The Summer Dragon

by Todd Lockwood

  “I don’t know. I don’t care.”

  “Damn it, Maia! You and your stubbornness. If you hadn’t . . .”

  The sting of her words rendered me mute for several seconds. “If I hadn’t what?”

  She shook her head. “No. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to imply—”

  “But you did. If only I hadn’t run off and found my dragon, proved Bellua wrong, and brought the Juza into Riat. Is that what you meant? Or flown to the coast to discover that the Juza murder civilians? Or do you wish I had never seen the Summer Dragon at all?”

  “No! No. I’m sorry.”

  “And so is everyone else, I suppose.” I inhaled. Mabir didn’t meet my eyes.

  Suddenly I was with Darian again, hiding in a dragon’s nest on the cliffs, with Mother’s curse whispering at the corners of my mind. My cheeks burned at the memory, and at the imperative that pushed me into the mountain to begin with—to prove that the Summer Dragon hadn’t come to curse me, but to lift me up. I had proved it.

  But Jhem’s words filled me with doubt, and I grabbed my head to silence it. I’d already faced this demon more than once. I’d put lie to Bellua’s accusations, found a qit of my own, and strengthened the aeries. For the last several months my bond of love for Keirr helped me suppress my night terrors, calm my anger, and make peace with Mother’s words. Had it not? It couldn’t end like this. It had nothing to do with fate or preordination, only Addai and his narrow interpretation of “Truth,” whatever that really meant. I was little more than a paper boat on a river, carrying the candle of my life, but I could bob along helplessly or do what I’d done before. Something. Anything.

  I swallowed my anger. “Whatever it was, I did it. I can’t undo it. So the question remains: What do we do now?”

  Mabir looked up. “We trust the Avar to—”

  “Oh, for the love of Truth, what are the Avar going to do? Sit on a hill and look at us? What is Asha going to do? I’m done praying for miracles, Mabir. If I’ve learned anything in the last six, eight months, it’s that Korruzon, Asha, and the rest of them are fantasies. There are no miracles—”

  “Only in action is prayer answered,” said Mabir.

  Fren had said the same thing to me in my delirium following the ordeal on the mountain. Prayer is Work. Prayer is Action. Hollow platitudes that revealed nothing. It angered me again. “And so I look for action, while you tell me why it won’t work. You contradict yourselves as you contradict me.”

  “That’s not what I meant. Don’t lose faith, Maia.”

  “For months demons and theologies have competed in my head. To what end? For what good? The Rasaal is a tyrant and Getig a mystery, but Asha is a silent . . . promise and little more. What am I to do with that? Right now we need a plan. What are we going to do?”

  I was interrupted by the sound of the bar lifting, and the door latches turning. Jhem looked at me in surprise, Mabir in confusion, and he hugged Tulo closer. The doors opened.

  The last three people I expected to see together stood in the chamber beyond. Cairek dressed in full Dragonry regalia—armor, sword, spear. Beside him Fren with a pair of quivers over one shoulder, his bow over the other, and a long hunting knife stuck in his belt. He also wore a dragon rider’s harness. Standing before them, with an uncharacteristic sword at his hip, a crossbow and quiver slung on his back, was Bellua.

  “What is this?” I said, when my wits caught up to me at last.

  Bellua stepped into the room. “I served your guards their evening meals an hour ago, laced with sedatives to knock them out. I did the same to the guards in the stables. We must go now, while Addai and the rest of his Juza are out on patrol. There isn’t much time.”

  “What?” I heard myself, and I sounded more than a little bit dumbfounded. “Why? Why would you do that?”

  “You have one chance to prove your innocence, Maia, in a way that even Addai can’t dismiss. You need my testimony in the trial to come. But it can’t be hearsay or opinion. It must be the experience of another ordained in the Rasaal. You need me.”

  “Explain.”

  “We should go,” said Cairek.

  “We can hear his answer first,” I said.

  Bellua took a deep breath and studied me for several long seconds, then turned his gaze downward. “This has been a long time coming, Maia, but it’s not easy to convey in the little time we have. My experience here in Riat has challenged my beliefs to the core. I’ve witnessed things that shook me. I’ve seen ancient ruins that I don’t understand. I was challenged in no small part by you, Maia. Not just your words, but also your actions. You saved my life, and Zell’s.” He met my gaze with his head ever so slightly bowed. “I know you’re not a witch, but now I have to know the truth about Asha and the Rasaal. And the Summer Dragon.”

