He opened his eyes.
An iron dragon, its maw gaping open, glared back at him.
Startled, he lurched backward, tumbling off the edge of the bed. He fell hard against the floor, his breath rushing out of his lungs. He lay there for a time, breathing heavily, his fear slowly melting into the smell of the fitted planks of wood and their reassuring solidness against his back. They were common and comforting sensations. They were so very real.
He lay still, stared up into the darkness pooled between the intricately carved beams overhead. The people of Benyn Township rarely closed off the ceilings of their homes, preferring the exposed space of the vaulting rafters to be as much a part of the expression of a room as the floor and walls. Galen was no exception. Dutifully he had carved the intricate patterns and icons of the Magnificent Vasska into the rafters of his house.
Vasska—Dragonking of Hrunard and all the region of the Dragonback. His talons reached across the room, curving with the beam. Carvings of each of the four major aspects of Vasska—defense, conquest, glory, and spirit—adorned each of the vertical supports from the crossbeams to the peak of the roof. Many other faces—the lesser aspects of Vasska—stared back at him from the deep shadows of the ornate arches. They all seemed distant because of the haze created by his uncooperative fireplace flue.
“Galen?” came her sweet, sleepy voice, rising in concern. “Galen, what is it?”
He shuddered. Exposed to the early morning air, the sweat that had poured so freely moments ago now chilled him. Galen pulled himself up to lean painfully against the frame of their bed. He glanced ruefully up at the headboard where the iron dragon’s head still hung as it had since he forged it for their marriage bed less than a year ago. Berkita had insisted on it, telling him that such an icon would bring fortune to their home and children to their bed.
He hated it, but Berkita would not be denied. He gulped in air, hoping to calm his thoughts. It would never do to upset Berkita.
“I’m all right,” he said as evenly as he could. His words formed clouds in the cold of their one-room home. He glanced about, still upset. He had scattered most of their wedding pelts in his flailing.
He had hoped that somehow his marriage would have brought the dreams to an end. The truth was that he had little desire to think about anything but Berkita since their wedding. She had become his life and his breath. Yet just as each year since he was fourteen, the dreams were back. He simply had to find a way of keeping his dangerous secret from his beloved bride.
“It’s just a dream,” he muttered. “Just a bad dream.”
“A dream?” Berkita was sitting up on the bed, pulling one of the larger pelts up around her to ward off the morning chill. The dawn was far from being born, it was only a hinted glow on the horizon, but he could still see her silhouetted form against the window beyond. He had ordered that glass for her, shipped across the Chebon Sea from Hrunard itself. Imperfect and rippled, the glass had cost him two months’ profit from the shop. It offered little more than token resistance to the weather beyond its glazing, but it had made his Berkita happy.
Now, in the rising morning light, he gazed at her shadowy silhouette framed in that useless, glorious window. Her dark curls were a wild nimbus around the heart shape of her face. He needed no light to see her features, for he could see them with his eyes shut. Her high cheekbones so finely pronounced. Her violet eyes were jeweled treasures. If some thought her chin too sharp or her hair unruly, they were imperfections that Galen could not see. The sight of the firm sweep of her skin made him ache for her. She was all he ever wanted in life. Everything he ever hoped to attain was only to please her.
“A dream?” she repeated. “Drak, Galen! This is the third time in as many days!”
Galen shook his head. “Berkita, please don’t swear.”
He could feel her pout through the darkness. “I’m sorry, Galen. But . . . what’s the matter?”
“Tell her, Galen.”
Galen caught his breath, pretending to ignore the whispered words from the iron dragon’s head. “Nothing. Truly. I’m just—I’ve just been so busy. The Festival’s been bigger this year than most and I’m way behind at the forge.”
“Tell her,” insisted the motionless dragon heads from the hazy rafters overhead.
“Well, Father warned you when you first took up the forge.” Berkita chuckled. “He always said Festival was the hardest time of year for smithies.” The furred pelt lay draped about her, hiding everything, promising everything. “I can help you through the holiday. I’ve brightened a forge fire or two before.”
