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

by G. L. Breedon

  She passed the number 800 as she reached the bottom of the stairs and headed along the cellar hall. She found the door she needed easily enough and sat the candleholder on the stones of the floor as she knelt in front of the first of the three large metal padlocks holding the door secure. She reached into the inner pocket of her cloak and removed two slender metal meat spears she had stolen from the dinner table earlier that night.

  She closed her eyes to help focus her mind as she slipped the two thin shafts into the keyhole of the first lock. A rakthor ambassador needed a wide set of skills, lock picking being one of the minor arts required for the position. While she had once been proficient at the task, it had been nearly three octads since her last attempt to open a lock.

  She counted numbers as she visualized the locking mechanism inside the metal casing. She’d reached 555 before the shank of the lock popped up. While pleased with her success, she did not let it distract her as she proceeded to pick the remaining two locks. She’d reached 424 by the time she picked up the candleholder and opened the door to the storage room.

  Inside the dank-smelling room, Sketkee placed the candleholder on a crate and pulled aside the barrel concealing the chest. She knelt in the dim light, feeling with her hands more than seeing with her eyes as she yanked loose the covering flagstone and retrieved the wooden chest from the ground. After placing the chest on the same barrel she had moved, she set to work picking its lock. The meat skewers were slightly too large for the padlock of the chest, and it took far longer than she’d planned to open it. Her count reached 157 before the lock came free.

  Sketkee raised the lid of the chest and gently lifted the leather-wrapped device into her hands. She unwrapped the crystal sphere, taking a moment to thoroughly examine it and determine she did not hold a replica. Satisfied she had the actual artifact, she slid it into a cloth in the satchel over her shoulder and turned to examine the room.

  Finding what she needed, she picked up a spongy-looking turnip from a crate and wrapped it up in the protective leather skins. Inserting the leather-encased root into the chest, she locked it up, dropped it in its hole, slid the flagstone back in place, and returned the barrel into position atop it. Her count ran out as she picked up the candleholder and headed toward the door.

  As she stood outside the storeroom door re-securing the padlocks, Sketkee marveled at how greatly her life had diverged from its original course. She recognized the thrilling sensation she experienced as she snapped the last lock closed — the excitement that filled her when approaching something new, something unknown, something dangerous. As irrational as it seemed, she had to admit that she enjoyed sneaking through cellars and picking locks. In that moment, she realized that the journey to the Forbidden Realm revolved as much around her desire for adventure as the hopes of revealing the mysteries of the device she had once more stolen. How different her life might have been had she not heeded her father’s final words.

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  METAL SQUEALED against metal, rubber-coated steel wheels shuddering across asphalt paved streets. Sketkee stepped down to the street as the trolley car came to a halt. Fellow rakthor travelers, similarly dressed in close-fitting utilitarian pants and shirts and vests of colors varying from black to gray, quickly disembarked and set out toward their final destinations on foot. As Sketkee walked onto the wide sidewalk, the trolley car jerked into motion, propelled forward by the metal cable recessed in the middle of the street.

  The car latched on to the cable with a series of metal pads for momentum or released its grip in order to stop. The cable itself remained in constant motion, hauled over the length of the street by massive steam engines in steel-reinforced caverns beneath the city’s avenues. Passenger cars alternated with cargo trolleys to allow distribution of goods to nearby establishments. A wonder of mechanical engineering and applied philosophy from the Third Age, the cable cars had survived two Great Contractions to continue serving the citizens of Taknaht, the capital of the Sun Realm and seat of the Central Governing Committee.

  Sketkee strode along the sidewalk, ignoring the shop windows of the red brick buildings she passed. Her mind focused on more important matters than food to eat or clothes to wear or books to read. She crossed another street at an intersection and left the shopping district for the residential side of the neighborhood. She did not need to look at the numbers or names indicating the occupants of the three-story white brick homes. She had spent her childhood in the house she sought. The buildings abutted the sidewalks, stone stairs leading up to the entrance level of each dwelling. She walked up the steps to her father’s home and opened the door.

