Authors: Margaret Weis
Evelina lowered her eyes in confusion, unable to speak. She had been drawn
to him the moment she saw him or, rather, the moment she had heard Ven call
Marcus, “king’s son.” She had made up her mind then to use him. She had not
meant to love him. Then had come his gentle touch, the respectful manner in
which he spoke to her, the masterful way he acted to save them. Evelina stood
quivering beside him, knowing exultation and terrible, chilling fear. She
wanted this man as she had never wanted anything in her life and she knew that
he was as far beyond her reach as a blazing star.
Especially if he found out the truth.
Then he will not find out,
Evelina resolved inwardly.
She now felt no compunction over killing Ven. Thank God he was dead!
Grasping Marcus’s hand tightly, Evelina sidled near and said softly, “We
should go, Marcus. It’s not safe. . . .”
He smiled at her and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. “All will be well. Keep
close to me.”
“Oh, I will, Marcus,” Evelina vowed, a vow
imprinted on her soul. “I will!”
Holding fast to each other, the two ventured out into the street that was
jammed with bodies. Bumped and jostled, they came perilously near being
trampled by the mob. Marcus kept his destination in sight and, keeping a tight
grip on Evelina, he pushed his way through the clusters of people, avoiding—if
possible— the brown-robed monks. In this, he was not alone. No one liked the
monks, it seemed. Dressed as a monk himself, Marcus saw people he approached
cringe, avoid his glance, duck their heads, trying to get away from him. He
heard muttered curses as he walked past and relieved sighs.
Pressing forward through the confusion, Marcus listened closely to what
people were saying. He soon came to realize that no one knew what disaster had
befallen their city, although everyone professed to.
Picking out the facts from the mishmash of rumor and speculation, he
gathered that the blast had leveled several buildings, leaving scores of people
dead and wounded and clogging the streets with debris. As to what had caused
the explosion, everyone had a theory, ranging from lightning to alchemy gone
wrong. No one mentioned the dragon, though Marcus had the impression that they
were all thinking it.
He and Evelina finally pushed and shoved their way through the crowd.
Crossing the street, they reached the row of buildings that stood between them
and the wall. Now they had only to find a cross street or another alley that
would lead them to the wall and the illusion-concealed gate. What they would do
once they got there was open to question. Marcus would worry about that when
the time came. Thus far, they had managed to avoid the monks, though there
seemed to be more of them all the time. They appeared to be congregating in
this area, as if they knew he was here.
The street curved and sloped downhill with no outlet. The buildings that
stood between them and the wall seemed to go on and on interminably. There were
more and more monks. At last, Marcus saw a break in the endless expanse of gray
stone. A cross street, perhaps. It was up ahead, no more than a block away. He
glanced down at Evelina. She smiled up at him, brave and reassuring. His heart
warmed to her. . . .
A flurry of brown robes lunged at him out of the shadows of a doorway.
Brown robes and fire.
Flames whirled about the monk’s wrists and swirled up and down his fingers.
The monk reached out to Marcus, sought to clasp him in a fiery embrace,
grasping hold of anything he could—flesh, fabric, hair. Everything he touched
caught fire.
The intense heat of the magic seared Marcus’s flesh. The blazing light
half-blinded him and smoke from his smoldering robes choked him. Frantically,
Marcus grappled with the monk, trying to fend him off. He heard Evelina
screaming, but he couldn’t find her in the smoke and the agonizing pain.
Fighting for his life, Marcus used the only weapon he had available. He
needed the magic to save his life and the magic was there, in his hands.
A blizzard of blue ice and white snow swirled around him, dousing the flames
and easing the burning pain. He inhaled and then breathed out a blast of icy
winter wind that lifted the monk off his feet, sent him flying, to slam up
against a stone wall. The monk bounced off the wall, fell onto the pavement,
and lay still. The flames on his hands flickered and went out.
Marcus stood over the monk, watching for signs of movement. The snow fell
down upon him and then gradually ceased.
“You were on fire!” Evelina gasped. “I thought you were dead! And then . . .
then it began to snow!”
