Secret of the Dragon

by Margaret Weis

  They reached Chloe’s room. Acronis opened the door and ushered them inside.

  CHAPTER

  9

  * * *

  BOOK THREE

  The bedchamber was ablaze with light. Every oil lamp in the house had been brought in to drive away the darkness. The heat was stifling.

  Chloe lay on her bed, grimly, stubbornly awake. She had refused to take any more of the poppy syrup, and the physicians left in offended ire, saying there was nothing more they could do. She had sent Rosa away for “blubbering.” Her hands plucked at the silken coverlet, sometimes clenching the fabric when a spasm of pain shook her.

  Her body was frail and weak, her spirit indomitable. Skylan first felt pity. He was soon moved to admiration. Zahakis stood beside her bed. His face was stern, his jaw clenched tight.

  Hearing the sound of the door opening, Chloe turned her head.

  “Father, did Skylan come?” she asked eagerly. “Is he here?”

  “Yes, my dear. He and Aylaen and”—he glanced with some bewilderment at Wulfe—“a boy . . .”

  Acronis stood aside for them to enter. Wulfe shook his head violently and pulled away.

  “Lemures,” he told Skylan in a whisper. “They’re standing around her bed.”

  “Wait for me,” said Skylan.

  Wulfe nodded. “I’ll wait. I promise.”

  Skylan walked inside and met Zahakis’s piercing gaze. The Tribune either knew or guessed that the Torgun would be taking this opportunity to escape. Skylan unbuckled his sword belt and wordlessly handed over the weapon. Aylaen was about to do the same when Chloe stopped her.

  “Is that the sword blessed by your goddess? The sword that frightened the fury and kept her from attacking? My father told me. May I see it, please?”

  Aylaen looked stricken. The weapons Treia had delivered to them were not their own weapons. Aylaen had grabbed a sword and sheath and belt from the pile.

  “Show her the sword. Make something up. She won’t know the difference,” Skylan whispered.

  Aylaen drew the sword from its scabbard. Her eyes widened. She stared wildly at Skylan, then back at the sword. The hilt with its intricate pattern shone like the sun on the scales of a dragon in the lamplight.

  “It is lovely,” said Chloe, awed. “Tell me about your goddess. Is she beautiful? Does she know Torval, Skylan’s god?”

  “Her name is Vindrash,” said Aylaen. She had to stop to clear her throat. “She is the goddess of dragonkind and the goddess of our people. We call ourselves ‘Vindrasi’ in her honor. She is Torval’s wife and she is very beautiful.”

  “She must love you very much to give you her sword,” said Chloe.

  Aylaen’s eyes filled with tears. “She used to love me. I have done a great wrong and I fear she is angry with me.”

  “I make my father angry with me sometimes,” said Chloe. “But I know he loves me. Could I hold the sword?”

  Aylaen rested the weapon on the silken coverlet. Chloe clasped her hand weakly over the hilt. Her small fingers tightened around it. She looked up at Skylan.

  “If I die with a sword in my hand,” she said, “then Torval will have to let me into his Hall.”

  Zahakis walked away, went over to stand in the shadows. Acronis’s lips trembled. He clenched his fist behind his back.

  Skylan thought of the heroes gathered in Torval’s Hall. Heroes who had fought on despite their wounds, overcoming pain and fear, refusing to surrender, making Death come to take them by force.

  “Yes,” said Skylan, “Torval will welcome you into his Hall.”

  Chloe’s voice trembled. Skylan saw the shadow of fear in her eyes.

  “Torval’s Hall is not dark, is it, Skylan? I won’t be alone in the dark.”

  Skylan rested his hand on her hand that held fast to the sword.

  “Torval’s Hall is lit with a thousand torches that blaze for all eternity. In the great fireplace burns a log taken from the Life Tree that fills the hall with warmth and light. There is music and song, dancing and feasting. The heroes tell the stories of their battles. The tables are laden with food and the flagons never run dry.”

  “I would like to dance,” said Chloe. “I’ve never danced before.”

