The Dragonstone (19 page)

The witch was ancient, and when she insisted that Aiko remove her armored jacket and silken undershirt, the old
woman’s eyes widened at what was exposed. Even so, she said nought, but instead muttered over her needles and inks, adding potions and powders to the mix.

The crone carefully etched a baleful red tiger glaring out from between Aiko’s breasts, the witch whispering and sissing all the while unto the crimson cat slowly revealed, as if it were a creature alive. When the old woman was done she winked up at Aiko and grinned a toothless smile, sharing the warrior’s secret. And as Aiko started to don her silken undershirt and leather jacket, the witch reached out and touched the sanguine image between Aiko’s breasts and said, “I have given you a special
tora
, child; listen to her closely; heed her guidance and warnings, for you are in her care.”

In the third and fourth battles of the war between Yodama’s Red Tigers and Hirota’s Golden Dragons, Aiko distinguished herself time and again.

And still she declined to reveal her face to Lord Yodama.

In the fifth and final battle, Lord Yodama was arrow-slain, and his son, Yoranaga, took command. They routed Hirota’s Golden Dragons, and no mercy was shown.

In the ceremonies that followed, Lord Yoranaga commanded Aiko to remove the mask. She respectfully declined, but Yoranaga insisted. Reluctantly she did so. Armsmaster Kurita, standing at Yoranaga’s side, gasped, “Aiko,” for he saw that this gallant warrior was none other than his very own daughter.

Now all was revealed—Aiko was female!—and Lord Yoranaga was harsh in his judgement, for Armsmaster Kurita had broken the law of the land. Kurita was stripped of his weapons and properties and titles and commanded to live all the rest of his days in poverty and disgrace. Aiko, hero—nay, heroine of the war, savior of Lord Yodama, gallant warrior in the Order of the Red Tiger—was banished from Ryodo altogether.

*   *   *

With her eyes still downcast, Aiko said to Arin, “Because of me my father is dishonored. I betrayed him and his lord and my country.” Aiko unbuttoned her jacket
and silken undershirt to reveal the glaring red tiger. “I am
yadonashi
—outcast. I am the cat who fell from grace.”

Arin shook her head and stood and lifted Aiko to her feet. “No, Lady Aiko, thou didst not betray aught. ‘Twas but outmoded custom thou didst break.”

“Aye,” said Rissa. “A custom we Elves abandoned long past. If females bearing arms and engaging in combat is dishonorable, then nearly half of all Elves are so disgraced.” Rissa drew her sword and flashed it on high. “Here’s to the sisterhood of such dishonor—long may we reign.”

Laughing, Vanidar raised up his long-knife and clanged his blade against hers. “So be it.”

So be it!
echoed Melor, Ruar, Perin, and Biren.

“So be it,” whispered Arin in Aiko’s ear. Then Arin held Aiko at arm’s length and said, “Thou didst no dishonorable thing, Aiko; nevertheless, I do accept thee as the cat who fell from grace.”

C
ouncilmage Belgon grasped the lapels of his overrobe and said, “Warrior Aiko may indeed be the so-called ‘cat who fell from grace,’ Lady Arin, but what of these other references in your rede? Who or what might they be? Given the nature of the Green Stone, I am quite in the dark.”

The other Mages ’round the Council chamber muttered and nodded in agreement. Sage Arilla rapped for order, and when quiet fell, she said, “All of us are quite in the dark, Wizard Belgon. Yet perhaps if we reason together we may shed some light on this mystery. In particular, we should strive to resolve the riddle of just who these others are whom Lady Arin must find to aid her in her mission.”

A murmur whispered around the Council Chamber, but fell to silence when Lysanne said, “Forget not the legend Warrior Aiko recounted, for it, too, may have some bearing—being, as it is, a tale of a Wizard warrior-king who is to raise the nation of Moko to conquer the world, and who will wield a mighty talisman before which even the Dragons must bow.”

“Do you believe it is the Dragonstone?” asked Irunan from his seat against the wall.

Arilla raised a negating hand. “Leap to no conclusions, for the whole tale smacks of but a fable and may have no bearing at all on the Dragonstone or on Dara Arin’s mission.”

“And then again perhaps it is very relevant,” said Belgon, “coming as it does at this particular time. It speaks of war and Dragons and of a Wizard warrior-king.”

Gelon, at Irunan’s side, called out: “But who among Wizards would do such a thing?”

