The Dragon of Despair (104 page)

“So you are the one who offers to command me,” it said, its voice hissing like the steaming river. “Do you really think you can manage me?”

There was mockery in that hissing intonation, but Citrine—youngest child of an unloving brood, younger cousin of an unkind mob—had lots of practice standing firm in the face of derision.

“I can,” she replied stoutly, realizing that she had departed from Mother’s prepared text. “Are you scared I can’t?”

“It is you who should be afraid, little girl,” the dragon hissed. “You have no idea what you are doing. I would not even warn you if it were not ordained by those who put me here that I must so warn whomever would set me free. Hear this warning and know it is true: I will be your death.”

Melina’s voice, incantorial and faint, came then, as if she shouted down a long tunnel. Distantly, Citrine’s outer ears registered that Mother was shouting.

“Life will be the death of all living things,” Melina responded as from a long way away. “What you say holds no fear for my daughter.”

The hissing of the dragon’s laughter rose as it glided forth to entwine Citrine in its coils, a single one of which rose almost higher than Citrine’s head. She held her breath as if she was about to jump into a river from whose waters she would never emerge, feeling, too, a thrill of anticipation at what drowning in those waters would bring.

Then a new voice, strong and solid, challenged the dragon. Craning her neck to look over the dragon’s coils, Citrine saw that Firekeeper had entered the shadow place.

“You don’t want Citrine,” the wolf-woman said, speaking without the hesitation and searching for words Citrine had come to expect. “You’ve been sniffing around the backside of my mind this moon’s waxing and before. You know what Citrine hides from herself. You dread it as she would if she were wiser. Leave this little one. Let us make a pack between us.”

The dragon’s coils loosened and Citrine could see Firekeeper clearly. The wolf-woman stood easy and insouciant, staring up at the dragon without fear.

Citrine knew the dragon was greatly interested in what Firekeeper offered and she felt more than heard the shrill, panicked cry that broke from her lips at the idea of failing Mother.

And at her cry Mother, blessed Mother, came to Citrine’s rescue. Her voice still came as from a great distance—an odd thing, for Citrine could feel herself flinch as Mother shouted only a finger’s breadth from her ear.

“Dragon of Despair,” Melina intoned, “we abjure and command you using the spells of the Star Wizard, he who won over even your might. Petrified by the light from his mirror was your bone, boiled into rank water were your flesh and organs. Desire you to feel this again or desire you freedom?”

It was a powerful threat and Citrine repeated it, marveling how she understood the archaic New Kelvinese that had been a mystery moments before.

“That is because,” the dragon hissed, “you are hearing the words through my mind.”

Impatient, Firekeeper spoke.

“Come to me, dragon. I will not need to threaten you, for I will not use you as Melina will.”

“Truly?” the dragon hissed, leaving Citrine and gliding toward Firekeeper. “Can you honestly promise that, wolfling? Promise not to use my power though all you hold dearest is threatened? I must warn you that if you break that promise, the flow of life between us will be intensified so that in the end I will suck you into a shriveled husk—and may not obey you even then.”

Citrine saw Firekeeper hesitate, heard one of her own voices murmur:
“She’s worried about those Beasts. What if she gives her word and then can’t help them? She’s not as brave as you. You’ll live your life faster to help your mother. What a coward Firekeeper is!”

Turning, Citrine saw the speaker beside her, a version of herself but with a cynical twist to her features Citrine didn’t at all like. Startled, she looked around and realized that she stood at the heart of a small cluster of Citrines—brave ones and frightened ones, one who looked as innocent as a baby, and one who looked sad and all too knowledgeable, one upon whom the dragon pectoral had been transformed into Melina’s face radiating confidence and wisdom, one upon whom the same pectoral became Melina herself, arms outstretched, reaching upward, her hands curved to strangle Citrine’s exposed throat.

Citrine shrieked and the crowd of selves vanished, but she couldn’t forget their existence.

“The decision,” the dragon said conversationally, turning to face Citrine, “doesn’t require all of you to agree. I’ll eat you as well without agreement, but it does raise some troubles for the troubled.”

