Dragon Stones (63 page)

He sat up.  Prehn was already awake, playing with a stick, scratching crude pictures in the dirt.  He thought she might be trying to draw the dragon.  He gently patted her head, then stood and stretched and looked around.  The others were still asleep, except for Diasa, who sat keeping a watchful eye on Orioke.  Had she slept at all last night?  It wouldn't surprise him if she hadn't; she seemed as tireless as the dragon, and, sometimes, almost as alien.

He went to her, shaking the stiffness out of his legs.  It would be so fine to be back in his own bed, back with Plenn, back at the inn!  If T'Sian kept to her bargain with the wizard, he might be on his way home by the end of the day.  He wondered if they had enough money left to pay for passage on a ship, or if he would have to barter for it; somehow, he didn't see himself returning to Astilan to dig up what treasure the dragon had buried.

Diasa acknowledged him with a nod.  "Were you up all night?" he asked.

"I'll sleep when the dragon comes back.  I don't trust our slippery friend here."  She pointed at Orioke.  "The oracle told me he communicates with Deliban by speaking mind to mind.  What's to stop him from secretly telling it to bury us all, then claiming we must have wandered off?"

"He made a bargain with T'Sian."

Diasa snorted.  "If you believe he'll honor
that
agreement, then I have an orchard in the Salt Flats I'd like to sell you."

"I believed him, when he said he wouldn't harm us."

"Yes, he's quite a persuasive liar," she said, "but he's a liar nonetheless.  And T'Sian isn't here, is she?"

Suddenly Tolaria's eyes snapped open; she didn't seem to be seeing anything, though.  "The dragon returns," she said, her voice flat.  "She carries a villain."  Then she blinked a few times, coughed, and pushed herself upright.  "Is it morning already?"

Diasa shrugged, poked the dying fire.  "Some would say so."

Ponn, scanning the sky, spotted a dark shape to the northeast, growing rapidly larger as it approached.  "Tolaria was right," he said.  "Here comes T'Sian now."

"Oh … did I predict something?"

"Nothing of consequence," Diasa said.

The three of them watched as T'Sian circled the camp.  Ponn could see that she clutched someone in one of her rear claws, and remembered when he had flown in a similar position.  It was like being caged, long fingers strong as iron folded around him, black talons sharp and cold against his skin.  She could easily gut a horse with those cruel daggers, which had made the experience particularly unnerving, at first.

T'Sian landed in the road just east of where they had camped.  She opened her claw, letting her passenger spill out onto the grass.  "
Tell me if this man is dead
," she said.

Diasa went over, rolled the fellow onto his back, and gave him a quick examination.  "No, he's not dead.  He's just unconscious, or pretending to be."  She looked up at the dragon.  "Judging by his garment, he's rich, important, or both.  Where did you find him?"

"
I took him when I burned some buildings in the woods east of the castle
," T'Sian said.  "
It was like the place you described, where you thought the princes would go.  A stronghold, with high walls and guards and horses.  And eagles.
"

"Eagles, eh?"  Diasa turned to the oracle.  "Tolaria, come here.  We need you to perform an identification."

Tolaria slowly approached Diasa and the dragon.  She could already tell from the man's nightshirt that he was one of Dunshandrin's sons; the only question was which.  She stood nearby, out of reach, looking down at him, his burned, torn finery, his smudged skin.  Hugging herself around the elbows, she said:  "It's one of the princes."

His eyes opened.  "I know that voice."

"Faking," Diasa said.  "I thought as much.  You're lucky I didn't stick you with my dagger to see if you'd yelp."

The prince's cold gaze moved to Diasa.  "If you had, I would have had you killed.  I will anyway, to punish your insolence."

Diasa, unfazed, snorted at the threat.  "Look around," she said.  "Do you see any of your henchmen here?  Who do you expect to carry out your orders?"