  Inside the high-ceilinged foyer, she allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkness within before proceeding. A servant met her at the door. She recognized the female, even though age had grayed and loosened her flesh. Tagket, a jinakk rakthor of medium build who had served her father since before her own birth.

  “Mistress Sketkee. It is pleasing to see you again.” Tagket bowed slightly.

  “Thank you. You as well.” Sketkee returned the bow. “My father?”

  “Resting in his bedchamber. He has chosen sunset as his hour of death. He is easily unsettled. I will announce you.” Tagket turned and led Sketkee up the wooden stairs to the second level and along the plain gray walls of the hallway to her father’s sleeping chamber.

  Her father lay dozing in a large, wood-framed bed covered in simple white sheets. He looked as ill as described in his letter requesting her presence at his chosen death time. The room, contrary to typical rakthor custom, held artifacts from various realms and peoples. A roagg statue of a bearlike female holding a cub sat on a table, a human painting of the Shen god Ni-Kam-Djen touching the head of the first prophet hung on the wall, a yutan ceremonial chair stood in the corner beside an intricately carved wyrin walking stick. Items from her father’s octads of ambassadorial travel, she suspected. They had not been there when she last saw the room twenty years prior. The presence of objects that served no rational function suggested her father’s state of mind to be less than optimal.

  “Master Jivik. Your offspring is here.” Tagket gently shook the sleeping rakthor’s arm.

  Her father slowly opened his eyes and looked around the room, his gaze settling on Sketkee standing beside his bed. He wheezed as he breathed in and sighed as he exhaled. Tagket helped him sit up and propped several pillows behind him.

  “Thank you, Tagket. You may go.” Jivik nodded his head toward Tagket. She returned the nod with a bow and silently left the room.

  Sketkee looked at her father as he stared up at her. She did not know why he had requested her presence. He had not attempted to communicate with her in more than three octads, since shortly after she entered the ambassadorial academy. Her letters had been returned or ignored. She had seen him several times at diplomatic functions over the years, but they had not spoken. While his silence toward her intrigued her, it did not disturb her. He had always been a diligent sire, and his reticence to communicate clearly had some rational explanation that simply eluded her.

  “It is pleasing to see you again, Sketkee.” Her father coughed into his hand.

  “It is pleasing to see you as well, Father.” Sketkee noticed that she used his title in their relationship rather than his name. She wondered at that. An artifact of speech influenced by her years in the Iron Realm among humans?

  “My body is failing me, and I near my death.” Her father wiped at his breathing slit with a handkerchief held in his hand.

  “So you mentioned in your letter.” Sketkee noted how weak and frail her father appeared. A distinct contrast to when she left his house to pursue her education as a diplomat.

  “Yes. My apologies. My memory is fading along with my flesh.” Her father looked to her. “I wish for you to be present when I end my life. To assist me if I am not strong enough to complete the task.”

  “It would be my honor.” Sketkee bowed to indicate her acceptance and the importance of the req
uest. Rakthor custom held that the spouse or the most valued offspring assisted when one ended one’s life. Her father had performed the same function for her mother as she died of a wasting fever in Sketkee’s ninth year.

  “Thank you. You will not have long to wait.” Her father turned away.

  “Shall I wait with you?” Sketkee looked around the room, briefly considering claiming the yutan ceremonial chair as a seat before deciding to stand.

  “That would be pleasing. Thank you.”

  Sketkee stood in silence for some time as her father dozed in and out of consciousness. She noted the death blade waiting on a bedside table, its onyx handle protruding from a silver sheath with sophisticated geometric patterns embossed along its surface. The hands of the brass clock ticking beside the blade indicated two more hours before sunset. Her arrival had not been fortuitous. She had arrived at exactly the time requested in her father’s letter. Still, a part of her wished she had come earlier, that she might spend more time with him before he ceased to exist. These would be the last two hours where they might converse.