  Her breath came short. She made a little grimace and gasped. Her hand clenched over the sword’s hilt. She would not give in. She fought on.

  “You and I will lead the dance,” said Skylan.

  “Will we? I would like that.” Chloe gave another little gasp and, after a struggle for breath, she suddenly sat up in the bed. She stared at something far away, a vision only she could see. Her eyes shone with light, and who was to say the light did not come from Torval’s Hall?

  “A thousand torches blazing,” Chloe whispered. “Banishing the darkness. And I will lead the dance. . . .”

  Her eyes closed. She sank back among the pillows. Yet her hand remained holding fast to the sword.

  Skylan unclasped her fingers from the sword. Lifting the limp hand, he pressed it to his lips. Aylaen wept silently. Acronis picked up the sword and handed it to her.

  “Thank you,” he said softly.

  He sat down on the bed and gathered his daughter to him, holding her, wrapped in the coverlet. Burying his face in her hair, he gave a wrenching, shuddering sob and cradled her in his arms, rocking back and forth.

  “You two should go,” said Zahakis. “No one will stop you.”

  Skylan nodded, then glanced at Acronis and asked quietly, “What will become of him?”

  “I don’t know,” said Zahakis. “I don’t know.”

  An oil lamp flickered and went out. So they would all go out eventually. So will we all, Skylan thought.

  Aylaen clasped hold of his hand and the two walked out together. They found Wulfe crouched behind a large vase. He jumped up and came pattering along after them.

  The front entrance was locked. The rooms in this part of the villa opened onto the atrium. Skylan found a door that took them into the garden. He stood amidst the trees with their still leaves trying to decide which way to go. The night-blooming flowers filled the air with perfume. The day-blooming flowers had closed tight in slumber. A nightingale sang. Some small creature, fox or rabbit, hunter or hunted, made a rustling sound among the hedges. He had just decided which way to go when he saw Keeper.

  The ogre was a dark hulking shape among the trees. Every so often, he would stop as though looking about. Skylan whistled softly. The ogre whistled back and began to walk in their direction.

  “Wait, Skylan,” said Aylaen, clutching his hand, holding him back. “I have to tell you something.”

  Skylan had been longing for her to talk to him. But now was not the time he would have chosen.

  “If this could wait—”

  “It can’t,” said Aylaen stubbornly. “If I don’t tell you now I may never find the courage to tell you at all. It’s about Garn. I was desperate.” She echoed Acronis’s words. “I couldn’t let him go. I missed him so much I thought about . . . about going to join him.”

  “Aylaen, I understand,” Skylan said, one eye on Keeper. “I feel the same way—”

  “Let me finish!” she cried. She twisted her hands together, wringing her fingers. “Raegar promised me that if I would tell him the secret to the Vektan dragons, his god would bring Garn back to me. Aelon would bring Garn back to life.”

  Skylan felt his stomach clench, his mouth go dry.

  “And did he?”

  “Yes,” Aylaen said, shuddering. “There are priestesses, Spirit Priestesses who can summon the dead. They brought Garn to me, only it was a trick. He wasn’t alive. His spirit was in chains. He was a prisoner. The priestess said that Garn would be a prisoner for all eternity unless I told them the secret of the Vektan dragon. I said I didn’t know it and that’s when Garn spoke to me. He told me you knew the secret.”

  “Torval save us!” Skylan breathed.

  Aylaen swallowed. “Treia told me she had freed him, Skylan, but I . . . I’
m not sure I believe her now. When I asked if I could see him, speak to him, she wouldn’t let me. I’m sorry, Skylan, but I can’t leave Sinaria knowing that Garn’s soul might still be a prisoner.”

  Skylan’s skin prickled. Tiny jolts sizzled through his body, as had happened once when he’d been standing near a tree struck by lightning. He was playing dragonbone. He saw his opponent’s pieces and where they were placed and suddenly he saw the pattern. He knew the strategy. The Torgun were playing a losing game.

  He broke into a run, crashing through the flowering hedges, knocking down urns. He very nearly knocked down Keeper.

  “Where are you going?” the ogre demanded.

  “It’s a trap!” Skylan cried.

