Citadels of the Lost (41 page)

The dwarf led them down a broad avenue to the right-hand side at the end of the bay. The white-and-gray shattered marble lay in jumbled piles across the roadway, making their passage difficult. Drakis and Ethis followed the dwarf but not nearly as closely as their guide. Ishander looked like an anxious puppy, scampering here and there, peering into the ruins and then dashing back to the other side of the shattered street, climbing up a low pile of stones and staring into the acres of crumbled walls beyond. Urulani remained as their rear guard, shepherding the Lyric and Mala along as they moved away from the harbor.

“How will we find anything in this desolate place?” Urulani asked.

“I'm just following the dwarf,” Drakis replied, finding it impossible to locate a bare patch of cobblestone in his path. He was forced to climb over a three-foot stone block. “Jugar, what is it?”

“An obelisk,” the dwarf called back. “There's a clearing at the end of the street—an old park or square, perhaps. There appears to be a marker stone in the middle of it. There's very strong magic there.”

Drakis peered over the rubble. He could see the towering stone, its top apparently sheared off, pointing toward the sky from a clearing ahead of them.

Ishander scampered ahead down the street, scrambling over the piles of stone and disappearing over the other side.

Ethis turned toward Drakis as they made their way down the remains of the avenue. “It is hard to even recognize any of the structures ; the destruction is so complete.”

“It was a war,” Drakis said, his eyes scanning the jumble of stone around them. The quiet had left him nervous once more. “What would you expect?”

“Not like this,” Ethis continued. “This is not the ruin of an army trying to conquer a city or even the destruction that one might expect of a siege. This was a determined effort to make the memory of the place vanish—to erase the city and everything that it . . .”

A horrific howling cry shattered the still air.

Drakis jumped at the sound, the shock of it surging through his body, his senses suddenly alert. Ethis tensed beside him. Both of them broke into a run, their swords drawn as they rushed over the rubble toward the wailing sound that continued unabated from the clearing in front of them.

“Mala! Urulani!” Drakis called out as he dashed forward. “Stay close!”

The center of the circular plaza was nearly devoid of broken stones and debris. As Drakis ran across the open space, the fitted stones underfoot gave way to dried and matted dead grass. He could see that it was not just the top of the obelisk that was broken; the stone was shattered, cracks radiating from a single impact point near the base. Ishander lay on the far side of the stone, fallen to the ground, facedown, as his howling cries continued. The dwarf was ahead of them, making his way toward the obelisk as quickly as he could, but his leg was still giving him pain, and both Ethis and Drakis quickly passed him in their rush.

Ethis and Drakis rounded the stone, their swords at the ready. Both froze.

The impact hole on the far side of the obelisk was far larger than evidenced on the side facing the harbor—a curved puncture nearly a foot wide plunging into the stone. But it was what lay at the base of the column that caught their attention.

The remains had barely held together. Most of the flesh had long since vanished, and only the tatters of the leather loincloth and vest remained. The bones of the rib cage were broken and splayed both in the chest and just to the right of the spine. A short-bladed sword lay rusting on the ground near the figure's right hand.

Ishander lay on the ground before the skeletal form, his knees drawn up under him as he wailed his grief into the dried grass beneath him.

Drakis' gaze settled on the tarnished medallion that hung around the neck of the corpse. Twin dragon heads intertwined against a pair of dragon wings surrounding a single green gemstone.

Urulani arrived with Mala and the Lyric at her heels.

He turned to face Mala. She stood staring at the medallion, fingering the matching talisman hanging around her own neck.

Jugar limped quickly around to join them and then gasped. “By the gods! What is this?” he murmured.

“So ends Pellender . . . father of Ishander and the son of Koben Dakan,” Drakis sighed. “He runs no more.”

Urulani whispered. “What happened?”

“A dragon, by the looks of it,” Ethis said kneeling down to examine the remains more closely. He pointed toward the broken bones in the rib cage. “See this and through the back. Given his stature, he would have been standing in front of this stone—back to it as the claw pierced both him and the stone behind him. Here he died. Here he fell.”

“There's your magic, Drakis,” Jugar said, lowering his hand. “That's what I've been following.”

“So it was Pellender's medallion you've been reading,” Drakis said standing upright.

“No, actually. Strange enchantment that,” Jugar said, moving closer to examine the medallion. “You would think that the medallion would contain the magic—and it probably did once—but it seems the device has transferred its powers into the bones of poor Pellender.”

“You mean you've been following the bones?” Drakis asked.

“Will you have a little compassion?” Urulani shouted, kneeling down next to the sobbing Ishander, her arms around his back trying to comfort him. “This was the boy's father!”

Drakis let out a long breath. “I . . . I'm sorry, Ishander. Ethis, Jugar come with me. We should . . . I mean . . . Urulani, if you'll take care of Ishander for us?”

She glared back at Drakis, but nodded.

Drakis walked away from the pillar, leading the dwarf and the chimerian to the edge of the dried grasses and back onto the cobblestones of the plaza. They stood in a tight circle.

