Stone Dragon (The First Realm) (16 page)

Mina drew her axe but I held her back. “His aura’s still flickering. He’s alive, and in perfect hibernation!”

* * *

Birth

I woke up. I had never opened my eyes before. After so many months spent becoming, after so much time spent preparing, it was the day. My world had grown too small for me, and my limbs ached against their confinement. It was time.

Slowly, slowly, I used my egg tooth to chip at the leathery walls. Eventually, I broke through. Air rushed in and I rested from my labors. I chirped—how small I sounded! I could hear my mother digging for me, removing the hot, reeking vegetation mounded over my egg.

I broke the last of the shell and tumbled into the world, a wet scrap of flesh. My mother crooned and covered me with a wing. Finally, the world had an up and a down. It had air, and light and presumably, food. Anxious to catch my first meal, I tested all six limbs. I stretched my legs, flexed my claws, and flapped wings too small to fly.

I was alive. I was born.

I looked up at my mother and saw a fleshless skull.

* * *

“Aauugh!” I said.

“Bad dreams, elf?” Arawn asked.

“Someone else’s, actually.”

“Those are the worst,” said the king of the goat people. He rolled out of his sleeping bag, abundantly naked, and ambled over to a nearby ribcage for the first piss of the day.

“Aaaahh,” he said. “That’s good. Nothing like small beer to ensure an early morning.” He scratched a farted. He saw my expression and laughed. “Those are a king’s farts, my little elf, and I decree they smell like roses!”

“Ugh,” Mina said. “Why does it stink of a barn?” She sat up and saw Arawn. “Eep!”

“Haha! Wake up, princess! Time for breakfast!”

I looked at the capran. His rough, handsome face sported a goatee (of course) and he was nearly as tall and as muscular as Heronimo, but much hairier. He became positively shaggy past the knees. His feet ended in cloven hooves. As he approached he smelled strongly of sweat and musk. The odor was just slightly gamy.

I looked at Heronimo. He was still tied to the travois we’d meant to attach to Arawn’s horse. His vital signs were as low as they could be, short of turning him to stone.

We breakfasted quickly and struck camp. Arawn said, “To me, my armor!” and the pieces arranged themselves around him. The angular plates settled smoothly on his body, the breastplate melding with the backplate, the vambraces and rerebraces snapping onto his arms. The greaves wrapped around his legs and the pauldrons settled on his shoulders. Smaller metal pieces swirled around him, forming chain mail in places and armoring his hands as he flexed them. In less than a second he was fully and fearsomely protected.

“Remarkable,” I said.

“Nothing but the finest dwarven craftsmanship,” he said. His visor was much more goatlike than his actual face. “We considered making it ourselves, but blew up a castle wing.”

“It must have cost you a fortune,” Mina said.

“Accidents happen in the lab all the time. The suit
did
cost a pretty pile, though. Shall we go?”

“Lead on,” I said.

“Tanngrisnir, to me!” he said, and his black warhorse trotted up. Arawn vaulted into the saddle and the horse took off.

“What about Heronimo?!” Mina said. She snatched up the makeshift sled and tried to run after Arawn, but the goat-king swung around and started to circle. Dust rose. Arawn completed his orbit once… twice… three times. He gestured, and the world dropped from under us.

We were in a different valley when the air cleared. The sun and the mountains were in the same places, but everything was green, green,
green
. Arawn laughed. “Welcome to the Silver World!”

Chapter 18

The caprans don’t call it the Silver World, of course, the same way we didn’t call Brandish
The Iron World
like the caprans did. I had asked Arawn about the names and he said, “I can’t really say.”

The king’s retinue had waited for him in the valley, which in this world was grassland. I had never encountered capran warriors before, so the sight of three hundred soldiers was a bit of a shock. I almost went full dragon before I saw they were simply standing around.

An officer rode up. “Welcome back, your majesty.”

“Thank you, Grahothy. We must return to the capital at once!”

Fine capran horses were provided and soon we were cantering out of the valley.

“That went smoothly,” I told Arawn. “Do you visit Bone Valley often?”

