DragonThrone02 The Empire of the Stars

by Alison Baird

  The ornithopter plunged into the smoke. At once the windows were enveloped in pitch-black darkness, so that she could not tell if she moved up or down. But presently she became aware of a dull red glow as of firelight, coming from beneath. It seemed to grow stronger by the minute. She glanced sharply through the side window and there beheld a vision out of hell: only a short distance below her lay a lake of fire, from whose seething surface jetted red fountains of molten stone.

  “Rise! Rise!” she screamed, grabbing at the knob, and the ship obeyed. But there was a splintering crash as it ascended, like the sound of a great bough splitting off from the trunk of a tree. As she burst out with startling suddenness into sunlight again she saw that one of the wing-sails had been sheared away, and half the supporting mast with it. The little craft shuddered and dropped like a wounded bird.

  It struck the surface of the sea with a deafening roar, and an explosion of steam and spray.

  IT WAS DARK AND THERE WAS WATER, cold water soaking her to the skin. Her mother was somewhere in the darkness, but Ailia could not find her. “Mamma!” she wailed in terror, splashing helplessly about in the ship’s flooded and lightless cabin. “Mamma, where are you . . . ?”

  She reached out—and woke, choking and spluttering. It was night no longer: bright light blazed in the ship’s windows. I remember—the flying ship. The firedrakes, the volcanoes . . . She was lying on the cabin’s padded wall: the ship was wallowing on its side and water was gurgling through a gaping hole in the bow. She sat upright, feeling dazed, waded toward the doorway—the door had been torn off its hinges by the impact—and scrambled out onto the hull.

  Green ocean lay all around her. There was a little islet not far away, a low green hill in the sea with clumps of plumose vegetation at its summit. It looked more inviting than the only other land within sight, the barren isle with its fuming fire mountains. She slipped off her shoes and tied them about her neck by their laces. Then she jumped into the water. It was pleasantly warm, like the sea of southern Arainia, and its surface was calm. Some fifteen minutes of steady swimming brought her to the shore of the island. Its beach was not sandy like an atoll’s, she saw, but made of some hard gray stone like basalt. Once safely ashore she stood and turned around to look for the wreck.

  It was gone. No trace of the little dragon-headed ship remained, save for a few fragments of gilded wood bobbing on the waves, and a foamy swirl to show where it had gone down. Ailia’s legs gave way and she collapsed upon the shore. She lay huddled in her sodden gown as the delayed shock at last set in, and the desperation of her present situation was driven home to her. She was marooned without any hope of escape or rescue.

  At length she made herself stand again, put her damp shoes on, and began to walk about the island, for lack of anything better to do. It was truly small: within a few minutes she had made a complete circuit of it. It was shaped something like a teardrop, thinner at one end than the other, and was higher in the center than at the sides, with a grassy ridge running along its length. There were fruit-bearing plants growing on it, with dark purple or red berries, but as she reached out to pick them it occurred to her in a flash of alarm that they might be poisonous. And then she realized that there was no pool or stream or spring of fresh water. Ailia swallowed, trying to remember just how long it was that people could go without water before dying of thirst. The heat of two suns beat down on the island: already her mouth and throat were parched. She didn’t dare call out through the Ether, for fear Mandrake and his dragons would hear and determine where she was. Waves lapped at the island with a soft watery sound, making her feel even worse.

  She walked down to the shore. The gray rock continued under the water for about a stone’s throw, then shelved away sharply. Ailia ventured out into the shallows and peered down into the depths, getting the impression of a steep drop. There was no other land anywhere on the horizon: she wasn’t even certain in which direction the large continent lay.

  It occurred to her that this tiny islet offered few hiding places should the firedrakes come back to search for her, as they most likely would. Might a glaumerie work, or would the use of magic only alert other, sorcerous beings to her presence? She looked down at the star sapphire ring on her right hand. It was an “inspirited gem,” a conduit to the power of the Ether. If she drew on that power, Auron had said, she could summon pure quintessence onto this plane in the form of a fiery bolt. But could she repulse an attack by several firedrakes at once? “Call yourself a Nemerei!” she mocked herself bitterly. Why had she not listened to her guardians? Mandrake obviously had no intention of parleying with her. He had only been trying to lure her into a trap. And like a fool she had played into his hands.