“We may have a problem . . .” Drakis began.

Mala stood staring at the medallion around the dead man's neck.

As she stood there, the obelisk, the dead Far-runner, Urulani comforting Ishander, and the vast ruins surrounding her all vanished, falling away from her eyes. She was standing once again in the obscuring, warm rain of the Fordrim village, the purple-hued dead all around her, the palm of her hand once again resting on the horn of the dead dragon as it had four days before.

“He is not yet dead,” said the Lyric. She stood beside Mala in the rain, her white hair soaked and laying flat against the delicate, narrow features of her face.

“No,” Mala replied. “Not yet . . . but soon.”

“What did he show you,” the Lyric asked.

Mala drew in a deep, sad breath. “A beautiful land of shining towers and contented creatures. Families gathered in the sunshine. Children at play. Dragons filled the skies, and the sky was at peace.”

“They are all dead now,” the Lyric said as softly as the rain. She took Mala's hand.

“Yes,” Mala replied with infinite sadness. “Dead and gone.”

“Why are they gone?” The Lyric asked.

“Because the magic fell and their world was at an end.”

The Lyric looked around. “The world is at an end for this village, too. Did the dragon know why these people had to die?”

Mala drew in a halting breath.

“Because of us,” she said at last, the rain falling around her from the weeping sky. “Abream knew we were coming here . . . and that the Fordrim had instructions from the Dragon Queen Hestia to hold us until she returned. Pharis could not allow us to fall into the claws of Hestia—and so he sent Abream to make certain we would not be captured. He had not intended to destroy these people, but neither could he fail Pharis—and the drakoneti proved too difficult to control. In the end he could not stop what he had begun—and died with his regrets.”

“And all these died,” the Lyric said as she gazed into the torrential rain, “the Fordrim families, young and old, the dragon Abream and these drakoneti as well, just so that you might come to Chelestra on the promise of home. So that you could come to a place so far removed from all eyes that no one would know if you lived or died— especially, where no one would know
who
granted you mercy or
who
did the killing.”

Mala turned toward the Lyric.

The Lyric pointed to the
Akumau
hanging around her neck. “The hunt is always easier when you know exactly where your prey is to be found.”

“I don't know what you mean . . .”

“That medallion around what remains of Pellender's neck is the twin of your own medallion,” the Lyric replied with a gentle smile. “It was given to him by the Clan-mother of the Ambeth. But no one asked where the Clan-mother got it or why . . . least of all Pellender. And now you have one just like it from the same Clan-mother and now you are asking why and, I should think, the three warriors now in conference are asking why as well. But you, of all people here
know
why, don't you,
Seinar?
”

Mala's eyes widened. The music that had filled her mind beneath the dragon's wings at the foot of the cascades filled her mind again.

Mala reached up, fingering the medallion around her neck. Deep within her recognition stirred. It was all too familiar . . . she knew that she was being followed. She had again become the
Seinar
. She had betrayed them all once more.

“The dragon knows the scent of its own magic—even when it was forged in ancient times and is all but lost to the world,” the Lyric said sadly as she gazed at Mala. “And now it reeks in your very bones. The dragon will track you, too, as he did before and he will get what he has sent you to retrieve for him. He wants the key of the Font—that is what Pellender promised him and failed to find. Now he has you to find it for him—you and your companions. And when you do, Mala, when you have the key and can deliver it, the dragon will gladly offer you any wish and make any promise you ask so that he might hide his shame and his folly for all time.”

“But I don't know where it is!” Mala cried out as lightning rolled through the clouds overhead.

Thunder shook the ground around them, but the Lyric did not flinch.

“You already know where it is,” the Lyric grinned. “You have the book.”

“But there's nothing
in
the book,” Mala shouted into the rain.

“It's not what's
in
the book,” the Lyric replied. “The secret
is
the book!”

Mala opened her mouth to speak but then stopped, comprehension crossing her face.

The Lyric looked up into the rain and then back to Mala. “They're talking about you.”

Mala shuddered. “Who?”

“Drakis, Ethis, and Jugar,” the Lyric said. There was a peaceful serenity on her face. “They are trying to decide what to do about you. But you need not worry, Mala. Though the chimerian and Jugar will both warn against you, Drakis—the ever-devoted lover of the woman who betrayed him—would rather die than make you leave.”

“And it is up to you,” the Lyric whispered into Mala's ear, “whether he will get his wish.”

The horror of the Fordrim village began at once to dissolve around her, falling apart like a mist blown to shreds in the morning light. Only the Lyric remained, her grin and features the same although her hair was once again the explosion of white chaos that she was accustomed to wearing.

The ruins of Chelestra once again lay in all directions and the sobbing of the Far-runner came into her ears.

“Drakis!” Mala shouted at once, running over to where the warrior stood with the dwarf and chimerian still talking in hushed tones together. She grabbed Drakis by the arm, shaking him for attention.

“Mala! What is it?”

“We have to hurry!” she said, looking into his face in earnest. “We have to find the Font in the Citadel right now. We're running out of time!”