A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) (5 page)

Erry landed beside him, shifted
back into a human, and plopped herself down onto the sand. She lay
back, closed her eyes, and let the waves wet her toes.

"Bloody stars, I'm tired.
I'm going to lie here while you go searching for your toy."

He
shifted back too, reached down, and grabbed her hands. "You're
searching with me. We'll lie on the sand later.
Both
of us."

She gave him a sidelong look.
"Oh you'd like that, wouldn't you? Bet you're after another
treasure here. An island all to ourselves..." She reached down
to his breeches, teased him with a caress, then slapped his face.
"But since you tossed away my conch, no treasure for you today."

He sighed, grabbed her wrist,
and pulled her after him. "Help me dig."

She growled and cussed but
followed. They climbed the hillside between boulders and fallen
trees. Items lay strewn across the slope, gray with dust. Leresy
saw a wheeled cannon, a few shovels, and barrels of gunpowder.

"Hello, what are you then?"
he said and leaned down by a fallen tree.

He lifted a shaft of sanded wood
the length of a sword. A metal pipe was mounted upon it. A trigger,
like that of a crossbow, fit his finger.

"Is this your secret
weapon?" Erry said. She leaned down and lifted another one of
the contraptions. "What is it? It looks like a crossbow, just
without the bow."

Leresy hefted the device,
sniffed at it, smelled gunpowder, and smiled.

"Very nice," he said
and caressed the wood. "Very good work that Bantis did."

Erry glowered, holding her own
shaft. "Leresy, are you going to tell me what this is?"

He pointed the muzzle at her.
"Can't you see? It's a hand cannon."

She glowered and shoved the
barrel aside. "Well, don't point that thing at me then, you
dolt! Who the Abyss heard of a hand cannon? Cannons are, well...
they're bloody huge."

"Not this one."
Leresy pointed it skyward and pulled the trigger, but nothing
happened. "Not loaded. I reckon you place miniature
cannonballs into it, then go shooting down dragons."

"Leresy!" Erry
stamped her feet and tossed down her own hand cannon. "The
muzzles on these things are tiny. I can barely fit my finger in.
How will a cannonball this small kill anyone?"

"The same way a crossbow
bolt does. With a lot of speed and power." He grinned. "But
this weapon here, my darling... I wager it has more power than any
crossbow. Why use a string when you can use gunpowder? Let's see if
we can find some rounds."

He kept climbing, moving between
the rocks and fallen trees, searching for the miniature cannonballs.
He wanted to try this weapon. Instead he found another strange
object, one whose purpose he could not determine.

"Hello," he said,
placed down his hand cannon, and lifted the new contraption. "And
who are you?"

It looked like a scroll formed
of tough, hardened leather bolted together. A round, wooden lid
sealed each end of the tube. When he unscrewed the lids, he revealed
glass circles like the bottoms of jars. Leresy had never seen
anything like this.

"What is it?" Erry
demanded and reached out for it. "Give it here."

He stepped back. "No
touching." He brought the contraption close to his eye. "Let's
see then. A cylinder of boiled leather, glass at each end. A
container? Maybe the ammunition is in here."

He peeked through one glass
circle, trying to see inside, and sucked in his breath. A grin
spread across his face.

"Bantis, you bloody old
genius," he said.

He aimed the cylinder at the
sea, still holding it to his eye. Through the glass, the distant
batch of islands, which should have appeared as mere specks, loomed
large enough for him to count their trees. He lowered the cylinder,
raised it again, and laughed.

"Give it here!" Erry
demanded, leaped up, and snatched the cylinder. She stared through
it and gasped. "Bloody piss pots! It's magic."

She spun in a circle, staring
through the cylinder at the sea and the hill behind her.

Leresy shook his head. "Not
magic. I don't think so. Bantis said he's an inventor, not a
magician."

She
lowered the cylinder and narrowed her eyes. "Well, how the
bloody Abyss do you invent
glass
that makes things
bigger
?"

