Golden Daughter (52 page)

But instead of Jovann, a girl stepped through the door and into the gray half-light of the Dream. And the young dragon recognized her at once. In a voice suddenly chilled he breathed, “Angel!”

He felt the ring on his finger as though it were made of red-hot iron. He had almost forgotten it. He
had
forgotten it. But he recalled it now with startling pain. In that moment he realized that his heart was not entirely lost after all.

Lady Hariawan stood above the courtyard. She wore the leper’s rags in which she had been captured. These could not mar the perfection of her slender form, nor could her long black hair veil the beauty of her face, her neck. But the courtyard, full to brimming with ranks of Chhayan warriors standing in formation, shuddered with horror rather than longing. For all eyes except those of the young dragon fixed upon the mark on her cheek. The mark of the Dragon’s hand.

She looked out upon them, her eyes empty save for a faint trace of mockery. She was unafraid, though she knew—or at least suspected—what they would do to her.

Jovann stepped out behind her, and he stood numb upon that step. He too showed no trace of fear, for his surprise far outmatched his fear and masked his face. He recognized all of those before him, men of the Khla clan with whom he had lived and survived all his life. But though their faces were familiar, they were strangely unfamiliar as well. For the first time, Jovann gazed upon men of the Tiger and saw his enemies.

He spied his brother standing before the others on the first step below. He saw the helmet of Juong-Khla upon his head, and he felt a sob well in his throat. “Sunan!” he said, and though he did not speak loudly his voice filled the air, rising even above the pulsing chant of the priests. “Where is our father?”

Dragging his gaze from Lady Hariawan only with an unwilling effort, the young dragon turned to his brother. In a flash the memory of the ring on his hand vanished and all his hatred returned. “Our father is dead, Jovann,” he said. “I am Sunan-Khla, the Tiger Master.”

“You were not our father’s heir,” Jovann said. “Stand down. Call off these men and let this lady go. Then you and I will settle the inheritance by right of combat as befits men of the Tiger.”

It was a vain command, and well Jovann knew it. The faces of the Khla men were as stone before him. They would never accept him. Not now.

The young dragon took another step up, and Jovann saw the flames in his eyes. He did not yet know what it meant, but his heart—far away in another world—quailed in his breast. “I am Khla,” said his brother. “You are nothing. Nothing but the dreamer. The slave. You have lost your inheritance, and soon you will lose your life. But not before you lose your soul.”

No eye could have spotted which of the brothers moved first, for the next instant both were flying at each other—Jovann leaping down the stairs with the speed of lightning, the young dragon rising up to meet him with fire spilling from his mouth. The fire overwhelmed Jovann, but he walked in spirit, not in body, and it could not hurt him. He threw himself through it and into his brother, and both of them, grappling together, fell back down the temple stairs. Jovann struck at the dragon’s face, and the dragon clawed at his eyes.

Never before had Jovann felt such power here in the Dream. He realized now, as he never had before, that he was not limited to physical strength. Here he could be what he imagined, and so his fists became rocks of granite with which he pounded the face of his brother. But the young dragon transformed beneath him, scales plating his skin, teeth jutting up from his jaw. Soon he no longer wore the form of a man but was a dragon indeed, his wings beating the air around them. Still Jovann did not let up his assault, but struck at his brother with all the force of his pent-up frustration, all the fury at his enslavement, all the vengeance of a son whose father has been slain.

The battle might have waged for generations of mortal men. But instead, a voice that filled the whole of the sky above, the whole of the ground beneath the mist, shaking the walls of Ay-Ibunda down to their foundations, said: “Cease this childish brawling, you dog’s sons!”

Jovann and his brother raised their furious eyes up to the temple door where Lady Hariawan waited. Behind her stood the Dragon, his hands upon her shoulders, his long talons sinking into her skin so that blood ran in thin, scarlet rivulets down her breast and arms.

Jovann immediately let go his hold on the young dragon’s armored throat. “Don’t hurt her!” he cried. And the young dragon’s voice spoke in exact echo of his own, “Don’t hurt her!”

The Dragon smiled and did not loosen his grip. “Come here, Dream Walker,” he said to Jovann. “Come here and stand before me.”

Jovann obeyed. His form had lost its strength of substance, and flowed up the stairs, small and weak before the Greater Dark. “Please,” he whispered again, “don’t hurt her.”

The Dragon ignored him. He addressed himself to his child, the young dragon panting on the lower steps. “The time has come, Sunan-Khla,” he said. “The time has come for you to take the revenge your people crave. Lead the Khla men. Lead all the Chhayan tribes. Set upon the gates of your usurper’s palace with fire, and let no Kitar life be spared.”

As though their tongues had been released from some wicked spell, the formations of Khla warriors set up a shout that drowned out the chanting voices of their priests. The young dragon did not shout with them. He stared at the girl held in the grip of such foul evil, his own Dark Father. He could not speak. He could not shout. He could not even issue a command.