She clutched her head. “I hate this place!”
“Hush, it’s over now,” he said, putting his arm around her.
Looking out into the street, he saw that he had lied. The fight wasn’t over.
It had only just begun.
The monk had not succeeded in immolating Marcus, but the magical
flames—blazing through the streets like a fire-trailing comet—had drawn the
attention of all the magic-wielding monks. They came from everywhere: emerging
from doorways, rising up out of gutters, running down the street, all of them
converging on Marcus.
The cross street was only a short distance away, but their path was blocked
by three of the monks coming at them at a dead run.
“There’s an alley,” cried Evelina, pointing, yet holding back. “But it might
be a dead end.”
“We
know
this way is a dead end,” Marcus said grimly. “We’ll have to
take our chances.”
They ducked into the alley, running with all their might.
Despite his bold words, Marcus was tormented by doubt. He could not see the end
of the alley, which was as twisting and tortured as every other street in the
city. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw the monks in pursuit. One of them made
a flinging motion with his hand.
Remembering the dart that had struck down Bellona, Marcus flattened himself
against the wall, pulled Evelina with him. The dart flew past, landed in the
street.
“The wall!” Evelina cried shrilly. “I see it. Oh, Marcus, I can see it! We’re
almost there!”
He looked to the end of the alley to see sunlight, just as another dart
smashed into the stone, barely missing his head.
Marcus pointed to the buildings that stood at the entrance to the alley. The
magic rolled out of him, rumbled through the earth. Stone walls shook and
trembled and, with a roar like an avalanche, two buildings collapsed in a
cascade of debris that sent up a cloud of dust. He couldn’t see his pursuers,
but he guessed, from the screams and cries, that at least some had been buried
alive. He dashed out into the alley, with Evelina at his side, and it was then
he felt the weakness.
It came on him suddenly, unexpectedly—a sensation of being utterly
exhausted. He could not catch his breath. His legs and arms and hands tingled.
He stumbled and nearly fell. Evelina caught hold of him.
“What’s the matter?” she asked frantically, terrified. “Are you hurt?”
He didn’t answer. He had to use his breath for breathing. Talking required
more strength than he had and he couldn’t explain anyway. Nothing is free in
this world. Everything has a price, including the magic.
Conjuring pixies from dust motes was a little fatiguing, but the magic had
never before sent him to his bed. Bringing down stone buildings and raising ice
storms was apparently different. He was so drained, he could scarcely move.
Behind him, he could hear the monks clawing their way through the rubble. He
had to keep going or give up and die.
“Dearest Marcus, sweet love, we are almost there!” Evelina coaxed, her voice
trembling with fear. “Please. Just a little farther, my heart, my own.”
She tugged at him, pleaded with him. He nodded and stumbled forward on. He
could no longer run. It took all his resolve just to walk.
“It’s not far now,” she urged, sliding her arm around him, supporting him.
He wearily raised his head to see the wall directly ahead. They had only to
cross a street and they would be standing in front of it. Fifty, a hundred
steps.
And then what? He remembered entering Dragonkeep, remembered looking back at
the wall through which he’d just passed and seeing no gate, no way out, nothing
but solid stone. On and on the wall ran, without end. Around and around the
city. No break. No escape. A dragon eating its own tail. . .
“Marcus!” Evelina cried sharply, frightened.
He jerked his head, shook his head to clear it, and kept moving, kept walking.
He concentrated on picking up his feet and putting them down, picking them up,
putting them down.
The wall came closer. Solid stone. Fused with fire.
Marcus called again, one last time. “Draconas. . .”
The name echoed in the darkness of his little room. Echoed back to him.
One by one, the echoes died.
The street that ran along the wall was empty. He’d expected to find a river
of brown robes. If the monks were coming to stop them, they had better hurry.
Yet why should they?
Marcus asked himself.
I’m not going anywhere
and neither is Evelina. ‘
He was at the wall, standing before it, staring at it. He poured his whole
being into that stare, wishing it, willing it to give him some hint, some clue
of the way out. He risked leaving his little room, risked roaming up and down
the length of the wall, as far as he could see; risked using his magic to
search for a crack, a chink in the endless stone.