  Hunger gnawed at her. Her last meal in Temendri Alfaran seemed a distant memory, and all her stores of food had gone down with the ship. She chewed timidly on a plant leaf, but found it bitter, then in desperation she tried a fruit. Just a nibble, she decided. Not enough to be poisoned. The taste was very sweet, like a wild berry. “It doesn’t taste poisonous,” she murmured, knowing that she was growing tired and losing her judgment. But the sweet wild taste was seductive, the cool fruit flesh satisfying hunger and thirst together. “After all, it’s no worse than starving to death,” she reasoned aloud. The juice was like balm to her dry throat. She plucked and ate until she was sated. As the double shadows around her lengthened and she felt no warning pangs, she was certain that she was safe.

  The knowledge that the island supplied food and, in a manner of speaking, drink, calmed her considerably. With the worst of her physical sufferings abated she could now take stock of her situation in a more levelheaded fashion. But as she stood pondering there came a curious gurgling sound, and a steaming geyser burst up through the bushes at the rounded end of the islet, showering warm spray upon the leaves before subsiding once more.

  So it was a volcano island, after all. She hoped it wasn’t signaling its intention to erupt.

  Even as she thought this there was a sudden disturbance of the surface about a bowshot from the islet’s opposite end, a patch of frothy unrest in contrast with the tranquil swell elsewhere. Perhaps some volcanic vent lay there, its submarine exhalations breaking the rhythm of the waves? As she watched the disturbance became a bubbling, churning upsurge with fountains of foam at the center. To her alarm there was at the same instant a sharp jolt beneath her feet, followed by a long tremor. She lost her balance and tumbled to her knees. Was it an eruption? Or—

  A fantastic thought came to her. Ailia went stumbling and scrambling up to the top of the ridge and stared about her.

  She could see now, extending from the narrow end of the islet, a long V-shaped furrow of foam like the wake left by a ship, only larger. There could be no doubt about it. The “island” was moving. Two gigantic fins, stone gray and covered in clinging shellfish, rose and fell to either side, and beyond the tapered end beat the flukes of a colossal tail. There was a deep breathing sound, and another geyserlike spout from the rounded end: she could see, now, that it was not one jet but two, set close together, and she could see also the two moist dark orifices from which they issued.

  This was no island: she was perched, improbably, upon the carapace of a gigantic sea creature and it was bearing her, along with the parasitic plants upon its back, to some unknown destination.

  YEHOSI THE STEWARD WAS UNEASY as he paced about the council chamber. Yanuvan had always been a dangerous place, full of plots and intrigues, but now a greater shadow of fear lay upon it, a sense of lurking evil. It had all begun with the coming of the mysterious Morlyn—Mandrake, as he preferred to be called—and his goblin-men. Courtiers huddled in corners whispering fearfully, while the slaves told frightful tales about the castle’s new inhabitants, rumors that found their way into the court itself. The goblins—those strange, half-human beings—were the offspring of evil genii, or else they were themselves genii incarnate. They observed vile rituals, it was said, in the privacy of their quarters. It was they who had
replaced all the palace guard dogs with barguests: terrifying creatures from their own world that were twice the size of a Zimbouran hound, red-eyed and black as pitch. There were tales, too, of winged monsters that flew through the skies at night, breathing fire. But Mandrake was feared most of all, for the king’s familiar could see into the minds of men, and cast spells on them, and summon evil spirits with whom he could be heard talking, late into the night, in his tower room.

  Only yesterday night a terrifying shape, a great red beast with horns on its head and wings like a giant bat’s, had been seen flying above the castle—flapping about the towers, and then perching like some huge and malevolent gargoyle on the very roof of the throne hall. Some said it was an ill omen; others declared the creature was none other than Mandrake himself, magically transformed. Who could say what was true and what was invention anymore?

  “Well, Yehosi, where is everyone?”