He spun about, his sinuous dragon form coiling like an enormous snake, and took to the air. He flew from Ay-Ibunda, and all the Tiger army followed after him, marching through the temple gate and onto paths too dreadful for mortal minds to fathom.

The Dragon smiled to watch them go. Then he turned that smile upon Lady Hariawan and Jovann. “Come,” he said. “We must attend to business of our own.”

Sairu heard the first screech followed by a thunderous rumble so distantly that at first she did not recognize it for what it was. She stood on the edge of the braziers’ light, her gaze fixed upon the figure standing in the center, and she had no thought for anything but him, for somehow making her voice, her spirit, reach out to him, calling him back from whatever strange realm he wandered.

But the gathered priests heard the sound. Those outside the circle shifted and looked at one another, then each turned his gaze to the Besur, as a child turns to its father. The Besur himself, however, after casting an unsettled glance back over his shoulder, focused again on the center of the circle.

Another screech. Another rumble. Now even some of the ten priests forming the chant stumbled over their words. It was only a brief falter, but it was enough. Like a crack in a pane of glass the break spread, shattering the controlled meditation. “No!” the Besur growled. “No, don’t stop!”

It was no use. One by one the priests shook their heads and bowed back, stepping into the darkness behind the braziers. Now Jovann stood alone. He could not maintain the dream-walk without the support of the brothers. He would return. At any moment his spirit would rush back to his body.

“Jovann!” Sairu did not realize how loud her voice was, not even when the priests on either side of her jumped and cried out in alarm. She leapt forward, springing between two of the braziers, and flew to Jovann’s side. He stood upright, his face raised to the sky high above, his mouth moving in steady rhythm to a chant she could not hear.

But his body was fading. She could see right through his upraised hands, right through his shoulders, his neck.

“Monster!” she cried, turning about and searching for the cat in the shadows. “Monster, what is happening?”

The cat trotted into the circle, sniffing at Jovann’s boots, which were also fading now, whirling away like smoke on the wind. “He’s leaving this world,” the cat said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. His body is fading from the Near World. He’s being taken away by some . . . some force . . . I—” The cat cursed then, his lips drawn back in a hiss. “The Dragon!”

“I don’t believe in dragons,” Sairu whispered, staring into Jovann’s face, which she could scarcely see now. She put out her hand, tried to reach him, tried to touch his cheek.

But he was gone.

The air ripped with another screech, and the thunder this time was much nearer. She heard it this time, recognizing the same sound she had heard as prelude to the destruction in Lembu Rana. She realized then that the assault had begun. Without warning, without preamble, the Long Fire was being flung at the walls of Manusbau and the Crown of the Moon.

Sairu spun on heel and ran out, passing between the shivering priests. The cat hastened at her heels, and they burst through the doors of Hulan’s Throne and looked out across the temple grounds. She saw fire. She saw shooting flame whirling up through the night sky. She smelled, even from that distance, the rotting-eggs odor. Men were shouting, screaming, and by the light of fires ignited by those small explosions she saw the shadows of armored men running to defense.

“Monster,” she said, turning to the cat, “I know how to find my Lady Hariawan. I know how to reach her. Will you follow me?”

The cat, his eyes like two bright moons on his face, stared up at her. He did not know what she had in mind, could not guess at the workings of her brain. Fear of the Dragon was in his heart. But he answered, “I will follow you. I will protect you.”

“Then come,” said Sairu, and she sprang down the steps and into the darkness of the temple grounds. More shrieks tore the air, like the ghosts of the dead returned for retribution.

The Moon in her gardens above the worlds sits upon her throne and watches the coming of fire. She feels her children all around her, and they sing on, oblivious, even as their voices form the very prophecies of their doom. She sings as well, but there is a new thread to her intricately woven song, a new counterpoint added to the pattern of the whole.

She sings a song of sorrow closing in. And her children turn to her in surprise. One child, Cé Imral, who dances near to her, steps forward. “Mother,” he asks, “what is this new Song? I do not know it.” And he shivers as he speaks, for he does not like the sound of his Mother’s voice forming the strange harmonies.

The Moon turns to him sadly and touches his face, all the love of her being in that touch. “My child,” she says, “it is not a Song for you to sing. This is my Song for you.”

Then she looks again out through her Gate, out into the worlds. Into the Dream. And she sees that which approaches.

A procession of phantoms marched, chanting as they went. Over their shoulders were great chains attached to an enormous rolling dray. It was six meters long and two meters wide, supported on massive wheels that were each twice as tall as a grown man. It was built of neither wood nor stone, nor of metal, nor of any other material to be found in the mortal realm. No indeed, for it was built of the dreams of those who pulled it. Their dreams had grown strong and dreadful over the years. They themselves had lost much of their substance and become little more than shadows, save for their ongoing chants. But they were strong in their dreams. And so they did not struggle to create this massive vehicle.

