Song of the Dragon (5 page)

“What do you think, Drakis?” Braun said as he stood in the center of the room.

“I think we need to find our Octian and . . .”

“No,” Braun snapped, an angry edge to his voice. “Do you
see
the picture? There's a large flat platform inside the window. There . . . back there . . . is a carved stone counter and behind it . . . can you see it? . . . there are three ovens.”

Drakis began to sweat in the chill room. “It's a . . . a kitchen . . . a kind of dwarf mess hall . . . a place to eat . . .”

“You
look
, but you don't
see
!” Braun urged, stepping closer to Drakis. “The spirits still breathe whispers of their passing in this place. Their voices shout to us from the silence, and you! You hear
nothing
!”

“I
hear
enough.” Drakis swallowed hard. “Leave me alone, Braun!”

“It isn't what is
here
, Drakis; it's what
isn't
here that you need to see!” Braun swept past Drakis to the window. “Here on this shelf were the wares of this shop: baked goods, breads, meats—can you smell them still in the air? There . . . there in the archway that we came through, there is
no door
. There have been no doors in
any
of the openings or halls through which we have come in the three days we have been wandering down here in our graves. By all accounts, the dwarves love their gems and their precious metals and their stonework—we are told they are all even more covetous of such things than our righteous elven masters. Why, then, are there
no doors
between the dwarves?”

“What difference does it . . .”

“And this room,” the Proxi continued. “The floor is cleaner than any plate I've ever eaten from in the Centurai barracks of our great Lord Timuran. No dust. No dirt. But where are the chairs? Where are the tables? There are images of them carved into the wall facing the archway, but there's not a stick of either to be found inside. Look, Drakis!
See!
There are hooks in the ceiling above the counter, but where are the pots, the pans, the kettles, or the spoons? Where are the
tools
? Where are the kegs and the stores of grain or tubers or roots or whatever the dwarves fed upon?”

“Stop it, Braun! I don't care . . .”

The Proxi turned again to face Drakis. “Where are the children who squealed through the streets with joy, Drakis? Where are the women who breathed life into this place? Where are the gray-bearded elder dwarves with their frail bodies and their wisdom aged like fine wine?”

“I don't . . . I don't know!” Drakis answered.

“No, you
don't
,” Braun said, stepping toward him with a strange twisted smile on his face. “
You
don't know . . .
I
don't know . . . but at least I'm beginning to understand just how
much
I don't know!”

Drakis reached behind him, feeling for the archway as he carefully backed away from the wild-eyed Proxi.

“It's all unraveling, Drakis,” Braun said softly. His tongue flicked to the corner of his mouth, drawing in the spittle that had formed there. “Here in the darkness I can
see
. . . here in these rooms that are so like you and me. Perhaps it is the distance from the Aether Well of House Timuran, perhaps it is the three days we have gone without renewing our Devotions. Maybe it has something to do with being so deep beneath the mountain of the dwarves. I don't know, but whatever it is, the cords, soft and silken as they have been, are unraveling from my mind, and I am beginning to
see
the picture of truth at last.”

Drakis felt the edge of the archway with his left hand and carefully stepped back into it, His right hand slowly reached across his body almost without conscious thought, his palm resting on the hilt of his sword. “Braun, we're warriors . . . Impress Warriors of House Timuran . . .”

“No, Drakis, you're wrong,” Braun breathed through clenched teeth. He would not stop advancing. “Who are you, Drakis? Why do you fight so well? What makes you so determined to live?”

“I fight . . .” Drakis swallowed, taking another step back through the archway. “I fight for the glory of Rhonas, for her Emperor, and for the glory of House Timuran!”

“Pretty speech, hollow words,” Braun spoke, his words dripping disdain. “You dance like a marionette and vomit out the words spoken by others behind the curtain. I've
seen
what's back there. You take a peek at the truth and tell me. It's just us here . . . you and me buried in our crypt, and there should be no lies between the dead. You know the answer! Tell me!”

Drakis' breath was coming hard.

“Tell me!”

He suddenly thought of Mala—his beautiful Mala working in the foundations of the magnificent palace of Sha-Timuran. Her image floated before him in his mind; she reached up with her hand to wipe the sweat from her clean-shaven head before she returned to scrubbing the path stones beneath the graceful towers of their master's citadel that floated above the garden. He could almost catch the glint of her emerald eyes, feel the curve of her cheek in his hand. He had to return to her—for her and with the honor that they both so desperately needed. She was unaware of the danger he was in—that his life could end at any moment—and the thought of her not knowing comforted him.

He could almost hear her humming to herself as she worked in the garden . . .