“I go there to meditate,” he said. “But sometimes I visit your world to meet women—don’t look at me like that! They come of their own free will and they can leave anytime. We’re not centaurs.”

“Centaurs!” Mina said. “So they exist?”

“They did,” Arawn said. He patted his mount. “Tanngrisnir is part-centaur, which is why he’s so smart and strong. The half-horses created us caprans as well. We are their final legacy.”

I leaned forward in the saddle. “So it’s true, your people are a product of crossbreeding?”

“We prefer to call it
uplifting
,” he said with dignity.

The Silver World was much like my own. The vegetation was somewhat different and the mountains seemed taller, but otherwise the worlds were identical. I was the first elf to set foot in the capran homeland, but I was jaded after everything that had happened. How many experiences of a lifetime
can
you have?

I glanced behind to check on Heronimo’s litter. The travois now hung between two horses. The rider on the lead horse gave me a wave.

Arawn’s bodyguard was well-equipped. The light cavalry was dressed in silk and leather and carried bows. The heavy cavalry was dressed in silk and mail and carried lances. Everyone had a scimitar and round shield. They laughed among themselves, but rode in perfect formation, their horses almost in lockstep.

Mina sidled up to me and we dropped behind Arawn.

“Have you ever seen capran warriors?” she asked.

I shook my head. “I’ve only met traders and tourists. I’ve never considered that caprans might even
have
an army.”

A startled pheasant took wing and was pierced by an arrow. A soldier rode up and plucked it from the ground. A hare bounded off but was impaled upon a lance.

“And here we thought they were just party animals,” I said.

The riders snapped up game throughout the day. They even dressed the meat from the saddle. They continued to talk and joke even as they hunted. We lost not a second’s worth of travel.

We changed horses frequently, each man having two or three extra animals. Our mounts were so well-trained it was possible to sleep in the saddle at full trot. A day and a night thus passed. I awoke as we approached a familiar city.

It was smaller than I remembered, and the architecture was different, but there was no mistaking its location within sight of Pithe Mountain and the Northern Sea. I turned to Arawn.

“Corinthe?” I asked.

“Zith’ra.”

* * *

We watched the priestesses make their preparations. Covered in tattoos, they painted similar symbols all over Heronimo’s flesh.

“What are those things?” Mina asked.

“Part numbers,” Arawn said. “So there’s no confusion when they reassemble him.”

She looked at me. “Is he serious?”

Arawn continued: “Each sorceress carries a mana stone of unusual size and clarity. Through this stone, she will focus on one of the body’s four tissues—epithelial tissue, connective tissue, muscle tissue, or nervous tissue. She will teleport this material into the astral plane and rid it of defects and disease. All four women will then reconstitute the body and awaken it to restored health. At least, that’s the idea. In practice there’s always the risk of transcription error.”

“What do you mean,
transcription error
?”

“Imagine reading an entire library, then writing it down from memory. Could you do it without making a mistake? That’s why it takes four people—they correct each other.”

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Mina said. “Why are we over here?”

Here
was a bunker on the beach, a long way from the ceremonial site, actually a raft out to sea. We watched the ceremony through telescopes.

Arawn admitted there was a chance that a tiny fraction of Heronimo would convert to energy, causing a
massive
explosion. Mina had to go to a corner and sit down.

I was about to ask another question, but the ritual began. The sorceress with the green tattoos took the northernmost position. She began to speak. Arawn repeated the words for our benefit:

“I, Priestess of Earth, do accept this man’s bones. I take them into myself, where they may be strengthened.”

The sorceress with the red tattoos took the southernmost station. “I, Priestess of Fire, do accept this man’s heart. I take it into myself, that it may be strengthened.”

The sorceress with the blue tattoos went to the east, and the one with the orange tattoos went to the west. The Priestesses of Air and Water accepted Heronimo’s brain and skin. As we watched, his body disappeared in layers. His flesh turned transparent. His bones turned to glass. He was a living anatomy chart for a moment, and then he vanished. In each woman’s hand, a crystal blazed like the sun.

The four sorceresses sat cross-legged on the raft. Their faces still, they stared into the facets of their mana stones.

