The Dragon Star (Realms of Shadow and Grace: Volume 1)

by G. L. Breedon

  “Ah, the most curious news. Frightening actually. Saw it myself.” A shudder ran along Abananthus’s wide shoulders. “I was passing through Lana Square and I noticed a crowd gathered at the edge. You know where that alley cuts through to Tili Street and that warren of shacks in the Hovel? So I go to look, and for the first time, I’m not so pleased to see over the tops of everyone’s heads. In the alley stood a stone statue of a man, but not a statue. A man turned to stone. You could tell from the way he leaned against the wall, clutching at his chest, his face twisted, like in pain. I can only imagine the pain.” Abananthus shuddered again. “That’s Dark Sight, that. Dark and wicked. The wicked walk where the good fail to tread, they say. A man changed to stone. What was he doing there? And here’s the strange thing, the thing I noted. The man had lost an ear. But, the question is, did he lose the ear before he got himself turned to stone, or did the Dark Sight fiend who cast him in rock break the ear free afterward? Who would want a stone ear from a dead man? Very curious.”

  “That is very curious.” Kellatra’s voice cracked as she spoke. She focused on her breathing, calming the sudden quickening of her lungs. She walked on, straining to maintain a steady pace as her legs yearned to race home toward the inn. A man turned to stone. A missing ear. It could only be Menanthus. What had he been doing? Who killed him? Who dared risk such a blatant use of Dark Sight in the Punderra Dominion? The penalties for using The Sight outside of the Keth councils were high. Could the Keth seers have been involved? What in the name of the Seven Goddesses had Menanthus gotten her involved in?

  Kellatra engaged in a mindless conversation of banal trivialities as Abananthus walked her back to the inn. They dropped the provisions off with Taosee, the cook, and found Rankarus and the children in the kitchen. He had taken their son and daughter down to the river to catch fish for the evening meal at the inn. She always insisted they cut costs where possible and Rankarus loved to fish and the children loved the play with their father, so one act fulfilled everyone’s desires. And it regularly allowed Kellatra a few hours to herself to shop for supplies or deal with the accounting ledgers, an activity Rankarus loathed, thus his preference for minding the children.

  Luntadus, her six-year-old son, proudly held up a large trout, a wide grin on his dirt-smudged face. “I caught the biggest fish. I’m a biggest fish catcher.”

  “Actually, you’re the smallest fish catcher among us.” Rankarus chuckled as he grinned at Kellatra and kissed her in welcome.

  “I’m very proud of you, regardless.” Kellatra took the fish from Luntadus and handed it to Taosee. She took a rag from the chopping table and wiped at Luntadus’s face. “Now how do you manage to get so dirty spending your day by the water?”

  “He’s made of dirt.” Lantili frowned at her brother. Her dress remained spotless. In contrast to her brother, she rarely got messy no matter where she went. She handed two small fish to Taosee, who accepted them with a smile.

  “Like the mud monster of the swamps!” Luntadus seemed all too pleased with the notion of being made of soil. “Can I be a mud monster?”

  “You are not made of dirt, and you may not be a mud monster.” Kellatra spit on the rag and rubbed at an obstinate spot on her son’s face. He tried to wriggle away from her hands, but she held him firm.

  “You’re a monster of a different sort.” Abananthus tousled the boy’s hair.

  “Don’t know why you bother washing him.” Rankarus shook his head. “He’ll just be dirty again in five minutes.”

  Kellatra sighed, realizing the boy was as clean as she could get him without immersion in water — and bathing cats proved easier than Luntadus. Lantili, however, always needed to be coaxed out of a bath. “Run along.”

  “If I can’t be a mud monster, can I be a stone man?” Luntadus froze in place, arms outstretched at odd angles, his face contorted, eyes bulging.

  “You’ve already got a stone brain.” Lantili tickled her brother, who made further, more exaggerated faces as he tried not to respond before bursting into laughter and chasing her around the kitchen chopping table.

