Doom of the Dragon (37 page)

“So what is the problem? If Raegar doesn't know the secret, then the stormhold won't allow him to pass though the gate, and Tsa Kerestra will be safe in the clouds,” Skylan said. “Give us the spiritbone and we will leave.”

“The damage has been done,” said Owl Mother gravely. “The moment the traitor told Aelon that he would hand over the spiritbone, Tsa Kerestra fell.”

Skylan didn't understand, but he supposed it had something to do with magic.

“Stop this traitor! Chain him up. Kill him.”

“I'd feed him to a chimera, if I could!” Owl Mother said with a vicious snap. “But I can't prove my suspicions. If I accuse Baldev, he will simply deny it. He is well respected in Tsa Kerestra and I am a cranky, rebellious old crone who told my people to go to hell and walked out.”

“Then I will steal the spiritbone,” said Skylan, jumping to his feet. “We will go now, while everyone is asleep.”

Owl Mother eyed him. “And will you be the one to unravel the magical spells that guard it, Skylan Ivorson?”

“You could do that,” said Skylan.

“The spells are known only to the three Lords of the Storm, the governing body of the Kingdoms Above and Below. Baldev is one of those lords. He wants to be the sole ruler. I would guess that is the deal he made with Raegar.”

“Then my warriors and I will fight Raegar's army and take the spiritbone from him,” said Skylan.

“How many warriors do you have?” Owl Mother asked.

“Many hundred,” Skylan replied proudly. “Ogres and my friends and Cyclopes. And we have the Dragon Kahg.”

Owl Mother rose to her feet. “Come with me.”

“Where?” Skylan asked.

“Where I tell you,” Owl Mother returned.

She rose to her feet and led him to the door, which opened onto a small garden, now overgrown with weeds and brambles. Apples lay rotting on the ground beneath their trees. Beans had withered on the vine. A ragged hedge, grown to the height of a man, surrounded the garden like a leafy green wall on three sides. The fourth side was guarded by a stone wall like the one that surrounded the ill-fated city in the Realm of Fire.

Owl Mother led Skylan through the withered garden to the wall. She squinted at it intently, almost touching the stone with her nose, and ran her hands over it, poking and prodding.

One of the stones wiggled and, after some work, Owl Mother managed to pry it loose and pull it out of the wall. Sunlight shone through the hole. Owl Mother stood back, indicating with a gesture that Skylan was to look through the gap.

“What will I see?” Skylan asked, hesitating.

“Look and find out,” Owl Mother growled.

The gap in the wall was about two hand-spans in length, located at Owl Mother's eye level, which meant Skylan had to stoop to see through it. He gasped and stepped back.

“The ground … The ground is far below us! And yet”—he eyed the ground beneath his feet—“we are standing on solid ground.”

Owl Mother flourished the peach pit. “What the eye sees is not always what the eye sees. But never mind about the ground and whether it's above or below. You have bigger problems. Look to the west.”

Skylan put his eye to the hole again, trying not to think about the ground. Beyond this solid wall of gray stone another wall of gray, this one more insubstantial, the storm clouds that wrapped protectively about Tsa Kerestra. At Owl Mother's words, the clouds parted and he saw the sun shining down on the plateau, sparkling on the sea and gleaming on twin hulls of an immense galley.

The ship bristled with oars like quills on a porcupine as the galley rode at anchor. Soldiers, small as bugs from this distance, jumped from the decks and began wading ashore, carrying their equipment over their heads. Smaller boats ferried even more soldiers and supplies to the beach, where men were busy unloading supplies, assembling siege engines, and pitching row after row of tents.

Skylan stared in blank dismay. He had figured Raegar had about four thousand troops. He could not guess at the number of soldiers, but there had to be twice that number in one galley, and another twin-hulled galley, as big as the first and crowded with even more men, sailed toward the shoreline. Triremes and other ships packed with soldiers and supplies traveled in their wake. All were flying the serpent flag of Oran, Empire of the New Dawn.

To complete his ruin, three dragons flew in lazy, sweeping circles overhead. One was the Dragon Fala, whom Kahg had said had chosen to serve Aelon. The other two Skylan recognized, for they had been among those who had sailed his dragonships to this place from Joabis's isle. These two had apparently liked Raegar's odds of recovering the spiritbone better than his, and decided to switch sides.