  “I must apologize to you.” Her father’s voice brought Sketkee’s attention to his weary eyes.

  “I have taken no offense, so I cannot see a reason for an apology.” Sketkee noted the odd look on her father’s face.

  “I should not have ceased communication with you after you departed for your schooling.” Her father’s voice sounded weak and distant. “You no doubt believe I did so to protect my standing from your reputation as erratic and unpredictable.”

  “It would be a rational decision.” Sketkee’s choices and actions in the Iron Realm often drew reprobation from her peers. It would reflect poorly on her father’s own professional record. She found no offense in the sensible decision to shield his position in the diplomatic community.

  “That would be rational, but it is not my rationale.” Her father wiped at his breathing slit again. “I chose to distance myself from you in order to safeguard your reputation, not mine.”

  Sketkee leaned closer. Her father’s reputation among their peers had few equals.

  “I am unclear as to your meaning,” Sketkee said.

  “I will explain.” Her father coughed into the cloth in his hand. “My public appearance is at great variance with my private existence.”

  Sketkee frowned. Did her father imply that he had behaved in an illegal manner during his ambassadorial tenure? The notion struck her as ridiculous. Her father had always reinforced the importance of following the Prime Statutes, the laws of the nation, as well as the Principles of Mind as laid out by the philosopher Rantak at the start of the First Age.

  “You will remember that shortly after your mother’s death, I spent several years as ambassador to the yutans of the Sky Realm,” her father said. “During that time, I encountered a yutan female named Wen, a member of a regional governing pod at the time. I found her company exceptional for one of the lesser peoples. We started to spend a great deal of time together when not engaged in diplomatic activities. After a time, we began mating for pleasure.”

  Sketkee blinked and stepped back in surprise at her father’s declaration. Rakthors considered mingling with the lesser peoples an activity only engaged in out of necessity. The notion of mating with one, of any breed, indicated a deeply irrational mind. To actually enact such behavior encouraged censure from all reason-minded rakthors.

  “You are no doubt shocked and quite possibly unsettled by my confession.” Her father coughed again, but his weakened hand did not rise fast enough to cover his mouth.

  “Indeed.” Sketkee could not properly assess her reaction to her father’s revelation. It shattered the inner image she had held of him her entire life. “How long?”

  “Until her recent death. Nineteen years.”

  Sketkee’s head snapped back in surprise. She had expected an answer of days or weeks. An ongoing sexual relationship with a yutan female for nearly two and a half octads? While the irrationality of it confounded her attempts to comprehend his behavior, her father’s news did explain his subsequent actions toward her.

  “Thank you.” Sketkee bowed, more out of habit than as a sign of respect. How did one maintain respect for a rakthor who behaved so irrationally? “For protecting my record of service from potential contamination.” Her own irregular actions as ambassador paled before her father’s unorthodoxy. Had his activities been revealed during his life, the various committees would have suspected her of possessing an ancestral tendency toward irrational behavior and likely stripped her of her post.

  “I could do no less.” Her father held his sick cloth in both hands. “The affair gave an unexpected perspective.”

  “Affair?” Sketkee raised her eye ridges at the word.

  “It is what Wen called our secret arrangement,” her father said. “Its exposure would have been as damaging for her standing with her own people as for me with mine. But knowing her so closely for so long let me understand the world through her eyes for a time. You may have encountered this experience yourself among the humans you have frequent contact with.”

  Sketkee knew exactly what her father described and found that knowledge troubling. She spent more hours with Kadmallin, her personal guard, than with anyone else, rakthor or human. She had noted her gradually increasing ability to predict his behaviors and moods, however irrational they might be. Did this suggest that she, too, might one day behave as her father had? Did that mean she might abandon rationality for some physical satiation of an unnatural desire?