  I couldn’t speak. Was this for real? Or another ploy? But what ploy would involve Cairek and Fren? Bellua had seen my bond mark, but he’d told me to continue wearing my hair down; he hadn’t betrayed me to Addai. In fact, something changed in him the day Addai arrived.

  “Why should we trust you?” said Jhem, as if she read my mind.

  “I can’t blame you if you don’t. I’ve treated you terribly.”

  Mabir stood slowly and took several steps toward Bellua. “There’s more here than doubt alone. Something pushed you. What was it?”

  Bellua looked to each of us as he replied. “My orders from the Rasaal were the first indication to me that something wasn’t right. Addai was put in charge, with the clear command that we were to discredit you, Maia, by whatever means possible. But I had seen too much. I felt that the Temple disregarded truth in favor of convenience. I didn’t know how far it would go until this morning, when Addai revealed the lengths he would follow in pursuit of that end.”

  “So you believe me? Addai killed Borgomos and the last of Cuuloda’s refugees.”

  The familiar stern facade returned to his face, but now it looked careworn. “I do.”

  “You sabotaged the aeries with words and actions. You’ve been ruthless, too. You could have said something, but now Borgomos and his people are dead. And worst of all, you may be right that Getig is an aspect of Korruzon. In the end, what scared you—and what Addai killed for—is a dispute over which way to tell the story.”

  He lowered his eyes again, but nodded agreement. When he looked up his face was haggard. “I’m compelled to know what’s true, and what isn’t. For the sake of my soul.”

  “We have to go,” said Cairek.

  Mabir reached out and put a hand on Bellua’s shoulder. “I believe I understand what you are saying. You have brought Fren because his well of knowledge is deep, and Cairek because he is a sympathetic force.”

  Bellua nodded. “There is only one way to answer my doubts and to end Addai’s inquest. That’s why we must go. All of us. You too, Mabir.”

  “Go where?” I knew what he would say before he answered, and my knees went weak.

  Fear shadowed his gaze. “The key to your freedom and mine are monuments deep in the mountain.”

  We walked past the drugged Juza guards, their dragons resting complacently beside them. Tauman waited in the courtyard, with Rannu, Audax, and Keirr fully saddled, our gear stowed—including our bows and multiple quivers of ammunition. Five of Cairek’s men waited as well, including Marad, one of the talon leaders he’d introduced to us when they first arrived in Riat.

  Keirr danced on her forefeet, nodding happily. “Maia!” she said. I kissed her nose and hugged her head.

  Cairek’s eyes caught mine as I mounted. His grim face showed relief, but also fear. Affection, but also sadness. He averted his gaze with embarrassed haste. He knew that I didn’t want his courtship, but he’d come with Bellua anyway. I felt guilt for all I’d put him through. He was a good man. I might do far worse. My heart pounded with emotion as I realized what he risk
ed. “You could be court-martialed.”

  “M’lady, I can’t abide what’s happening here. As I see it, my duty is to protect the aeries, which includes you an’ your kin. I let you down once. I won’t do it again.”

  My throat tightened, and I nodded my thanks. “Cairek, I’m sorry that Father was so hard on you. I’m sorry that I’m so much like him. I get angry. You didn’t deserve it.”

  He nodded in return, then mounted his dragon, Taben, and strapped in, cartridges of arrows secured to the saddle behind him.

  Bellua and Fren combined to get Mabir onto Zell’s back. He wore his old harness—left over from a time before his bonded dragon died of age—and strapped himself efficiently into the secondary spot behind Bellua. Fren climbed up behind Tauman and with some assistance fastened his harness. He looked at me with mixed determination and terror, and managed a weak smile. He’d never been on the back of a dragon in his life. I returned what I hoped was a reassuring nod. I was glad for his presence.

  Jhem and Tauman buckled in, but Cairek positioned Taben in their path. “You should take Jhem an’ Maia into hiding until we return an’ get this issue with Addai resolved.”

