Summon Your Dragons

by Roger Parkinson

  The guards gathered around their company in a protective circle, and they pushed forward through the archway in the wall and into the crowded streets of the city. Menish found himself riding beside the guard captain.

  “I know you from somewhere. Where have I seen you before?” The man smiled.

  “You may have seen me at the battle of the Olsha fords years ago, M’Lord. I doubt if you've seen me since then.”

  “Of course, I knew I remembered you from somewhere. It was not so much you I remembered as that horse you rode. A fine beast, he could have been sired by Garnar himself. I was sorry when he fell in battle. You were on the left flank weren't you?”

  “Yes, Darven was our commander.”

  “I thought so. I spoke with Darven a few days ago. He lives in Deenar now, away north. He's done well for himself.”

  “I'm pleased to hear it. There are few commanders I was so happy to serve under.” Again Menish was interested to see how Relanese they had become. This was no Vorthenki warrior, the man was a trained soldier, a professional, capable of working in an organised army. He himself had been a part of that transformation when he enlisted Vorthenki auxiliaries to help Vorish fight Thealum. But he had not been to Atonir for some years now, were they so civilised last time he was here?

  While Menish talked to the captain of their meeting with Darven, Azkun absorbed the sights and sounds about him as they made their way up the broad avenue that led directly to the walls of the palace. It was lined with tall trees whose leaves were just turning autumnal gold and brown.

  Under the trees and in open buildings beyond them were stalls piled high with wares. There were hundreds of people milling about. Most of them were Vorthenki, and they had the height and colouring of Althak. Their clothes were bright in the sunshine, reds and yellows, and they wore bangles and bracelets that sparkled. But others were darker and shorter with almond shaped eyes, more like the Anthorians in form but not in dress. These folk were even more adorned with jewellery and bright colours, as if to make amends for their lack of height. Azkun wondered if they were the remnant of the true Relanese folk, the folk of Gilish.

  In the background lurked still another group. They were clothed in old, torn garments and had a sullen look that reminded Azkun of the slaves they had rescued from the pirates.

  At one stall nearby a man stood yelling something at the top of his voice. From the little Vorthenki Azkun had picked up he seemed to he extolling the virtues of the carvings that lay in the stall. They passed another where the air was filled with the smell of baking bread. Yet another was piled high with vegetables. Some of these stalls were mobile. A man wheeled a handcart beside them offering some liquid refreshment he carried in big, metal bottles. Others moved among the crowd with baskets of small loaves from the bakery. Everywhere was the sound of voices, some laughing, some serious. A small child wept bitterly not far away, voices were raised in argument at one of the stalls.

  In the midst of all this confusion Azkun felt something strange, like a door opening briefly and closing behind his back. Turning, he saw that Tenari was weeping. Slow tears ran down her still blank face, and her gaze was directed steadfastly ahead and not at Azkun.

  “Tenari? What is it?” But she gave no sign that she heard him, her mind was as blank as stone.

  A commotion erupted as they passed a whole line of stalls and shops that sold nothing but fish. The place reeked of the smell of it and it was even more crowded than the previous stalls. A woman screamed and two men burst through the press of people, struggling together.

  One man pulled free of the other with the sound of rent cloth in the sudden silence. He whirled about and a knife flashed in the sun. The captain roared an order and drew his sword, but the knife man sprang at his opponent. There was a grunt and a cry. Azkun held his breath as he felt a fire erupt in his chest and burn down into his guts.

  Darkness hovered in the air about him, he looked through two sets of eyes, his own and the red hazed eyes of a man who lay in a widening pool of blood on the ground. His heartbeat was slowly timing away the measure of his life. Two of the guards grabbed the knife man.

  Clutching the pain in his chest Azkun slid from his horse and staggered to the man on the ground. The oblivion of death yawned, waiting to swallow him, waiting still.

  But he knew what he had to do. He was not powerless before it.

  The knife projected from the man’s chest and blood trickled from it in a relentless flow. His breath gurgled in his throat. Azkun could feel blood in his lungs.

