Faith Of The Dragon Tamer (Book 2) (6 page)

“Presario could have followed his mother out the window. Although he was burnt he wasn’t as he is now, but a beam fell on me.” Arri shook his head as if he wanted to die. “The boy jumped through a wall of fire to save me. While his own clothes were burning he pushed me out the nearest window, saving me from greater harm. That was when the house seemed to ignite on its own accord. The fire swept the bowels, collapsing the inner shell and trapping Presario.

“When we found him it was almost too late.”

The old man’s voice broke. Ramie put a hand on his shoulder, trying to give what little comfort he could. Now he understood why Presario tested every man who came through the city.

“What of his mother?”

Arri blinked as if confused as to who stood before him. When a flash of remembrance crossed his features he herded Ramie out the door.

“When she heard her husband was dead and her son trapped in the flames she took her own life.”

Ramie’s breath caught. Presario had said his anger had led to destruction. Presario and Nigel were very similar creatures indeed. Nigel blamed himself for the deaths of Sherri and Megglan. Presario lived with the weight of his parents’ deaths.

The door began to close but Ramie stopped it with his hand. Somehow, he had to convey his sympathy.

“I’m sorry,” Ramie said. “That’s why you’re blind?”

Arri straightened, eyes wide. “Oh no. I’m blind because Presario wanted no one to see him. I burnt my own eyes long after the fire so Presario would let me serve him.”

Ramie was stunned enough to release his hold on the door. It closed, iron hinges fastening from the inside. Ramie banged on the door, pleading with Arri to let him speak to Presario one last time.

He was desperate. He didn’t want to leave Presario without some token of understanding, without telling him he would change the law. But Arri didn’t answer, and soon Ramie knew it was futile.

Ramie started down the stairs. When he reached the fence he turned and glanced up at the window. The curtains were parted. A small flicker of firelight glimmered in the pane. Heartbeats later the curtains dropped, betraying a shadow that quickly turned away.

Ren stumbled down the steps as the Oracle collapsed behind him. White dust and pieces of stone came at him from every direction. He shielded his eyes and dove for the nearby trees just as the Oracle’s edifice began to sway and the columns beneath it crumbled. With a paralyzed soul, Ren watched the complete destruction of the building before he collapsed on the ground.

He wanted to rest but the commands of the Oracle kept twirling through his mind, condemning any hope of sleep.

He grabbed a rock and threw it. It hit a nearby tree, nicking its bark. The light wound stood in stark contrast to the gray knots of the tree: light and dark, love and pain.

As he thought about the charges before him, he shivered: kill his mother, deny his love, and destroy his soul.

How could virtuous beings, lecturing of love and pain, ask him to do things bordering on the very emotion they had warned him against? He felt his anger begin to rekindle. He clung to it.

The third element rose inside him like a deprived monster. It wasn’t a pure hate, a complete hate, but it was enough to shield him from the anguish, enough to shelter him from the torrent of agony that threatened to swallow him alive.

He caressed his anger, forming it into a steep culmination inside his soul.

Then he thought of the words written in the Oracle, the Quy’s enchanting song, and the two men he would have to become. He released the darkening corruption, recoiling as the pain rekindled.

Light or dark, they said, one or the other. He wanted the light. He desperately wanted to help the Quy live in the light. He couldn’t allow hate to swallow him or the Lands would become darkness. What was it the Quy had said? Love was strong but the pain of love was stronger. She had also said the two together, love and love’s pain, could crush the darkness.

But would the pain ever go away?

He forced his body to move. Every muscle cried out for him to rest but he refused to heed the cries. He surveyed the rubble of the temple. It rose before him, mirroring his shattered heart. Ren ascended the pile of glimmering white stone, catching glimpses of words and occasional bits of paintings. Under one hollow he saw his face, or Barracus’ face, staring up at him. White dust coated his features, further blurring them into Barracus’ own. He looked at the painting without emotion. Why did it matter? The Oracle said he would become both men. There was no escaping that end.

The eyes of the dead mage mocked him. Ren wondered if he was already forming into Barracus because of the hate lurking just below the surface. Was that how the former mage had turned vile?