  “How many times must I say no running in my kitchen!” Taosee bellowed in mock anger at the children, shooing them out the door and down the hall to the main dining room.

  “Stone man?” Kellatra turned to Rankarus, her stomach suddenly churning, her chest tight.

  “Something we saw coming home.” Rankarus frowned. “A man turned to stone. I took the children away as soon as I understood what it was, but it was all they spoke of on the way back to the inn.”

  “I saw it as well.” Abananthus rubbed his beard. “Wicked thing.”

  “Some rogue priest turning The Sight on an enemy, no doubt,” Rankarus said. “The sort of thing you’d expect to see in Juparti, not in a sleepy Punderra town.”

  “We should keep the children inside until the town targas find the culprit,” Kellatra said. The image of Luntadus motionless like stone would not leave her mind.

  “Likely long gone by now, but not a bad idea.” Rankarus nodded his head in agreement. “They can help me clean.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on them,” Abananthus said. “I enjoy watching people work when I have none to do myself.”

  “I thought you had a shop to run.” Rankarus walked toward the hall.

  “I hired a boy. Very bright. Hopefully not so bright as to steal, but bright enough to sweep the floors and keep the door open.” Abananthus followed Rankarus down the hall toward the main room and the sounds of the children still chasing one another around tables and chairs.

  Kellatra watched them for a moment, trying to keep thoughts of stone men and stone children from her mind. She made an excuse to Taosee about checking supplies and descended the ladder through the trapdoor into the root cellar. She moved a sack of rice and pulled away the loose slate beneath it.

  She stared for a moment at the leather-wrapped box in the hole of the cellar floor, hesitating to touch it. Why did Menanthus leave it with her? Who killed him for it and why? Would they come looking for it? How much danger had she brought to her family’s door? Did she really want to know what lay inside?

  She reached down to lift the package out of its hiding place and sat it on her legs. Thin straps held sheets of leather in place around the box. She untied the straps and pulled the dried animal flesh away, revealing a black lacquered box devoid of markings. It held no keyhole and seemed intended only to protect its contents.

  Kellatra took a deep breath as her hands rested on the smooth wood. A man from her past carried death to her family’s home, and she blindly hid it beneath their floorboards. A woman with any sense would cast it at night into the river. A woman who loved her family would keep danger far away from them. But would casting the box away unopened eliminate the threat? Did Menanthus tell those who turned him to stone where he left the box and with whom? If he had, would they not have already arrived to claim it? Should she not try to learn what would be worth the risk of using such Dark Sight in a land known to whip unsanctified seers on stakes in public squares? Should she not know what jeopardy she and her family faced?

  Kellatra frowned, knowing she could not answer her questions and realizing she would not leave the box unopened. She did not possess the sort of mind that could witness a mystery and simply turn aside from unraveling it, especially when it might threaten the lives of her husband and children.

  Inside the box rested a simple, leather-bound book with thick pages. She picked the book up and held it in her hands, pausing a moment before opening it. Who would kill for a book? What book would be worth killing for?

  She thumbed back the cover of the book to reveal the first page, and squinted in the dim light of the cellar as she held the aged parchment page up to her eyes. A hand-drawn sketch of a bizarre and fantastical plant filled the vellum sheet. A strange script, one she did not recognize, covered the page next to the drawing. She bit her lip, suspicion of the book’s nature filling her bowels with a cold dread. In her studies, she had
viewed samples of all the writings of all the peoples throughout the history of the Iron Realm. She had seen the scripts of people of the other realms as well. This language looked unique. Her fingers sweating and her heart pounding in her chest, Kellatra slowly paged through the manuscript. The indecipherable text, drawings, and watercolor paintings of unusual plants, fantastical creatures, and inexplicable landscapes continued sheet after aged sheet.