  “What I have come to see is that rationality is more complex than we rakthors generally assume.” Her father stared at her with piercing eyes, his voice suddenly strong, sounding in her ears like that of the rakthor she had once known. “The Guiding Principles exist to maintain our society, to harness the impulses of the individual and balance them against the needs of the wider collective. They are necessary, as the frequency of the Great Contractions indicate. However, it is possible to act in a manner that seems irrational to the individuals who comprise the collective, yet actually benefits the greater whole.”

  “I am not certain I understand.” Sketkee found her father’s words more obfuscating than illuminating.

  “Then, as I have little time left with which to explain, let me be clear.” Her father did not look away from her as he spoke. “You do not have the natural disposition to be an ambassador. While it made rational sense to pursue a profession your family has entered for centuries, it will not profit you to follow that path any longer. You must learn to examine a situation, every situation, from all sides, to see it clearly, and make your choices and decisions based on what is best for you and for the collective. My affair with Wen gave me great pleasure and considerable insight into the lesser peoples. So much so that I realized they were not lesser at all, merely different. That perspective gifted me with an ability to communicate with the peoples of the various realms in a way my fellow ambassadors could not. This, in turn, benefited the Central Governing Committee and our realm as a whole. Had I followed ambassadorial protocols, I would have ignored my physical and intellectual attraction to Wen with the result of being a far less effective ambassador.”

  Her father grabbed at her nearby hand and held it firmly.

  “I have monitored your record. It is varied and shows initiative, but is marred by the perception that you fail to follow the Guiding Principles when engaging with the peoples of the other realms. I believe you have an innate tendency to see things as I have learned to do, but not a natural inclination toward diplomacy. You must find a new path. A way to follow the Guiding Principles without letting them constrict your potential.”

  Sketkee continued to hold her father’s hand, noting the oddity of the gesture. No doubt learned from the yutan female. She had seen humans do the same for emphasis of their statements. She had taken it to denote an increased emotional state likely to lead to irrationality. She could not begin to guess what it might imply with her father. The failing of a on
ce great mind near death?

  “Do you have a suggestion?” Sketkee spoke more to avoid acknowledging the awkwardness of the conversation and her father holding her hand. She did not really need to hear her father’s opinion on the matter. The answer had come to her before the question, as she listened to her father’s plea.

  “A philosopher perhaps.” Her father released her hand as his body sagged with exhaustion.

  “That is…” Sketkee did not bother to finish her statement, watching as her father’s eyes slid closed and he drifted off to sleep.

  He did not recover to consciousness, even when shaken as the sun touched the horizon outside the window. Sketkee followed her father’s wishes, sliding the death blade between his ribs and into his heart before the sun faded from the world, plunging him into the final darkness as the city attendants lit the gaslights of the streets outside, casting back the night until dawn. She remained awake next to his body all night, not from any rakthor custom, but simply to ruminate on what he had told her and what he had suggested. When the sun came up, she used the desk in his study to write out her resignation to the Ambassadorial Committee, the first choice in a series of decisions others considered irrational and that led her to do things few rakthors would ever contemplate.

  THE PRESENT

  SKETKEE RAN up the stone staircase from the cellars, hearing the shouts of rakthors throughout the castle. As she exited the cellar stairs to the ground floor of the keep, the chaotic voices collapsed into words of “fire” and “hurry.” Kadmallin’s part of the plan had already played out. She ducked behind the corner of a wall as a servant passed, then calmly walked to the front entrance.

  As she stepped into the courtyard, she smelled smoke and turned to see the tower farthest from the gate alight with fire. As she walked toward the gate, she idly wondered what Kadmallin had set to burning so readily in the confines of the stone tower’s upper floor. She saw Kadmallin standing in the shadows beside the gate, holding the reins of their horses. She saw no evidence of a rakthor guard until she got closer and noted the large, motionless mass near the counter-weighted gate-wheel.