  CHAPTER

  10

  * * *

  BOOK THREE

  The shrine was small and old and derelict. Predating the villa, the shrine had once been important to the people of the estate. This was obvious from the fact that it was built out of concrete faced with marble, at a time when the family home had been constructed of wood. The shrine guarded and honored the catacombs where the family laid their dead to rest. But when the old gods began to grow careless of their creation, and men began to lose their faith, the shrine fell into disrepair.

  Dimitri Acronis, grandfather of the Legate, had, like his grandson, also been of a scientific turn of mind. He had small use for the gods and visited the shrine only when a family member died. A parsimonious man, Dimitri had wasted no money on the shrine’s upkeep. His son, Theodoro Acronis, father of the Legate, was far more interested in increasing the family’s wealth than in honoring gods. He heard about the new god, Aelon, and his worship, for it was becoming quite popular among the elite of Oran. He had no time for gods of any sort, however. He built his villa and enlarged his estate and bought and traded slaves. His only pastime, other than making money, was competing with his teams in the Para Dix.

  Acronis was more like his grandfather than his father. He was an explorer, an adventurer, and a scientist. The day came, shortly after his marriage, when the priests of Aelon visited the Legate’s villa to tell him about an edict that required he tear down his family’s shrine. The priests decreed everyone was to now worship in the Temple of Aelon.

  Acronis could have gone along with the demand. He had not visited or even thought about the old shrine since he had buried his father. But when ordered to destroy it, he went to visit it and memories flooded back. As a young boy, he had heard stories about the old gods from his tutor and become enamored of them. He had made boyish sacrifices, bringing them oat cakes and once a small frog, which had kept hopping off the altar.

  Perhaps it was his boyhood memories that prompted him to fight for the shrine or perhaps (his wife had said) it was a perverse desire to annoy the priests. He had refused, saying, quite rightly, that the shrine honored his ancestors. When the priests went to inspect the shrine to see if illegal worship was being carried on inside, they saw morning glory vines trailing around broken columns, marble slabs lying moldering on the ground, and bats hanging from the domed ceiling. In back of the shrine, in the hillside, was the bronze door—long ago turned green—that led to the cavern where the dead lay in repose.

  The priests had informed Acronis that since the shrine was in such proximity to the burial site, they would not disturb the dead by tearing it down. Undoubtedly, the Priest-General of that time had considered it unwise to anger a man who could personally fund two triremes and his own private army. It was after this incident, however, that the Legate had been ordered to the outlying provinces.

  Sigurd and the others followed Keeper over paths of crushed stone that wound through the pruned plants and ornamental trees leading to a wrought-iron gate. The full moon shone brightly. They had no trouble finding the way.

  “Beyond the gate is the old garden,” Keeper said. “The shrine is through those trees.”

  The gate was not much used; they had to beat on its rusted hinges to pry it open. Broken stones green with moss and overgrown with weeds led into a tangled wilderness of plants and trees.

  Keeper told them to follow the path, then turned to leave.

  “Where are you going?” Sigurd asked suspiciously.

  “I told Skylan I would go back for him,” said Keeper dourly. The ogre did not like Sigurd.

  “And I think you are going to warn your master we are escaping,” said Sigurd.

  “Why would he do that?” Bjorn asked.

  “For the reward? Because he is the Legate’s toady? How should I know?” Sigurd muttered.

  The men looked into the grove of tall trees. The overarching, tangled boughs would cut off the light of the moon and stars.

  “Go on, Keeper,” said Bjorn, casting an annoyed glance at Sigurd. “Go back to fetch Skylan and Aylaen. We will wait for you as long as we can.”

  “When you reach the shrine, go through it,” Keeper instructed. “You will come to a bronze door. Push on the door and it will open. The catacombs are inside.”

  He walked off, trudging back up the path. The men entered the path that wound among the trees. The darkness was so thick they were forced to light the torches.

  “There it is,” said Bjorn.

  Torchlight shone on a small round building with a domed roof and surrounded by a porch. Graceful columns, cracked and stained with time, supported the roof. The men eyed the building uneasily.