  A deep, frightened part of me liked Cairek’s suggestion quite a bit, but I shook my head. “I’m going. I need to know the truth too, and I’m not about to let others fight my battle for me.”

  “And I won’t let her go in without me,” said Jhem.

  Cairek frowned. “You and Tauman put your breeding pair at risk.”

  “They’re already at risk,” I said. “From Addai himself. He made it clear that he would happily claim the entire brood for the Rasaal and replace as many breeding pairs as it took.”

  Tauman took that news with clouded anger, and the look he turned to Cairek might have melted stone. “This is as much my mess as anyone’s. And I’m with Maia—this is our fight. Let us fight it. What we should do is ambush Addai and end his inquest. Now.”

  “You’d never overcome his Juza,” said Bellua. “They are elite fighters. You’d lose.”

  “Somehow I like those chances more than I like going back into the mountain,” I said.

  Cairek leaned toward me. “Believe me, I weighed those options. I’ve seen the Juza in action, an’ I do not want to tangle with them.”

  “And you don’t want to forget about Rov,” said Bellua.

  Cairek shifted uncomfortably in his saddle. “I’ve arranged for my own men to be on duty in the cavern. We won’t encounter any of Rov’s teams going in.”

  “This is crazy,” I said.

  He nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  “Where’s Tulo?” said Mabir.

  “I’m here,” said a small voice.

  Tulo stood in the doorway of the Temple, wearing an ancient and oversized harness, his quiver of drawing implements clutched tight. “If these monuments are important, then they need to be recorded, don’t they?”

  Mabir’s chin quivered for a moment. “By the High Ones. It’s true. Bellua?”

  The merihem studied the acolyte—his thin arms, tousled dark hair, eyes wide but mouth firmly set—and nodded. “I’ve seen your drawings, young man, and I agree.”

  “He can ride with me.” Jhem urged Audax to lower himself, leaned down and took Tulo’s quiver, then offered him a hand up the step rungs. He slipped in behind her and together they secured his harness.

  I arranged my weapons for easy access. We all met each other’s eyes with a look of shared resolve.

  Bellua said, “We’re ready.”

  When we launched, the waning moon sat on the eastern plains, a pale bowl, half full of light. The stars barely twinkled in air crisp and clear and still. Cairek led us on a path that clung to the cover of shadowed canyons, around Zurvaan to the far entrance, where Darian and I had made our stand against the Harodhi and their Horrors.

  I couldn’t dismiss the thought that Bellua might have laid a trap for us. Every muscle in my body tightened, and the skin on my neck and arms prickled. My jaw clenched so tight my teeth hurt. I became aware of every sound, every smell. But what else could I do? It was true that we needed an advocate. For better or worse, he was it. I would watch him like a cat.

  When we landed, the redolence of ash and soot still lingered all these months later, even though they’d cleared the bone and wood from the porch of the cave. Lanterns inside revealed a new masonry wall, erected about thirty feet in. It spanned the cave from side to side, floor to ceiling, with large double doors in the center barred against anything that might come up from the depths.

  Two more of Cairek’s men awaited us—one of them Ajhe, his other talon leader. Once we all landed safely, they each gave their mounts a command, and the dragons reached up with their forefeet to take rings at the end of two ropes suspended from the shadows above either side of the doors. As they pulled them down, pulleys squeaked and groaned in the darkness, and the heavy bar lifted out of its braces with a grating rattle. Once it cleared the lintel, they slipped the rings onto hooks set in the stone floor.

  Cairek trotted in front of us on Taben and turned him around. “Listen! Here’s the marching order: me in front, then Darid an’ Skot.” Two names I’d not heard before. “Tauman with Fren, Bellua an’ Mabir. Maia. Jhem an’ Tulo. Then Marad, Ansin, an’ Teff.” Two more. “We’ll stay mounted at all times. Only Bellua and I have been to the deep chambers we’re going to visit. We’ll do what we came t’ do as quick as possible, then turn around in exact reverse order an’ beat it back out. Understood?”

  Some nodded. Some said “yes” or “aye.” I only swallowed the bile in my throat and wiped my sweaty hands on my pants.