  Someone behind him, Althak he thought, cried “Don't touch him” but he ignored him. The knife seemed to grate against his own ribs as he breathed. It filled his awareness and only on the periphery was he conscious of the ring of anxious onlookers and the black chasm of death.

  Not this time.

  He drew out the knife, feeling every inch of it and gasping as it ground against bone. The man shuddered and lay very still, his breathing no longer sounded. Behind him the crowd let out a vast, collective sigh.

  But he was not dead, not yet. The chasm of death still leered at him nearby, but it had not taken him. Through clotted lungs, his own lungs, Azkun forced breath. With his own life he refused death, in the name of the dragons. It seemed hours that he knelt beside the man, his hands covering the wound and his will battling with darkness. He was unaware of the crowd now, unaware that the guards had forced them back to form a wide circle and that Menish had told the captain not to hinder Azkun.

  “Let him try”, he had said.

  Azkun knelt there alone except for Tenari and another woman who wept beside the victim.

  At last the man drew a slow, hesitant breath. Azkun felt the pain in his chest grow sharp as the wound was moved but his breath was clear. Another breath, the man’s eyes flickered open and the crowd sighed again. The woman looked at Azkun, astonished.

  She said something to him in Vorthenki that he did not understand, but he caught the word ‘Kopth’ and nodded. At that her face lit with joy and she cried out to the crowd.

  “Azkun,” it was Menish at his side. “Come on, we must leave here at once. Is he really-?”

  “He is alive. The dragons saved him.”

  The voice of the crowd began to rise. Someone shouted ‘Kopth’ and the others turned the cry into a chant.

  “Come on!”

  Azkun remembered the sacrifice only a few days ago.

  “They will kill for me again.”

  Menish nodded. It was what he had feared himself. Vorish had forbidden the sacrifice, but who listens to an Emperor when a god is speaking?

  “Climb onto your horse, hold up your hand for silence and point to me. I'll speak to them for you. This will take some delicacy.”

  The guards who had held back the crowd before for Azkun faltered under their pressure. They too wanted to see this man who some said was Kopth himself. Azkun flung himself onto his horse and pulled Tenari up behind him. Even as he did so people surged forward, crowding about him, chanting, catching and kissing his feet. They called to him, many with pleading in their eyes, the kind of pleading that provokes promises.

  He raised his hand for silence as Menish had told him to and pointed to the King.

  “I speak for the man you're calling Kopth. His name is Azkun and he comes from the north. You have seen him save a man from death today. He commands you to kill no longer. You are not to sacrifice to him. If you kill anyone it is as if you kill him.” Here he paused to let his words reach them. “I repeat, do not sacrifice. Keep the Emperor's law.”

  This caused a murmur that ran through the crowd like fire. But they parted as the company urged their horses along the avenue.

  Before them now loomed the great walls of the palace. At the end of the avenue the walls were pierced by an enormous arch hung with vast bronze doors. They must have been a fifty feet high and they shone in the sunlight with beaten images of birds and beasts. Above the arch, carved in the stone, was a rayed disc with a face on it. Th
e image of Aton.

  As they approached the doors swung silently open. More mounted guards with Ammorl surcoats emerged with lances and surrounded them, forcing the following crowd back from the gates. Their horses clattered forward over the stone into the blackness beyond the archway and the gates closed with a massive boom behind them.

  Chapter 15: The Emperor

  The palace of Atonir held many memories for Menish. He had first come here as a small boy with his father on a state visit. It was a long journey for a child but the roads were good.

  In the years when Sinalth occupied the throne he had made that journey several times trying to encourage the Vorthenki warlord to better government, and sometimes pleading with him for something like decency.

  Sinalth was not so bad, but Thealum was a monster and Menish did not come in those years. Instead he had raised Vorish in Anthor, and together they had raised an army to push Thealum into the sea.

  Menish had done what he could but Vorish would have done the job alone if necessary. He always got what he wanted. Always.

