from his wife’s treacherous brother, there was only Edrel left to deal with. And Evarin, the Master Physician from Goddess Keep. And Hildreth and her husband and sons.

  There was much to be thought over, and several deaths to be planned.

  • • •

  At New Raetia, it was a bright, windswept morning, the sort of day that almost made Rohannon wish he could tolerate being in a boat. How wonderful to skim across water like a dragon on the wind. The closest he could come to it was Sunrunning, but his father had forbidden it until he truly knew how.

  At least he didn’t have the faradhi seasickness as bad as his sister. Sometimes Chayla turned green just looking at the ocean from the windows of Radzyn. Rohannon smiled briefly at the memory, then turned away from the view of the restless water far below. It would be a very long time before he saw whitecaps off the shores of his home, or teased Chayla about her susceptibility, or walked the battlements of his ancestral keep again.

  “Rohannon? Ah, here you are.” Prince Arlis grabbed for the folds of his cloak and wrapped the heavy wool more tightly around him. “What a wind! Not the contented sighs of a Storm God made happy last night in the Goddess’ arms!”

  “I hope he blows the Vellanti fleet to the Far Islands and smashes them on the rocks.”

  “Hmm. I wonder what—if anything—they believe in.” Arlis leaned his elbows on the stone and peered down to the harbor. “Rohannon, why did no one know my brother Saumer is faradhi?”

  He’d been waiting for this question for quite some time now. “I have no idea, my lord. Was he sick on the voyage to Syr?”

  “Yes, but so was everyone else who’d had dinner with him the night before. We assumed it was bad lobster.” Arlis shook his head. “Goddess, if we’d only known—” He broke off abruptly.

  Rohannon understood. As Rohan’s one-time squire, Arlis’ loyalties did not lie at Goddess Keep. But with Saumer turning out to have the gift . . . it was the same decision his own parents had thus far avoided: whether or not to send Rohannon and Chayla to Andry for training.

  “Well, it’s done,” Arlis said. “Or perhaps I ought to say it wasn’t done.”

  “If he wants, he can be taught the way Sioned taught my grandmother Tobin.”

  “I can’t see Saumer returning to the schoolroom,” Arlis pointed out wryly. “Anybody’s schoolroom, not even Sioned’s. Have you thought what you’ll do when it comes to it?”

  Rohannon shrugged. “I’m not sure. I can learn it all from my parents—and Sioned, of course—but there’s a lot about being a Sunrunner that they say can only be taught at Goddess Keep. I—”

  Rohannon—

  Father? He was wrapped in light and gentleness and familiar colors.

  Goddess blessing to you, my dear son. I’m glad to find you safe.

  Why wouldn’t I be? Father, what’s wrong?

  There is no easy way to tell this. Rohannon, there’s been hard battle here. Stronghold is empty and burning. Don’t worry about your mother and sister—they’re on their way to Feruche with your grandmother.

  And you? You’re not hurt?

  A few scratches. But Rohan . . . Rohan is dead.

  “No!”

  His scream shattered the weaving. Arlis threw an arm around his shoulders to hold him upright, calling his name. It was so cold. The wind cut through him and iced his bones.

  Rohannon! Maarken steadied him. Don’t ever do that again!

  Father—no, it’s not true—

  I wish almost anything else were true but this. I can’t stay, my son. Tell Arlis, and—and do honor to your kinsman. You were Named for him, and he loved you well. Remember that.

  • • •

  At Summer River in Grib, Prince Velden said to his court Sunrunner, “We shall do all that is proper, naturally. But without ostentation.”

  “Meaning, my lord?”

  “What do you think it means?” he snapped. “The enemy is camped not ten measures away. Thus far, they’ve let us alone. If they see a display of fuss and bother they’ll wonder why—and undoubtedly find out. What would it do to their spirits to learn that the High Prince is dead and they’ve won a great victory in the Desert? How long would it be before they decide to match that victory here?”

  “I hadn’t thought of it that way, my lord.”

  Of course you hadn’t. You don’t think at all unless Andry tells you how. I never liked Andrade, but at least she sent me Sunrunners who knew how to use their brains.

  Aloud, he said, “We will observe the ritual with all respect and honor, but quietly.”

  The Sunrunner departed. Velden frowned, reminded that in Andrade’s day faradh’im had bowed to princes, a small point but a telling one. Things had changed since the days of his youth, and not for the better.

  He shrugged off his annoyance and wished he could also shrug off his only son and heir, who limped into the oratory gripping his cane as if it were a sword. Elsen’s right leg had been shattered in a childhood accident; he had never been sent away to be fostered as a squire or even been more than a few measures from Summer River, for if walking was uncomfortable, riding was an agony. A lifetime of intermittent pain showed in Elsen’s face, in the constant tension of his thin mouth and the strain around his eyes.

  Velden was well aware
that the last thing under the Goddess’ sunshine Elsen wanted to do was become a ruling prince. He had hoped that his daughter Norian would marry a man worthy of being named heir, but she had thrown herself away on that nothing Edrel of River Ussh. So Elsen, not his sister, would rule Grib one day. At least he’d had sense enough to wed a woman who not only adored him in spite of his handicap, but who knew what was what when it came to ruling. Selante was Cabar of Gilad’s daughter and had more between her ears than the scribblings from musty old books that filled Elsen’s head.

  Yet it seemed that his placid son was now moved to something very like anger. Belatedly, Velden recalled that it had been Rohan who had sent volumes on every subject imaginable to a crippled little boy he had never even met, and long letters had been exchanged for most of Elsen’s life.

  “Why haven’t the orders been given?” Elsen demanded. “By now everyone should be in mourning, and the fires lit, and—”

  Velden detailed his reasoning, as he had done with the Sunrunner. But though grudging acceptance gradually showed in Elsen’s pale eyes, the long jaw set stubbornly halfway through the explanation.

  “This still doesn’t make clear why you’ve held back our soldiers from the fighting. At least send them to Catha Heights, to join with the Syrene army—”

  “Under the command of two squires? How effective do you think this ‘army’ will be now that Kostas is dead?”

  “Rihani and Saumer are his kinsmen. His people will follow them. Ours will follow you.”

  “If your cousin Sethric were here instead of in the Desert, perhaps I would order it. But I’m too old.”

  “And I am incapable,” Elsen finished for him without bitterness. “Sethric isn’t here, so you’re safe in suggesting it, aren’t you?”

  “Hold your tongue,” Velden snapped, for his son had hit on the exact truth.

  “I have, and for too long.” He limped to a chair and sat down to ease the ache in his leg. “I said nothing when you refused to send troops to Waes and kept our gates locked to those who fled that city. I said nothing when Radzyn fell, and Riverport and Graypearl and the rest. Even when Prince Tilal was nearby and could have been given our soldiers to lead—”