Swords of the Six (21 page)

Silence filled the next moments. The dragon and the shepherd appeared deep in thought.

"Forgive me, my daughter," Albino said at last, glancing down at Dantress, "in all the excitement I'm afraid I got distracted."

He gestured with one clawed hand and led her to the door. "Elsie, Helen and Gwen have already fixed dinner for you, so go along now. I will speak with you and your sisters later. And, dear child, you did well. You have made me proud."

Dipping a curtsy, Dantress walked through the doors. They shut behind her.

"Fairest among the dragon's daughters, you are back! Well, well . . . no cuts on your pretty face, so I see." Miverē flitted onto her shoulder and clamped his thin arms across her neck, that is, as far as they would reach.

Dantress laughed and smiled down at the delicate creature. She stroked his red hair. It had grown a couple inches longer since she'd last seen him. Miverē's transparent oval wings rustled together, and he closed his eyes.

How he had found her to greet her before anyone else in the palace? She didn't venture a guess. It was nice to be wanted, to be loved. And Miverē was certainly a true and faithful friend.

A bit of stone on her shoulder caught her eye and she picked it off. Rubble from the Temple of Al'un Dai?

"Here," she said, handing it to the fairy, "a souvenir from my trip."

The fairy held the stone, turning it over and over in his hands. His wings beat against the air, and he hovered in front of her face and kissed her on the nose. A minute tear rolled down his cheek. With a smile, he flew around the bend in the main hallway.

"We worried about you," Evela said, leading her into the dining room where Caritha, Rose'el, Laura, and Levena sat before the table with a fine, generous meal. "Where were you? The shepherd came through the portal without you and then he told us not to worry and he brought us to the palace.

"Rose'el was convinced you'd run off to find another helpless person to save, but I told her you wouldn't be so foolish. Oh! By the way, Father said he is going to give us another assignment. What do you think of that?"

"Evela." Elsie bustled into the dining room and forced the shortest sister into a vacant chair. "No more chattering, Evela! It is time you all ate something decent. You all look a mite thinner than when you left." She neared Dantress and kissed her on the cheek. "Sit down, child. Eat and then rest. You look famished and exhausted!"

Dantress smiled a tired sort of smile. "Thank you, Aunt Elsie." She was grateful for the woman's love, but it had been merely a few days since they'd left the castle; not a month!

"Gwen," Elsie called at the closed kitchen door. "Bring an apron out, will you? Gracious me! Can't we even serve dinner in a timely fashion today?"

"We're coming, Mum." Gwen bustled in from the kitchen with a fruit bowl in her hands and a warm smile on her face. Helen followed close on her heels with more food for the dragon's daughters.

After setting down the fruit bowls, Gwen held out a neatly folded apron to Elsie.

"Gwen, how often must I say this?" Elsie stamped her foot. "Red only. This is not red—this is white."

"Sorry, Mum." The faintest hint of an amused grin passed across Gwen's face as her long legs sped her toward the kitchen. She returned seconds later, a red apron draped over her arm.

"That's better." Elsie slipped the apron over her head and tied it around her back. "Now, dinner is served!"

* * *

Albino closed the library doors behind Dantress and lingered there, staring at them, before shifting to face Patient.

The shepherd, still holding the infant, returned his gaze. "I will take the child and raise him."

"No, my friend." The dragon shook his head. "If Letrias ever learns of Kesla's son, he will surely seek him out. Besides which, you are going to be far too busy to raise a child. We must hand this matter over to another, someone who will be able to watch over the boy without being seen. And we must send the boy to a place Letrias knows nothing of."

The shepherd raised one eyebrow. "Who do you have in mind?"

"Who else? Specter. He has proved to be more than capable; I would trust him with my life."

"As would I," the shepherd replied. "But
where
will you send him? Letrias's might is growing and his influence may soon reach every corner of Subterran."

The dragon snarled. "Yet for all his cunning, that wizard knows nothing of that other world. As long as Yimshi shines down, its rays bathing this world, the other is hidden."

"Yes." Patient stepped forward, smiling. "Another tool . . . I am beginning to see the extent of your plan."

"Are you? I have not yet begun." Albino rumbled in his throat. "I am merely planting the seeds. It will be up to others to water them."

"Very well, then," Patient said, waving his hand. "Bring him in."

The dragon spread his wings a little and blew smoke from his nostrils. "Specter!" His voice rose to a roar.

Patient cringed, covered the baby with his own robe. "Have a care, my friend. The child is sleeping." He frowned. "Shall I go out into the hall and call for Specter? Or are you going to scream again?"

"There is no need. I am here, my masters." In a dark corner of the library the ghostly figure of the tall man coalesced. He was young, in his mid-twenties. His head bent forward slightly beneath his gray hood. He held a black-handled scythe in his right hand, keeping it barely an inch off the floor. The light of the fireplace reflected off the narrow, long blade that bent from the handle about a foot above Specter's head as he strode slowly to the dragon and the shepherd. His blue eyes did not avert Patient's or Albino's gaze and yet there was not even a hint of a haughty or proud spirit.

Specter took the baby from Patient's arms, looking down at the child in silence. He turned to go, but the dragon held out a clawed hand.

"There is one more thing I wish to do before you go." He produced a brass ring between his claws.

Specter's head jerked up. His mouth opened as if to speak, but he clamped it shut.

"Yes," the dragon rumbled, "you do know this ring. It was Kesla's . . . now it will remain with his son so that when the time comes, we will know him."

Holding up one of the infants tiny hands, Specter waited as the dragon slipped the ring over the pointer finger of the boy's right hand. As the brass band slid past the second knuckle, it shrank until it became the perfect size for the child's finger. "There." The dragon slowly withdrew his claws.

