‘What’s its nature now that the dragon and Dev are gone?’ Kheda asked her. He looked at Risala. ‘Is it talisman beyond measure or curse beyond bearing?’ Both women shrugged helplessly.
Kheda frowned. ‘That wizard who led the invaders last year, he was wearing a dragonhide cloak, don’t you remember?’
‘The one Dev killed,’ Risala interrupted him. ‘I remember.’
‘So those savages, without blades or even clothes, do you suppose they know how to kill a dragon?’ Kheda wondered.
‘Where is Dev?’ Velindre rounded on Kheda.
A chill ran through him despite the hot sun beating down. ‘He was burned, in the cave,’ he began incoherently.
‘And you left him?’ Velindre shot the warlord a furious glare before hurrying towards the frail bridge. Kheda shouted after her. ‘He’s dead. He must be.’
His words echoed back from the cliff face. Velindre halted, looked at him and then continued on her path.
‘Come on.’ Risala looked at Kheda. ‘We owe him that much.’
Finding himself at a loss for words, Kheda followed her.
They caught up with Velindre at the entrance to the tunnel into the crag. She looked at them angrily. ‘I can’t even summon some magelight, not with all my power tied up in that dragon.’
‘Wait.’ Kheda looked around and spotted a tandra tree clinging to a rocky cleft a little way upstream. He drew his dagger and climbed up the rounded stones to cut a stubby branch and a plump seedpod. It was the work of a few moments to drive a slit into the soft wood and wedge in the black oily seeds along with the silky white fibres that had cocooned them.
‘Spark-maker?’ Risala proffered one and Kheda snapped the steel wheel with his thumb. The tandra fluff flared and the seeds sizzled, burning with an aromatic greenish flame.
He realised that the two women were looking at him. ‘Let’s go.’ Holding the torch carefully before him, he led the way into the blackness.
They halted in unspoken apprehension where the tunnel opened on to the vast cavern. The light of the torch reached out into the darkness and struck a myriad sparks from the dull stone walls. ‘Jewels.’ Risala picked at a diamond glint. ‘Buried in the rock.’
If I hadn’t managed to hide, they’d have cut me to pieces. ‘Resources to help rebuild Chazen,’ commented Velindre dourly. ‘They’re yours if you want them.’
‘Leave them,’ said Kheda abruptly. ‘Remember what Dev said about jewels tainted with ill luck and enchantment.’
Never underestimate the wisdom of a dying man’s words. ‘You can’t leave them here.’ Risala retreated from the glittering wall. ‘Some fool will come and dig them out.’
‘Is this Dev?’ Velindre had advanced across the cave floor and was looking down at a hairless blackened body, flesh shrunk to a semblance of charred leather. The wizened head gaped in a silent scream, clenched fists drawn up as if the corpse still sought to fight the hideous death visited upon it.
Kheda approached, glad of the tandra seeds’ aromatic smoke wafting around to mask the stench of death. ‘This was the wild man who was here.’ He raised the torch and looked across the cave. ‘He was tending that, I suppose. Dev said it was an egg.’
‘An egg?’ Risala echoed, disbelieving. The great ruby was still there on its bed of jewels. It was dull and blackened, its surface opaque with a dull haze of cracks. The sapphires and emeralds around it had been reduced to no more than glistening dust. Glistening dust mingled with pale-grey ash. That must be all that’s left of him.
‘Dev brought down some fire of his own on it.’ Kheda struggled to explain. ‘He killed the magic within it but the fire burned him, too.’
‘Fire is the ultimate purification,’ Risala murmured as she bent to retrieve Kheda’s fallen sword from the floor.
Does that mean the taint of Dev’s presence is lifted from Chazen, all that he did, all that he was? Velindre walked slowly over to the lifeless dragon’s egg. She crouched down and laid a hand on it. Kheda shivered at the recollection of Dev doing almost exactly the same thing.
‘I want this,’ the magewoman said softly. ‘You promised me payment for my services to you. I want this.’ No!’ Kheda’s rejection echoed harshly round the cavern.
‘You can give it to me or I will take it.’ Velindre stood up in one fluid movement. ‘My magic will return and I won’t be accepting any food or drink from your hands till it does,’ she added with a harsh smile. ‘I want this and I have earned it. We’ve earned it, Dev and me. What stain would that leave on your future, Chazen Kheda, to dishonour our bargain like that? When he has died in your service, wizard or not?’ Remember it’s not only dying words that hold wisdom but chance truths spoken from the most unlikely sources.
‘Why?’ Kheda cleared his throat. ‘Why do you want it?’
‘That really doesn’t concern you,’ Velindre said softly, looking down at the lifeless egg. She glanced back at Kheda and the torchlight reflected in her dark eyes. ‘Here’s something for you to think about. You want to show all the people of your domain that the dragon is truly dead. That’s all well and good as long as they don’t ask too many awkward questions about how it died. How will you answer those? Can you offer any other explanation besides the cloud dragon killing it? What then? Everyone will be as terrified as before, or more so. And your rule will have been cursed by two dragons, not just one. Believe me—I can make sure that everyone sees this new calamity flying above your islands.’ She smiled eerily in the flickering light. ‘Or you can tell everyone honestly that this new dragon slew the old beast. Then you can bring everyone to see you kill that foul and dangerous creature yourself. You would never have killed that true dragon with your feeble steel but I can give you more than a fighting chance against the dying simulacrum. Wouldn’t that be purification enough for you? What wouldn’t such a mighty deed do for your rule over this domain, Chazen Kheda? Give me this egg and I will give you that dragon.’
Chapter Twenty-One
Word spread like wildfire, didn’t it?’ Kheda looked across the clouded waters of the bay, stirred by the passage of countless ships.
‘Despite the rains.’ Risala stood with him on the stern deck of the Gossamer Shark, fingering her necklaces.
The trireme was drawn up on a beach almost entirely hidden by shelters hastily improvised from palm fronds and tents deftly rigged from sailcloth and spare oars. Fire pits smoked damply in the humid air. Most had already been quenched to black scars on the mottled sand. The multitude who’d slept and eaten ashore were gathered in earnest conversation or stood in silent groups considering the undulating green hills indistinct in the dense mist rising from the sodden trees. The sky above was an unrelieved pale grey.
‘It doesn’t seem to worry them that it wasn’t this dragon that sank the Mist Dove,’ Kheda said softly. ‘Most of the islanders never even saw the fire dragon. Some of them never even saw hide or hair of the savages. They all want to share in this, though.’
‘They all want to play their part in ridding Chazen of this evil.’ Risala studied the crowded shore. ‘This is their chance to fight at long last instead of running and hiding. It’s something for their children, for their future.’
‘Something to expiate whatever wrong choices or steps in the past led Chazen to this plight.’ Kheda nodded. ‘Something to still the dubious whispers and snide speculations behind Redigal hands or Aedis sails,’ he added more prosaically. ‘Let’s hope so, anyway.’ Away from the shore, fast and heavy triremes alike were anchored in disciplined lines while fishing skiffs clustered in haphazard companionship around the fat-bellied merchant galleys. Flat-bottomed boats toiled through the gaps, outstripped by lithe dispatch boats stirring up spray with dashing oars. Voices shouted questions and ‘instructions, answers and agreement ringing with common purpose. ‘It helps that the dragon chose to lair as near to the centre of the domain as makes no difference,’ Risala commented.