To Jenka’s surprise, not everyone there had tattoos on their faces. Lemmy explained that only a small portion of the people at the temple were druids. Much of the labor was done by ogres and the folks that lived in the seemingly protected valley. Looking around, Jenka realized that there were a lot of things resuming. Three rows of black-robed druids, and behind them another row of brown-robed boys and girls, were praying on a tiled patio. Several pairs of brown- and black-robed men and women worked on ladders, trimming and plucking at trees that bore recognizable gourd nuts. Zahrellion had a tree like these in some special magic place she’d told him about once. The liquid in the nuts was sweet and revitalizing. The grounds were more like a village than the reclusive place of worship Jenka always imagined it to be. There was an odd dullness to a few of the laborers. Jenka couldn’t put his thumb on it, but to him they seemed dazed. Until Jenka got a closer look, the temple itself didn’t seem like much other than a well-decorated rectangle with towers at its corners. Once he saw how the puzzled pieces of stone fit together he felt insignificant, as if he were alone on the open sea. Something so amazingly intricate was baffling to him.
The hierarchy of the Order was portrayed by the color of the robes the druids wore. Brown was obviously low on the pole, and black not much higher. Jenka saw a white-robed boy whose tattooed face looked almost exactly like Zahrellion’s. He saw serious men wearing light blue robes too, but when he saw the druid in the blood-red robe trimmed in silver, he was confounded completely.
The man strolling out of the temple with his hands clasped behind his back looked exactly like Linux, so much so that Jenka decided they had to be twins. When the man was introduced as the High Druidon, Lanxe, Jenka decided he was correct. Lanxe’s facial tattoos were exactly the same as Linux’s. Lanxe spoke to Lemmy mentally and had no problem pushing Jenka out of the conversation. Soon the High Druidon was walking away and Jenka was following Lemmy in another direction.
We’ll refresh ourselves. After that Unisyus will show us around the grounds while the acolytes are cleared out of the librarium, Lemmy explained. Once that is done the libriars will be at our service.
Jenka was shown to a room with a large tub of water in it. There was a tray of cheese and fruit on a table, and a set of clean gray robes trimmed in red. The ebon-skinned, blue-robed man who led him there reached down and spoke a few unpronounceable words while stirring his finger. Within the span of a few heartbeats the water in the tub was steaming. The druid rose, took a vial from a shelf and dropped a dollop of oily blue liquid into the bath. Soon a rich, earthy smell, like a hardwood forest in full spring, filled Jenka’s nostrils. Then the man made an offering gesture toward the tray of food and bowed his way out of the room.
After his bath, Jenka ate most of the fruit and all of the cheese. He found a different druid, this one a young man in brown robes, waiting at his door. He was led outside through a fragrant garden of pastel peach-colored blooms to a gazebo where Lemmy and a tall man in a blue robe trimmed in gold sat before a trickling water feature.
This is Unisyus, Lemmy said in the ethereal. Unis, Jenka De Swasso, one of the Royal Dragoneers.
I’m not that royal, Jenka jested as he exchanged head bows with Unisyus. But I am a Dragoneer.
The bald, long-bearded man was old. The triangle tattooed on his forehead was colored somewhere between blond-stained wood and brilliant gold, depending on the light. He seemed irritated about something, but did a good job of keeping his frustration in check. He started telling them about the construction of the main temple as if he were reciting a lecture. It was made of intricately-carved granite blocks that fitted together in ways that seemed impossible. “...they Dou-crafted each and every stone,” he was saying. “We used ogres to fit them, of course. The ogres are the reason we can exist up here in this deep, isolated valley without being overrun by the trellkin. The ogres love smokeberry wine.” He gave a conspiratorial wink. “We make the best of it. Our only competition is the Outlanders. Even at the height of Gravelbone’s uprising we were relatively safe here. It was a group of our Order’s gatherers that were cut off from us by the hordes that came to you. We were glad to learn they made it to Kingsmen’s Keep and then Mainsted.”
“Ogres couldn’t have topped those spires,” Jenka said, trying to conceive a way for anyone to put the hammered copper sheets up on the top of the steep peaks.