But they struggled to pull it. For while the dray itself was built of their dreams, that which it contained was more solid, more real, than any one of them.

It is rumored among mortals and immortals alike that hidden in the Netherworld, down below the deepest layers of the Dream, the Dragon has buried a mighty hoard. Poets and tellers of tales have spun many a legend depicting the gleaming, stolen riches of this hoard: king’s crowns still worn upon severed heads, magic rings bitten from hands, rubies formed from the spilled blood of maidens, sapphires formed from widows’ tears. These and many more are said to mound in disorderly grandeur, heaping from chests, spilling from alabaster jars, littered here and there with the charred bones of heroes who have attempted to reclaim their kingdoms’ treasures.

But none of these things are spoken of with as much awe as the treasure which was the very first in the Dragon’s collection. This, it was said, was a heart of shining gold. Not gold formed into a heart, which is a different thing entirely. No, but a heart that was itself gold, the purest, most valuable element. This heart was cradled safely in an ebony box lined with blood-red satin. Some have said that it was the heart of a Faerie queen who was taken by the Dragon’s kiss and formed into the first of his ugly brood. The story says that he took her beating heart in his hand and pulled it from her breast, filling the opening left behind with his flame so that she took on dragon-shape.

But this story is false. The Dragon’s hoard was begun long before he formed children in his likeness. So the heart, hidden away in its caverns many ages before, must have belonged to someone else.

Long ago a wise man, Akilun by name, taught that this same heart once beat in the Dragon’s own breast; that before Time began there was an age when the Dragon was not fire-filled but full of love and song. But if this story is true, it is a truth so long forgotten as to be little different from a falsehood.

However it was, the Dragon took the golden heart—his oldest and most glorious treasure—from its box and, without a thought or a care, melted it down along with hundreds of other treasures. Then, plunging his hands into the melted gold, which seared up his arms and gave him awful pleasure, he shaped it. He molded it. He formed the Gold Gong, pounding with brutal hammers until its surface was smooth and shining like the face of Lumé himself. And when this was done, he scored that gleaming surface with his claws, scratching words in a language of fire and destruction.

This task complete, the Dragon stepped back and surveyed his handiwork. “May you ring out loud and long, O brilliant heart of mine,” he said. “And may your voice herald the fire I bring!”

And now the gong stood in the bed of the giant dream-wrought dray, suspended between two pillars, swaying and humming gently in the motion of its passage. The phantom priests strained with all their might, progressing one achingly slow footstep at a time. But Time did not matter here. Behind them came the Greater Dark, and his shadow, like a lashing scourge, drove them before him.

The Dragon laughed to watch the phantoms struggle. Then he looked down upon the mortals on either side of him, one held by each of his man-shaped hands. Both walked with their heads bowed, their shoulders bent, their eyes downcast. But while in the lady he felt nothing but submission and compliance, in the man he felt resistance.

“You needn’t try to fight me,” the Dragon said. “No one will blame you, not even your worst enemies. Mortals who fight me never fare well. And who knows? If you obey without complaint, I might even let you go. What do you think of that?”

Jovann said nothing. The hum of the gong seemed to waft back over him, filling his ears with its heavy tonality. That hum seemed to call up words in his mind; words which had planted themselves in his memory and, no matter how hard he tried to repress them, continued to haunt him, night and day. He heard them now, droning in the voice of the gong:

I see them running, running, stumbling,

Running, as the heavens

Break and yawn, tear beneath their feet,

Devouring, hungry Death!

Perhaps the Dragon heard them as well, for he smiled again, and his grip on Jovann’s shoulder tightened. “It will come to pass, mortal man. I myself etched the writing in gold, and it is a true prophecy, for I shall make it so.”

He stopped suddenly, and the procession ahead of him ground to a halt as well. Jovann gasped as he was flung to the mist-churning ground at the Dragon’s feet, but pushed himself up immediately, his eyes blazing with rebellion.

“Don’t think you can thwart me,” the Dragon said, drawing Lady Hariawan before him so that he held her once more with a hand on each shoulder. Her robes were stained red-brown with her blood, and her face was deathly white save for the crimson scar. The Dragon gazed down at the top of her head and considered her.

“She is strong,” he said. “She walks the Dream with more confidence than I had ever seen in a mortal. And I require a mortal, for they alone can find the Gate I seek. Immortals have sought it all in vain, but mortals have seen it in their dreams. And the Dreams Walkers have drawn near to it in the past. I heard rumor that a new Dream Walker had been discovered with the power to find the Moon’s Garden, and I began my search. Fool that I was to trust mortal instruments for such a work! But for all their incompetence, they found her at last, as you well know—this powerful Dream Walker who has walked in the Gardens of Hymlumé and brought back blossoms from those gardens into the Near World. So I believed my task complete, my victory near.