by Alison Baird
He walked down the smooth slope of the crater wall and approached the Emperor where he lolled near the shore of the circular lake. As Orbion glanced up Auron made a draconic obeisance, forelegs outstretched and chin upon the ground. “Highness, I have the proof you sought,” he announced.
Orbion Imperator splashed a little water onto his silvery flank with the multifoliate tip of his tail. “Tell me.”
“The proof I offer is a young firedrake. It attacked Ailia outside the academy of Melnemeron. Had Taleera and I not been near she would surely have perished. We came close to losing her as it was. No firedrake has dwelled in Arainia for hundreds of years, nor can it be mere chance that this one chose Ailia of all people to attack. Our enemies are behind this, I am positive of that. They fear her, and that is proof of what she is.”
The blue eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “You say she came near to dying. How could that be, if this princess of yours truly was the cause of the great tempest in Eldimia? Were she in truth the Tryna Lia, should she not have been a match for any firedrake—especially a young one?”
The golden dragon gazed steadily at his ruler. “The princess is young herself, and her powers are still undeveloped. She did not create that storm by act of will: it was an unconscious response to her fear of Morlyn and his allies. When the firedrake attacked, her immediate danger overwhelmed her; her mind had no time in which to react to her peril. That is all the more reason for her to be protected. And she knows now what I am, for I could not save her without revealing my true form. There is no point in further attempts at concealment. Son of Heaven, you cannot doubt any longer that she is the one we have waited for, after all these signs! Taleera is satisfied, and has been for some time. The T’kiri now accept that Ailia is the Tryna Lia. Let us renew our ties with these human creatures, join them once more to our Imperium.”
The Emperor and his guard stirred uneasily in the water, churning its blue serenity into foam with their limbs and tails. The reflection of Arainia in its surface trembled and wavered, shattering into shards of light. Auron looked away, gazing at the white palace in the distance. The Arainians had intended it as an alternative residence for their prophesied leader, a pleasant retreat on the garden-moon whose name she bore. But before the Moon Palace could be completed the Great Disaster had struck, and its human builders had been unable to return to this sphere. It was wrong, he thought, anger stirring in him. They had too much promise to be thus confined to their separate worlds, cut off from the Loänan and from each other.
“The humans still trouble me, Auron,” the dragon Emperor said at last, “and what I have beheld of their doings in Mera disquiets me further. They mean to make war on one another again, until that entire world is laid waste. And now I hear that the gate at Melnemeron has been opened.”
“Yes. One of the Nemerei, a Lady Syndra, discovered the means to open it. I say ‘discovered,’ but it appears that she may have had some aid in retrieving the old knowledge. After the attack of the firedrake failed and I revealed myself, she ran from the place. We all thought that she was only afraid, but later she was seen hurling herself into the ethereal portal, which opened to receive her. What has become of her I do not know: the Ether is perilous, and it may be that she will never again emerge from it. But I suspect that she summoned the firedrake, and told it where to find Ailia. And I do not think she could have done such a thing on her own. I feel certain Morlyn corrupted her. And so I beg you, let me protect Ailia, for he will surely strike at her again. Let me bear her away to some world of our realm, where she can be kept safe.”
There was a lengthy pause as Orbion considered, and Auron waited anxiously.
“Very well,” the Emperor said at last, rearing up out of the lake and shaking the water from his wings. “It shall be as you ask. There is little point in secrecy now. Guard her, and keep her safe. I will tell the other Loänan that they may reveal themselves to the people of Arainia.”
“BUT LADY SYNDRA! Who would have thought she would turn traitor? A Nemerei, and Arainian-born,” said King Tiron as he paced up and down Ailia’s room.
“I should have thought of it,” said Ana. “I knew that the Tryna Lia would be beset by every kind of evil.”
“And the man Wu, not even human all this time.” Tiron shuddered. “And Ailia’s own handmaiden, Lira—”
“Yes. It is fortunate they were friends and not enemies. But to tell the truth, I suspected them both for some time.”
“And yet you said nothing!” he cried.
Ana continued to stroke her cat, her face tranquil. “Their secret was not mine to reveal.”
“It’s incredible! No one here, not even the highest Magus, knows how to shape-shift,” said Ailia. She had sat quietly in a chair by the window all this time, saying little, listening to her father and Ana debate.
“Yet the practice was well known once in both Mera and Arainia, as your old lore attests,” Ana remarked. “Human magi learned it from the Archons.”
Ailia fell silent again. She did not wish to dwell on the Archons’ shape-shifting powers. Ever since Wu first spoke of the Nemerei’s disturbing theory she had felt more distanced from her lost mother. She even felt a slight estrangement from herself. No longer did she wonder on waking who she was, but rather what she was. If the theory were true, then she had lost not only Ailia Shipwright’s old name and identity, but her very humanity. Her father, when she had mentioned it to him, declared that he did not believe it. I don’t believe it either, her heart continued to insist. But her mind could not let the matter rest.
“Spies—spies and traitors everywhere, in every shape and form!” exclaimed her father. “How can we ever hope to keep Ailia safe?”
