Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon) (24 page)

“Quite an impressive piece of sculpture, don’t you agree?” Everett asked.

Ilfedo ran his fingers along the base’s face until they trailed in the words inscribed thereon. “In memorial forever in our hearts, Brunster Thadius Oldwell.”

“Oldwell founded our city.” Everett sighed. “He is a hero to all of us, a saint to some, and an enigma to the rest. It is said he was an original Lord Warrior from our ancestors’ long-lost homeland. But for those of us who follow the holy prophets’ teachings of the Creator, Oldwell is the atheist whose example misdirected our youth, and whose soul now lingers in torment until the final day of judgment.”

The square’s only other occupant was the city hall. It was a large building constructed of part stone and part wood. The stonework buttressed the building’s corners and base.

As Ilfedo was gazing upon all these things, Everett shuffled toward the road. “Come with me. I need to show you something, before the time to do so escapes us.” He led him down the street in front of the high steps to the city hall, then turned him up another that angled away from the square. Over a row of collapsed rooftops he glimpsed the enormous pink building. They rounded a corner, and on a dead-end street they stood gazing over a field of rich green moss to the structure set in the field’s midst.

Ilfedo looked down at the little man. “What is that place?”

Pink silk draped thickly from the factory ceiling where a couple of thousand glowing birds threaded strands from each others’ beaks. Everett led Ilfedo across the tiled floor, between rows of spools as large as men. Young girls fed the silk strands from the ceiling to the spools, pumping turntables beneath the spools to slowly spin them. Monotonously they wound the silk around the spools into a natural thread. Young boys mopped the floors, and others slid the filled spools away from the girls’ stations, and others guided empty spools into place. The girls began the process of filling the fresh spools.

Ilfedo frowned as he looked about. The place would be wondrous to behold if he could stop seeing Oganna’s face on every downcast child in the factory. He turned in fury upon the little man. “What is this?”

“These are the children of the poor in Dresdyn. By the city council’s decree they work here to provide for their families.”

Ilfedo felt tension build in his voice. “Where are their mothers and fathers?”

“Their fathers have been conscripted into the city guard and sent into tunnels on the far side of our city. They fight to safeguard us from a race of black beasts that sometimes encroach upon our territory.”

“And their mothers?”

Beckoning for Ilfedo to follow, Everett led him across the hard floor down rows of spinning spools. Children bumped into him, cursing him as they passed. “Look out where you are going. Gee, no help. We is working here!”

Everett led him through a door at the long room’s end. As he opened the door and stepped aside, Everett pinched his nose. Ilfedo stepped into a stuffy room almost as large as the first one. Yet here the Dewobins screeched as women stuffed nets full of them onto butcher blocks. There were several hundred women carving the tiny birds for meager morsels of meat, or plucking the feathers that they stuffed into pouches at their waists. A gelatinous red coating layered the stone floor.

“These are the mothers of those children?” Ilfedo pointed at the door through which he’d come.

“They are,” Everett said, “and you will find only the poorer citizens of our city in this place. West of here, beyond the house of Elhandra—the prophetess you met yesterday—lie the homes of our military officers, statesmen, and the more successful businessmen.”

Ilfedo shook his head. “Is there no other way for the poor people to feed their families?”

“Oh, you have misunderstood.” Everett shuffled over to a woman. She held a struggling Dewobin in her hand and a butcher’s knife in the other. Everett lifted his hand up to her shoulder and touched it. She looked down at him and he said, “Emily, turn your face to the stranger.”

The woman did, and Ilfedo judged her to be in her midthirties. She had long brown hair, green eyes, and handsome cheeks. A smile would have made her look beautiful, but a shadow lay under her eyes, her cheeks were sunken, and her dirty lips formed a weary frown.

“You look tired,” Everett told the woman. “Take your children out of this place, at least for today. Go home. Rest and refresh yourself.”

Her eyes widened. “Wh-why do you tempt me with such a thing? Do you not think I would if I could? If I don’t work, my husband will be left in some distant tunnel. The city council decreed it.”

“Ah, yes, there is the truth of this matter.” Everett left the woman and gazed at the bloody factory around him. “These people are not here by choice, Ilfedo. They, like their husbands, have been conscripted. The women to butcher birds and the children to collect Dewobin silk.”

Ilfedo looked around the room again, then down at the little man. “This is how they pay their dues to your government?”

Everett sighed and led Ilfedo back into the threading room. “This is how the life of the city is maintained. The Dewobins provide for all but a few of the things we desperately need in order to live: food, clothing, and commerce.”

A flame of anger grew in Ilfedo’s heart as the children moved to and fro throughout the building.

Two finely dressed women emerged from another door. They didn’t notice him as they walked down the rows of pink spools. They caressed the Dewobin silk and smiled at each of the children. But a few boys, in the process of moving a spool, tipped it against a table. The pink threads frayed and snapped, and one of the women darted to the scene. She frowned and slapped each lad on the face.