  They passed through three courtyards before dismounting at the inner stair. Menish looked up as he climbed off his horse, wondering, as he always did, how the inner courtyards could be open to the sky in a building that was like a mountain and they were inside it somewhere near the base.

  But the palace was peculiar like that. It contained one great courtyard that seemed large enough for a small army to manoeuvre in. The stairs took you higher than they had any business doing so that after taking a few short flights of steps you might look out a window and find yourself hundreds of feet above the city.

  Somehow all of the apartments, regardless of where they seemed to be had a charming little courtyard with a balcony facing south. There were halls, rooms of state, gardens, towers, stables, kitchens, fabulous bathrooms and a host of other rooms required for the functioning of the empire. Keashil’s song had said that there were rooms that had never been entered since it was built. This might be true, there were large sections of the palace that, as far as Menish knew, had never been used.

  The inner stair where they left the horses was white polished marble and they swept up to an impressive doorway. Their escort accompanied them up the stairs while the guards led the horses away. Keashil and the other women left their litters and went on foot.

  At the top of the stairs Menish paused and looked back. A broken sword hung on the wall beside an inscription. It was here that the Invaders had finally hewn down his sister with thirty of their own dead at her feet.

  Through the doorway they found more stairs. The walls and ceiling here were painted with birds and winged beasts. Again Menish paused at the top of the next flight of stairs, this time to look at a roughness in the smooth marble of the floor. He had been little more than four years old when he had first climbed these stairs with his father. The statues had frightened him and he had cried out and buried his face in his father’s cloak. His father’s laughter had told him to look again at the figures, and only then did he realise that they were not living.

  Looking as if some magic might turn them from stone to living flesh at any moment, Gilish and Sheagil had stood before him there on the stairs. To a young boy used to the rough art of Anthor they were impossibly life like. Gilish had taken a step down the stairs and held Sheagil’s hand as he half turned towards her and laughed at some ancient jest. Sheagil smiled demurely back and held her free hand in a curious gesture, as if she had been pointing at something.

  His second look had revealed that they were not fierce, although they were much larger than life which had been the main cause of young Menish’s fright. But their eyes were strange. Rubies had been set in Gilish’s eye sockets and jet in Sheagil’s. It gave their faces an odd appearance. It was said that Gilish, when he was alive, could look through the eyes of his statue and see whoever entered his palace.

  And now there was only a roughness in the floor where the statues had been. The Vorthenki had smashed them down just as they had cut down Menish’s sister. They had carried them out to the courtyard and pounded them to dust, for they feared they might be magical. Gilish’s ruby eyes had been taken by one of the Vorthenki, but they had brought him such bad luck that he cast them into the sea. Menish never heard what happened to the jet stones of Sheagil’s eyes. He looked at Azkun’s strange eyes and remembered the rubies.

  It was hard to say how many flights of stairs and lengths of passageways it took them to reach the apartment Vorish had given them. But the palace was like that. Menish knew some of the halls they passed and he remembered the peacock garden they saw from a balcony they passed along. Beyond the garden rose the tower of Sheagil, the highest part of the palace that no one knew the way to.

  The very vastness of the place was somehow contemptuous of mere humanity crawling like ants among its ancient glory. One hall, the Hall of Birds, was covered with swirling lines that twisted and turned into the shapes of birds that seemed to fly over their heads. Another was faced with marble that was polished so smooth that they could see their reflections. The polish extended to the dizzy heights of the ceiling.

  When they reached the apartment assigned for their use Menish knew the others were completely lost except possibly Hrangil, but Menish recognised the passage outside. They were quite near the Imperial apartments. Vorish wanted them close by.

  The apartment itself was typical of ones he had used on previous visits. There was an open courtyard with a fountain bubbling in its centre. It looked cool and refreshing. Shrubs grew in planters around the fountain and doorways led off beyond them into the rooms where they would eat and sleep.

