The secret he’d been entrusted was now all he had. Reaching inside his layers of tunics, he fished out a leather sack heavy and bulging as if it housed an apple made of metal. As he opened it he did catch the glint of gold, but one that flashed scarlet after a moment. He poured the object into his right hand, then cupped his left beneath it, too.
Fortress Draconis had once housed three fragments of the DragonCrown Yrulph Kirun had fashioned centuries before. After his defeat the Crown had been broken apart and the pieces scattered. The Draconis Baron had asked Kerrigan to fashion a decoy for the ruby fragment, then had given the true fragment to him, to let him carry it away during the evacuation.
The ruby set in gold glowed with a rich red light that slowly pulsed. The young magicker had once held another DragonCrown fragment, but it had remained lifeless and cold to his touch. This one had warmed while in his possession and as he brushed fingertips over it, the glow intensified where flesh touched stone.
Kerrigan had not noticed the light in the stone when he was at Fortress Draconis; he would have told the Draconis Baron if he had. It had first appeared on retreat from the fortress and had grown steadily since. He didn’t know what it was, or why it was happening.
He probably should have been frightened, but he wasn’t.
The ruby’s glow suffused the tight, dark space beneath the blanket. Kerrigan studied it and it slowly pulsed. He could feel some warmth in his fingers—at least he thought he could—so he brought the gem closer to his face, to see if he could feel heat there.
He did, a little, but then the glow stopped pulsing and instead expanded into a scarlet tunnel that drew him in. Quick panic rose in him, throbbing through his stomach. A tingle ran over his body—the same sensation that prickles the hair at the nape of the neck when being watched unseen. Kerrigan tried to pull his head back, push his hands down, but found his body locked in a rictus as hard as the magickal armor that would rise through his flesh to protect him.
You are but a boy.
The words came softly, whispered and insubstantial, yet seeming to pierce the red haze that denned his world. He had no sense of his body, and yet no sense of freedom. It was as if his entire being drifted amorphously behind the point of his vision. He wanted to turn and look, to see if he could find whoever it was that spoke to him, but he couldn’t.
There is nothing to see, boy, because you are within.
Two things came to Kerrigan immediately. First, he knew that whoever was speaking was reading his thoughts. He tried to shield them, but even the most rudimentary protection was knocked aside like a dry leaf before a gust of wind.
The second thing would have set him to trembling except that his body could not move. The words filled his mind like the swell of a wave, but they were but the foam at the crest: translated, distilled, strained, and predigested so he could grasp them. Beneath surged unprecedented power.
A million questions raced through his mind. Though he could make no sense of the chaos, the speaker—a female, of this he was certain—sorted through them as if they were a handful of coins. Trickles of something that might be amusement caressed him. He sought to concentrate.
More amusement met this effort. You are quite learned, boy, but not yet wise. You are a child in your father’s clothing, playing at being a man.
The words—“boy,” “child,” “father,” and “man”—rolled around in Kerrigan’s mind. They had some of the nuances conferred on them by common convention, but there was more as well. He would have expected a sharper contrast between boy and man, yet both came tainted with a sense of youth, even infancy. Father and child should have possessed a greater affinity for each other, but instead there was a dislocation. It was as if father was used to acknowledge a biological connection with child, but hinted at none of the nurturing and education a parent would provide.
Kerrigan again focused. Who are you?
Mirth came full, but carried with it a whiplash sting. Names have power, as well you know. But names have no power now, for us. We are players being played. Pawns. Our destinies intersect and spin away, then curl back again to fuse or destroy.
He less heard the words than got a sense of soaring, wheeling, looping, and diving, as a bird might, riding the buffeting winds above a cliff. The sensation initially left him feeling light and quick, then, at the last, hit hard and he spun out of control.
A gentle presence caressed his mind and peace returned. Forgive me, boy, for I have long been without company and have forgotten my strength.
Kerrigan shivered. I’m not a boy. And not a pawn.
No pawn ever sees himself as a pawn.
Who controls me?
‘Tis not so simple a game, Kerriganreese. Many play, many exert control. Ours is not to resist, but to know when we are being controlled. We cannot determine where we will fall, but perhaps how we will fall.
Confusion ripped through his mind. He had grown up with cryptic remarks galore on Vilwan; such was the way of wizards. He had always assumed these things were largely bluff, but here he was reading ripples on the surface of a deep ocean. While he wanted to know more, he also knew he’d drown.
Perhaps wiser after all. The words warmed him. You know much must be done. You cannot do it alone. You are stronger than even you think, but your strength comes from your friends. Forget this, and the world will suffer.
The sting came swift and brutal, stabbing deep into his belly. The paralysis released him. His body snapped forward and he rolled onto his left side, clutching the DragonCrown fragment to his belly. The flesh quivered and he tried to pull himself more tightly into a ball, but his girth prevented it. The agony in his middle cast lightning into the rest of him, but after a moment it evaporated, leaving him sweaty and cold.
As cold as the stone in his hands.
Kerrigan cast the blanket off and gulped down cooler air. He rolled onto his back and lay there gasping. He stared up at the shifting shadows and streaks of light cast up through the ill-fitting floorboards. Sweat stung his eyes, and he swiped at it with his hand before returning the fragment to the leather bag and tucking it back inside his shirt.
He had no idea what had just happened to him—no concrete idea, though he did have fragments. A mind had touched his. He knew it wasn’t Chytrine, since she would have scourged him. This mind bore him no malice. The pain he’d known at the end had come because this mind’s use of the word “suffer” carried with it far more import than the human word.
The word resurfaced in his mind and he saw it in fine script, as if a mask behind which something hid. The way the Oriosan King hides his cowardice behind a mask. In this case, however, the word covered something more terrible. It concealed a horror so overwhelming that were it to be unmasked it would shatter his mind.
Logic suggested that he had been speaking with a dragon. After all, the DragonCrown had been fashioned to make them subject to the owner. The one gem that Chytrine possessed gave her control over at least one dragon. Had he touched the mind of an enslaved dragon?
Kerrigan shifted his shoulders and sat upright. That doesn’t matter. Whether it was an enslaved dragon or some trick Chytrine had played upon him was immaterial. The suffering that mind knew would become a daily occurrence if Chytrine won.
The young magicker shook his head. With the help of his friends, he was determined this would never happen.
4
With his arms flailing unsuccessfully to control his flight, the Tolsin guardsman landed hard on the round wooden table, shattering it completely. The short drop to the ground forced a grunt from him and caused his tin-pot helmet to bounce off. It clunked and danced across the floor, striking Call Mably full in the knee, which was, for Alexia, a consequence unintended but hardly unwelcomed.