"
I burned his stronghold to the ground
," T'Sian said.  "
I stayed and watched.  None escaped.
"

"You are not in your castle now, Tomari," Tolaria said.  "Your father is not here.  Your brother is not here.  You have no soldiers at your command.  You have nothing."  She turned away.  "You
are
nothing."

"A stirring speech, Tolaria," he said.  "But I am Torrant, not Tomari."  Then:  "You used to be able to tell us apart."

"You used to behave differently," she said after a moment.  "I suppose I must have difficulty recognizing you when you are not trying to seduce me."

She noticed that Orioke was awake, and looking at her.  He got to his feet and approached; she thought he might speak to her, but instead he went on by.  She turned, watching as he stopped in front of Torrant and said, "Greetings, my liege."

"Wizard."  One less genteel than Torrant might have spat at the sorcerer's feet, Tolaria thought.  "I see that Tomari was right about you.  I suppose you sent the dragon to destroy my father's hunting lodge."

"No, she found it on her own.  But I have struck a bargain with her, and I'm afraid it supersedes the one I made with you."

"Did you hear that?" Tolaria said.  "The wizard has betrayed you.  Your schemes have cost you everything you cared about.  Your servants, your castle, your kingdom. You took me prisoner because you wanted to know how your plans would turn out.  Now I will tell you willingly.  Ask me what your future holds."

"What?"

"Ask me what your future holds."

Torrant said:  "No."

"Go ahead," Diasa said, nudging him with her foot.  "Ask ."

"I will not."

Adaran said:  "Tolaria, what does Torrant's future hold?"

Her mind opened up and the future rushed in like dark water, filling her thoughts, pouring out her mouth.  When she came back to herself, still standing—she hadn't swooned this time—Torrant was staring at her, his earlier sneer vanished, his face gone ashen.  His fate would not be bright, it seemed.

She turned her back on him and walked away, returning to where Ponn and Adaran sat.  Prehn, in Adaran's lap, watched wide-eyed as she approached.  She sat next to the thief and whispered, "What did I say?"

"You said the tides of war would be reversed, that the invaded would become the invader.  You said the name of  Dunshandrin would be scorned for decades as a synonym for greed and treachery, before being lost to the ages."

"And that's why he's looking at me that way?"  She had expected to hear something worse; then again, to one such as Torrant, the extinction of his line might be the worst fate imaginable.

Adaran shook his head.  "No, that's probably because you said the dragon was going to eat him."  He looked past her, toward T'Sian.  "It might already be coming true, I think."

She turned.  T'Sian had lifted Torrant up into the air and now held him upside-down by one of his legs as the prince squirmed and screamed and made unconvincing threats.  But, she noted, he did not beg.  He had that much dignity, at least.

"
Do you believe in prophecies, man?
" T'Sian said.  "
You must, or you would not have taken Tolaria to be your prisoner.
"

"Put me down!" Torrant screamed.  "I rule this land!"

The dragon opened her mouth wide, then hesitated.  The ground had begun to tremble beneath them, as if a minor earthquake were occurring nearby.  Moments later the hillside split open, the dirt rising and twisting to form a manlike shape.  This must be Deliban, finally answering Orioke's call.  Hard to believe that this creature, which had dwelt in the earth beneath Flaurent for all those years, quietly maintaining underground irrigation channels, bringing salt to the surface for the college to sell, had been transformed into a weapon of war and destruction.  Which was closer to its true nature?  Did it even have one?

Deliban's muddy head swiveled this way and that, looking them over.  It had stones for eyes, a stump for a nose, roots for lips.  She wondered if it actually used them to see, to smell, to speak, or had merely constructed an imitation of a human face, perhaps in honor of its master, or in mockery.

"Deliban!" Torrant screamed.  "Destroy them!  Save me!"

"Deliban obeys
me
, not you," Orioke said.  Then, turning to the earth creature:  "There is a ruined castle just to the north, on a bluff overlooking a river.  You will flatten the hill and raise an earthen wall around it to dam the river.  The wall will be high enough so that a lake is created, completely submerging the castle and all its grounds.  Do you understand?"

