Dragonbound: Blue Dragon (12 page)

Parmver put the heavy quilt over Kanvar and tucked it around him.

"You'll need more ointment soon, if we're to keep you alive. But rest for a minute now. The fever and rash have come on you quickly because you've done more than just touch dragon blood. You've got a partial bond with the Great blue. One that will be difficult to break, I fear. You'll need to drink lots of water, though your stomach won't tolerate it well."

"Aadi," Parmver called.

A boy about Kanvar's age darted into the room. He had the gray skin and dark hair of a villager.

"Fetch some drinking water please," Parmver told him.

The boy sped away, and Kanvar could hear his running steps echo down the hall.

"I'm not sure I can drink anything." Kanvar's mouth was dry, but his stomach recoiled at the thought of putting anything into it.

"Is your mind still shielded from Dharanidhar's," Parmver asked.

"Mostly." The dark wall his father had built around his mind still terrified him. He pressed at it in a futile attempt to escape.

"Easy there," Parmver said. "It seems your father was a bit heavy handed with that. But then finesse was never his strong point. I'll get him to take the shield down as soon as I teach you how to make one of your own. All right?"

"Please, please hurry," Kanvar said.

"As fast as I can," Parmver reassured him. He crossed the room to the bookshelf and came back with a heavy volume whose leather cover was cracked and brittle with age. The pages themselves had yellowed almost as dark as the leather cover. "I think that shield is accelerating the dragon sickness, but some things can't be learned in a matter of seconds. This might take you a little while."

While Parmver opened the book, Aadi returned carrying a tray with a crystal decanter of water and two glasses. He set the tray on the table and poured out the water.

"Thank you, Aadi," Parmver said without looking up from the book. "Please go find his majesty and tell him I need to speak with him privately before the Choosing Ceremony." Aadi nodded and ran off again.

"Choosing Ceremony?" Kanvar asked as he accepted a glass of water and took a sip. It felt icy cold going down his throat, but Parmver made him drink it all then lie back.

Tucked in the quilt on the soft fluffy bed, Kanvar felt warmer than he had since the fever first took him. "What is the Choosing Ceremony? Where has my father gone? What's going on?"

"That's what I'm trying to teach you, my boy. Just hold on a second longer." Parmver thumbed through a couple more pages and then stopped. "Can you read?"

"Yes, of course," Kanvar said.

Parmver turned the book so Kanvar could see the page he'd opened to. It showed a young gold dragon with its head down level with a boy who rested his hand on the dragonstone in its forehead. There were words below the picture in a thin spidery handwriting, but Kanvar didn't recognize them.

"I know how to read, but those aren't real words at all," Kanvar said.

Parmver turned the book back to himself and frowned at the page. "Has the language changed so much in the last thousand years? I suppose it has."

"You are not a thousand years old?" Kanvar said. "I mean, my father was just exaggerating right? You couldn't have been around before Stonefountain fell?"

Parmver glanced at Kanvar and then laid the book aside. "I don't know how I'm supposed to teach you years worth of history, lore, and skills in such a short time. I should have started instructing you from the time you were very young. Like I have with Aadi. There is the slight chance that he might be a Naga. He has displayed some mental abilities and affinity for the dragons. I've been teaching him since he was six and expect the fever to come upon him soon. But with you . . . there is so much you must learn before you bond and such a short time, I can hardly think where to start."

"You're talking your way around my question without answering me," Kanvar interrupted. "Were you really at Stonefountain? It fell a thousand years ago. I've studied enough history to know that."

Parmver rubbed his wrinkled face. He did look ancient. "Yes, I was at Stonefountain. King Khalid was a good friend of mine. We grew up together. Learned from the same tutors. He, of course, became King, and I went into the study of plants and their alchemical properties. I split my time between Stonefountain and here. I have a lovely little laboratory in a cavern in the cliffs beneath the castle. In truth, I was not helping youngsters bond at that time. That duty was left to my elders and betters."

With the blanket across the ointment on Kanvar's chest, his breathing became easier. His mind drifted and he had trouble focusing on Parmver's words. Instead Parmver's memories became his own as if Kanvar had been there all those years before in Parmver's place.