“More than one as I recall,” Galen chided, “though your father was always intent on settling you down to one.”
“Not just any one,” Berkita purred back at him.
“Most certainly not.” Galen nodded. The local priest had apprenticed Galen to Ansal, Berkita’s father, back when he was only twelve. The apprenticeship was one thing—winning his daughter, however, was something else entirely. Berkita was the only child of Ansal and his dear wife, Hilna. Ownership of Ansal Kadish’s forge would be passed down to the deserving man who would win his daughter’s hand. The competition for Berkita’s hand in marriage became more than just a matter of idle speculation in the region. Aspiring blacksmiths all along the Dragonback may have had varying degrees of interest in Berkita, but all were quite moved at the prospect of inheriting Ansal’s prosperous forge.
The matter of suitors was getting entirely out of hand until Ansal announced a smithing competition. It was never openly stated, but was implied that Ansal’s appreciation of the winner’s craft would also be something of a factor in determining who would earn the right to court his daughter and, subsequently, his forge.
Galen had loved her since the first day he reported to Ansal’s shop for his apprenticeship. He had despaired of ever winning Berkita for himself until he had a chance meeting with a blind dwarf . . .
“Come on, Galen,” Berkita said, shifting on the bed. “Don’t be crazy, let me help at the forge.”
Galen laughed—then shivered. Her voice was calming; sometimes he thought it was the only thing that kept him sane.
Sane. He was sane. He was not sure what was wrong with him. Whatever it was, if he was not completely cured, at least he was not getting any worse. Surely it was some sort of long, drawn-out illness. Perhaps he had eaten some blindlight berries by mistake years ago. Maybe it was something in the wind that would one day simply blow away. Whatever it was, he held on to the thought that it wasn’t getting any worse. That, and the comfort of his cherished wife.
The iron dragon’s head turned to gaze at him from its cold, dead eyes. “Tell her!” it insisted.
Galen only blinked. He had long ago learned never to acknowledge the objects and carvings that spoke to him. They, too, came more frequently with the dreams each fall—another emblem of his strange malady. Once, years ago, he had an entire argument with a particularly annoying walking stick while exploring the West Woods outside of town. Young Markin Frendigar happened to be using the stick at the time, however. Markin mistakenly thought Galen was angry with him rather than the stick. Since then, Galen made sure that whenever the statues, carvings, or pottery spoke to him he never answered back within anyone’s earshot.
“No, there’s no need for you to come to the shop . . . or your father either.” Galen spoke gently to her. “Cephas is there and does twice the work of you and me put together. I honestly don’t know what I would do without—”
A low trumpet resounded in the distance. Galen and Berkita both turned toward the window as a second horn joined the first in an even lower note. Their deep duet rumbled through the glass.
“Galen! It’s Festival! Oh, come on! See?” She jumped from the bed, the curve of her firm back gloriously exposed through the folds of the pelt she held against her. She gestured urgently for him to join her.
The window looked south, down over the village as it sloped toward the shore a few miles away. The dawn
was ablaze now in full earnest with red streaks crossing the sky from the east, bathing the town in a salmon brilliance. The polished dome of the Kath-Drakonis—by far the largest structure of the town—glowed under the fiery dawn. The smaller buildings of Benyn were dwarfed by its opulent expanse. Galen’s thoughts went unbidden down the Vasska Processional to his forge shop and beyond, as the street continued all the way down to the docks. The towering masts of the fishing boats blushed crimson as they swayed in the morning swell. Farther still was the vast expanse of Mirren Bay. It glittered in the morning light. The Widow Isles lay just beyond the curve of the harbor. He thought he could even make out the Narrows more than twenty miles away through the morning, flame-streaked mists.
“It’s a sign, Galen.” Berkita smiled. “It’s Vasska’s blessing just for us!”
Galen stood up and crossed to join her at the window. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing himself against her smooth, warm back. The great horns atop the Kath-Drakonis once again rumbled, now joined by a third, even lower note, calling out the Dawn of the Scales and the Festival of the Harvest.