  Her hands shaking, she closed the book. She swallowed, her mouth dry, her throat tight. She knew why someone had killed Menanthus. She had heard of the manuscript she held in her hands. Famous in arcane circles and variously assumed to be a legend or hoax, it had a name — The Unseen Codex. A book written in an indecipherable language describing an unknown world. She had studied for several years under a scholar who spent decades investigating the rumors of the codex. Some of those rumors suggested that the Academy’s Library of Mysteries secretly housed the only copy, hidden in the deepest of vaults. Neither she nor the scholar ever found proof of that rumor. She looked down to the proof that now rested in her hands.

  Menanthus, or someone he knew, had stolen The Unseen Codex from the Library of the Academy of Sight, and someone else turned him to stone to claim it. Who? And why? It seemed unlikely the Academy Council would sanction the use of Dark Sight to retrieve a stolen book. Unless the book posed a danger to the academy itself. What threat could justify such extremes?

  Kellatra looked down at the book in her hands — a mystery more intriguing than any she ever imagined. A cautious woman would burn it. A wise woman would pay someone to return it to the Academy of Sight and the Library of Mysteries. A prudent woman would do all she could to get it as far from herself and her family as possible.

  Kellatra sat the book back in the box, closed the lid, tied the leather wrapping around it, placed it in the hole, slid the slate across the dirt opening, and dragged the bag of rice once more into place. Then she dusted off the folds of her dress, climbed the ladder to the kitchen, gave orders to the cook for the dinner meal, and went about the affairs of running a large inn.

  She thought of the book the entire day, as she wiped down tables, served hot bowls of spiced fish stew, cups of wine, and rice cakes, all the while wishing she were a cautious, wise, and prudent woman, but knowing she never would be.

  To continue reading the Seer story arena follow this link.

  To continue reading Kellatra’s storyline follow this link.

  THE TEMPLE

  RAEDALUS

  “HERETICS!”

  “Blasphemers!”

  “The True God is the only god!”

  “We don’t want yer filth here!”

  “Someone should kill ya!”

  “Hope the militia finds ya!”

  A week-old tomato burst its thin skin against Raedalus’s chest, drenching him in rancid juice, the color of the smashed fruit similar to the tint of the sun as it sank toward the western horizon. Other vegetables soon followed. He sighed. The pilgrims of the star had come to expect this kind of welcome when passing through villages and towns along the Old Border Road. The people might not claim allegiance to either the Daeshen Dominion to the north or the Tanshen Dominion to the south, but they did openly proclaim their devotion to their god Ni-Kam-Djen regardless of the sectarian divisions between the two nations. He brushed the tomato pulp from his clothes, thankful the villagers had not started with rocks.

  Normally, the pilgrims tried to pass through towns at night when the people slept and were less likely to cause problems. They received enough trouble from the hounding militias that followed them. Usually, the dream woke the potentially faithful during the pilgrims’ passage through their town and they came out to join the procession, quickly grabbing what they could from their homes for the journey ahead. They generally picked up three or four pilgrims in a village and ten or more in a small town.

  This day, they had timed their journey wrong. Raedalus cursed himself for the poor planning. His poor planning. They should have marched a little faster. Or he should have halted the company when he saw they could not all pass through the town before sunset. While the majority of the pilgrims had already marched through the farming village and hour earlier, before most of its citizens returned from the fields for the day, a few of the slower pilgrims, those a bit older and weaker from the journey, had lingered, as they always did, too far behind the others.

  Raedalus stayed with his new lagna. In the Pashist faith of the Juparti Dominion, the word indicated members of a spiritual community. The Mother Shepherd used the word to describe the entirety of her followers, the pilgrims of Moaratana. Raedalus thought of the word as describing a new family. He could not leave his new cousins and uncles and aunts to straggle behind on their own when passing through danger. He led the small group of ten elderly men and women two abreast through the center of the small village.

  “Keep walking, keep walking.” Raedalus took the hand of the woman at his side, her gray hair a stark contrast with her wrinkled, night-dark skin. He chided himself again. He should have found space for them on the wagons carrying the wounded from the previous night’s attack by militiamen. They had lost two wagons to fire, and the horses would have strained at the added weight, but he should have found a way to transport the weaker pilgrims. Or at the very least, he should have insisted that some of the men now armed with swords from the dead militiamen accompany him and his elderly charges. It reminded him of the time when, as a novice priest, he had been put in charge of meals for after the fire festival prayers and ended up providing stale rice and cold lamb because he had procrastinated in making the preparations. He hated that feeling of incompetence. Especially as it now put other’s lives at risk. And so soon after they had lost loved ones to violence.

