by D Mickleson
“I’m trying. It’s just—every time I try to get into Magog’s head, all I see is a man lying on his back in darkness. And then I get a pulse of the dragon’s fury and my head feels like splitting.”
The Seer put out a lower lip in mock sympathy, spittle foaming in the corner of her mouth. “Hours wasted, and the precious princess complains of getting a headache? Do you want to lie down for a spell, sweetie? Take a little nap perchance? Never mind that the life of every man, woman and child in the castle rests on you! Never mind that your king—”
“OK I get it! Let me try again.”
He faced the sculpture. Placing a steadying hand on a cresting wave, he stared straight into the sea serpent’s diamond eyes.
“Good. Now remember, you must keep your mind, but look with Magog’s sight. Do it.”
Triston was already aware of Magog’s direction. He could sense it, like a man standing in a dark room who feels the light and warmth of a fire close by though his eyes are shut. The moment he turned his thought toward the dragon’s seething spirit, the treasury was gone.
He saw a fleeting image of a small room, its walls and floor of bare wood. A circle of candles surrounded a portly man who lay dying atop a strange symbol drawn in his own blood. Someone was chanting. Then another room appeared. A corridor. A man’s silhouette was staggering along in the shadows. His gait and bearing were somehow all wrong, as if his limbs weren’t bending in the right places.
Magog writhed, and Triston felt a sharp rap on the top of his skull.
“You’re. Not. Doing it!” shrieked the Seer, beating him with a silver scepter she’d picked up on a shelf.
“Hit me again and I swear you won’t live to see the dawn.”
The Seer laughed wildly, her half-crazed eyes blazing in the candlelight. “Idiot! Shut up and try it again. And stay in your own brains this time or they’ll be fodder for the worms when the invaders breach this castle.”
Even as she spoke, there sounded from the ground floor below a rumble, a resounding clang. They heard a sudden uproar of many dismayed voices followed by the unmistakable ringing of steel striking steel.
“Never mind disruptions! We’re at war, boy! Mayhap the sounds of battle will whet your dull senses. Now try it again.”
“They’ve breached the defenses,” he said, more to himself than the Seer. “It’s over. We’ve lost.”
“You don’t know what the sounds mean. Imminent defeat maybe. Or maybe not. But to give up searching for this Relic now would spell certain doom for all you love.”
Triston inhaled slowly, glaring at her. Like thunder rolling down from distant hills, a clamor of rushing feet charged up and down the castle’s corridors. A tumult of crashing arms and armor echoed into the treasury.
He shook his head. “My friends are in danger. I’ve got to go.”
He charged for the door, heedless of all else. But the Seer stepped in front of him, bashing him hard on the forehead with her scepter. “You will NOT go. You will stay and do your duty if you value their lives.”
Red rage took him. In an instant his sword was drawn, poised to strike her down. Taken aback by the ferocity of his response, the Seer shrieked and raised a mangled hand as if to ward off his blow.
But no blow came. Triston stood ready, blade held high, with every excuse imaginable to slay her, including the lives of his friends. His wrath at that moment surpassed even what he’d known the dragon to possess.
But he couldn’t do it. He’d made the mistake of taking her eyes in his, desiring to witness the exact moment her corrupted soul fled her body. He’d seen her fear there, as he expected, but more than that, he’d suddenly felt her remaining humanity.
For here was a human, or something that used to be human. An unwanted burst of insight had seized his heart. She’d been a little girl once, sweet maybe, innocent, full of hopes and dreams. True, evil choices, one after another, had squandered the goodness that was her birthright, but there was something untarnished left inside, something good that he had no right to destroy. Cursing himself, he made to lower the weapon.
The Seer, meanwhile, had recovered her wits.
“Hah!” she shrieked, thrusting forward with her upraised hand. An emerald flash leapt from somewhere in the folds of her robes, and the sword flew from his grasp.
Triston gaped, letting the full meaning of that flash of light sink in. Watching his face keenly, the Seer drew near, so close their lips nearly touched. She’d done this once before, a lifetime ago in a gilded carriage, when she had yet to lose her beauty and he had yet to shed human blood.