A breeze stirred. Ren almost thought he heard it whisk away a man’s laughter.

Kill, deny, and destroy. The verity of the Oracles charges crashed inside him once again.

“Why are you asking me to do this?” he shouted at the crumbled stone.

There was no response, only harsh silence.

A table protruded from the rubble, paces from him. A small box rested on top. He didn’t recall seeing a table with a box. The only tables he had seen were by Choice and Chance, with arrows and dice.

Ren stepped over the remains of his partitioned face and approached the table, cautiously testing each stone before he went. The box was a small, metal pyx, the type used to carry healing herbs to kings and men of fortune centuries before. It was rumored all pxyes had been blessed by the fates in order to magnify the properties of the herbs and expedite the healing process. Ren had always wondered how a pyx could be blessed by the fates if the fates were intangible. Now he knew. They were blessed by the Oracle’s Fate.

Ren picked it up. It couldn’t be here to heal him. He was sick at heart, not in body. Could it be another message? A sweeping aversion resonated in every limb. He couldn’t take another message. The last three were more than he could endure.

Small chiseled runes lining the edges of the pyx caught his attention. They consisted of a multiple backward-slanted Z’s, the symbol for victory, the same symbol etched on the hilt of his sword.

What was victory without his mother, Aidan, or his own soul?

The sun sunk lower in the sky. He needed to hurry back to the others. He was tired, but he desperately needed to see his friends.

He placed the pyx on the table.

“No more,” he said.

The pyx’s sides collapsed. An explosion of colors shot skyward with the force of the ten winds. Ren fell. A stone’s jagged edge sliced through his shoulder.

The colors pulsated faster and faster. The turbulence whipped around him, flailing his hair and threatening to tear his clothes from his body. The skin on his face burnt from the vitality of the color’s movement. The air surrounding him, the air providing life and nourishment, was whisked away, leaving him parched and drained. His lips dried, his eyes stung, the nausea in his chest caused him to swivel and relieve himself of his last meal.

When he turned back to the colors they were forming a picture. Ren shielded his eyes from their brilliance but was unable to turn away from the images before him.

As the wind beat and the colors pulsed, he saw an image of himself killing his mother with his sword, running her through with lethal intent. Then the scene changed. The colors turned dark as screams of horror filled his mind. He clutched his mother to him, watching as others fell around him in death. With each death he pulled Renee closer. The look on their faces was defiant and heinous. His mother, one of the most beautiful women in the Lands, was laughing at death.

The colors surged again, forming an image of the silver dragon. He stood over it, as the painting showed, plunging his sword into its heart. Ren tried to turn away as the silver dragon’s violet eyes began to weep, but before he could the image changed into one of darkness.

He walked toward the manacled dragon. Barracus’ face smiled in anticipation. The silver wailed a warning through its clamped jaws as he sliced a gouge deep into the silver’s flanks. The dragon howled in pain as fire spewed through its muzzle, creating a red ball that grew larger and larger, dominating the scene and blackening out the horizon.

The colors pulsated again until they created an image of him kneeling before a man of darkness. The shadow moved toward him, swallowing his essence. Suddenly a ray of light shot through the dark man, shattering the shadow’s form into thousands of minuscule black pieces. He rose from the soot, drained and torn but whole.

Then the scene changed. He saw himself walking toward the sheet of darkness and standing proud before it. As he drew his sword the darkness swallowed him. His body shuddered and twisted until he became a torrent of madness.

When the scenes ended, the colors swirled faster. They became a stark white hand with long, sharp fingernails. The hand opened and moved toward him, wrapping around his neck and choking all air from his lungs.

Just before he lost consciousness he heard them and he knew if he didn’t heed their voice the second image of each scene would become reality.

“Heed us, Chosen. Heed us or you will fail. Truth above all. Truth above … ”

- - -

Manda stood on a rock, heedful of the poisoned black water sloshing at her feet.

People she loved were dying on the shore, but there was nothing she could do. She couldn’t reach them even if she could tear free from the chains that encompassed her entire length. She would die as soon as she hit the water.

