Silver Dragon Codex (11 page)

“It wasn’t just me.” Jace untangled the half-elf from his neck. “Everybody helped.”

“True. But you were the bravest.” She beamed, gasping back tears.

Jace tried not to think of the sick feeling in his stomach, and attempted to smile.

Once everyone had dismounted, Belen changed form
again, slipping easily from mighty dragon back to slender girl. She crossed the courtyard and stared down at the dead chimera, sorrow etched on her face. “I didn’t want to fight it,” she said softly.

Ebano took her hand and smiled sympathetically, but Cerisse was the one who gave voice to what everyone was thinking. “You didn’t have a choice. It would have killed us.” She let Ebano tut-tut over her arm, smearing the wound with a particularly vile-smelling paste and binding it gently with a piece torn from his purple sash.

“Yes, but it was just an animal that had found a home in an empty tower. The chimera was just defending its territory.” Belen’s shoulders fell.

“I don’t think so.” Jace interrupted her.

“What?”

“I don’t think that chimera just moved in here randomly,” Jace said. “I think that the curse affected it too. That stone’s absence sickens everything it touches—the villagers, your memory, and now this creature. Everything that’s gone wrong here traces back to it.”

Belen considered this for a moment and then nodded. “You might be right. The hag said that the power of the stone affected the whole forest—and this tower is within the forest’s heart.” She shook her head sadly, turning away from the body of the dead beast. “It’s likely that the creature
was once an innocent pet or a keeper of this tower charged to protect it while I was away.” She pressed a hand against her forehead. “This whole thing is such a tragedy.”

“Do you think that whoever stole the stone knew what they were doing?” Jace asked. “Can anyone really be that evil?

“Evil is a serpent’s tooth in the heart of man.” Ebano’s comment was unprompted, and startled them. The hypnotist’s purple eyes were soft, sweeping up from the creature’s torn body to stare at each of them in turn. Ebano struggled for a moment to come up with one of his rote fortune-telling predictions that seemed to fit, and then said hesitantly, “Man does not think of others when he follows his heart. Let your heart be your guide.” Although the words were out of place, Ebano meant them earnestly, conveying all the meaning and sincerity he could through his eyes and delicate hands.

A sad stillness followed his words. Cerisse, ever irreverent, was the first to break it. “Wow. For someone who doesn’t know our language, Ebano, you can sure turn a phrase.”

Ebano smiled, gesturing toward the horizon. He moved his hand over the forest first, then lower, sweeping over the creature’s body to encompass its death. Reciting his fortunes in a somber tone, he intoned another of his
memorized babblings, “Grain by grain a loaf, stone by stone, a castle.”

“All right, now we’ve lost him again.” Jace chuckled, patting Ebano on the back. “Don’t worry, Ebano. We’ll figure it out on our own.” Ebano shook his head and said something in his native tongue, clicking his teeth over the syllables. Unable to understand, Jace turned to Belen. “Ready to go inside?”

She shuddered. “I don’t think it’s going to be pretty in there.”

Belen was right. The main chamber of the lower tower was roomy and had once been well decorated, with couches, bookcases and tables, a large fireplace, and other comforts, but now, it was ruined. The chimera had not been a tidy guest. It tore down the tapestries to create a rotting bed in the corner and left scraps of old feasts on the floor. The stench was almost enough to make Jace climb to the ceiling to get away from it, but he compensated by holding his arm to his face to bury his nose in the fabric. Belen seemed less affected by it, ignoring the smell as she knelt by the pile, pulling one of the tapestries out far enough to look at the grime-stained picture on the fabric.

“Belen?” Cerisse caught their attention on the far side of the massive chamber. “I found a set of stairs that leads
up. I think they’re too small for the chimera to use, and they look dusty.”

“That means the upstairs might be in the same condition that it was on the day I left five years ago.” Releasing the tapestry, Belen stood and crossed the room. “If there are any answers in this place, they’re up there.” She gave Jace a faint smile, and his heart leaped to see it. “Let’s go find them.”

espite the tower’s size, there were only two floors. The first, as Jace had seen, was roomy and had been plush, possibly meant for a dragon to sit or curl up comfortably. The ceiling was high and well reinforced. The second story, at the top of a long, coiled set of stairs, was smaller, built for a human-sized occupant. The top floor was divided like a wheel into three wedge-shaped areas by wooden walls. The first area, where the stairs emptied, was obviously a small study and library. There was a mahogany desk, ornate but still serviceable, made of fine dark wood with lighter details. Shelves of books lined the walls, along with trinkets, bric-a-brac, and other odds and ends to give it a homier feel.

Jace picked up book after book, brushing the dust from the spines. “History, history. Oh, look.” He traded it for another. “Another book on history. Hey, Belen, I never knew that you were so interested in the past.”

She tried to smile, tapping her forehead. “Apparently, I got over that.”

They all shared a laugh, then spread out to look through the room. There were doors in the two interior walls, one to the north and one to the east. Ebano opened the north one, then reddened. He pointed, turning his face away, and Belen looked past him.

“Bedroom,” she chuckled. It seems I wasn’t very tidy.”

Cerisse was tugging on the other door, the one that led to the east. “I think this door is locked. Belen, can you remember how to get in?”

Belen was sifting through the paperwork on the desk. “I don’t think so. Nothing here is bringing back any memories.”

“Not at all?” Cerisse tugged on her auburn braid thoughtfully. “Maybe you didn’t live here?”