He stood in a large cavern with walls lined with glowing stones—a rainbow of pastels that flickered with a life of their own and sang. Yes, the rocks sang, a chorus of thousands of voices blended in harmony spinning out a musical refrain so sweet it brought tears to his eyes. There was power in the music, in the stones, and in a huge fountain of water that bubbled up from the rocks at the center of the cavern. The power surged through him, permeating his soul until he glowed and sang with the rocks and flowed with the water out of the cavern, cascading down the side of a mountain with its golden palace.

Hall after mighty hall rose up around the mountain slopes in splendor, adorned in gold and flashing jewels. The water lit the palace as it fell down and flowed into a great river that passed grand houses, arches, and walkways of silver. The great buildings gave way to streets lined with smaller buildings, accented in copper and brass.

The river moved on from there to streets of adobe much like Daro, though the further it went the smaller the houses became, soon falling away to huts of stick and mud, crowded among rotting canvas tents. And people, hungry, dirty, lined the streets, hands hanging down, bellies swollen in starvation, and they looked up at the mighty palace with hopeless fear and anger.

But the river moved on, out through fields of rice and wheat where Great Gold dragons oversaw ragged laborers, working the soil. Great Blue dragons in chains pulling the plows. And Kanvar felt the dragons' anger and the people's desperation. And he heard the thoughts of those who would rebel, but they were whipped into silence.

Kanvar found himself flying with Parmver's memories on the back of a gold dragon, away from the horrors of the city, far across the water where he could work with his plants and potions in peace. Where he could search for cures to ease sickness and make people's life better. Only to return to Stonefountain again with tinctures and tonics. Most of them taken immediately by the Nagas who lived in the golden palace.

"Khalid." Parmver faced the Golden King in a private chamber. "Your men have taken almost all of my medicines. I made this batch for those in the city. The coughing sickness has come there. Thousands could die if it goes unchecked. Please, tell them to return my remedies to me. I can stop this sickness before it spreads."

"Parmver." Khalid's golden crown flashed in the sunlight from the window arch. "There are hundreds of children born a day out there. And so very few born here even in a decade, and half of those have deformities and have to be discarded. We must use your medicines to protect our own. This entire civilization would crumble without us."

Parmver clenched his fists. He could hardly contain his anger in the presence of the king and had to work hard to keep his thoughts shielded where the king couldn't hear them. "The babies are born deformed because you continue to intermarry only among the Nagas. You must stop this practice. Bring in new blood. And by the fountain, give me back my medicines for the people. You are their king. You should care what happens to them. If you do not treat them justly, they will rebel against you."

Khalid's face turned red, and he pounded his fist on a golden pillar. "They dare not rebel. They cannot. I know all of their thoughts. We control their very minds if we must. There will be no rebellion. Our powers are too strong."

"As you say." Parmver kept his mind firmly shielded from his old friend. Friend no more, perhaps. The power of kingship had twisted him into something Parmver no longer recognized. He left the palace and went out into the hopeless city. He had one vial of the tincture left. He may be able to save one person.

A ragged and desperate man saw him in the street, came over, and fell to his knees before Parmver. "Mighty one, please help us. My daughter is sick with the cough. I have heard that you have found a cure. Please, save us. I'll give you anything."

Parmver knelt in the dirt and put a hand on the man's shoulder. "You have nothing of worth to give me." It didn't matter. He would help this man anyway.

"Oh but I do. I was given this just this morning," the man spluttered. "It's very pretty. Surely it would be worth my daughter's life." He reached into a grubby pocket and pulled out a little iron box. When he opened it, a searing dagger of music stabbed Parmver's mind. Looking past the pain, he saw a glowing blue stone in the box. It had to come from the walls of Stonefountain. And the song, instead of beautifully in tune with the other rocks of the cavern, was piercing in a desperate cry of pain. The stone screamed at being separated from the others of the fountain.

Parmver reached out and snapped the lid shut. The stone fell silent, trapped in the iron box. "Who gave you this?" Parmver demanded.