“Renegades, Black Mages, others,” replied Belgon. “Anyone consumed with ambition to rule, no matter the cost to those who get in the way.” He paused and looked about the chamber, then said, “Perhaps someone in this very hall.”

Shouts of denial followed Belgon’s words, and Arilla rapped the gavel hard and long ere order was restored. The Sage fixed Belgon with a cold stare. “There was no cause for that accusation, Belgon.”

Belgon sketched a seated bow and said, “I do apologize to this entire assembly, Sage.”

Arilla looked long at him and finally said, “Well and good, Belgon. Well and good.” She turned to the others and rapped once with her gavel. “And now, Council, let us get to the matter at hand: Lady Arin solicits our advice as concerns the words of her vision. Specifically she desires suggestions as how to find those who are to aid her in her mission.” Arilla leaned back in her chair and spoke to Lysanne. “Would you repeat the list?”

“These are the remaining ones she seeks,” said Lysanne, holding up her fingers and ticking them off one by one: “One-Eye in dark water; mad monarch’s rutting peacock; the ferret in the High King’s cage; a cursed keeper of faith in the maze.”

A dark-haired Mage raised her hand. “Yes, Ryelle,” acknowledged Arilla.

Ryelle looked back and forth between Arin and Lysanne and asked, “Do you think that all these are people, or could some truly be the thing described: a peacock, a ferret, even a cat?”

Arin slowly shook her head and shrugged, and Lysanne said, “All we know, Ryelle, is what the recovery of her vision revealed.”

“Well then,” said Ryelle, “all I can think of concerning one of the lines of the rede is that the High King’s cage could be anywhere…though Caer Pendwyr is most likely to be the place, but I do not know if Bleys keeps ferrets. As to the other lines…” She turned up her palms in surrender.

“Ha! If you ask me,” said white-haired Halorn, “there
are mad monarchs aplenty about the world. Peacocks, too.”

“I say,” called Perm from his chair against the wall, “cannot one of ye Wizards use thy powers to help narrow the field?”

“Point the way, so to speak?” added Biren.

A tall, gaunt Mage shook his head. “When it comes to the Dragonstone, we are helpless. It blocks all attempts.”

“It did not block Lysanne,” said Arin.

“No, child,” replied the Mage, ignoring the fact that Arin was perhaps many times his elder, “you are mistaken. Your own wild magic had already succeeded in doing what we cannot, and Lysanne did but help you unlock memories hidden away.”

Arin glanced at Lysanne, and she smiled and nodded, confirming what had been said.

Arin sighed, then asked, “Do ye think I must find these others—be they peacocks, ferrets, or aught else—in the given order of the rede?” She gestured at Aiko kneeling on the stone floor behind. “First the cat, next the one-eye, then the rutting peacock and so on?”

Mages looked at one another, unable to answer out of knowledge. Then old Halorn said, “I would guess that since you found the cat first, you should go after the one-eye next, and so on down through the slate.”

“Then I say,” declared Arin, “let us debate as to what each of the phrases of my vision mean, for I would value whatever advice ye can yield.”

*   *   *

The debate lasted for tens of candlemarks, and in the end they were no closer to knowing the truth than they were at the beginning, though many options had been proffered as to the meanings of the prophetic words.

It was Vanidar Silverleaf who finally said, “Enough! We are now chasing our own tails.”

Arilla agreed, and after minor additional discussion, adjourned the meeting.

As they headed back toward their quarters, Aiko, who had remained silent throughout, said, “Perhaps dark water is a village rather than—”

“Vada!”
exclaimed Vanidar, slapping a palm to his
forehead. “Aiko could be right! Mayhap it isn’t a lake, a pond, a stream, a place in the sea.” He turned to Rissa. “Mayhap it
is
a village.”

Rissa frowned in concentration. “Let me think, I seem to recall…” They strode down the hall, Rissa staring at the passing floor and mumbling to herself. At last she looked up and said, “There is a place in Fjordland, a town named Darkwater, only in their tongue they call it Mørkfjord.”

“But there could be hundreds of towns named Darkwater, Møkfjord, or the like,” protested Biren.

“Throughout Mithgar,” added Perin.

“Nevertheless,” said Silverleaf, grinning and casting an arm about Rissa, “it is a place to start.”

“Too,” added Ruar, “the towns and villages named after dark water must certainly be fewer than the places throughout the world where water lies dark—every shadow o’er a stream, every dark hole in a pool, every overhanging rock, every deep in the ocean…all have dark water and are, I think, without number. Nay, I deem Lady Aiko has the right of it: the dark water of the rede is most likely to be a town…or other place so named.”