“You’re right.” Unis gave Lemmy an impressed nod. “Men did it.”
“How?” Jenka asked dubiously.
“I’d show you from the inside, but the towers were converted into apartments when the trolls went mad. Several Outlanders were caught in the mountains and ended up fleeing here too.” Unisyus answered. “As for the rooftops, they were done from the top floor of the tower, on the inside, with the last panel being hinged like a gate or a door.”
Jenka was still dubious. Craning his neck to look up at the five-story structure, he decided that it wasn’t impossible. Unis began telling some of the history of the temple, but a young man in white robes, with a silver triangle on his forehead, approached. He spoke to Unis for a moment then hurried away.
“It seems that the librarium has been cleared,” Unis told them. “Let us see if we can find that journal for which Linux sent you.”
Chapter Twelve
The eager libriar led them right to the text Linux was after. It was a journal written by a woman named Clover. She’d lived a century ago. She either had a vivid imagination or she was the first known rider of dragons. The latter was the case. The truth was confirmed in several accounts written in the early days of the druids’ settlement. Her wyrm, who she called Crimzon because he had scales the color of blood, was a fire drake. According to the passages Jenka read over Lemmy’s shoulder, they had an eventful time of it. Among the diary-like entries were several sketches of dragon saddles. Those were what Linux said he wanted. They were about to ask for an inkpot and quill, but then Lemmy found a page that was stuck to the next. It was the page that Linux’s message secretly told him to seek out.
Unis was standing about, talking softly with one of the libriars, and not paying much attention. Lemmy gave Jenka the hunters’ hand signal for silence. Then he carefully peeled the pages apart to find a map. To Jenka’s amazement, the tri-coiled Dragoneer emblem was sketched in the bottom corner of the page. He’d thought it a sketch of an upside down clover at first.
Linux, Jenka remembered, was the one who helped the tanners make the Dragoneers’ emblazoned vests. He must have remembered the design from Clover’s sketch.
Jenka was dying to know what the map led to.
Neither of them bothered to study the drawing. Lemmy shut the journal and began tactfully trying to get Unisyus to let them take it. The old druid balked at first, but after Lemmy promised that he would return the volume when they were done copying the saddle designs, Unis finally relented. Now Jenka and Lemmy were hurrying to Lemmy’s room so they could use the ink and vellum they’d obtained to copy the saddle drawings and the map.
Where does it lead? Jenka asked as soon as they were away from Unisyus.
To a castle, I think, Lem answered excitedly.
Jenka couldn’t help but notice how Lemmy acted more the age he looked, instead of the age he was. It was amazing to think that the half-elvish hunter was over ninety years old.
Is it close? Jenka asked.
I’ll have to search for landmarks on the map. It was most likely made before we began earnestly settling the mainland.
We need to copy the whole journal, Lem, at least the significant passages. How long will that take?
Lemmy thought about it for a moment. I can have it done by the time Jade is rested and ready to fly again, he promised.
There was an unspoken agreement then. They were going to find the castle, if it wasn’t too far away.
Lemmy went right to work, and began copying first the saddle sketches, then the map. When he started copying text, Jenka read and studied the pages after Lem finished th
em. It was all general womanly stuff, about Clover’s garden and a recently deceased wizard who had schooled her in the arcane. After a while, Lemmy’s hand grew cramped. Jenka took the journal and skipped to the later entries. On the second random passage he looked at he went as pale as a sheet. There on the page was something about the Confliction.
To avoid the impending Saraxian Confliction, Crimzon and I exhausted the power of one of the teardrops his mother shed. The spell will hold the strange creatures for decades, maybe centuries, but it will not hold them forever. The call the creatures emit seeps through the coating. They crave human flesh, and are suited to hunt. Twice the size of a man, and two-legged, with thick, greasy skin, they fly fleetly on powerful wings. They swarmed Crimzon that first time, and would have brought us down. Only my uncanny luck saved us, when a storm broke, and filled the sky with lightning that seemed to be drawn to them, but did not harm them.