  “We go through the shrine,” said Sigurd. “Here, give me that light.”

  He seized the torch and walked into the shrine. The others trailed after him. Their uneasiness evaporated when they saw the floor covered with rodent dung and bat guano and spider webs dangling between the columns. If the gods had once been here, they were gone now.

  As Keeper had said, a path led from the shrine to a bronze door set into the side of a hill. The door was closed, but, as Sigurd found out by giving it a shove, it was not locked.

  Sigurd did not go inside. He stood staring at the door. Once buried, the dead of the Vindrasi were not disturbed. Sometimes it was the dead who disturbed the living by refusing to stay decently interred. Even then, the Vindrasi were patient with draugrs and specters and the like, rarely resorting to drastic measures such as digging up the body and cutting off the head unless the dead became a menace.

  The idea that dead ancestors were kept in catacombs, subject to periodic visits whenever someone else died, was unsettling. Sigurd, glancing behind him, saw the men standing some distance away. They were all watching him, waiting for him to go in first. After all, he was Chief.

  Sigurd drew in a breath and gripped his sword in one hand, the torch in the other. He started to open the door.

  “I think we should wait for Skylan, Aylaen, and the boy,” said Erdmun.

  Sigurd glared at him. “You don’t even like Skylan.”

  “I like him better than I used to,” Erdmun stated, adding in a low voice, “I like him better than I like you.”

  “We are Torgun,” said Farinn. “We stand together. There should be no talk of leaving anyone behind.”

  The others nodded their agreement.

  “We will wait for Aylaen,” said Sigurd, annoyed. “And while we’re waiting, we might as well take a look around.”

  He shoved on the bronze door, and, holding the torch high and his sword tight, he entered the burial cave. The men came after him.

  The first section of the catacombs was the oldest. Small niches had been carved into the rock walls. Inside the niches were porcelain urns. The Torgun had never heard of cremation, and they had no idea what these urns were for. Aki wanted to open one, but Grimuir told him it might be some offering to the dead and that he should leave it alone.

  The catacombs extended on into the hillside. The niches grew larger. Burning the dead was no longer fashionable. Bodies were entombed in sarcophagi—receptacles carved out of stone. At first these were plain, but as the family’s fortunes improved, the sarcophagi became more elaborate and were topped by life-size statues of the d
ead.

  Marble matriarchs, their hands folded on their breasts, lay in repose beside soldiers, whose hands clasped the hilts of marble swords. The Torgun could not read, but they guessed that the words carved into the niches above the tombs or sometimes on the tombs themselves were the names of the dead.

  The Torgun were hushed as they walked the silent catacombs. Every man could feel the thread of his wyrd stretch and quiver. At any moment, it could snap. Suddenly they came to a niche where the corpse had not been entombed. The men came to a halt, shaken by the sight of the ghastly figure.

  The skeletal remains, draped in rotting cloth, reclined on the stone as though seated on a couch. The flickering torchlight caused the shadows in the eye sockets to stir. Sigurd stopped to stare in horror, like the others, then he feared they might think he was frightened. He steeled himself and marched on, saying he was going to investigate. He did not go far, however, for there was no place to go. The catacombs came to an end. He faced a solid rock wall.

  Sigurd stared at the wall in teeth-grinding fury. He bashed at the wall with the hilt of his sword and beat on it with his hands. The wall did not move. Behind him, the Torgun were silent.

  Sigurd turned to face them. “We have come the wrong way. There must be a place where the tunnels branch off, and we missed it.”

  “We didn’t miss anything,” said Bjorn.

  “Go back!” Sigurd roared.

  The men started to retrace their steps. Passing by the tombs had been bad the first time. Now it was worse. They seemed to see eyes, hear voices. They quickened their pace and a few started running.

  “Keep watch!” Sigurd ordered. “You’ll miss the turn-off—”

  A blast of hot air doused the light of his torch, leaving him in darkness. Sigurd was not worried. He could see the flickering lights of the other torches some distance away and he yelled, “Erdmun, my torch blew out! Bring me a light.”