“I’ve seen this look upon your face before. Something troubles you, Brother.”
Albekizan looked away from the torch into the shadows. His eyes adjusted to make out Blasphet’s dark form.
“I told you to leave,” Albekizan said.
“So you did. Yet, I remain.”
“I was just thinking how useful it might be to throttle one of my advisors. It would keep the others in line. You tempt fate by taunting me.”
“You’ll not find my neck so easy to throttle, I fear,” said Blasphet. “Today I have coated my claws with a most efficient poison. One scratch and you’d be dead within a heartbeat.”
“You threaten me?”
“No. When I decide it is time for you to die, you will die, but today is not that day. Not if you give me the correct answer to a most urgent question.”
“I know your question,” Albekizan said. “Bitterwood’s capture changes nothing. You may continue your work in the Free City.”
“It feels hollow, doesn’t it?” Blasphet asked, approaching.
“What do you mean?”
“It looks as if you haven’t eaten or slept in days. I deduce you lost both your appetite and your restfulness when you learned he’d been captured.”
“I care nothing for your speculations,” Albekizan said.
“I will make them anyway. I believe you are feeling a disappointment I’m long familiar with: the hollowness of death. How can you hurt Bitterwood now that you have him? Death will only take him from your grasp. You want him dead, and you want him to suffer, and the two are mutually incompatible.” Blasphet shook his head as if saddened by the poor options. “What shall it be, Brother? Torment or dissolution? The ache of knowing he still lives, or the frustration of knowing he no longer suffers?”
“You… may be right,” Albekizan said. “You surprise me with your wisdom. So, tell me, what is the answer? How do I hurt him even beyond death?”
“I don’t know,” Blasphet said. “Even if I did, why would I choose to end your agony? One reason you still live is that I enjoy your suffering.”
Albekizan felt, not for the first time, an admiration for the cold, twisted mind of his sibling. Suffering or death: he framed the problem so eloquently. If only there were some way to have both…
Albekizan chuckled. Suddenly, the solution was obvious.
“Have I amused you?” Blasphet asked.
“You’ve inspired me, my brother,” Albekizan said feeling fire return to his limbs. “You’ve inspired me indeed.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: REFLECTIONS
Jandra hadn’t known what to expect from the Free City, but she certainly didn’t expected this. Thousands of freshly built houses in neat, orderly rows, were furnished sparsely but adequately. The homes were modest by the standards of the dwellings she’d lived in among the dragons, but they were far better than the hovels that used to surround the palace. The city also smelled better than any human dwelling she’d ever visited; Richmond always stank of fish guts and dung. The Free City had the pleasant aroma of sawdust and new paint. There were even freshly planted flowers blooming in window boxes.
Jandra had anticipated cruel guards and chains for everyone inside. She expected at least more of the starvation and thirst of the long march here. Instead, there were banquet halls, where meals were served three times a day in heaps of roasted meats and fresh vegetables, and gallon upon gallon of fresh, clean water. At first she’d worried that the food was poisoned… but after seeing other people digging in, her hunger had overcome her caution.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the Free City was that Jandra felt very much at home. She’d lived her life in a castle built to accommodate sun-dragons. She was used to tables twice her height. At mealtimes, she was often confronted with dinner platters as long as she was. A dragon’s cup was a bucket to her. In the libraries, she sometimes encountered books so large and heavy she couldn’t lift them from the shelves. She had simply never fit into the dragons’ world. The Free City was being built by humans for humans. There was something cozy about being able to climb a flight of stairs simply by stepping up, rather than actually climbing.
The nearly empty streets of the Free City, with no guards in sight, offered a surprising refuge for Jandra. She could wander among the alleyways for hours, trying to make sense of the events of the recent days, attempting to divine some truth from them that would give her guidance.
Foremost in her mind was Vendevorex and his lie. She wasn’t surprised that he’d been able to keep the truth hidden all these years. Other dragons feared Vendevorex. Who among them would have cared enough about her to tell her the truth at the risk of the wizard’s wrath? She could see him more clearly now that she was distant from him. He was a cold, cruel manipulator who acted only to increase his power and wealth, never for any noble purpose.
Even his seeming kindness toward her had a selfish origin; Vendevorex wanted to assuage his own guilt. Caring for her had been his path to a clean conscience.
So why did she miss him so? Why, the more her mind argued all the reasons she should hate him, did she feel only longing? Had she made a mistake by leaving him?
No, she thought. He killed my parents. This is the central fact. He admitted it. I will hate him until I die.
Her longing for her mentor’s company was amplified by her lack of human companionship. In the midst of the thousands of humans already at the Free City, she found no kindred spirits. Bitterwood was closed to her. He wasn’t hostile, but he was distant, as if he were still struggling with his own internal demons. Zeeky was too young to truly be called a friend, though she spent more time with her than with anyone else. And the villagers… the villagers were incomprehensible. They seemed completely in the thrall of the prophet Kamon who had convinced them that their passage to the Free City was foretold by his visions.
Jandra knew the Free City was meant to kill them, but doubted she could convince anyone of this. She’d never persuade people the dragons were the enemy while all the residents of the Free City slept with full stomachs on clean linens. The humans were more a threat to themselves than the dragons were, as the only violence she had seen since arriving in the city was a brawl between the followers of the prophet Kamon and the followers of a rival prophet named Ragnar, whom she had yet to meet.
At last, she had walked the streets until she was weary enough to sleep, no matter how troubled her thoughts. With a sigh she returned to the small house she shared with Zeeky. Perhaps in the morning her mind would be clearer.
Androkom wearily glanced over his shoulder once more. No one followed, though the spiky fringe of scales on his neck still tingled with the sensation that he was being watched. The sky was crystal clear; if anyone was behind him, he would certainly have seen him.
“You’re paranoid,” he said to himself.
Maybe, he thought. But I still think I’m being followed.
At length, thirst crept into his awareness, overpowering his caution. He was only hours away from Albekizan’s palace but could go no further. He needed water, a good meal, and a long nap.
In the distance a fat river gleamed like a band of silver. He spied a small, tree-covered island in the middle of the waters and knew this would be the perfect spot to rest. No one could sneak up on him there. Besides, who would want to? Only Metron and his fellow biologians knew of his journey. Certainly none of them would have set pursuers after him, would they?