“Eat me?” Citrine asked, puzzled.

Firekeeper snorted, her expression blending pity and derision.

“What do you think a dragon does?” she asked.

“Mother said it will let me grow up faster,” Citrine said defiantly. “So I can help her better.”

“And so I shall,” the dragon said, “for a while. Then someday you will be older than your mother, and someday you will die before her, wrinkled and bent, age eating your bones as you feed me.”

From the distance, Melina’s voice could be heard strong and certain, carrying on the incantation. Citrine was aware of Mother urging her to repeat the words, to go forward as Mother was going forward, though all the world was against her.

“Why do you think Melina is not here with us?” Firekeeper asked almost kindly. “You take the risks for her—you face the monster.”

“What else do I have to give to deserve her love?” Citrine cried. Sucking in a ragged intake of breath, Citrine raised her voice, repeating the words Melina had been drumming into her ears. “Dragon of Despair, come into my heart, make a bond between us, make a strong road in which power is granted for power given.”

She closed her eyes and pressed the tips of her fingers to them, but somehow she could still see. Firekeeper was hesitating, but Citrine could see into the hot red coal of her heart and knew that hesitation would not last, that Firekeeper would beat Citrine to the goal, that Citrine would fail, fail, and Mother would die and hate her and Citrine would be tortured forever and ever by her failure to do this one little thing right.

Shrieking, Citrine departed the formula, racing forward to impale herself on the spikes that rose like a thorn forest from the dragon’s crest. She was running, her feet slipping on a floor made slick by what she knew with a sick sense of self-betrayal was her own doubt bleeding out before her in a oily red pool that she must leap.

And a calm voice spoke from behind her, a level voice well known and on some level loved.

“Melina has it wrong, dragon, doesn’t she?” said Grateful Peace. “One small but important point of her research is flawed. Is that why you drive these children to immolate themselves in your fire? Not because you do not wish to serve Melina, but because you know that she lacks one of the keys to set you free.”

Citrine found herself unable to move. Mother wrong? Impossible! But the dragon’s eyes were narrow slitted now, amber-gold lines focusing on Grateful Peace so completely that Citrine knew herself and Firekeeper both forgotten. Mother’s shouts faded to an echoing stillness and Citrine could do nothing but listen to what Peace said, for true knowledge of the spell had never been hers.

“I thought I had it right,” Peace said with conversational pedantry. “I was reminded of the facts as presented in the old stories by what was written in the room above this one. The Star Wizard was a deeply conflicted man—especially for a sorcerer of his time. He had seen what Kelvin’s impulsiveness had wrought and feared it, but he knew, too, how pitiful this little kingdom was. How long would Waterland or other enemies hold back if they thought the dragon gone? A generation, maybe two. Make clear that the dragon was only bound, though, and it remained a threat that would last for generations.”

The dragon neither protested nor confirmed this version of history. Over to one side, Firekeeper struggled to make herself heard, but the dragon’s indifference was so complete that she might as well have been howling at the moon.

He’s locked us out of his mind,
Citrine thought,
but Peace has not. He wants us to understand.

She felt a sudden affection for the man, realizing how different he was from Melina. Peace had always wanted her to understand, to follow because she realized how important things were. Mother wanted her to obey—to prove her worthiness by perfect trust.

Feeling she owed Peace at least this, Citrine tried hard to listen, to understand every word.

“The Star Wizard had other difficulties. How to bind something so powerful without tempting every power-hungry soul to use it as a weapon? The penalty he created was horrid enough to stop all but someone insane—or perhaps very young. He did his best, so that even those who would free you would need to overcome many obstacles. He crafted these, playing fair by the rules of sorcery in his day, even to hiding your own name in plain sight. That’s the element Melina has wrong—why she has not succeeded. She has been calling you by the wrong name, and as long as she does this none of her chants can free you.”

The dragon coughed, slit eyes dilating in ironic laughter. Peace did not laugh in return.