Skylan had seen more than enough and he sank back against the stone wall. The breath left his body in a sigh that was like the last breath of the dying. A bitter taste filled his mouth, and his stomach heaved. He had been so proud of his fleet of dragonships, his army of a few hundred ogres and Cyclopes and Vindrasi warriors.

In the past, when all had seemed lost, Skylan had known that his wits and his sword, his faith in Torval and in himself would win the day.

But not this day. Raegar would roll over their shield wall, grind their bones into the sand, and spill their blood into the sea.

Owl Mother's rough, calloused hand rested on his arm.

“Go home, Skylan,” she said. “Take Aylaen and the spiritbones with you. You tried to defeat Aelon and you damn near succeeded. No one can fault you. Not even Torval.”

Skylan gave a faint smile. “That is because Torval will be dead and so will we. If we flee, we put off the inevitable. We will sail home and death and destruction will follow us. Raegar will destroy the Stormlords and then he will cross the ocean and destroy us.”

Owl Mother shook her head. Skylan glared at her.

“You Stormlords could stop Raegar and his army!” he said angrily. He gestured to the storm clouds, to the wall, to Tsa Kerestra, a world between worlds. “You could slay every one of those soldiers with as little effort as I could slay a hill of ants.”

“We could,” said Owl Mother. “We did. You remember that I told you that the Realm of Fire was occupied by cruel men who found it easy to kill, who took delight in the killing.”

“Yes,” said Skylan impatiently. “What of it?”

“Those men were us,” said Owl Mother.

She sat down beside him, putting her back against the wall.

“You have seen the tapestries. A reminder of what we once were. We have thrived here, and in all these centuries, we have never killed another human. But the hunger is still inside us. We know what would happen if once we started.”

She shrugged. “Oh, we would tell ourselves that we were only defending the innocent and that once the enemy was destroyed, the killing would stop. But it would never stop. For there is always another enemy. In the end, we would turn on you.”

Skylan regarded her, troubled.

“Don't worry,” she said, resting her wrinkled hand on his shoulder. “We are not a threat to your people or any others in this world. We have made our plans. And if you decide to stay to fight, we will give you what help we can.”

She gave Skylan a pat on the shoulder and then stood up and headed back toward the small house.

He looked again at Raegar's army. He sat there for a long time, watching as more and more men poured off the ships. Their officers were starting to form them into ranks and they seemed to stretch to the end of the world.

Skylan touched the amulet. “I will fight, Torval. I will fight until death takes me. But I will not win.”

“Skylan…”

He looked up to see Aylaen standing in front of him. He wondered how long she had been there, if she had heard him. The sorrowful look in her eyes told him she had.

“I am sorry, Aylaen,” said Skylan, rising to his feet. “My pride, my arrogance brought us here.”

“Love brought you here,” said Aylaen earnestly, clasping his hands. “Love for our gods, for our people. Whatever is done in love will always triumph.”

Skylan gave a rueful smile. “Someday I hope to be the man you think I am. Come back to the house. I don't see how we can obtain the spiritbone, but we have to try. Our only chance is to summon the Great Dragon Ilyrion.”

“I have been talking things over with Owl Mother and we have a plan,” Aylaen said. “You're not going to like it, for it means we must part, for a little while at least.”

She spoke with a catch in her voice and he noticed that she kept her eyes averted.

“You are right,” he said. “I don't like it.”

She raised her eyes to meet his. “Hear the idea first. I will stay here with Owl Mother. She will take me to the spiritbone.”

Skylan shook his head. “Owl Mother told me the spiritbone is guarded by powerful magicks. Only the Lords of the Storm can remove them and one of those lords is the traitor.”

“So we will let him remove them,” said Aylaen. “Owl Mother says that when the magical gate opens, the Stormlords will surrender and Raegar will enter the city in triumph. Baldev will take him to the spiritbone. Once Baldev removes the spells, Owl Mother and I can steal the spiritbone.”

“Raegar will come after you,” said Skylan.

“Not if his fleet is in peril,” said Aylaen.