Evann floated by, eyes wide and lifeless. Blood seeped from his chest, but the black poison washed it away. Manda turned her head, unable to bear the sight any longer.

She heard familiar laughter and turned to find Alezza gliding toward her on top of the water, the hem of her golden gown bobbing in the poisoned darkness. Manda was sure Alezza would begin to scream as the liquid ate her flesh, but then she realized Alezza was poison. The black liquid couldn’t harm her. A chain dangled from Alezza’s hand and disappeared into the water. Alezza lifted the chain.

Chris emerged from the dark depths, twisting in torment as the poison ate his flesh. His green eyes, filled with holes from the poison’s touch, entreated her for help. Manda jerked, tearing at her chains. One of her feet slipped into the water. A hollow moan rose in her chest as the water bit into her skin. She watched as her foot became a bloody, bony stub.

Alezza dropped Chris back into the water, smiling in amusement as Manda begged for his life.

“Like this?” Alezza lifted Chris’ degenerating body out of the water once more. His flesh was gone. All that remained was a bloody mass of tissue, but he still writhed on the chain. Surrounded by crimson, the whites of his eyes looked horrific. There was no life in those eyes, only madness.

Alezza released the chain and let the last of Chris disappear under the poisoned depths. Alezza reached for Manda. “You’re next, my dear.”

Alezza began to pull her into the water.

Manda resisted, gripping the stone as hard as she could, screaming out the atrocious acts she would do to Alezza when she was able. Alezza only laughed, tugging harder.

A calm stole over Manda. It was a peace she couldn’t describe. Why was she resisting? Everyone she loved was gone. There was nothing left to fight for.

She forced her muscles to relax and let Alezza pull her toward the icy darkness. Manda felt the poison begin to creep up her ankles, prickling her flesh with its tongue of death.

A voice came from the distance, whispering of hope and telling her how much she was loved.

She listened, ignoring the pain as the poison rose higher. She felt something on her face and tasted tears, but they weren’t her own. In the distance she saw Lazo coming toward her in a boat.

Alezza snarled, pulling harder. Manda fell, expecting the bite of the poison to envelope her. It did not. When she opened her eyes she found herself in the boat. She could hear the poisoned liquid eating the wood, but the small boat still had buoyancy. Lazo began rowing to shore. His one blue and one green eye were filled with harrowing loneliness, but when he met her gaze determination and love overcame the desolation. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered anymore.

“Lazo, I don’t want to live.”

“If you give up, Alezza will win.”

Alezza will win.

The phrase hit her like lightning.

She would never let Alezza win. Manda rolled to her knees, watching the tiniest sprays of dark water enter the cracks in the wood and willed the boat to move faster. She had to reach the shore. She had to find a sword and prepare for Alezza’s return. Alezza would pay for harming her brother. She would pay dearly.

Manda opened her eyes and brushed away the moisture on her face. Blinking, she tried to focus. The world was different. The sound of lapping water was gone. Someone drew her into an embrace as the cool touch of the breeze tickled her face. She pushed away, needing to understand. She looked into the contrasting eyes she had seen in her dream.

“Lazo?”

Lazo smiled. Relief tumbled through her. It was only a dream.

She looked around. The naked Sierra Mountains jutted into the dusky light. Horses grazed in the distance. A fire crackled from somewhere beyond her vision.

“Where?” She forced Lazo’s arms away and stood as the memories washed over her. Lazo caught her as her knees buckled. She struggled, trying to break free. She had to find Chris.

When she finally broke from Lazo’s hold she ran toward her horse. From her peripheral vision she saw the Avenger. The pain she had sensed in him before was now etched in the smallest contours of his face. She changed direction and dropped to the ground before him.

“Did you?”

Aaron nodded his assent as his eyes filled with pain. It took her a few breaths to realize the pain she saw in them was her own.

“Did he feel it? Did he feel everything he did to us?”

“More,” Aaron said.

Manda sat back on her heels. She didn’t feel the satisfaction she had hoped for, only a hollow emptiness. She studied the Avenger, sensing he already knew her thoughts.