“Weak,” she hissed, her breath vile.
“I could have killed you if I wished.”
“But you did wish,” she trilled, a little music returning to her voice. “Yet you couldn’t do it. And neither will you leave.”
“You can’t stop me helping my friends.”
Pulling away from her, he cast about for his weapon.
“Go ahead,” she said, calmly watching as he retrieved the blade. “We both know I can’t stop you.”
“That’s right.”
“But if you do, nothing can prevent you from dying at Sarconius’ hands.”
“I don’t care. They need me.”
He stepped around her toward the door.
“Your friend will die as well, the lowborn fool who drugged my Guardian.”
Triston halted despite himself. The Seer was still watching him, her keen eyes glowing. After a moment, shaking his head, he seized the door by the handle.
“She’ll die.”
He froze once more. “What?”
“That must be it. There’s a she in your heart. Well well,” she chuckled. “Then know this. Giving up now will be her death sentence.” She laughed triumphantly, turning back to the middle of the room.
Triston stood by the door, his muscles taut but unmoving. Suddenly cursing out loud, he spun around, defeated. The Seer was right. Whatever befell the defenders, his place was here.
They had no hope if he failed to find the Serpentaugrum.
The treasury was gone, lost in a sea of light. The Seer, the gold and silver, the bronze serpent, all gone.
In their place, strange objects glowed like tiny stars descended from the heavens, filling the room with a piercing brilliance. The whiteness grew until Triston felt sure his eyes would be burned into blindness by its intensity. He had no eyelids to shut out this fiery vision.
This, surely, was the Dragonsight, whatever this was. He had found it at last after many failures. Always the dragon’s mind had overpowered his own, rendering his vision useless, But no longer. His anxiety for his friends, and yes, for her, had grown, until even Magog’s consuming fury bowed before his unbreakable will.
Slowly, painfully, his perception adjusted and the white blur began to take on distinct shapes. He hadn’t left the treasury after all.
There was the puzzlebox, its jewels radiant as stars. There, a chest, ablaze with pure sunlight. On a shelf against the far wall was a golden candlestick, its inner fire burning with such zeal that the candle’s flickering flame seemed a mere shadow by comparison. There was the silver scepter. It seemed to float in midair, though he knew the Seer was holding it. Gold, silver, diamonds. They were all around him, and everywhere, alive with awesome splendor.
And love for all this treasure filled Triston’s being. Or lust, he didn’t know. Obsession, certainly. Here was something to live for, something to die for. All this must be his, must be hoarded. Its light would illuminate his path alone while all others languished in darkness.
But . . . alas. No, all that was long ago. Such was his desire before, while he lived, while he breathed. His every heartbeat had pounded out that insatiable desire, but no longer. For many lives of men he’d scorned such trivial pursuits, only longing for rest.
A voice spoke from the floating scepter. A voice laden with greed. This spirit was akin to his own while he’d lived, running after all the wrong things. “Your eyes. They�
�re yellow, like a cat’s. Quickly! Tell me what you see.”
He looked, and was suddenly aware of her. A little hate-choked spirit hovered behind the scepter, visible only as a shadow dimming the silver’s unearthly brilliance.
“Well!” she demanded impatiently. They are all so impatient, he mused. But this one . . . . “Well!” she shouted.
“I can see . . . you. Your spirit.”
“And the sea serpent? Can you see the lifeforce of the leviathan?”
The serpent? He knew where she was. He’d already found her. Even before his master had sailed through the Seagate, he’d been aware of her imprisoned spirit. High, high above the others, higher even than he could soar, bound as he was to the portal. She was there, waiting, waiting for centuries.
Triston seized full control of his mind and the light vanished. A monstrous face was inches from his, its eyes aflame with desire.
“Out of my way,” he spat, shoving her.
“Wait, you little bastard! We need to find—come back!”