“What?” Everett’s face reddened, and he bolted toward the woman. “How dare you touch that child!”

But Ilfedo grabbed the little man by his pink robe and held him back. “Your people have a prophecy,” he said as he drew his sword. Flames roiled from the hilt, covering the blade, and every face in the room riveted on him. A voice spoke from the sword, a voice so soft that he thought only he could hear it. “When darkness has fully fallen, and the spirits of the children are weak, then let their Lord Warrior speak. Let him bind and shackle, hew and spear. His arm is against them, his arm is for them. The Lord Warrior comes to doom them . . . the Lord Warrior comes to save them.”

Everett’s eyes widened, and he pointed at the sword. “Did you hear that? It spoke the words of Elhandra! I heard it. Your sword speaks.”

Ilfedo stepped toward the woman who’d struck the children. He had their attention. He must now act, say something that would change what was going on in this place. But what could he do? These were not his people. They had their own leaders, their own decision-makers. He was but a stranger with a magnificent sword. Frustrated, he let the power of the sword fill his arm as he smote the nearest spool. The spool toppled into another one, and that one fell after it. One by one the spools knocked into each other. Some of the children screamed and froze at their stations, but a group of boys and girls gathered around him, clinging to his legs.

The stone door through which he had entered the factory now lumbered open, and a woman stepped through. She wore a ragged pink dress. The Dewobins splashed an aura around her, and she smiled at him with her soft gray eyes.

“Elhandra, how did you come to be here?” Everett asked.

But the prophetess had eyes only for Ilfedo. “Hail, Lord Warrior, and welcome to Dresdyn! Long have we waited, waited for you. Our dark world is not for the Creator’s children, yet here we walk. Let us walk again in the light; guide us out of this dark world. The dead will rise to slay us. But you, Lord Warrior, have come to save us. Now go! Bind and shackle, hew and spear, free and release. For this is within your power, and to your will the loyalties of this people will be drawn.”

The cluster of children around him doubled as the prophetess stepped forward. Her eyes stared deep into Ilfedo’s until she was only ten feet away from him. Then she lowered her gaze to the floor and knelt before him. “I have waited for you a long time, my lord. Ask whatever you desire of me, and I will obey.”

“He has come to free us?” one child said, and another echoed it. The mob of children began to chant, “Free us! Free us!”

He gazed upon Elhandra, and she smiled back at him. “You have the power to effect great change among us.” She stood and placed her hands on the children’s heads. “Free them!”

Ilfedo found himself striding out of the factory, several hundred children dancing after him. When he had exited the building and stood on the moss lawn, the children gathered as an army around him with Elhandra in their midst and Everett standing a short distance off.

Crowds gathered on the nearby streets as thousands of glowing birds shot out of the open factory door. Ilfedo went to each door around the structure, and strengthening his arm with the sword’s energy, he opened them. Very soon hundreds of women emerged from the factory and stared at their children dancing before him.

“Go to your homes,” Ilfedo commanded. “The factory is closed for today. Do not fear for your husbands, yourselves, or your children. I will deal with the corruptness I have seen in this city. The full responsibility for shutting down the factory lies with me alone.”

A few women glanced at each other, then turned to reenter the factory.

Ilfedo blasted the doors with Living Fire. The doors slammed shut, and the flames sealed them. “Go to your homes,” he said. The children cheered, and the crowd of them mixed with that of the women. Eager young hands took their mothers’ and led them down the streets. The lawn emptied, leaving him with only Everett and the prophetess. What had he done? This was not his fight. The dragon ring constricted around his finger and he winced.

But Elhandra stepped up to him and lightly touched his arm. “I look forward to becoming your friend, Lord Ilfedo of the Hemmed Land.” The Nuvitor cooed on his shoulder.

Everett shuffled toward him.

Ilfedo sheathed his sword.

“Word of your deeds will spread as a flood through our streets, now that you have defied the will of the council. They will surely summon you to give an account of your actions, and I do not trust them to reveal certain things to you. Come!” He led Ilfedo behind the factory and onto the streets.

“What is it you want to tell me?” Ilfedo asked.

But the little man trudged up another street. Elhandra walked beside Ilfedo. She was so light on her feet that she might as well have been gliding. There were fewer homes in this section of town and no ruins to speak of. The scent of fresh moist moss rose from the gaps between buildings, lending a clean scent to the air.

Elhandra laughed and glided ahead, catching up to Everett. “My dear, dear monk, where do you think are you taking us?”

Everett glanced up at her with furrowed brow. “The Records Library. Where else will he learn more about the history of our people, or of the prophecy?”

She put her arm across his chest, and he stopped as she pointed down a side road. “The Records Library is that way.”

His face seemed to light up, and he chuckled as he gestured Ilfedo to follow him in the new direction. “She is right, I’m afraid. I was taking you in the wrong direction. Come! We have much to do before the council discovers where you’ve gone.”