DragonThrone02 The Empire of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  “In Mera, the meat-eaters kill animals that are weak or sick,” argued Jomar. “That improves the herds—makes them stronger.”

  “I am sure it does.” Wu smiled. “But here there are many plants with healing properties, and also springs with regenerative powers that can fortify the body’s defenses against illness. Mera’s moon, Numia, has similar springs: Ailia says she washed herself in one.”

  “Yes, I did,” she said. “It was a sort of hot spring, and the water made me feel . . . invigorated, somehow. And—there was a strange-looking castle, too. Was that an Archon building, do you suppose?”

  “No doubt,” he replied. “Numia was one of their colonies. They used their powers to transform it from a dead satellite into a fertile, viable world. They did the same with your own little moon of Miria. But Numia was laid waste in the Great Disaster, and no one dwells there now.”

  “I almost thought I saw someone in the castle—a tall figure walking across its court; though I may have imagined it.”

  “It is possible some beings may visit there still. Long ago Numia was used as a sort of quarantine, where the Merans went to bathe in the healing springs before they journeyed on to Arainia. This ensured that they would not spread their ailments to this sphere. And Arainians bathed well in their own waters before venturing across the void to Mera.”

  It was curious, Ailia thought: as though this planet were alive, a conscious entity that actively intervened on behalf of its inhabitants. It resisted predation, disease, and all other sources of suffering in its sphere, and by some mysterious influence had even transformed its human settlers into the gentle and saintly Arainians. It was itself a living thing—vast, complex, many-selved. The Mother, she thought, and felt she understood the theology of the goddess-worshiping Elei at last.

  She wondered what Damion thought of all this. He had been very quiet throughout the walk, she thought, scarcely speaking and appearing to be absorbed in some internal reflection or debate. She guessed what the source of this conflict must be, but did not like to approach him directly. Instead she turned to Jomar again. “And—and Damion? Is he really going to join you in Mera?”

  “I hope so,” Jomar remarked. “I’ll want him at my side, since he’s actually fought against Zimbouran soldiers before.”

  She shuddered at the images his words awoke in her mind. “Do you really think there will be a battle?”

  “I hope so,” he answered. “We have to do something about Khalazar. He’s threatened us, after all—and even if he hadn’t, we can’t just stay safe here and let him take over all of Mera.”

  “Jo, you make me ashamed,” said Ailia, staring down at her hands. “Of course we must help Mera’s people, with a war if need be. I just wish . . . there were another way.”

  “Don’t look so worried,” said Jomar, misinterpreting her expression. “You won’t have to go and fight, ever. That’s what we’re for.”

  Ailia said despairingly, “Then what use am I?” But no one answered her.

  Unable to bear her thoughts any longer, she turned aside and headed off alone into the trees. Nobody followed, perhaps respecting her need for privacy. One might wander these groves in perfect safety, after all: no venomous snake or stinging scorpion lurked here, no fanged menace prowled the undergrowth. After a few minutes she slowed to a desultory walk and looked about her. The trees that grew on these wild slopes were the true trees of Arainia: the vast umbrageous perindeus, its boughs always awhir with the wings of birds attracted to its fragrant white flowers; and the tree-of-life, with fruit and flower hanging together on its dusky boughs like stars and golden suns. In Mera Ailia and her friends had seen trees of this latter kind, but in Meran soil they had grown small and stunted; here they were tall and strong as mighty oaks. She looked up wonderingly at the tremendous trunks that reared into wreathing clouds of foliage; then down again at the mighty roots that were like whole Meran trees lying on their sides. It was like a forest from a faerie-tale land where giants dwelt. Here, under their boughs, the multiple screens of leaves filtered and transmuted the sunlight into a green-golden refulgence. A droning stridulation that she at first thought came from insects of the cricket kind proved to emanate from the stiff, close-clustered leaves of certain trees, which vibrated continually in the wind. To the chorus of these singing groves were joined other sounds. The mountain stream that fed the tarn tumbled downhill not far away. Water was water no matter where it was; it made the same music here as in Mera. The thought was comforting.