The man's eyes widened in sudden fear. He leapt to his feet and tried to run, but Parmver caught him and pried the box from the man's shaking hands. In its place he gave the man the only vial of medicine he'd been allowed to keep. One dose to protect himself from the sickness. He gave it to the man. "For your daughter," he said. Then he let the man go, and never saw him again.

Fear pounding in Parmver's chest, he summoned his dragon and flew back to the mountain and deep into its heart where the fountain spewed up. As he stepped into the cavern, he was overcome by a twisted scream of voices. The glorious song had been shattered. The fountain cried in pain. Parmver cast his eyes to the walls and saw jagged claw marks and thousands of empty black sockets where the glowing stones had been torn out by some dragon and carried away. The great song was broken. Almost blinded by the pain of the shattered song, Parmver stumbled away from the fountain and out into the fading light.

His stomach churned with revulsion as he looked down at the little iron box. And he realized he had not been able to hear his dragon's voice or feel his dragon's mind the whole time he'd been in the cave.

His dragon, Ceiron, leaned down, keening just above his head.

Trembling with fear, Parmver opened the box. The stone screamed. His mind lost contact with the dragon standing beside him. "By the fountain," he swore. "Do you know what this means, Ceiron? The people can rise up in rebellion and Khalid will never know it's coming. The stones will hide their thoughts. We will be powerless."

He closed the box and raced to the Khalid's chambers, but was stopped by the royal guard before he could enter. "His Majesty is through talking with you, Parmver," the guard said. "We have strict orders that you are to leave him alone."

"But this is important," Parmver protested. "I have to warn him. There is terrible danger. Please." He tried to push past, but the guards grabbed him and dragged him away. In shock he saw that one of the guards carried a small iron box tucked in his sash.

Khalid
, he called, seeking his old friend's mind. But Khalid's mind was locked away from him with heavy shields.

Parmver stumbled away from the guards, breathing heavily, and raced to a window overlooking the city. He saw shadows moving in the streets, a mob gathering in the falling darkness. He had to do something. Thousands of stones were gone. Spread among the poorest of the people. Given to those who were the most desperate. Put into the hands of the palace guards. The fountain's song was broken and with it the power that created their civilization. "All is lost," he moaned.

Not all
, Ceiron said.
Perhaps we can save one person. Like the daughter of the man you gave the medicine to
.
Go get the king's son and meet me back here.
Ceiron took flight from the window. And Parmver ran.

The vague thought that it would be treason to abduct the king's son made little impression on him. He raced to the nursery and snatched the five-year-old child from his bed, ignoring the surprised protest of the nurse who looked after him.

Ceiron met Parmver back at the window, carrying a squirming wyrmling, the Great Dragon King's newest hatchling. Ceiron's mate hovered beside him. Parvmer leapt up onto Ceiron's neck, and they took flight, swiftly, silently, away from the city. In the darkness behind him, Parmver heard the sudden scream of thousands of tortured stones taken from their iron prisons.

Parmver's memories pulled from Kanvar's mind. Kanvar looked up to see tears in the old man's eyes.

"Well, I hadn't meant to share that information with you in exactly that fashion, though I suppose it works well enough. Training you to control your powers is most definitely at the top of my list." Parmver pulled out a gold handkerchief and dried his eyes. "So, yes I was at Stonefountain, and if I hadn't rescued your great-grandfather, perhaps no Nagas would have survived at all."

"But how could you have lived all this time?" Kanvar asked. His heart was still beating fast from the terror of Parmver's memories. He'd known about the singing stones all his life, but hadn't realized it was them that had made the revolution at Stonefountain possible.

Kanvar could hardly believe how cruel King Khalid had been. No wonder the Varnans would let no king rule over them. Jati leaders were voted on by the members of the jatis, and then one of those leaders was picked to sit on the All Council. The Maranies had gone even further than that. All the citizens voted directly for their senate and minister, which led their country.

No kings.

And yet here in Kundiland a king still existed. An heir to the throne of Stonefountain. As powerful a Naga as King Khalid had been. And that man was Kanvar's father.