After a moment, the thing that was Deliban nodded.

"Then go, and carry out my command."

The earth trembled as Deliban withdrew once more into the ground.  Tolaria watched as the dirt and rubble that formed its body spread across the hillside like wax from a melting candle, leaving tree roots sticking up into the air like the stiff legs of dead insects. The creature's face was the last thing to disappear, stretching, distorting, flattening; one of the rocks that had formed its eyes rolled down the hill, bouncing across the road to splash into the river beyond.

Torrant, still clutched in T'Sian's talon, cried:  "You would have that creature drown my father's castle?"

Orioke shrugged.  "The dragon already destroyed it.  What difference does it make if the ruins are underwater?"

"We're trying to save the rest of your kingdom," Tolaria told him.  "Qalor's crystals are growing unchecked.  They will eventually spread and contaminate the entire realm."

"Without the Dunshandrian line, there
is
no realm!"

"
Good
," T'Sian said.  She lifted him up, dangling him over her yawning jaws.  Her long grey tongue, delicately forked at the end, flicked out, dancing across Torrant's face.  He screamed and grabbed it, perhaps thinking he could tear it out.  But the dragon's tongue turned out to be as clever as her tail; it twined around his wrists, effectively binding them, then drew him into her maw.  The prince's screams became muffled as he entered T'Sian's throat head-first.  The last things Tolaria saw before turning away were Torrant's wildly kicking legs, bared as his robe slid up toward his head, sticking out of T'Sian's mouth.

Despite everything Torrant had done, seeing him swallowed like an earthworm made her feel slightly ill.

"Let's go to the castle and make sure Deliban does what it's told," Ponn said.

"Yes," Diasa said, "let's."

After carrying the others over the charred village and depositing them on the road to the castle, T'Sian returned to the air, circling the site that had become the graveyard of Dunshandrin's ambitions.  She could see that the earth creature was obeying the wizard's instructions; it had already transformed the butte into a crater, and had begun raising massive ramparts of earth and stone around it.  The crystals had already spread well outside the walls of the keep, but not beyond the boundaries of the future lake.  The river had already begun to form a churning, muddy pool behind the dam.  The stone bridge, outside the walls, now stood over a muddy channel riddled with silvery pools and slick red rocks.

She felt the stones she had swallowed burning inside her, creating a fire hotter than was natural, renewing themselves every moment that she did not draw upon them.  Despite all the fire she had produced this night and day, the crystals continued to spread inside her, a brittle, glassy irritant.  She could not deny that Qalor had done his work well, however misguided it had been.  His achievement was going to kill her.

Hovering high overhead, she watched the others cross the bridge.  By the time they reached the top of the earthworks, Deliban's work was complete.  The creature's power was perhaps greater even than her own; she wondered if it, too, were the product of the ancient alchemists, or if it were some other sort of entity, older still.  She had destroyed the castle easily enough, but she could not transform the landscape at her whim.  If Dunshandrin had known the wizard could harness such a force, would he have still sought the crystals, still built his devices?  She thought he probably would have.  Such a man was never satisfied with the power at his disposal, and always sought more.

The water level within the crater was rising quickly; soon it would begin flowing into the sunken courtyard.

She almost wished she had kept the haughty prince alive a little longer, just so he could have seen his castle vanish beneath the icy water.

Adaran gazed down at the ruined castle.  When Deliban had crumbled the bluff, the stone walls and timbers had become churned together with natural earth and stone to create a jumble of charred wood, cracked masonry, burnt furnishings, scorched and crushed bodies.  It was like looking down into a massive charnel pit.

Then there were the crystals.  The red ones lay scattered across the crater floor, gleaming like frozen drops of blood catching the rays of the sun; the blue ones had formed a spreading mass with spires and towers and arches, like some fairytale palace.  The whole thing glowed with internal energy and thrummed with the sound of a distant swarm of bees.  The fairies in their palace had seen the approaching flood, and it made them angry.