“But what Melina did not know—and you knew all too well—is that there is a way to free you that has nothing to do with elaborate rituals, burning incense, and all of that trivia. The Star Wizard may have foreseen a day when the forms of ritual magic would be lost. Or perhaps he was just eager to hedge his bets. In addition to the calculating provisions everyone knew about, he also allowed that if someone freed you not for his own good but for the good of others—sacrificing his own life so that others might live—then you can be freed.

“You have tormented Firekeeper longer than I think she has admitted. You have sought to make Citrine sacrifice herself for what she thinks is her mother’s good. Yet each time the Star Wizard has balked you, forcing you to warn against the very thing you desire most. I have heard the spells Melina recites. Indeed, she has shouted them over and over again until I think they will haunt the dreams of all who have heard them.

“None of those other hearers possess my memory. I can recite the appropriate words. I can give you your name. I can bind you and I can set you free.”

The dragon hissed, “Such knowledge does not free you from paying the price, Illuminator.”

“I know. The price frightens me as it would any but a child who has not yet learned the joy of living. Answer a question for me.”

Citrine sensed that the dragon’s mood had shifted, become eager, anticipating, and yet subtly frightened. What did something so enormous, so reeking with power have to fear?

Then she realized what the dragon must fear. It had been bound here for more years than Hawk Haven had existed as a kingdom. The dragon wanted its freedom—and it feared that Peace would not make the bargain that would set it free.

“What is your question?” the dragon replied guardedly.

“What happens to you when the one who has released you dies?”

The dragon answered with the same self-defeating honesty that Citrine was coming to recognize as the Star Wizard’s mark.

“Unless he or she dies of injury or illness, the one who binds me will know to a year when I will drink the last of what they have to give. My master may then arrange for a substitute or attempt to bind me again as I am bound here. If neither of these things is done, then I return to where I was when Kelvin’s magic pulled me forth.”

Grateful Peace looked raptly fascinated.

“And where is that?”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed again.

“That is not yours to know.”

Peace sighed and rubbed his one hand across his face.

“Perhaps you will be more confidential at another time.”

“Do you leave me then?”

“To be set loose once someone else with more time and knowledge comes along? The Star Wizard thought the threat of you would be enough to protect us forever. He was wrong. You are a temptation to those who have forgotten just what damage you can wreak. I will…”

Firekeeper finally broke through the dragon’s indifference—or perhaps she suddenly realized that the one she needed to speak with was not the dragon, but Grateful Peace.

“No, Peace!” the wolf-woman cried. “You cannot do this. You are afraid of it. I am not afraid.”

Peace faced her and narrowed his eyes so that he rather reminded Citrine of the dragon.

“Or is it that you are afraid of such power in any hands but your own?”

Firekeeper glared at him.

“Who sane would not be so afraid?” she shot back. “But still I do not think I fear aging and death as much as you do. The wolves do not hoard life. Why should I?”

“For those very ones you would spend it,” Peace answered. “They’ll need more from you than power in the years to come. Think, child, if they had wanted mere strength and ability to cause terror would they have raised a human?”

Firekeeper looked considering.

“But fear of the dragon would protect my people.”

“Only for a time,” Peace reminded her, “and only while you live. The dragon does not make the one who binds it immortal—rather the opposite. You would need to live your life in hiding, for any good tactician would see that you were the weak spot.”

“The dragon could protect me,” Firekeeper returned stubbornly.

“And if it protected you, it could not be defending the Beasts. Let it rest, Firekeeper. The dragon is not the answer to the looming conflict between humans and Beasts.”

Firekeeper stepped back, as if physically relinquishing her claim; then she froze.

“And will you turn the dragon against my people?”

Grateful Peace’s laugh was as harsh as a raven’s croaking call.

“Oh, no, Firekeeper. I treasure the life I have left far too much to squander it. If I have my way I will guard my remaining years by invoking the dragon’s power as little as necessary.”

Citrine, recalling how Mother had said that she would grow up faster as she used the dragon in Mother’s cause, thought she understood—and approved. Suddenly, it seemed dreadfully important to her that Peace not age and die too quickly. She had so much she could learn from him now that she saw how willing he was to teach.