  The villagers continued to throw rotten fruits and vegetables. Something hard hit Raedalus’s shoulder. A beet or a rock — he could not tell. He briefly reconsidered his choice to ignore the advice of the Mother Shepherd to keep the sword he had used during the militia attack. He had no skill with a blade, and could not imagine using it on the villagers, but it might have frightened them into keeping their distance and granting easy passage to the elderly pilgrims.

  The village consisted of twenty-odd houses built of mud bricks stacked around wooden frames and covered with a pale brown plaster. Thatched roofs protected all but one of the homes, which instead held planks of wood coated with a viscous black resin.

  The villagers looked largely indistinguishable. Farmers and their families. Men and women in roughhewn clothes, barefoot children standing between them. They were good people, Raedalus reminded himself. People exactly like those who had joined the Mother Shepherd on the pilgrimage. The only difference lay in what they believed in their hearts to be true.

  “Yer souls will turn to ash!”

  “Ya’ll never enter the Pure Lands!”

  Raedalus watched as three men stepped to block the road just before the last house of the village. So close. An elderly pilgrim bumped into his back. He ducked his head to dodge a rotten apple and looked over his shoulder. The villagers had surrounded them. His heart beat faster in his chest as his palms began to tingle.

  “Should kill ya all!”

  “Should burn ya on a pyre.”

  Raedalus found himself possessed of an irrational urge to point out that even followers of the Kam-Djen faith regarded burning bodies on pyres as an act of respect for the dead. A stake in the ground or a fire pit were the traditional methods for killing heretics. He frowned at his distracted thought. His lack of focus had led him to this situation.

  “We mean no one harm.” Raedalus shouted to be heard above the din of voices filling the air around him.

  “False prophet and a false god!” One of the men blocking the road screamed at Raedalus, spittle spewing from his angry lips.

  A multitude of potential theological positions skimmed across the surface of Raedalus’s mind. He ignored them all. One thing he had learned in his months of travel bet
ween the dominions — you could not argue theology with farm folk. Their concerns were immediate and practical, not theoretical or spiritual. They worried whether there would be enough rain or if an early frost would kill the crops, not whether the words of the fourth prophet superseded those of the second, or whether Pashist principles might be as valid as those of a Kamite. Their simple beliefs and present needs colored their perceptions. The only arguments that might sway them needed to address this same pragmatism. He spoke the Shen language with modest fluency. Better than many of the villagers apparently did. If he could talk to them in their own tongue, in their own manner, possibly he could turn their anger to curiosity.

  “Do false gods seed dreams across the realm? Do false gods bring new stars to light in the night sky?” Raedalus pointed to the sky where the Goddess’s new star began to shine — a distant, luminous rose.

  The villagers’ eyes followed his arm to the sky. A murmur ricocheted through the crowd. They had seen the star the night before, but only those among them who had the dreams would realize the importance of the new celestial ornament. Raedalus needed to speak to those villagers, the potential pilgrims, the ones too afraid of their neighbors to step forward and assist their fellow dreamers.

  “You believe that there can only be one god, one true god.” Raedalus swallowed quickly, trying to give himself time to think of the right words to turn the situation to his advantage. Or at least give his fellow pilgrims who had passed through the village time to realize the stragglers were caught in a net of human suspicion. Time for the Mother Shepherd to come rescue them.

  “We do not deny the existence of your god or any god, but we must trust what we see with our own eyes.” Raedalus turned as he spoke, trying look into the face of every villager. “We must believe our eyes that all see the same dream when we sleep each night. We must believe our eyes that see a new star brought forth in the night sky, just as our dreams foretold. We must believe in a god when we see her do these things.”