Without a word, Specter dipped his head to the dragon. As he spun on his heels, his long, gray cape whipped around his ankles and he dissolved from ghostlike transparency into total invisibility.

"The child will be safe with him," Albino rumbled.

"I should say so." Patient held his staff with both hands, leaning on it, looking at the place where Specter had stood.

The dragon's chest heaved, and smoke drifted from his nostrils. "Specter is an appropriate alias for him," he said, "and it suits our purposes for the time being. His past would only interfere with his mission. By giving him a new name, I have protected him from the ears of all workers in sorcery. Evil fears what it does not understand, and it may be that Letrias and Specter will one day meet. When that day comes"—Albino flexed his clawed fist—"Letrias will realize the full extent of his error."

The shepherd remained silent for a time, his blue eyes staring into Albino's pink ones. Then he let go of his staff with one hand and stroked the spine of a large book on a nearby shelf. "Why did you do it?"

With an honest, curious expression, the dragon said, "To what are you referring?"

Patient said, "Rose'el gave you two items for the boy. One was from his mother. One was from his father. A gold band and a brass ring . . . but you only gave him the ring."

"Because
this
"—Albino opened his hand and the gold band materialized out of thin air, resting in his palm—"is the ancestry that he need not know. This is his link to a mother who neither loved him, nor loved the Creator. She chose to be the evil that she was . . . she chose to be a witch.

"And, apart from this, it was Kesla's wish. I have vowed that his son will not follow in his parents' footsteps." The dragon ground the band in his scaled palm until gold dust sifted between his fingers. With a gentle puff of air, he dispersed the dust into the room in a small yellow cloud.

A moment of silence passed between the dragon and the shepherd. A moment filled only with their individual thoughts and whatever memories their conversation had brought to mind.

"The dreams will lead Dantress on the correct path, my friend. You can rest assured of that." The dragon lowered his head level with the shepherd's. "All things
will
fall into place and the world as we know it will never be the same."

* * *

Six months after his daughters returned from the lands bordering the Eiderveis River, the great white dragon emerged from a cool, moist passageway in Shizar Palace. The rough stones scraped against his scaled sides as he brushed the wall. He turned, spattering a weak flame against the door in finalization as he pushed it shut. If it had been midnight, then the doorway would have revealed itself with a glowing outline, but now, in the wee hours of the morning, it was indistinguishable from the rest of the corridor wall.

He turned and listened to the faint sobs coming from the corridor's end.

"F-fairest among the g-great d-dragon's daughters, I will m-miss you."

"I know," Dantress replied weakly. "I know all too well, Miverē. But—please—think of me often, for I will often think of you."

Taking a few gentle steps, Albino stretched out his neck, peering around the corner.

Dantress, wearing her purple dress, reached out to the lowest blue-white branch of the glowing Fairy Tree and caught one of Miverē's tears as it dripped off his narrow chin.

"I will be back," she whispered. "You can be assured of that."

The fairy's shoulders shook and his green eyes glowed back at her. "Do you promise me, fairest of the dragon's daughters? Do you promise?"

"Yes, Miverē, I
promise
." Then she let the tiny fellow kiss her nose and smiled sadly at him before backing from the tree.

Albino eased his way out of the corridor into the main hallway, placed his large clawed hand around Dantress's shoulders. And then he looked down at her, and she gazed back and firmed her lips.

"I am ready, Father."

* * *

The sisters stood before the great white dragon, not venturing to say a word. Dantress felt as if the enormous throne room, with its high walls and polished marble floors and imposing twisted metal throne, pressed in on her.

“A different sort of test now awaits you,” the dragon said, scraping his claw across the floor as he addressed his daughters. “You will be journeying into the east, to a forest in this world of Subterran known as the Western Wood. A cave has been fashioned for you there out of solid stone. The creatures of the woods will be your only companions, and you must dwell there as guardians of that place.

"Remember what you are: daughters of a dragon. It is my blood that runs through your veins and my blood that empowers you. Beware of humankind, for many are corrupt. But beware also because you are made in the likeness of their race and, joined with men, you are capable of bearing children. Yet yours is dragon blood. If you bear a child, then know this—you will, your own life, have to give, in order to bring that life into the world.”

Tilting his head back, Albino opened his jaws. Flames leapt forth and struck the ceiling. Instead of dissipating, the fire whirled into a vortex of energy. Another portal opened.

One by one the sisters walked up the steps to the throne. Each of them grabbed hold of Albino's hand so that he could hoist them onto his back. Dantress delayed for a few minutes, wishing for a less imperfect world. A place where good reigned would be nice, free from turmoil, pain, suffering and all else unpleasant.

Why couldn't she stay at the palace and lead a peaceful life? Or, better yet, why couldn't she wait for a gallant young man to come along and sweep her into his arms? And then she would raise a family.

But no, that could not be. For it was the blood of a dragon, and not the blood of humanity, that ran through her veins. And the two could never mix—not if she wanted to live.

What was it the flaming sword had prophesied? She thought back to when she saved Miverē from certain death. It was then that she first saw the sword and heard its strange words:

"It is given to humanity to bear after their kind. Yet to the daughters of the great white dragon will be given the choice of joining with the race they resemble, the race of humanity. Their lives they must willingly give if they are to bring a life into the world. This curse is laid upon them, but it is a blessing in disguise, for in the ultimate sacrifice is proven the ultimate love, and a child born out of ultimate sacrifice will bring joy and not sorrow to the one that bears her."

So clearly did she remember the words, that she could almost hear them repeating inside her mind, like distant echoes skipping over the surface of a large body of water.