He dashed from the room, heedless as her outraged screams followed after him. To his great surprise, all was still and silent in the corridor beyond the treasury. What of the battle? How long had he wandered in the dragon trance? Had the legionnaires really assailed the defenders with a sudden attack, as he’d imagined? If not, what had caused all that cacophony?
He raced along the alabaster hallways, envisioning sable-clad Meridians assaulting the castle walls with ladders and grappling hooks. What had become of his friends? He met nothing but silence and emptiness as he ran, and this was some comfort at first. If the invaders had indeed tested the defenses, they must have been rebuffed.
He raced on, and the corridors remained as silent as a graveyard. Where was everyone? The deathly quiet began to gnaw at his heart. The castle was never this empty, never. Something must be wrong.
His plan, the moment he found the Serpentaugrum’s hiding place, had been to go to King Stentor with the news. He would warn the king of his sister’s true nature, even if it meant confessing he’d tried to blow her up. But as his straining legs bore him to the king’s private chambers, and his doubt at the unnatural stillness thickened into outright dread, Triston’s pace began to slow. What disaster had befallen the castle? Was everyone dead?
He was just debating whether to go claim the Serpentaugrum now without even consulting Stentor, when he walked past the grand stair leading down to the entrance hall. With a careless glance downward, he froze.
The hall was packed to bursting with soldiers. As Triston stared in bewilderment, he realized with a stomach-dropping jolt that more than half of them were the enemy. Hundreds of legionnaires, night-armored, their shields sporting cruel spikes, their officers decked in crimson capes, stood proud and silent in neat rows before the door. Facing this irresistible battalion was a ragged company of king’s men. Some boasted the alabaster armor of Leviathan’s officers, but most wore simple mail shirts or leather jerkins. The defenders had bunched together before the stair, weapons drawn. Their eyes, wide with fear, were locked on the deadly foe across the room.
No one moved or spoke. Triston watched, aware that his knees seemed to have turned to jelly
Coward. Do something.
But what could he do? If he joined his comrades, the eye of every legionnaire in sight would fall on him. What if his movement broke this bewildering spell of peace and provoked an attack? He placed a hand on his sword hilt, waiting, expectant. It didn’t matter anyway. Any second now the fighting would begin.
But still no one moved or spoke. Long minutes passed, or so it seemed to Triston, standing alone at the top of the stairs. Why did the enemy hold the line? For what did they wait? And the thought struck him that he might creep away. He might go after the Relic far above him. What if he could return armed with unthinkable power and find nothing changed, no pitched fight for supremacy, no entrance hall scattered with corpses and slick with blood?
He decided to go for it. Whatever was going on, he had no doubt that once the bloodshed began, his Corellian countrymen would fall and fall hard. Unless something could be done to change the odds in their favor . . . . He turned on his heels, ready to sprint back the way he came. There was no time to lose, but—
“Let me go! Please Mugwort! What’s wrong with you? Let. Me. Go. Triston! Help!”
Triston spun around, facing down the corridor past the stairs. Abigail was on her back. She was kicking and screaming wildly as Captain Mugwort dragged her by one wrist through the doorway leading to Stentor’s private chambers.
Reaching the doorway just seconds later, Triston caught sight of a bare foot pumping vainly at the air just before it disappeared through another door. “Why are you doing this? Please, Mugwort. Daddy! Help me!”
Triston drew blade, bounding down the hall and through the second door. With no pause for thought, he drove his sword straight into Mugwort’s neck and up into his cranium with such force that the weapon sunk in halfway to the hilt.
The captain seemed not to notice.
Without a glance backward at Triston, he bent and lifted the princess above his head as if she weighed no more than a feather pillow. Moving with unnatural jerks, he turned and tossed her none-too-gently onto a small sofa. Then he bowed toward someone just out of sight with Triston’s sword still protruding from his neck.
King Stentor was seated on an armchair beside the sofa, his body rigid, his face ash gray. A group of castle-dwellers stood bunched around him, their eyes fixed on Mugwort, their faces haunted with terror.