“They’re trumpets of the Pir,” Galen murmured into her hair. “They call to Vasska who reigns from afar.”
Berkita giggled, wriggling in his tight grip. “Oh, really? Do tell!”
Galen squeezed her tighter and murmured into her ear. “The horns send a message to Vasska, beseeching the Dragonking’s blessings on the harvest and calling his eye to fall upon his grateful servants.”
Berkita turned her face toward him. “So you do believe the Articles of Pir!”
“No.” Galen laughed darkly. “But I believe in results. The benevolent Vasska has kept the rest of the dragons at bay for over four hundred years. That’s faith enough for me!”
“Oh, honestly, Galen!” Berkita turned away from him with a formidable pout. “You don’t believe in anything!”
Galen folded his arms around his wife. “No, I am just careful about what I believe in. I’m a good and faithful member of the Pir, my dearest, but I prefer to offer my devotions with both my eyes open. Vasska saved us from the Mad Emperors of Rhamas—he saved us from ourselves. I sometimes think we celebrate the Festival more to be rid of the burden of the insane than to honor the Dragonkings.”
Berkita stiffened in his arms. “What a terrible thing to say. The mad or the invalid or the weak-minded—they are all the Elect of Vasska. They are brought to the Festival and chosen out from the rest of us. The Pir Drakonis then takes them in and cares for them when the rest of us can’t. It’s the benevolence of the Dragonking that provides for those who are sick or different from the rest, and you’re making it sound like something horrid!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, my love,” Galen murmured to her. “It is a good and worthy effort by the Pir Drakonis. It’s just that . . . have you ever noticed how those who are taken into the care of the church somehow never return home cured.”
“Nonsense,” Berkita sniffed. “Jasper Konal, the fishmonger, said it simply was the nature of their illness—that those with the Emperors’ Madness could never be made well again and that was why the Election absolved them of sin and let them enter into the afterlife with Vasska.”
Galen nodded. “That may be, but last Leavenmonth, Enrik Chalker stood up in the Shoal and Reef and told all the men there that the Election was a sham and that he was going to expose the priests for the liars they were.”
“You aren’t serious!”
Galen nodded gravely. “I was there. I felt such shame for the man, Berkita. His own daughter had been taken in the Election the week before. Still, you must admit that the girl never returned—and Enrik’s never seemed to be the same again. He still says it was all a mistake.”
“How sad for him. Do you think they make mistakes, Galen?”
“I don’t know, my darling.”
Galen had worried over the years that he might be mistaken for one of those madmen, too. It would be a mistake, of course. He was not really insane; his “odd episodes,” as he liked to think of them, did get worse in the fall around Festival, which was inconvenient, but otherwise seemed perfectly under control. All he had to do was avoid the Election in the town square each year. It often meant that he had to miss out on the more interesting parts of the Festival, but, he always told himself, at least it would not embarrass the church by accidentally carrying him off.
This year, he knew, avoiding the Election would be more difficult.
“Oh, Galen, let’s not talk of such things, not today.” Berkita closed her eyes, willing herself through the window and into the day of promise on the other side. “Vasska will touch us, and we’ll be blessed.”
Galen forced his smile. “So the coins will bring you your heart’s desire, my love?”
“Don’t you dare tell me you don’t believe in that, too!” Berkita wanted the blessing of a child. She had talked of nothing but the blessing for months, and she expected Galen to be at her side for such an important occasion. Galen’s concern was in avoiding the Election but managing somehow to show up for the blessing that followed.
“Yes, my beloved, I do indeed believe,” Galen said. “I think a blessing from Vasska is exactly what I’m looking for today.”
He felt her turn in his arms. The dawn lit her face in a halo of light.
“Well,” Berkita said, looking up at him, her violet eyes flashing in the morning light. “If I’m to get my wish, I suspect I’ll need a little more from you than a few coins at a festival!”