“They have put their minds into the crystals. Now, we wait.”

The ritual could easily take all night, Arawn said. Having converted Heronimo into information, the women were going over every single bit, correcting and improving as they went.

“Wouldn’t that take really long?” I asked. We sat in the bunker and drank tea to stay awake.

“Not for us,” he said. “We have a special relationship with time. For us, a minute can last a million years.”

“What do you do with all that time?”

“Mostly we don’t. A taste of eternity can drive one insane. Those sorceresses are going to wipe it from their minds at the end of the ritual.”

“That’s not so bad.”

“Angrod, when purging a million years from your memory, it’s all too easy to lose an extra decade. Those women are going to wake up with gaps. Sometimes they forget how to walk or talk.”

Mina almost dropped her mug. “That’s horrible!”

Arawn shrugged. “I pay them well. And backups were made. They’re more like summaries than actual memories, but they do help with the recovery process.”

“It’s still an awful lot to sacrifice,” I said. “What kind of favor is that worth?”

He grinned. “I won’t ask you to do anything that goes against your moral code. It will be something you can do, difficult though it may be. It will be a one-time deed of similar value.”

“That sounds fair.”

“It is
very
fair. It is good that I am a king and not a shopkeeper.”

We looked out to sea where the ritual continued. The women were motionless even as the raft bobbed on the waves.

“They should be halfway done,” Arawn said. He looked at me. “As it happens, I know what you can do for me. Someday—and that day may never come—I will call upon you for a year of service. Complete that year and your debt shall be paid, whether or not you survive.”

Gulp
. “That is acceptable.”

“Wait, what do you mean
improving as they go
?” Mina asked. “Is it still going to be Heronimo when they put him back together?”

“Almost certainly,” Arawn said. “Same memories, same personality, same species. It’s just that the priestesses can’t help but make embellishments. They’re not machines. This is as much a creative ritual as it is a magical one.”

* * *

Waiting is hungry work. Fortunately, Arawn had done this before, and there was game pie and venison stew.

I bit into the pie and tasted hare and pheasant. “It’s really good. Is this—?”

“It’s not from today’s hunting, unfortunately. The cook said a proper meat pastry takes longer.”

Mina had a spoonful of stew and her eyes grew wide. “A halfling made this!”

I took a taste and had to agree. “I didn’t know there were halflings in the Silver World.”

“What was the clue?” asked the king. “Was it the spices? The stock?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “There’s just something about halfling cooking. Even the simple dishes fill you up.”

“Sticks to your ribs.” I said. “Nothing magical about it, but it’s pretty amazing.”

We busied ourselves with the meal and it was many long minutes before we could speak again. I pushed aside my bowl and accepted a cut cigar from Arawn. Mina declined.

I snapped my fingers and the king and I lit our cigars on the resulting flame.

“Something to drink?” he said, and poured glasses for Mina and me.

“Looks like milk,” I said.

“It was.
Kumis
is mare’s milk, fermented and freeze-distilled.”

“That’s where they take out the ice crystals,” I explained to Mina. “Makes for a stronger drink.”

We both took a sip.

“Wow,” she said. “I’ve never tasted anything like it. It’s like… buttermilk and beer?”

“Yoghurt and champagne? It’s got a kick, it’s pleasantly tart, and it’s refreshing.”

“Try your cigar,” Arawn said.

I took a puff. “Hey now.” I took a sip. “That’s smooth. Mina, you’re missing out.”

She crossed her arms. “I never learned to like tobacco. Underground tunnels and secondhand smoke don’t mix.”

“It’s not all tobacco,” Arawn said.

“Yeah, haha, I can tell.”

We took slow puffs and small sips. We got mellow.

“So do halflings arrive naturally, or do they cross over from our world?”

“There is some immigration from the Iron World,” Arawn said. “Halflings bring much-needed skills and talents. They’re very welcome in my lands.”

“Hard to imagine halflings being welcome anywhere,” I said. “I’ve nothing against them, but they always seem to get the worst of it back home.”

“That’s elves for you,” Mina said, taking a drink. “Not the most accepting.” And she flashed me a look.

“What did I ever do to you?” I asked.