Vax will watch over what I have done and spend his days trying to fortify the spell, but I fear even his strong natural ability will not be enough. He is a good son, a good man. He has devoted his entire life to sustaining the encasement. Eventually it will fail, though, and the Confliction will begin again. The Sarax will not stop feeding until they have devoured all. They are not of this world. They have no respect for the life here. The steel star ship that carried them here buried itself in the earth. They cannot leave. Sooner or later we will have to kill each and every one of them, or they will surely eat us all.
We hope that the Great Seer of Corm told us true when she predicted the coming of the Dragoneers. Five dragons, with five riders, she said, will stand and face the savage Sarax to determine the fate of men. It is for these five that I will spend my last few years preparing things they may need.
Jenka was dumbfounded, but not so much that he didn’t tell Lemmy what he’d just read.
The journal is yours then, Lemmy told him. His demeanor had shifted from that of an excited boy to deathly serious. Linux sent us here for more than just a saddle design. His missive suggested as much, but not directly. We need not copy all of this. We must follow the map and see what is there. I will have Unisyus fly a bird to Mainsted bearing the saddle drawings Linux requested.
I had a wakeful dream of a deep mountain castle once, Jenka said. Zahrellion’s dragon, Crystal, showed me the vision.
Use the power of the sword Mysterian gave you to try and reach the Dragoneers through the ethereal, Lemmy suggested. Let the teardrop amplify your sending.
Jenka tried and tried but couldn’t get his mental voice to reach Zahrellion, Mysterian, or even Rikky. He ended up writing a message telling them that, after he and Lemmy finished at the temple, they were going to explore the castle. He hoped Crystal would remember the vivid scene she’d shown him. He gave the message to Lem, who gave it to Unisyus, with his copied drawings of Clover’s dragon saddle designs. Soon, the swifter hawk was on its way to Linux, leaving Jenka and Lemmy with little to do save wait for Jade to wake from the deep slumber into which he’d fallen.
Let’s read the rest and see if there is anything we may need once we get there, Jenka suggested. We definitely need some cold weather gear and some good rations.
We may need crossbows, torches, and maybe even a coil of rope. Lemmy was inking a list before Jenka could suggest it. How long will Jade sleep?
He’s young and exhausted; probably the rest of this day and tonight. We can leave midday of the morrow. Jenka was pleased that he had something exciting to focus on. He hadn’t thought about Zahrellion all day. Even as he thought about her now he didn’t dwell on his feelings for her.
It took most of the daylight for Jenka to round up everything they needed. He stumbled on a troubling scene at one point, when he stepped out onto a balcony. Below, in an enclosed yard, two ogres were being lashed with a whip. A druid with eyes as black as onyx looked up at him and grinned. Jenka hurried away and spent the rest of the day trying to put it out of his mind.
Lemmy used the time to study Clover’s writing. He found that she was more carefree in the early entries; the volume was three fingers thick, and all but the last few pages were written in a crisp, simple script. She’d started the journal after she’d sought tutelage in the arts of the arcane from a wizard named Master Zarvin who lived on a distant continent. She wrote of the fae folk who lived around the old mage’s tower, and how he showed her the way of things. After he died, she moved on. She flew across a great sea and found a new land to build her own tower. She and Crimzon befriended the ogres there, and with their help, she built a castle instead of a tower. She avoided the kingdom folk. The kings of men there all hated dragons. By the last half of the journal she was mentioning an Outlander named Denner Noffa quite often, then she was with child. Her son was born Vax Noffa. This gave Lemmy pause, for he knew exactly who Vax Noffa was. Vax Noffa was a powerful and secretive Outland wizard. Now, he was the only person Lemmy knew of who had a parent not descended from the Dogma’s survivors.
After learning all that Lemmy had read, Jenka grew curious. He went on to read about how Clover and her fierce red wyrm encased the steel star ship in molten crystal, with the bulk of the Sarax creatures trapped inside. She described how Crimzon’s fiery breath consumed the dragon teardrop as she cast a certain shielding spell in reverse. When the fire drake took the heat away, the thick magical field quickly formed into a diamond-hard shell. Clover exhausted the power of a sizable dragon’s tear fortifying the bonding of the encasement, but the magic could only do so much.