  “Okay then.” He nodded to his talon leaders. Ajhe and Marad’s dragons took a ring in the center of each door with their teeth and pulled them outward. The hinges moaned and chattered. Lantern light flickered in the long hall beyond. Cairek wheeled Taben around again and trotted into the passage. We followed in silence. Ajhe and one of his teams remained outside to swing the doors closed again behind us. We heard the grate and rattle of the bar dropping on the far side. The thump as it settled into its braces again echoed with unsettling finality.

  We proceeded down the corridor and the first short set of steps. The flicker of torches animated the friezes on the walls. People and dragons engaged in happy pursuits—marches, festivals, banquets—were made somehow morbid by stark shadows, the dank air, the hollow echoes of talons on stone, and Keirr’s nervous clicks. We descended the long stair toward the green glow of the Chamber of the Seasons, where Malik had given me my Keirr.

  The Chamber welcomed us with a floor cleared of debris. All the fallen stone and bones and even Poppa dragon’s bloody footprints were gone. As we skirted the crystal fountain, I looked to the eastern entrance, now closed off with a new door and braces of steel. Above it the Summer Dragon seemed to ripple with life in the strange light. I marveled once more at the detail and precision of the sculpture. I shivered. Took a deep breath.

  Keirr’s head raised up, and she clicked repeatedly, looking all around. She made her Poppa-honk, but not as if she called him. She said it to me, looking over her shoulder. She recognized this room, and remembered what happened here.

  I patted her neck. “That’s right, baby.”

  I wanted to mutter a prayer, but I didn’t know what name to choose. It was here that Mabir had explained the philosophy of the Ashaani to Father and me. It struck me now that it was that and no more—a philosophy. Not a religion. Certainly not a god. Asha was nothing so simple as that, no. Truth was far more complicated and difficult to grasp. It could contain gods. The philosophy of Asha invited doubt for reasons it considered noble. How could you pray to that? Doubt could invite fear. I listened for the Edimmu but felt nothing and pushed the thought down for fear that thought alone might summon it. I didn’t remember drawing the arrow nocked to my bowstring.

  Four more of Cairek’s
wing met us as he headed toward the door surmounted by the carving of Waeges, the Autumn Dragon in her leafy mien. A new door of steel also blocked this passage. When last we’d been here, Harodhi fighters and the Edimmu poured through it from the depths.

  Keirr sensed my fear and faltered. Before I could urge her forward again, Cairek halted the whole procession. He spoke quietly with the riders at the door, their muted voices lost in the confusion of whispering echoes, smothered by the splash and hiss of the fountain. His men brought lanterns; one each for Cairek, Bellua, Jhem, and me. I shook my head no. I didn’t want it—it would make me a target. The soldier shrugged and gave it to Marad instead.

  Then two of the riders grasped either side of a wheel set in the door and began to turn it. Gears ratcheted on the face of the door, sound reverberating and multiplying throughout the chamber like echoes in a fever dream. Two fat bars of steel withdrew from holes in the metal casing. It finished with a resounding clank. I cringed at the volume of noise. Could we have knocked any louder? A bead of sweat tickled the side of my face.

  Cairek turned to us, Taben prancing nervously. “Listen! There’s a metal knocker on the other side of this door. On our return, three short raps followed by three long ones will signal my men to open it again. Rapraprap. Rap . . . rap . . . rap. Got it?”

  “Smaw, bi-g,” said Keirr quietly.

  Again, a chorus of aye and yes. I looked back at Jhem. Her face was ashen, but she too had nocked an arrow to her bowstring.

  At a nod, Cairek’s men swung the door inward on groaning hinges. One by one we started forward into the black heart of Mt. Zurvaan.

  FORTY-SIX

  A STRANGE CALM FILLED ME. Not calm, a bizarre suspension of fear. Or integration of fear. I’d been in these caverns before, faced the Harodhi twice now, the Horrors twice, and even the Edimmu twice. Every sensation was heightened. My bow in my hands, arrow nocked. Harness tight. Keirr alert, clicking and stepping lightly, her talons retracted in order to walk silently on the pads of her feet. The temperature of the air, the scents of stone and water, the tension in my companions. I was taut as a bowstring. Calm wasn’t the word.