I am the Tryna Lia, Ailia thought. I was supposed to keep everyone else safe.
Presently there came a soft knock at the door. “Your Highness?” called a familiar voice.
Tiron stiffened, but Ailia called out, “Enter.”
It was the voice of Master Wu—no, not Wu, she reminded herself. The door opened to show the small rotund figure of the mage, with Lady Lira standing beside him. Ailia looked at them both thoughtfully. Lira wore a vermilion-colored gown and a capelet of golden gulon fur. The old wizard was attired in a bright blue robe, stitched with silver runes, over which he had thrown a rainbow-spotted pard hide. On his head was a matching fur cap, perched at a jaunty angle. Did he dress and act like this in order to put her at ease, like a man playing games with a child? Ailia wondered. As he entered she looked in fascination at the fine lines fanning the corners of his eyes, the thin wisps of white hair straggling below his cap; then she looked at Lira’s small neat hands and luxuriant auburn hair. Every detail told her eye that these two were human beings. But they were older than any human being that had ever lived, even an Elei, even Ana; indeed, the one in man-form was older than any living thing in Arainia save perhaps the trees in the mountain forests below, their massive trunks ringed inside with millennia of growth.
“I don’t know what to call you anymore,” she said, glancing away from them again.
“Your Highness may call me Lira still, if you wish,” the woman said. “My true name is Taleera, which is close to it in sound.” She spoke the name in a lilting voice that reminded Ailia of birdsong.
“And my name is Auron,” said the man. “That, at least, is as close as the human tongue can come to it. In my own language it is a sound like a lion roaring: Orr-onnh.”
“Very well—Taleera, Auron.” Tiron stood staring as the dragon-man settled into an empty chair. Taleera remained standing with her small hands neatly folded, the perfect picture of a dutiful lady-in-waiting. “Tell me, how long have the two of you been . . . watching my daughter?”
“I have watched her,” said Auron, “ever since I first brought her here to Arainia. Taleera for not quite so long.”
Ailia looked at the bird-woman. “Yes—it was two years ago that you came, wasn’t it? And Auron disappeared after leaving me in the grounds of Halmirion.” Sh
e turned back to him. “And when you were Wu I saw you only occasionally.”
He smiled. “But I was not always Wu. I took many forms beside this human one. I was a bird in a tree above you sometimes—a carp in a pool—a spotted lizard clinging to a wall.”
“You spied on her!” Tiron said.
“I’m afraid I did. But my motives were honorable. I believed your daughter’s life was in grave danger, and you see now I was right. My ruler forbade me to show her my true form, and even as a human I could not follow her everywhere, so I took those other shapes at need.”
“But I saw your true form in Mera,” said Ailia.
He removed the cap of spotted fur and toyed absently with it. “Ah, yes. I could not help that: Prince Morlyn held me captive with cold iron, so I could not alter my shape.”
“I thought then that he’d tamed you to ride on. I didn’t know then you were a thinking being, like me. I mean no offense, but I thought you were only a beast.”
He waved a plump hand. “No offense is taken. I was on Elendor to observe the arrival of your party. The cherubim who watched over Trynisia had alerted us Loänan that some humans were attempting to locate the Stone, and I knew this could mean the fulfillment of all our prophecies. So I flew to Mera at once. I also intended to ward off the rebel Loänan who had been seen flying about the Holymount—though I did not yet know it was Prince Morlyn who led them, in draconic guise. He hid himself when I came, and then caught me later resting in the temple ruin as I waited for you and your companions to turn up, imprisoning me with the iron chain as I slept. He is a cunning creature.” The round face was solemn. “He knows all the lore of the Nemerei and has seduced many a follower of the White Magic, both human and Loänan, over to his side. Remember that he has lived for many hundreds of your years, and in that time gained a great deal of knowledge. My people hoped once to capture him and bind him with iron, even as he bound me on Elendor, but always he has eluded us, and now he has found strong allies among those who serve Valdur. Never underestimate him, Highness, or overestimate your own ability to resist him.” He smiled then, his expression lightening. “But come! You must all have many other questions to ask us both!”
Ailia looked at her father and Ana. “I have. But I hardly know where to begin.”
Auron gestured vaguely with one hand. “Begin anywhere you like, and we’ll see where it leads us.”
“Well . . . why did you decide to help me, back on Elendor?”
“When Morlyn chained me I was unable to escape or to reach out with my mind to the cherubim. They had elected to leave the Stone where it lay in the treasury, since this would be the perfect test for the One to whom it belonged: to pick out her sacred gem from the midst of all the other jewels. Once you freed me, of course, I was able to contact them. They said they had sensed the Stone being touched, but did not know yet who had done it. I had not seen you with the gem, but I believed you might be the one. After you freed me I would have aided you in any case, but I decided it would be best to take you to Arainia—stopping first at the moon for quarantine. The cherubim, though, were still uncertain. At last, after some debate, they decided to take the Stone to Arainia, along with your remaining companions, and let you be tested again there. Had you not proven yourself at the last, they would have returned for it and taken it back to Mera to await its true claimant.”