In the later entries, Clover described with a shaky hand the crystal shell flaking in places. She said that even with her son constantly working to fortify the confining crystal, it was only a matter of time before it all crumbled away.
Those last entries were decades old, Lemmy explained. Jenka could only imagine what the state of the protective shell was now. He figured Vax Noffa wasn’t so much a strange recluse as he was probably constantly working to sustain the spell his mother had cast. The one time Jenka had seen the mysterious Outlander he only got a glimpse under the dark hood the man wore. Intense blue eyes set in a weary, vacant face, was what he saw. Knowing what Vax Noffa was about explained the empty expression. Jenka hoped he knew what his mother did of the Confliction.
“Have you ever heard of such a thing?” Jenka spoke out loud. “Finding Vax Noffa has to be our goal. We need to see the star ship, as well as the castle. Maybe we’ll find him there.”
No, Lemmy replied with his mind. But I remember hearing Outlander tales of Crimzon and Clover told by the fires in my youth. Her dragon carried her here from the Motherland, or some other place where men bear beautiful daughters.
Later, Jenka thought about it all as he drifted in and out of a fitful sleep. The morning was on him quicker than he would have liked, but Jade was awake and ready to fly them north into the deep of the Orich Mountains.
After loading their packs with fresh bread and cheese, and smokeberry wine for any ogres they came across, they hiked away from the temple and waited as Jade cautiously approached from afar. After Jade landed, they climbed onto the young green dragon’s back and were lifted into the sky.
Chapter Thirteen
“What have you done, witch?” Herald yelled over the chaos.
“Gravelbone ruined him, just like Linux told me,” Mysterian moaned out a sorrowful wail. She was looking at the blood-drenched stab wounds in the king’s true body as a terrified guard rolled him over. The young soldier held his king for a moment, and then scrambled away with eyes full of tears. The king’s heart had been punctured several times. No healing could bring him back. It was pointless to even try.
Rikky noticed that Prince Richard wasn’t mortally injured. The dagger tip had found a rib and only wounded him. The Crown Prince rolled to his feet, grabbed his mother and held her limp form between him and the confused room. The dagger sticking out of him fell, thumping loudly to the floor. Guards were trying to crowd into the chamber now, only making it that much more cramped.
“The druid,” Prince Richard pointed an accusing finger at King Blanchard, who was still in Linux’s body. “He spelled me to attack my father. Then he stabbed me.” When no one moved, Prince Richard began screaming. “I am the king now, damn you! Do as I say. Shackle the traitorous druid!”
“We will not,” Zahrellion snapped with a challenging glare at them all. It was obvious to her that Prince Richard wasn’t fully recovered. His skin was jaundiced and his eyes were shot with blood. “Get the king to the dragon bailey,” she directed Rikky and Marcherion while pointing at Linux’s sobbing form.
“Do as she says, boys” Herald added. “Before there’s no chance left.” The old ranger looked Zah directly in the eyes. “Kingsmen’s Keep, Zahrellion. No arguing.”
“You’ll not take him anywhere.” Prince Richard shoved his mother at a guard and started at Zah. She spoke a spell swiftly and with a sling of her witchy staff pummeled his chest with an invisible blast of wind. He fell back hard, gasping desperately for air.
“I’m right behind you, lass,” Herald told Zah as she followed Marcherion, Rikky, and King Blanchard out of the Dragoneers’ Lair. “Watch for us. Watch the road for us.”
“I will,” she nodded. Then she followed King Blanchard to the bailey and helped him climb onto Crystal’s weary back. The dragons flew them away from Mainsted to a clearing in the forest between Mainsted and Midwal. There the dragons rested while Rikky and Marcherion hunted a meal. They killed an early fall gobbler, of all things, but made short work of plucking it and getting it cooking. They were confused, but kept their heads. The king had to be taken to safety, but the implications of what had just happened started sinking in when Rikky pointed out what they hadn’t considered.
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