She let her pelt fall from her chest as she reached out. Berkita curled her hands around the back of Galen’s neck, pulling him toward her. For Galen, the chill of the room vanished in her radiant warmth.
The resounding horns barely covered her bright laughter as they tumbled onto the bed.
The carvings of the dragons were, for the moment, silent.
3
The Forge
Galen’s forge lay about halfway between Shoreline Road and the upper end of the Vasska Processional. It was a modest little shop set among other shops of various wares up and down the stone-paved street. The Processional, as the townspeople called it, was not the only street in town with shops on it, but it was, every day of the year, the most popular.
Now, with the brightening dawn, the street was unusually quiet. The fishing galleys remained moored to the docks, their early morning sailings for once forgotten. The streets were uncommonly deserted for this hour. The smoke was absent from the bakery chimney. The cooper’s hammer was silent. Only the deep trumpets of the Kath-Drakonis broke the unaccustomed silence of the shops on the Processional.
Each shop was a unique and wonderful testament to the forces of the town that shaped it. Each strived for a balance between a recognizable individuality and a comfortable, common familiarity with the community. It was an impossible balance to achieve. The various influences that attempted to force their wild and tempestuous natures into some image of ideal perfection resulted in a town of glorious patchwork.
Benyn was, before all else, a seaside town with a modest fishing fleet. The sensible seafarers who settled here—where the Claris Branch of the River Whethril tumbled into the bay—had hopes for a future of grand destiny so long as it did not happen too quickly and did not disturb their way of life. This surface inconsistency was never questioned by its inhabitants. Such was paradoxical life in Benyn.
Nor was the sea the only influence on the town. In ancient times the Rhamas Empire folded Benyn into its might as well as its doom along with all the lands of the Dragonback. Throughout the myths of that fabled time, Benyn strove vigorously to remain unnoticed by the Mad Emperors whose names were terrible, but who were also gratefully distant. When the tyranny of Rhamas was at last overthrown by the five Dragonkings, the empire ebbed from the area, leaving the Dragonback to fend for itself. Its retreat conveniently left Benyn with a language that was common to much of the region. Over the ruins of humanity’s failure to rule itself came the Pir Drakonis—a theocracy that broug
ht a new law to the scattered towns and broken cities on the shores of the Chebon Sea.
Change was simultaneously helped and hindered by the theocrats of the Pir Drakonis. The “People of the Dragon” were exacting in their requirements and dogma. To a defeated and war-weary humanity, the order they brought with them was salvation. From that time on, they were the only government the people of Benyn knew. The Pir religion’s roots grew deep in such fertile soil, reaching into every aspect of their common life, rule, and worship.
Thus Benyn was forged of fire, water, and dragon’s breath into its unique shape. Its architecture was a mixture of shipwright craft, Rhamasian stonework, and Pir Drakonis icons.
Galen’s shop was typical of those on the street. It shared a common north wall with Darlyse Kensworth’s net-mending shop, nearly all of the shops having at least one wall adjoining another, and most sharing walls on both sides. It also had a second story where, up to just over a year past, Galen had lived in its sparsely furnished rooms. The rooflines of these adjacent shops all resembled overturned boats, their long, chalked planks running down from the keel-become-ridgeline in sweeping curves down to the eaves. The locals all liked to joke that if the town were ever turned on its head, it could just float away. These roofs were supported by fitted stone support columns—a legacy of the Rhamasian designs—that framed slightly thinner stone, wooden, or plaster walls running between these pylons. Everything, from the ridgepole of the roof to the foundation stones of its pylons, was now adorned with the icons of Vasska—the Dragonking who occupied every aspect of the people’s lives.
The blank eyes of the dragon carvings stared down on the doors of the Processional’s shops. All were closed—except for one. The front of Galen’s forge lay open. Iron castings of Vasska’s many aspects stood as sentinels, their intricate features delicate and detailed. Down both walls were hung more ornaments of cast iron in various smaller sizes, interspersed with tools for every kind of trade.
Mystic Warrior Page 2