Skylan thought back to the galleys, riding at anchor in the shallow water, and an idea formed in his mind.

“I can create an immense problem for Raegar, one that will draw him from the city. But you are right. We must part. I must go back to the
Venejekar
,” Skylan said. “And you must stay here to save the spiritbones and summon the dragon.”

“I am Kai Priestess,” said Aylaen. “The responsibility for the spiritbones is mine. And I am the only one who can summon Ilyrion. You are Chief of Chiefs. You must lead the army.”

Skylan brushed back the flame-red hair from her face. “When I became Chief of Chiefs and learned I had to marry Draya, a woman I did not love, because she was Kai Priestess, I was fool enough to try to find a way around the law. I went to the Vogogroth, the Law Giver, and asked him to change the law for me.”

“What did he say?” Aylaen asked, drawing near to him.

“‘The marriage of the Chief of Chiefs and the Kai Priestess is a marriage of two halves of a clan, a nation. It is the marriage of every man and every woman. It is the marriage of the worldly and the godly, the marriage of faith and logic, the marriage of the sword and of the shield,'” Skylan replied.

The words had rankled at the time, opposing his will. Now he understood their wisdom.

“The song isn't about you and me,” said Skylan.

“It never has been,” said Aylaen.

 

CHAPTER

31

Skylan and Aylaen went back to the house to explain their plans to Owl Mother. She listened without interruption and, at the end, sat thinking it over.

“You realize how dangerous this is?” she asked abruptly

“We do, Owl Mother,” Skylan replied.

Owl Mother snorted. “I doubt it. Neither of you young things have the sense god gave a goose.”

She rubbed her head, looking from one to the other.

“But it's a good plan, for all that. I must go talk to the Lords of the Storm.”

“Wait a moment,” said Skylan, frowning. “Can you trust these lords? You said one was a traitor?”

“I trust two of them,” said Owl Mother. “They are my brothers.”

Seeing their astonishment, she added with a grin and a wink, “I'm the member of the family they don't talk about. Keep an eye on Wulfe. Don't let him go roaming. I'll knock three times. Don't let anyone else inside.”

After Owl Mother had gone, Skylan and Aylaen sat together by the fire, talking in low voices while Farinn and Wulfe still slept. They held each other close, knowing soon that they must part, perhaps forever. They talked of when they were little, when the three of them—Skylan and Aylaen and Garn—had been inseparable.

They remembered the happy times—the mischief, the fun, the laughter. They spoke of the sad times—the mistakes, the misunderstandings, the follies and faults. For a man's wyrd is made of both the strong and the weak twisted together to form a single thread woven into the tapestry of the lives of gods and men.

And then, when they had said all that was in their hearts, they held each other and watched the flickering of the dying embers in silence until they heard Owl Mother's three taps at the door.

“My brothers have agreed,” Owl Mother said. “And, now, Skylan, it's time for you to go. You'll have to travel back through the Realm of Fire, but I gave Wulfe a safer route. If you run into any monsters, take to your heels. I don't have time to make the stars fall.”

Owl Mother raised a bony finger. “And when we get back home, you owe me a day's work.”

“I look forward to it, Owl Mother,” said Skylan.

Bending down, he kissed her wrinkled cheek.

Owl Mother shoved him away. “None of your flirting, Skylan Ivorson. You're much too young for me.”

Skylan went to wake up Wulfe and Farinn, only to find Wulfe was awake, curled up in a corner, shivering.

“I smell iron. A lot of iron.”

“Raegar's army is here,” said Skylan. “He has iron enough to fill the ocean. You are coming with me. Aylaen is going to remain here. Farinn, you will stay with Aylaen.”

Drawing Farinn to one side, he added in a low voice, “Take care of her.”

“I will, Skylan. I promise,” said Farinn.

Skylan took Aylaen in his arms. “When this is ended, we will go back to our village and live in my father's house. I will have to add a room for the children.”

“Two rooms. Twins, remember,” said Aylaen. “A boy and a girl.”

Tears shimmered in her eyes. He clasped her tight and his own tears fell, sparkling, in her red hair.

“We may have to be apart for this short time,” Aylaen said. “But our wyrds will always be bound together. No matter what happens, Skylan, we will find each other again.”