Tiron said, “I have a question to ask. Why did the Loänan hide from humanity all this time, when we might have benefited from your knowledge?”
“We do not hide from all humans, sire: there are others of your kind now living out among the stars, distant relatives of yours in distant worlds, with whom we retain close ties. It is the Merei, the human beings of Mera and their kin here in Arainia, whom we are permitted only to watch from afar.”
“After the Great Disaster,” added Taleera, “the people of Mera rejected sorcery, fearing that its use had brought destruction upon them. In a way they were right to be afraid, for there are always abusers of magic. An argument was also made in that time that if magic use became common, people would grow lazy and indolent, no longer working for their food and so losing all the benefits of honest, hard labor.”
“That is true,” Ana agreed. “The dangers of magic are as great as its gifts.”
“The ruler of my people also judged that we had interfered too much in Mera’s history,” Auron said. “That we had given its peoples knowledge for which they were not yet ready. And so we obeyed his wishes and drew apart for a time, to observe you from afar. Humanity is a curious race, and a most interesting one. You did not originate in Mera, you know, but were brought to that world from another.”
“We were? What world was that?” asked Ailia, fascinated.
Auron and Taleera both shook their heads. “We do not know,” the dragon-man said. “Those who took your ancestors from it sought for another planet as much like your original world as possible: a planet third in position from a lone yellow sun, with a large moon circling it. The chances of two such similar worlds being close together are small, so we guess that the world of your origins lies very far away. Mera suited the purpose of those ancient sorcerers, even though it had a harsh climate, and only a few creatures dwelt there: fierce libbards and swivel-horned yales and a few other beasts. The sorcerers made the air of Mera warmer and milder so that your race might dwell there, while the native creatures withdrew to the poles. And there the human race thrived and grew, along with many other living things taken from the original world.”
“Tell me, why did you Loänan close the portals in Mera and Arainia? Do you see humans as a corrupting influence on other worlds?” Tiron asked. His manner was still accusing, and he stood close to Ailia.
“No. The Ether is not to be entered lightly even by the initiated, and sorcery is very new still to humanity. The old Merans opened far too many gates, in far too many places: the unpracticed mages of those times thought of the dragon-ways merely as a convenience, a quick way to travel from country to country. I hope to see some of these gates reopened one day, but the time for that is not yet come.”
“It makes me think again of the old tales—there were all sorts of invisible doorways into the worlds of faeries and genii, if only one could find them. But the Ether—it isn’t safe, you say?” Ailia asked.
“Not altogether. Your body cannot be destroyed there, for on that plane it is translated into pure quintessence. But your mind can be assaulted: deceived, or enslaved. In the Ether your only true weapon is your mind—the doughtiest warrior cannot depend on the strength of muscle and sinew there, for these he must leave behind. To enter it safely, the mind and not the body must be strong. Still, only a few of the eidolons you encounter will be hostile.”
“Eidolons? What are they?”
“An eidolon is an image of an earthly thing. There are forms that appear in the Ether, in the likeness of living things: beasts, birds, or beings. Some say that they are gods or angels in disguise, who appear in order to test us, others that they are only images created by our minds. Some of them seem to possess an intelligence of their own, as those who have interacted with them can attest. Sorcerer adepts who ‘summon spirits’ into your world are actually bringing eidolons onto the material plane. Eidolons will obey commands, yet they also give the impression of being fully sentient in their own right. But we do not want them breaking free of our control and taking over our plane. Hence the closing of the gates.”
But Ailia was intrigued at the thought of a realm where her slight body would not be a disadvantage: a realm where, for once, she could be the equal of a warrior.
“Well,” said Ana, “have you spoken with your Emperor, Auron? What does he say?”
“Emperor?” echoed Tiron.
“Orbion, the Emperor of Heaven,” Auron replied. “He rules over all worlds and realms of the Celestial Empire.”
“What sort of being is he?” Tiron asked.
“He is a Loänan. In the beginning, when the Archons declined and disappeared
from Talmirennia, it was agreed that the Emperor would be chosen from one of the four eldest races: Loänan, T’kiri, Tarnawyn, or cherub. Orbion Imperator has reigned for nearly a thousand years now.” Auron returned his gaze to Ailia. “I have his leave to take the Tryna Lia through the Ether to my home world, to Temendri Alfaran in what you call the constellation of the Dragon.”
“No!” Tiron faced the little man. “Ana, this cannot be allowed. You said yourself that her power is strongest in Arainia. What worse peril could await her in another world? This may be Morlyn’s intent: to draw her out, make her vulnerable to attack.”
“She has already nearly fallen a victim to the enemy,” Ana answered. “I and many others have sought to protect her and almost failed. On Temendri Alfaran, surrounded by the greatest and oldest of dragon mages, she would be more secure, not less.”
“No traitor or spy of Morlyn could reach her there,” Auron agreed. “She need not stay forever, only until she is strong enough to fight her foes. As for the Arainian people, you can reassure them. For I am afraid you must remain, sire. The Loänan will make an exception for Ailia, but not for any other human of Arainia or Mera to enter their worlds—not until the Emperor and the monarchs give their leave.”