Braun was smiling at him. “So you
do
know something honest after all! Tell me!”

Drakis gripped his sword, pulling it from the scabbard.

Braun anticipated the move. The Proxi
's
staff lashed out suddenly, gripped with both his hands. The shaft caught Drakis just behind the knees, cleanly sweeping both his feet out from under him. The warrior landed heavily on his back, the breath knocked from his chest. As he sucked in a painful gasp, the light from the headpiece carved a brilliant, blurred arc over him, and he felt the cold steel point of the staff against his throat. He fought for air, trying to speak, but the sound would not come.

Braun leaned down, his head and shoulders silhouetted against the light from the Aether crystal on his staff.

“We're empty rooms, Drakis, all of us,” Braun said in short breaths. “Nothing but the form of what our masters have molded us to be. But I've
seen
the reality of who and what we are. The walls have cracks, and the light shines through. The cords that bind us unravel, and we see at last that our rooms are
not
empty but filled with ghosts, Drakis—ghosts and demons more terrible and wonderful than we know.”

Drakis reached up with both hands, gripping the staff at his throat. “Braun! Stop!”

“I can't stop now,” Braun answered, shaking his head with an unnatural smile. “You've got to see the ghosts! They're waiting for us both—calling to us—longing to take us to a better destiny.”

Braun looked up. The roof of the avenue was a great arched ceiling barely visible beyond the light from the staff.

“The ghosts come in the darkness,” Braun giggled. “Some things are seen better in the dark . . . some things are
easier
in the dark . . .”

The glow from the staff began to fade. The impenetrable darkness slowly closed in on them again as the light shrank.

“Soon your soul will be open at last,” Braun nodded, the features of his face vanishing into a vague shape as the light receded. “The ghosts will spill from you and you will
see
the vision.”

Darkness enveloped them.

“You will
hear the song!”

Stars appeared.

Impossibly, above him in the pitch blackness two-thirds of a league below the mountain, the night sky filled his vision.

The stars shifted as he watched in slack-jawed wonder.

He felt as though he were falling up toward them.

Faces started forming among the stars. Faces he had forgotten. Faces he once knew.

Ghosts.

Drakis screamed.

“Drakis! Are you injured?”

Drakis opened his eyes to see the faces of his Octian, lit by a single globe-torch, staring down at him.

The human warrior sat up on the stones of the avenue and drew in a painful breath. “No, Captain ChuKang. I can fight.”

The manticore stood up, pulling Drakis to his feet as he did. “We thought we had lost you,
hoo-mani
. There was a reserve of dwarven warriors waiting here when we came through the fold. I think they were more surprised to see us than we were to see them.”

KriChan chuckled darkly. “They ran, but not fast enough.”

“It was a blessing from the gods,” ChuKang continued. “Chasing them down showed us the way to the causeway.”

“At least we thought it was a blessing,” Megri chimed in. The goblin was grinning as he picked at his fingernails with the point of his dagger, “until we realized the Proxi had gone missing.”

Drakis turned. Braun stood nearby, still smiling at him with the same strange grin.

“The Centurai is assembled up ahead,” KriChan said. “Are you ready to go?”

Drakis shuddered.

“More than ready.”

T
HE TIMURAN CENTURAI had lost nearly a third of their number by the time they emerged from the dwarven avenue. Regrouped and organized, their well-ordered phalanx emerged shoulder to shoulder onto a courtyard that was completely engulfed in hot, steaming mists.

Their carefully ordered and classic formation suited the plans of the Ninth Throne Death-dealer Dwarves well—who waited for the Centurai to emerge from the avenue and then set upon them from both sides simultaneously. Hot, wet mists swirled in utter blackness around them, illuminated by the frequent, diffused flashes of blue and red in the distance, each flash painting silhouettes of slaughter in the mists. In the confusion of the vapor, the carefully ordered Centurai collapsus again into frantic and desperate fights with an enemy who kept appearing out of nowhere and vanishing just as quickly as they came.

Drakis adjusted his grip and pushed his way into the battle once again. He needed to bring order to his Octian. If he could rally them, then he might use them to bring order to other Octia in the Centurai, but that couldn't happen until he could
find
his own brother warriors. He was blind in the thick vapors around him.

He waded into the milky conflict, killing before being killed and struggling to keep his footing on the blood-slick stones.

“There is a place that calls my soul home.” Unbidden, Drakis' lips began to move with each blow of his sword, and through his chattering teeth he began hesitantly to sing. “North far beyond horizons . . .”

He cut his sword deep across the gut of the dwarf before him.