  And there was the birdsong. There seemed to be no fowl in this alpine forest smaller than a dove and less colorful than a parakeet, and all of them sang: each song so melodious, so resonant, so full of expression that she could almost imagine they were not merely sending messages to mates and rivals, but truly “singing” for the pleasure of it like human minstrels. One song more than any other caught her attention, emerging from the surrounding music of birds, water, and trees like a single clear-noted instrument dominating an orchestra. It was so intense, this song, so joyous, so moving in its constant repetition of a five-note refrain, that Ailia could not put aside the fancy that the singer was no mere bird but some sentient being, rejoicing in the power and beauty of its own voice. Half-unconsciously she followed the sound through the undergrowth, seeking its source.

  She spied the singer at last, perched upon a mossy branch of a giant perindeus some thirty feet above the forest floor. It was the size of an eagle, but its build more closely resembled that of a pheasant, with long flowing tail-coverts that hung down behind it like a royal train. Its head and body were scarlet, with a golden crest that trailed half down its neck, the feathers fine as a woman’s hair. The greater coverts on its wings were yellow, the lesser coverts and tertiary feathers bright scarlet to match the body, and the primary and secondary feathers and tail coverts a shimmering violet-blue. Beneath the coverts hung four immensely long green tail plumes, tipped with peacocklike “eyes.” The plumage, like that of many tropical birds, looked almost hand-painted: lit by a single ray of sun, it blazed with the colors of every kind of fire.

  Other birds perched on nearby boughs of surrounding trees, but they were quiet and motionless, as if enchanted into silence by the great bird’s song.

  As she stood there, gazing and listening in delight, a wind stirred the treetops above her, making the green leaf-canopy toss and roar like a sea. All the birds, including the singer, took to the air at once in a dazzling show of rainbow plumage. She gaped up at them, entranced. What could have moved them to this sudden glorious flight? If I were in Mera, she thought, I’d say that something had frightened them, but of course that couldn’t be the case here—

  And then, without warning, there was a rushing noise and the foliage above her burst into flame.

  Ailia stumbled backward in shock, staring up at the burning boughs. The many-colored songbird swooped low above her head, its music turned to shrill, discordant cries. Something huge and dark flapped across the sky high above, and there was a rasping roar and another tree erupted in flames. Something was flying above the roof of the forest, setting it alight. As she gaped upward she saw it again: a giant shape, black against the sun, like the silhouette of a tremendous bat.

  A firedrake.

  It was burning the forest all around her, trying to trap her within walls of flame. Embers cascaded down from the branches high above, setting the undergrowth smoldering. She was too stunned to move for a moment; then with a cry of belated terror she caught up her skirts and fled back the way she had come, not realizing that this was in fact the monster’s intent: to drive her out into the open where it could more easily reach her.

  As she ran from the trees down into the alp below, Ailia thought she could hear shouts and cries of alarm, but they were faint and far away, too far for those who uttered them to be of any help . . . And though she was free of the firetrap in the wood, she was now in plain view, exposed. She struggled on, hampered by her long skirts. And then she staggered, nearly blo
wn off her feet by a gust of hot reeking air as the creature alighted behind her, flaring its leathery wings. She could not help but turn and look, now.

  The monster reared out of the mountain meadow, reeking of smoke and carrion. She had seen the skeleton of a firedrake once, in Trynisia: now, horribly, that skeleton had come to life, clothed in dark scales, gaunt and angular. It was small for a firedrake, only a little larger than an elephant. But it was hideous: unlike a Loänan, this creature had no furry mane or pointed ears, but was entirely clad in scales. Its body was jet-black above and blood-red beneath. The heat of its breath was like a furnace-blast in her face, and the air quivered before the beast’s gaping jaws. The grass withered and blackened at its feet.

  Ailia again sought to flee, not really believing that she could outrun the monster or escape its fiery exhalations. “Help,” she cried hoarsely as she ran. “Please—help me!”

  There was a musical trill, high overhead: Ailia raised her eyes, to see the large many-colored bird whose song had earlier enchanted her in the forest. It swooped down upon her in a flurry of gold and red, right at her face, and she whirled and fled from its beak and claws. The mountain tarn was directly ahead of her, with its crowds of beasts who were slow to feel fear and only now starting to scatter. She swerved to avoid its brink, but the bird stooped upon her again and she fell with a cry into the water. She surfaced, choking and trying to toss wet hair out of her eyes. Above her the bird was hovering, bright wings beating the air: she flinched, but it showed no further sign of hostility.