  Yehosi started and turned at the voice. Mandrake stood there behind him, having appeared it seemed out of nowhere: a common trick of his. Yanuvan was full of secret passages, long ago designed for the safety of royal families in case of war or uprising, but Yehosi knew where all the hidden entrances were, and Mandrake it seemed never used them. Either the dark figure was noiseless as a shadow when he walked the halls, or he had the power to become invisible at will.

  “I understood there was to be a council meeting here,” the prince said.

  Yehosi nodded. “Our work is not done yet: the war with the daughter of the Queen of Night did not end with the battle in the desert. The king will not be satisfied until Ailia is cast down from her throne in the heavens. It is she, he says, who has brought ruin on Zimboura—the influence of her evil star has caused the drought and desolation of the land, the hunger of our people.”

  “Indeed?” Mandrake raised an eyebrow. “Was it not Khalazar who ordered his people to make farms out on the barrens, and have many more children than they could feed?”

  “Oh, hush! Do not say such things, wizard though you be. Remember, the Tryna Lia herself appeared before our court and threatened us. It’s said that she was taller than a man, with eyes of fire, and she swore to destroy us all.”

  Mandrake frowned. “Did she really say that?”

  “Your humble servant,” said Yehosi bowing, “was hiding underneath a table at that point, but I distinctly heard her speak of death and destruction coming to our people. I did not hear all—the courtiers were terrified, you understand, shouting and running about—but that I did hear.”

  “Power did not take long to corrupt her.”

  “It never does, Highness,” said Yehosi.

  Mandrake looked with interest at the head eunuch. The secret of success in a Zimbouran court, it appeared, was to make oneself useful, but only in a self-effacing way. One must never set one’s sights on the throne itself, nor appear to be seeking power or influence. In Zimboura women and eunuchs were forbidden to take any kind of office, so Yehosi, though his services were indispensable, could never be viewed by his master as a threat. Perhaps he felt his sacrifice was worth the virtual guarantee of safety?

  The door opened and both men glanced up, but it was only the boy Jari. The little prince sauntered into the chamber, sucking on a sweetmeat and eyeing them both in a way that made Yehosi blanch.

  “Fat one!” he laughed, pointing at the eunuch. “Jump up and down, fat one! You have to do as I say! I’m the son of immortal Khalazar. Now jump!”

  Quaking, Yehosi obliged, though the exertion made sweat pour in rivulets down his plump face.

  “Don’t stop, or I’ll have you executed,” the boy taunted, dancing about the hopping eunuch. “Old fat-belly! I’m the prince, I could have you hanged if I wanted to. And you”—pointing at Mandrake—“you have to do as I tell you, too.”

  “Be quiet, you abominable child,” said Mandrake.

  Yehosi tripped and fell sprawling on the carpet. The boy swallowed his sweet in his surprise, then stuck his lower lip out truculently. “I’m the crown prince. You can’t talk to me like that!”

  “Crown prince? How can you be heir to the throne if your father’s immortal?” asked Mandrake.

  Jari glared, but there was uncertainty in his stance. “I could have you executed for talking to me like that.”

  “Hardly. I am a ghost. You can’t kill someone who’s dead already, now can you?” Mandrake replied in an admonishing avuncular tone.

  “You’re no spirit!” Jari shouted in fury, clenching his fists. “General Gemala says you’re just a man! He says you’re a wicked wizard with evil powers, but you’re only human all the same. He says you should be killed.”

  Mandrake’s golden eyes grew cold. “Does he indeed.”

  “Do not be angry, Prince,” Yehosi begged from the floor. “I am sure it is not true. The palace is full of false rumors these days.”

  “It is too true,” insisted Jari. “I was there, I heard him say it. He didn’t see me, but I heard.”

  Gemala, thought Mandrake. But of course: it was he who sent the assassin to kill me. Gemala’s followers are as loyal to him as he is to his king: that is why the man risked his life, why he lied about Roglug being the one who sent him. To protect his general, and also divide the enemy.

  “He’ll kill you,” Jari taunted. “Gemala will kill you! I heard him say so.”