“No, I think I did. It’s not unfamiliar, it’s just not … I can’t put any memories with it.” Belen held up a half-finished letter. “This is my handwriting. But I don’t recognize the name of the person to whom it’s addressed. Then there’s this half-finished manuscript. It looks like I was writing a book.” She tossed the papers back onto the desk grumpily, and a few fluttered down to the floor. “There’s nothing about the stone, the village, or any reason I might have attacked them.”

“Maybe there’s something in here?” Jace walked over to the eastern door, checking the lock that had confounded Cerisse. He twisted the handle, and it moved freely—but the door didn’t open. There was an audible click as the metal moved about in the latch, but he couldn’t budge the portal. “It’s not locked,” he scowled, leaning into it with his shoulder. “It’s jammed. The door’s broken.”

“Broken?” Belen and Ebano clustered around the door. “Look,” Belen pointed. “The hinges are melted shut.”

Jace squatted and took a closer look. “Those aren’t melted. They’re
frozen
. The metal’s gotten so cold that it fused together. Normal ice can’t do that. It had to be magical. Like—”

“Dragon’s breath.” Belen’s eyebrows knitted together.

“Can we break down the door, Jace?” Cerisse pushed between them, peering at the door.

He contemplated it for a moment, and then shook his head. “I don’t think so. That door’s solid oak, the hinges are steel—that’s expensive stuff!—and set into a stone wall.”

“What about turning into a dragon, Belen?” The halfelf looked hopeful.

“In here?” Belen blinked. “I’d squish you like bugs, and my mass would probably knock down half the tower.”

“Oh, right. I forgot how big you are in dragon form.”
Cerisse chewed on the tip of her thumb, trying to come up with another solution. Jace chuckled. Cerisse was really sweet—when she wasn’t being so annoying. It was too bad she was such a tomboy and wasn’t more graceful, kinder, less frustrating—all the things that pretty girls were supposed to be. Cerisse was pretty, Jace had to admit that, but she wasn’t … well … she wasn’t Belen.

Ebano shooed them away from the door, the purple arms of his robe fluttering. “Little door,” he said, clucking at them. “Little. You see.”

“Uh … is he going to do magic?” Cerisse asked Jace out of the corner of her mouth.

“Either that,” he chuckled, “or he’s trying to make us feel better.”

Ebano pulled a piece of broken chalk from his pocket and began drawing on the door. He drew intricate patterns, circles inside circles, and delicate knotwork all along the edges of the door in three different colors of chalk.

After about a quarter of an hour, Jace started reading one of the history books. Cerisse had abandoned the effort long before that and vanished into Belen’s bedroom. Jace could hear her tidying things in there, organizing them by their weight and heft, if he knew the juggler as well as he thought he did. Meanwhile, Belen skimmed over the bookshelves, lifting pieces of art and staring at each one
in turn. Every time she put one back on the shelf, she let out a little sigh as if she’d been holding her breath while she balanced the trinket in her hand.

Then, just as Jace’s patience was about to break, the eastern door cracked, a sharp bark of sound. Jace whirled to find Ebano with his eyes closed, hands palm out on the door—which was shaking. The wood quavered and slammed back and forth within the doorway, the patterns quivering with every energetic shake of the wood. Ebano lifted his hands from the door and brought them together with a booming clap.

The door shrank.

Wood ripped away from frozen hinges, tearing from the steel with a quavering shriek. The door dwindled, first by inches and then, with a pop, in a shocking rush. As it opened, a cold gust of air hissed out from the room beyond. It was dark in there, without windows or other doors to let any light inside. The floor was crusted with a thin layer of ice, and the walls were patterened with spiderwebs of glittering crystalline frost. A damp wind fluttered past, raising the hairs on Jace’s arms and sending a shiver down his spine. “What’s in there?” he whispered.

Belen took a step forward, standing in the doorway. “I don’t know.”

“Was this where you kept your food? To keep it cold?”
Cerisse bobbed her head over Jace’s shoulder, ducking back a bit.

“Dragons don’t eat cold food,” Belen said, leaving Jace to wonder what they did eat. Belen shivered and rubbed her hand over her arm. The goose bumps rippled her flesh visibly, and she stared into the room. “I don’t want to go in,” she said suddenly, a helpless note in her voice. “Something’s very wrong. There’s something terrible in there. Something awful …”

“It’s all right, Belen.” Jace brushed her shoulder, his other hand ready to reach for his sword. “Whatever was inside, I won’t let it hurt you. You don’t even have to go in first. Cerisse, step inside and see if you can see anything.”

Cerisse shot him a wounded glare. “Go in yourself, you big jerk,” she muttered.

“Wait. Something happened here … something that hurt.” Belen was struggling for words, searching her memory for the events that caused her pained feelings, but Jace could see that she had little to go on.

“Perhaps you were attacked? Did someone break in? Did you lock them in there?”

She hesitated, trying to remember. “I don’t know. But I can feel it—whatever’s in there, it hurt me. I feel almost”—Belen took a deep, shuddering breath—“afraid.”

If Belen had a bad feeling about this …

“We don’t have to go in there.” Jace tried to sound encouraging.

“Yes, we do.” She glanced back over her shoulder at Jace, and then took a hesitant step forward. “Even if it hurt me then, even if it’s going to cause me pain now, I have to go in. I need to know what happened. If not for my sake, then for the sake of the village of Angvale. I can’t leave them to live in the woods like feral animals, their village in shambles. If I did that to them, then I had a reason. And I think the reason is in this room.” She took another step, then a third, slowly entering the cold, dark room.