Nothing.
He stared at the wall so long that the stones began to shift and glide in
his swimming vision and he wrenched his gaze away.
He called to Draconas one last time.
When there was no answer, Marcus reached out his hand to touch the wall. He
touched stone—solid and cold. He moved his hand to another part and then
another. Stupid. Futile. A last desperate attempt to stave off the inevitable.
“Marcus . . .” said Evelina urgently. “The monks. . .”
He saw them rounding the corner of the building, coming for him. Some held
fire in their hands. Some held steel. All of it was death, so it didn’t much
matter.
“Tell me the truth, Marcus,” said Evelina calmly. “There’s no way out, is
there?”
“No,” he said. “There’s not. I had hoped . . .” He let hope hang, shook his
head.
“I’m afraid,” she said, and put her arms around him.
“So am I,” he said, and held her close.
A hand thrust through the stone wall.
Marcus stared to see it, not believing.
I’m going mad,
he thought.
Like
the wretched monks.
The hand vanished and Ven stood in front of him, inside the little room.
“This is the gate,” said Ven.
His blue eyes were the only color in a vast expanse of white.
“The gate!” Evelina cried. “I see it! Marcus, look!” She clutched at him. “There
it is. Right in front of us. Hurry! Make haste!”
The illusion shattered and, as always, when we see the truth, Marcus
wondered that he had been so blind as not to penetrate the lie at once. And he
did not mean the gate, though it was also there—before him—a door constructed
of wood planks, crudely built, held together with iron bands.
The gate stood open. By the rusted look of the hinges, it had not been shut
for centuries. It had rusted in place.
Beyond the gate was the forest and beyond that the river. No monks blocked
the way. No dragon stood at the entrance.
Marcus looked back to the little room.
“Take care of her,” said Ven. He held out his hand, a man’s hand, no longer
a child’s.
Marcus touched his brother’s hand and it vanished.
The gate vanished, dissolved into the wall.
The wall vanished, dissolved into illusion.
Dragonkeep was gone, and it might have never
existed for Marcus, but for the feel of his brother’s hand, firm and warm, in
his own.
VEN STOOD OUTSIDE THE WALL, HIDDEN WITHIN THE illusion within the reality.
Mirages, painted on the silk of his mind, wavered in the morning sunshine.
Trees of lies, trees of wood, side by side. Lies and reality both solid and
unyielding.
The voices were real, though dim and fading. Voices of the monks on one side
of the wall, angry to have lost their prey, fearful of the dragon’s wrath.
Voices of his brother and Evelina on the other side of the wall growing more
and more distant. The voice of the river, endlessly murmuring.
Ven rose from his crouched position and moved deeper into the forest. He had
to pause frequently to rest, for although the dragon in him was able to mend
his injuries, he was weak from loss of blood. The wound pained him, but then,
the wound would always pain him. He had a task to accomplish, a promise to
keep, and not much time to do it. Grald was occupied with the unexpected
destruction of half his city, but that wouldn’t last long. There would be
questions asked, explanations required.
Fortunately, Ven knew right -where to look for what he sought. He used the
skills in tracking that she had taught him almost from the first day he could
walk. He followed the trail left in the trampled grass and came upon Bellona’s
body.
Ven squatted down beside her, resting easily on his animal haunches. Death
had relaxed the sternness of her face, smoothed out the lines of sorrow and
grief and bitterness. The bloodstained lips on which his name had died were
closed, composed. She looked young in death, younger than he had ever known her
in life. He reached down, took hold of the dart that remained lodged in her
throat, and yanked it out. He thrust the dart into his belt.
Lifting in his arms the woman who had raised him, Ven carried her body to
the river.
He laid her in the bottom of one of the boats drawn up on the riverbank.
Recalling her stories of ancient wars and warriors, he crossed her hands over
her breast. He washed the blood from her face with river water. He broke the
dart that had slain her and laid the pieces at her feet.