  Mandrake glanced down at him. “The king will be here soon to hold council with his advisors. Now run along and play, or have someone flogged, or whatever you find amusing. We adults have business to discuss.”

  The boy wandered off sulkily, to Yehosi’s relief. “He’s a monster—a monster!” the eunuch wheezed as he struggled to his feet.

  “No. He’s a child.” Mandrake never had been sentimental about children. The memory of being bullied and stoned by other boys in Zimbouran villages was still vivid in his mind, even after hundreds of years. Children were human, after all, cruelty merely one of many unpleasant traits they shared with their elders. And a child spoiled and indulged from infancy, bowed to and given his own way in everything—what else could he be like? “Khalazar is not a monster either,” Mandrake added. “The problem with a tyrant, Yehosi, is not that he is an evil being but simply that he is a human being in the wrong place. It is his humanity, not his supposed inhumanity, that makes him what he is. If Khalazar were not the God-king, if he were living in the slums rather than the palace, he would simply be the irascible old gentleman whom no one can bear, who beats his wives and shouts at the street urchins for making too much noise when he is napping. It is the fact of his being here, on a throne where he has no business to be, that is monstrous. Princess Ailia is not a monster either: back when she believed herself to be no one in particular, she was rather a pleasant young girl. Power is the real enemy, Yehosi, and it began with what you like to call civilization: there were no tyrants in the days when humans lived in caves and foraged for their food.”

  He fell silent, for Khalazar was now approaching the council chamber. They heard the monarch long before they saw him: wild shouts and curses rang through the passages beyond. The doors were flung open and Khalazar, literally frothing at the mouth and bellowing incoherently, came in surrounded by terrified aides and councillors and attended by the regent of Ombar and Berengazi, the high priest of Valdur.

  “Have you need of counsel, O King?” Mandrake asked. The angry potentate growled in his throat like an animal, but made no reply. It was Berengazi who spoke.

  “It’s said there were a few survivors of the witch-princess’s army, and that they fled to the ruined city. The slaves have learned this and are making heroes of them. The Moharas say that one of the foreign fighters is their Zayim.”

  “I am not familiar with that title,” the regent said. Berengazi explained, “The Zayim is the messiah of the Mohara legends, a man sent by the gods who will come and liberate them all from our rule—”

  “They dare!” Khalazar burst out.

  “And the other two who escaped are said to
be angels in human guise, sent to serve the Zayim. They are fair-haired and pale, like the angels painted by western barbarians. Not only the Moharas, but some Zimbourans out in the farm country are turning to them and to the worship of their Morning Star goddess.”

  “I will not tolerate this!” the God-king raged. “I am the true and only god of Zimboura! I will not be supplanted by this goddess and her lying prophet! Gemala”—turning to the general—“why have you not captured these villains?”

  “My men fear to enter the old city, Majesty,” the general replied. “They say there is a curse on it, and no one who enters it comes out alive again. And it is true that the scouts we send there never return.”

  “They would do better to fear me!” snapped the king. “I will have their heads if they do not obey me. Tell them that!”

  “Has this false prophet, this Zayim, a name like other men?” asked Mandrake abruptly.

  Again the high priest answered, as Khalazar was too angry to reply. “Our spies say that the Zayim is called Jomar, and the two angels are Lorelyn and Damion.”

  “Those three!” exclaimed Mandrake. “So they came with the Arainian force. They have survived—and been left behind. Khalazar”—turning to God-king—“you do not realize what a boon has fallen into your grasp. Capture these three by all means, but do not harm them—yet. They are the close friends of the Tryna Lia herself!”

  The God-king looked back at him blankly. The word “friend” conveyed nothing to him. Mandrake sighed. “They are her allies, her close companions—the one named Damion especially, or so I am told. I heard once of a she-wolf who was caught when hunters lay in wait for her with a special bait: her own mate, tethered to a tree. Find those dear to her, and you will have Ailia in your power.”

  “I will set a bounty for them,” the king said. “I will tell all the citizenry a reward will go to the one who captures these three.” He scowled. “I may have won a great victory against her forces, but I spend every day in torment knowing that the Daughter of Night still lives, and may march against me again.”