  With many courteous words, too many for Menish’s liking, their escort left them in the care of servants. There were more servants than there were guests here. For the next hour they were bathed, fed and dressed in the flowing robes of the court. They were only too pleased to shed their battle jerkins and travel-worn garments for the soft, clean clothes the Emperor had provided. Tenari allowed herself to be led away with Keashil and Olcish to be attended by women while the men were bathed by men servants. She had grown increasingly animated in the palace and, except for the tears Azkun had seen, seemed quite cheerful. She had nodded and smiled several times to the questions of the women but she did not speak.

  When they returned to the courtyard they found a low table surrounded by cushions and laid with golden dishes containing cold game and fruit. Menish was pleased to see it for, as at Deenar, he was very hungry.

  They looked an entirely different company now. Dressed in the court robes the Anthorians were changed from drab, unkempt figures (even Drinagish had neglected to comb his hair while he suffered with the sea retch) to gracious lords. Hrangil appeared a little uncomfortable in his blood-red robe with its broad gold border, as if he could not bring himself to approve of such extravagance of colour. Drinagish's hair had been arranged more carefully even than he usually managed himself.

  At the table they met Keashil, Tenari and Olcish. Keashil looked years younger than she had an hour ago, although lines of old grief still marked her face. They had painted her eyelids in the Relanese manner and her white hair, brushed and clean now, gave her an air of wisdom rather than haggardness.

  Tenari was transformed. Gone was the dirty, wretched flotsam from the Chasm with her old blue robe, her straggly hair and her blank face. Her black hair was combed back from her face and hung nearly to her waist. They had clothed her in white and gold with a silver circlet on her brow. While they were surprised at her change in looks her change in manner was astonishing. She looked at them with recognition, not a blank gaze, and laughed. It was the first time they had heard her voice.

  Still laughing she threw herself at Azkun and boldly kissed him on the mouth. As she did so she pulled the golden cord from her waist and wrapped it around Azkun’s. Then she stepped back and said one word.

  “Gilish.”

  But she would not speak again, nor would she eat any of the food. Menish and th
e others ate heartily. They tried to coax her into saying more but Azkun knew they would have no success. When she had kissed him he had felt a door open and close. There was still no mind behind her now-dancing eyes.

  Not long after they had eaten a servant arrived to summon Menish alone to Vorish. As he had noted earlier, they were not far from Vorish's apartments.

  There were guards with halberds at the entrance to the Emperor’s apartments blocking the way, but a gesture from the servant made them open the doors and admit them.

  He passed through two more doors that led him into a pillared room with a fountain supported by carved horses. There were rich hangings on the walls; tapestries, Menish knew, which dated from the time of Mishan IV, and an open window on the south wall flooded the room with light.

  Vorish sat on cushions at a low table similar to the one that Menish had just eaten at. It was strewn with scrolls of parchment and broken seals. A goblet of wine lay near his elbow and he reached for it as he spoke to two Vorthenki who sat opposite him.

  The Emperor was a lean man with a face as sharp as an eagle’s. His mouth was grim, almost cruel. For a Vorthenki he was not tall, but he always seemed taller than he was. His hair was blond like Althak’s but his eyes were as dark as Menish’s. Unlike the garish clothes the two Vorthenki wore he was dressed in a plain white tunic that reached to his feet and he wore no ornament except a jewelled knife on a leather belt.

  His eyes searched the faces of his listeners as he spoke to them, weighing, measuring them always. It was said that the Emperor could know how far he could trust a man in a glance, it was also said he trusted no one. Menish knew that both stories were all but true.

  As Menish entered the Emperor’s eyes caught him, a flash of delighted recognition and then an imperious gesture to the two Vorthenki to be gone. They rose and bowed to him then scurried out of the room. Menish thought he detected relief on their faces, as if they had not been enjoying their interview. It was amusing to see these two big men dismissed from Vorish’s presence by a mere wave of the hand. The Emperor’s power sprang from many things and one of them was his very presence. He was so, well, royal, and he knew it.