"I don't know." He
shrugged. "How do you invent clocks? Or gunpowder? Or steel?
Damned if I know. So long as it works. But it's not magic. Magic
feels... different. You know how you feel when we shift into
dragons? How it sort of... tickles, like soft light, but you can't
really feel it? At least, not how you feel a feather or a blanket or
heat. You sort of feel it inside you, whispering. That's how magic
feels. This?" He took the cylinder from her and stared through
it again. "This is clever and I don't understand it, but it
feels... mechanical. It's an invention like the great clock back at
Castra Luna."

Erry tapped her thigh. "So
is this the big weapon? Portable cannons and a magnifying machine?"
She scrunched her lips. "Good weapons for Tirans, perhaps.
They need the help. But we're Vir Requis. We can turn into dragons.
I'd take dragonfire any day over these hand cannons."

Leresy
shook his head again. "No. Bantis said he was digging for
something. Digging for a
big
weapon." He gestured at the hole that loomed above. "That's
where he was digging. Let's take a look."

He shoved the cylinder under his
armpit and lifted one of the discarded shovels. They continued
climbing the hillside. They reached the hole—it loomed about the
size of a doorway—and peered inside.

"Nothing but dust and
rubble," Erry said. "Damn old man was crazy, I told you."

"Crazy enough to invent a
magnifying machine and portable cannons. If he says there's a weapon
here, I'm digging deeper." He climbed into the hole, thrust his
shovel down, and scooped pebbles and dirt. "Now go grab another
shovel and help me, damn it. I'm not digging alone."

She grumbled but she grabbed a
shovel.

They dug.

They dug for a long time.

After digging through several
feet of soil and rock, sweat soaked Leresy. He wiped it off his brow
and stripped off his shirt.

"Feel free to do the same,"
he told Erry, but she only slammed the shovel against his legs.

They dug some more, and the sun
began to dip into afternoon, casting golden beams into the cave.
Still they dug, tossing shovel after shovel of dirt outside.

"Leresy, damn it!"
Erry said. "There's nothing buried here."

"We haven't dug deep
enough." He mopped his brow and dug some more.

Erry tossed her shovel down and
placed her hands on her hips. Dirt covered her.

"It's
an island!" she said. "A damn, stinkin' island in the
middle of nowhere. Burn me, it's barely even that. More of a
forsaken rock than an island. Why why
why
would there be a weapon buried here?"

He gritted his teeth and kept
shoveling. "Because there has to be one."

"What do you mean?"
she demanded and grabbed his arm. "Ler, what—"

He reeled toward her, teeth
bared, and tossed his shovel down. It thumped against the dirt.

"I mean," he hissed,
"that I'm not going to believe this is it. All right? I'm not
going to believe that... that things just end like this. That my
father wins. That Shari wins. That there's blood and fire and pain
in Requiem, and we're just going to hide here and remember it and..."
Tears budded in his eyes, and he hated himself for it. He spun away
lest she saw. "There has to be some way to fight him, Erry. To
kill that bastard and to kill the memories."

He stood, chest heaving and legs
shaking, staring at the dirt. He felt her small hands on his
shoulders.

"Ler," she said
quietly. She walked around to face him, and her eyes were soft.
"And if there isn't a way to fight? If this is all that's left,
isn't that enough? You and me?"

He lowered his head and pulled
her into an embrace. He held her tightly, crushing her against him.
He smoothed her hair and closed his burning eyes.

"I thought it would be,"
he said, voice choked. "I wanted to forget. I wanted to just
live here with you. To start a new life. Not a prince of Requiem
and an orphan from Lynport, but just... just two people on an island.
But I can't forget. I can't." His voice cracked. "I
still see it, Erry. All of it. The dragons burning Castra Luna and
killing so many, killing Nairi and the others. And the war and blood
at Lynport. And my father... my father grabbing me and Kaelyn,
beating us, laughing as we bled and screamed. I can't forget it.
You can't know what that's like."

She held his head with both
hands and growled up at him. "Can't I? I was there with you.
At Castra Luna. At Lynport. I fought through the mud and fire with
you. And no, your father never beat me when I was a girl. But
enough men did. I grew up a dock rat, filthy and skinny and afraid.
I know what pain is. And I can't forget either, and I never will.
But that doesn't mean we have to go back. We don't have to go chase
that world again. That life of ours... that life is over. We have a
new life here."