“Where dwells a one-eyed person,” added Melor, raising a finger, “or so I would believe.”

“A person who will aid in this mission,” appended Silverleaf, nodding.

Arin looked across at Rissa. “Where lies this Møkfjord?”

“In Fjordland along the Boreal Sea.”

“I know neither the sea nor the land nor the town, Rissa, for I have not traveled widely as hast thou.”

“I will guide thee there,” replied Rissa.

“Nay,” said Silverleaf. “Thou cannot.”

“Oh?”

“Recall the words of the vision,
chier:
‘Take these with thee, no more, no less, else thou wilt fail to find the Jaded Soul.’ Neither thou nor I nor anyone here save Lady Aiko may go with Dara Arin.”

“Khal”
gritted Rissa. “The rede.”

“Regardless, Aiko and I still need to know the way to this town of Darkwater,” said Arin.

Rissa turned to Mage Lysanne, who strode alongside. “Hast thou a map broad enough to show the way?”

Lysanne smiled and said, “Follow,” and led them through corridors and upward, climbing stair after stair within Black Mountain. At last they came to a great spherical chamber in the middle of which was a huge globe rotating slowly on a tilted axis. A catwalk led to a sturdy, latticed framework enclosing the globe, and on one wall of the chamber was a lensed lantern in a housing affixed to a track marked with days and seasons running full ’round the room.

“There is your map of Mithgar,” said Lysanne, pointing to the globe. “And the lantern is the sun. We have not yet added the moon, but will someday.”

Aiko, who had never been in this particular chamber in all of the months she had served as a warrior of the Mages, cocked an eyebrow. “That is Mithgar?”

Lysanne nodded.

“But it is a ball!” protested the Ryodoan.

Again Lysanne nodded, adding a smile.

Rissa stepped onto the catwalk and to the sphere. She clambered up the framework and across the globe, using the lattice as it was intended. She studied the painted surface and moved about, and finally called to Arin, “Here, Dara, here is the place where Møkfjord lies, and over here are the Grey Mountains and Black Mountain within.”

Arin joined her as did the others, and they pondered long on what route Arin would take. Traveling north through the Grey Mountains and then west to Fjordland was the shortest, but nearly all of it would be through the Untended Lands, where few if any lived. Too, for the next month or so the winter on the polar side of the mountains was entirely too brutal to bear. Following an old trade route west along the southern flank of the Grimwall seemed a better choice—at least there were villages along this way—though there were no passes through that grim range until Kaagor north of the Silverwood, leading from Aven in the south to the Steppes of Jord in the north. In the end, this was the way they decided to go and Rissa called for pen and parchment to sketch a map.

As Rissa charted their route, the others clambered
about upon the framework, looking at the map of the entire world. It was Aiko who asked, “These glints within—what are they?”

“They mark where Mages dwell,” replied Lysanne.

“And the dark sparkles? —My tiger murmurs of danger.”

“Yes,” replied Lysanne. “They, too, are of Magekind, though I would they were not. And your tiger is right: vile they are, renegades, and they walk in darkness. A few were among the Mages who wanted to use the stone to control the Dragons and did not swear the oath. Others are just plain evil. Black Mages we name them—Durlok, Modru, Vegar, Belchar, others.” Lysanne fell silent and would say no more.

*   *   *

As they walked back to their quarters, Arin turned to Lysanne and said, “I have a question to ask concerning seers’ visions, Wizard Lysanne.”

“I will tell you what I can, though one trained in that art could tell you more. In fact, rather than muddle the waters, why don’t I ask, um, Seer Zelanj to join us for tea? He can certainly answer your questions better than I.”

*   *   *

They sat at afternoon tea, eating sweet breads daubed with honey and sipping the dark brew. Zelanj looked to be ancient, supported by his staff as he hobbled into the chamber. White-haired and wrinkled, he was, and his eyes a faded blue, his skin nearly transparent with age where it was not liver spotted. “Heh,” he grumbled as he sat down. “It was a long walk and took much from me. I may have to right here in Black Mountain, drat!…at least long enough to gain some strength for the voyage to Rwn.”

He accepted a cup of tea and called for a honeycake, and when it was delivered to his palsied hand, he fixed Arin with a gimlet eye and said, “Now what’s all this about visions and such?”