“Abigail! No!” shouted the king, leaning toward her, his voice breaking with anguish. “Why didn’t you obey me? I thought you were safe off the island. Oh my daughter!”
She sat up, seeming dazed and frightened. Giving her father a look of pity, she shook her head and mouthed a silent apology. Triston rushed to join Stentor at her side. But a movement in the shadows to his left, a cold laugh, a horribly familiar face, drew his eye irresistibly away from the distressed girl.
“I told you my fleshthrall would locate the child. He’s dead useful, as you saw when he sprung the gate from the inside. But surely your torment is ill-founded, Highness. Your daughter may yet live. If you obey me.”
Stentor leapt up, brandishing closed fists. “This was supposed to be a parley. How dare you threaten me! My army—”
“Sit down, ass.” The king collapsed suddenly into his chair as though compelled by a crushing force from above. “Your army is beyond shouting range, and I assure you, no one is leaving this room alive against my will.”
The man stepped toward them into the light, a menacing gleam on his face. “Now, listen well. I expected power to see, to find the Leviathan Relic at once when I arrived. Our records show—never mind. The point is, Your Majesty, I’ve looked and I see nothing. But don’t think me fooled. That can only mean some base manipulation on your part. And if you continue this charade, if you persist in claiming you don’t know where it is, your daughter and all your household will surely—YOU!”
Triston nodded with a grin. “What’s up. Pig.”
Sarconius’ laugh was almost jolly. “Well, it seems I get to tie up all my lose ends in one day thanks to you, Triston. Uh, Trist, allow me to introduce you to—what did you say his name was, Your Highness?—never mind. I think I’ll call him Fido. Fido, see that boy there? Go fetch me his beating heart.”
Mugwort lumbered forward at once, his hands outstretched. Triston had one brief moment to notice, to his deepening revulsion, that while Mugwort’s throat was slit, the wound caked with a thick layer of brown, dried blood, his eyes were alive with an intelligent zeal. It was as if he found pleasure in obeying the command. Then the walking corpse was on him.
Triston backed away toward the door, fear and disgust battling for control of his insides. He beat at the foul creature with his fists, the blade lodged in its brain a macabre reminder that Triston was weaponless. Sarconius lifted his hand idly, rolling his index finger in a half circle
, and Triston heard the door slam to behind him.
Mugwort gurgled appreciatively. His gray, cold hands reached Triston’s neck at the same moment as Triston felt his back hit the unyielding door.
“Triston, if you were successful in your mission,” said Stentor, speaking very quickly, “understand me. I rescind the restriction I placed on you. Do what you must.”
Mugwort was overshadowing him, one iron-strong hand closing around his neck, another moving slowly down his torso to stop over his wildly beating heart. Triston looked away from the horror, toward Abigail. She’d buried her face in the crook of her father’s shoulder, her entire upper body heaving with sobs.
“No kidding!” Triston wheezed. “You think I would have waited for permission if I had it?” In some small corner of his mind that was somehow left untouched by panic, Triston marveled that his last utterance on this earth was a sarcastic reply to the king.
The icy grip tightened around his throat and his breath was cut off. The hand over his heart pressed into his skin, a squelching noise of delight escaping Mugwort’s gray lips. Triston would have cried out in anguish as his soft flesh yielded to the impossibly strong fingers, but no air escaped his lungs.
An amused voice sounded behind the creature. “Stop Fido. For the present. And take that ridiculous sword out.”
Mugwort’s body convulsed backwards before the command had even left the lord’s lips, and Triston sucked hungrily at the air, gripping his bleeding chest. The skin was pierced in three places and his ribcage was sore, maybe cracked, but his heart remained untouched. “What is this, Stentor? Explain your words.” There was a sickening noise as Mugwort drew out Triston’s blade, its once silver sides now stained with brains.
Stentor was staring at Triston. By the disappointed look on his face, Triston knew the king had realized the truth. Their last hope was gone. He had failed to find the Relic in time. Stentor turned to Sarconius, his face pale but defiant. “You and your emperor can burn in hell.”