  Had it in fact been hostile? Could it have driven her into the water on purpose, to save her from the dragon-fire? As the black monster again turned her way, sending forth a jet of flame, the bird dived once more with a shrill cry, flying at her head. But she had already drawn a deep breath and ducked under the surface.

  When she could hold her breath no longer she surfaced, more slowly and cautiously this time, peering through the reeds at the tarn’s margin. The bird was still circling above her, ignoring its own danger. The firedrake’s bellows held a harsh note of hate that made Ailia shrink back into the water. Then there was a roar and another gust of wind, and the firedrake looked up—too late—as something huge and shining dove between it and its prey.

  It seemed for an instant as though the sun itself had descended into the clearing, so bright was the huge creature that dropped from the air. Ailia, in a daze, recognized the golden dragon that had saved her life in Trynisia. It hovered briefly, wings flapping, then dropped to the earth in front of the firedrake. The latter snarled in fury at the intruder, and spat a gout of orange flame.

  The Imperial dragon never moved. As the fire swept toward it, the great golden beast roared as if in defiance or mockery. The flames seemed to strike an invisible barrier, parting and dissipating in the air without touching their target. The firedrake stared—it seemed a stupid creature, for all its strength and ferocity—and the golden dragon reared up and brought its clawed forelimbs down on its assailant’s back, pinning it to the earth. Tail lashing wildly, the firedrake hissed and writhed in the effort to escape. It managed to twist its ghastly head around and attempted to sink its teeth into its opponent’s foreleg. The golden dragon snatched the limb away and the firedrake wrenched itself free, turning to claw at its enemy’s underside. As Ailia watched breathlessly her champion leaped to one side, and the firedrake spun and lunged toward her, all black jaws and blasting heat.

  But the golden dragon planted its foreclaws firmly on her attacker’s tail, causing it to pull up short before it had covered half the distance to Ailia’s position. It whirled, screaming, to attack the Loänan again. The golden dragon dealt it a blow that sent it rolling across the turf. No fire came from its mouth this time, only a gush of dark blood; it drew a long rattling breath, beat its wings convulsively, and was still.

  The Imperial dragon stood over it, panting slightly. It opened its own great jaws and gave a loud roar—whether of anger or triumph she could not tell. And then suddenly there was rain: a sun shower that drizzled down from the clouds above the mountain peak. It fell only on the forest, quenching the pockets of red flame within its verdure.

  The bird craned its neck upward, and trilled again. Then it darted down and alighted on the ground beside the dragon. There was a flicker, and—Ailia blinked—the bird was no longer there. In its place stood the figure of a small, auburn-haired woman.

  “Lira.” Ailia whispered the name. Her lady-in-waiting was a shapeshifter!

  Her eyes turned toward the dragon. Its form too was wavering, turning to a misty brightness in the air, and then it was gone and where it had stood there was a pulsing, pale light that dimmed and coalesced into the shape of a little old man in a white robe. Master Wu.

  “That was too close, Auron,” said Lira, pointing to the dead firedrake. “This was only a young one, thank goodness: it could have been much worse. Where it came from I can’t imagine. But we shall have to be more vigilant in future.”

  Ailia waded ashore, walked over to the two familiar figures. There was a pause as they turned to face her.

  “You,” she breathed, facing Master Wu. “You were . . . the dragon, the one that saved me, on Elendor. Only—it wasn’t a dragon, it was you all along. And you—” to Lady Lira. “You’re a Nemerei too! I saw you shift your shape.”

  “I believe you are under a misapprehension, Highness,” said the man she had called Wu, clearing his throat. “We are Nemerei, yes, but we are not human Nemerei. I am as you saw me just now, an Imperial Loänan. And it was Lira’s true shape that you beheld just now, the form that she wears when she is in her own world.”

  Ailia stared at Lady Lira. “Her own world?” she whispered.

  “I am of the T’kiri, the bird-people,” Ailia’s lady-in-waiting said, her face and voice as composed as ever. “The firebirds—or phoenixes, as your kind sometimes calls us. This absurd form I wear is only a disguise.”