"I don't," he said.
"I don't think I ever will. Not until I go back and face him.
Not until I close that door. The door is distant, all the way across
the sea, but I can feel the cold wind still blowing through it. So I
have to find this weapon. And I have to kill my father." He
lifted the shovel again. "So please, Erry, please. Help me
dig."

Night
was falling, and the cave was almost pitch black, when Leresy's
shovel
crunched
and red light glowed.

His heart burst into a gallop.
At his side, Erry gasped. The soft red light gleamed under the soil.
Leresy drove his shovel deeper, loosening the dirt. The red glow
intensified.

"Burn me," he said,
knelt, and began to clear away soil with his hands. "Erry, look
at this."

She knelt and helped clear away
the dirt. Hundreds of red shards glowed below, each one no larger
than a pea.

"They look like pomegranate
seeds," Erry said, lifting one in wonder. It glowed in her
hand.

"Or like droplets of
blood," said Leresy.

He grabbed a few and held them
in his palm. They felt unnaturally cold. He raised them to his eye,
scrutinizing them. Each stone seemed made of glass, and red liquid
swirled within. Their surface was angular as cut gems, though each
pebble had a different shape.

"What are they?" Erry
asked. "Some kind of crystal?"

Leresy smiled and closed his
palm around them.

"Magic," he said.
"Our big weapon."

 
 
SILA

He stood upon the deck of his
ship, stared at the cove that surrounded him, and clutched the
railing until his knuckles turned white.

Sila
didn't know why he still came here. His ship, a three-masted carrack
named the
Golden
Crane
,
had not raised its anchor in eighteen years. Its planks had begun to
rot, and barnacles covered its hull. Its hold still whispered with
ghosts. Dragonfire had blackened its starboard, and though the sails
were now folded, Sila knew that burnt holes still peppered them.
Only the ship's figurehead, a flying crane of giltwood, still bore
some former glory.

And
what of myself?
he wondered. Did he too bear any lingering glory, a golden
figurehead for his people? Or was he but a rotting hull, as captive
on Maiden Island as his ship?

Once Sila had captained this
vessel through storms and battles. Once he had led refugees out of
fire and into new life. Once he had been a leader, a savior, a man
who made his father proud.

"And now I linger, a relic
like the rest of this wreck," he said to his ship.

And now his people needed him
again. Now two of their ghosts had washed ashore with the old man.
Now two demons of the past, mere nightmares for so long, breathed
upon Maiden Island, this sanctuary Sila had protected for so long.
Now he needed to decide. And yet he only stood here upon his deck,
far from his people and their tormentors—a place of solitude, of
memory, of thoughts that whispered like the sea.

Cliffs
rose above the surrounding shores, topped with palms. Nestled into
the small of the maiden's back, the cove faced south, hidden from the
northern enemy. Five other ships rose around him, each as barren as
the
Golden
Crane
.
Often Sila thought of burning these ships. Should the dragons scout
these seas from the south, the masts would reveal their sanctuary.
Yet for eighteen years, Sila had hidden his people among the trees
and kept his ships alive. He had watched his daughter born and
raised into a woman on this island. He had watched his people, once
ragged refugees, build a new life. And he had kept these ships. He
had kept his vengeance burning.

"Because I have to
believe," he whispered to the cove. "I have to believe
that we can go back. That we can still fight the enemy. That we can
still rebuild our desert home."

Tiranor, his land of dunes and
oases, had burned in the fire of the red spiral. But those dunes
still whispered inside him. He kept that memory as alive as his
fleet.

"Father! Father, why do
you do this?"

The voice came from behind him,
and Sila turned to see his daughter emerge from the hull. She joined
him on the deck.

"Miya!"
he said and a frown twisted his face. "How long have you been
here? What are you doing on the
Golden
Crane
?"

Miya glared at him, fists on her
hips. "And why shouldn't I stand here? I'm your only daughter,
and this ship is my birthright. She's as much mine as yours."