  Wu smiled. “Only absurd because you make it so. It is quite understandable that you should think a beak is beautiful, but I must tell you most humans do not admire very long noses.”

  Lira swept him with a disdainful glance. “And what of you, Auron? Is there any real need for you to play the buffoon, as you do?”

  “Ailia!” The princess turned to see her courtiers hastening toward her through the still-smoldering woods, a white-faced Tiron in the lead with Jomar and Lorelyn at his heels. Damion, Ana, and several Nemerei followed behind them. Syndra blanched and stopped short when she saw the dead firedrake.

  “Oh—what is it?” cried Lorelyn, staring at the twisted coils of the monster.

  “A firedrake,” Ana told her in a calm voice, as if discussing the weather.

  Tiron stepped closer to the carcass and regarded it with horror. “It has been long since one of these creatures was seen in our world. I would have sworn that none remained.”

  Ana nodded. “Firedrakes have been extinct in both Arainia and Mera for many hundreds of years. I think that this one came from outside—from some Valdur-blighted world.” And while the others still stood gazing in horrified fascination at the dead monster, she approached Wu and Lira. Greymalkin had already reached them and was rubbing her gray sides against their ankles in apparent token of approval. “Dragon and phoenix,” Ana stated. “Your celestial protectors, Ailia.”

  Ailia thought, But how does she know? She wasn’t here to see them transform. Ana continued: “I have said nothing all this time, since it was plain that both of you wished to be secret. But I take it that your people are now satisfied that she is the One, Loänan?” she asked Wu.

  “I am, Majesty,” he concurred, bowing to her. “And I hope now to convince the others. Had I any shadow of doubt remaining after the Mirimar tempest, the attack of this creature”—gesturing to the firedrake—“has removed them. Our enemies fear Ailia, and that alone confirms what I have long believed.” He turned to the princess and sank to one knee before her. “I am your servant, Highness, now and alway
s.”

  “And I also,” Lira added, curtseying gracefully. “If you are willing, Highness, I shall continue in your service, and Auron and I shall be your guardians from this time forth.”

  Ailia opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  “Then I can return to Mera,” said Ana, stooping to pick up her purring cat, “and the work that awaits me there.”

  “The Loänan will gladly convey you to your home world,” the man who was not a man told her, rising to his feet again. “Have no fear for Ailia. Once the Loänan have accepted her, all the Empire will follow our lead. She will number among her followers the peoples of far-distant worlds.”

  Once more he bowed his head in Ailia’s direction. For a time the only voices heard in the mountain meadow were those of the wild birds and the falling stream. Then Syndra Magus gave a little cry, and whirling about she fled into the trees.

  7

  The Gate of Earth and Heaven

  AURON PLUNGED THROUGH THE CLOUDS with a pleasant feeling of freedom regained. How good it was to take his own, natural shape again after being so long confined within a small and limiting human frame! He reveled for a moment in the sensations of flight, the roar of the wind in his ears and the headlong, fearless fall through the air. He plummeted through the base of the cloud layer into clear air, then pulled out of his dive and leveled off, spreading his wings to their full sixty-pace span as he planed low over the moon’s surface.

  Miria had once been an airless waste, as its innumerable craters showed. But a tremendous feat of sorcery in ancient times had made it habitable for beings that breathed, and turned its craters to circular lakes and pools, and clothed the dry ground in verdure—if “verdure” was the correct word for vegetation whose chief color was pale blue. He glided on, over a lunar forest whose titanic trees cast even longer shadows across the blue meadows beyond, and then he descended toward a crater-lake in which several Loänan were lying half-immersed. When the ground was only a wing’s length below him he furled the great golden webs of his pinions and dropped, landing lightly on the very tips of his talons. The clear rare air and abrupt horizon gave him the impression of being on a high plateau. Atop a stony ridge stood the twin pillars of a dragon-gate, and on a hill further away a marble palace raised delicate towers skyward. In the blue-black sky hung Arainia, bright cerulean on her sunlit side and girded with her glittering rings: her reflection gleamed in the water of the crater-lake. How beautiful a planet looked from the void, he thought—and how terribly fragile, like a thin-shelled egg that could be shattered with a careless touch, spilling out its precious store of life.