Dragon Fire (41 page)

T’eng Sten sat like an indigo clad statue on the throne to Yarlung’s left. Rakan took his place just behind his mother, next to the kai that had replaced Angalaan. He faced forward but his attention was riveted on Mnemozyne. She had been one of Yttresken’s inner circle. Rakan’s rök howled. Angalaan shouldn’t have died. And she shouldn’t have been replaced by the forest green water dragon.

Yarlung lifted her lance. The enormous gong that hung in midair resounded. The Meet had started. The middle of the rotunda shimmered in a mirage of gold, steel grey, black, platinum and copper. A murmur of surprise echoed around the rotunda as the billowing cloud of particles condensed into five sparkling pillars.

Rakan felt his mother’s anger flash momentarily and then recede into nothingness as she suppressed it. The pillars morphed into the five Eld, the five Oldest Dragons who had veto power over the Kairöks – should they choose to use it. Each one faced a different direction, arms stretched to the side with their palms up, making a pentagon. The Eld were dressed in pure black and their identical body armor shimmered like hematite. Rakan felt a mix of fear and awe as they moved slowly forward, expanding the size of their pentagon. Their silver shoulder-length hair flowed freely – male and female alike. The only distinguishing element was the inner lining of their cloaks that flashed the color of their gift. Except some of the colors were wrong. The gold of the Shield Eld and the platinum of the Transformer Eld were as they should be. But the copper of the Trailer Eld and the iron grey of the Mind Eld shimmered between their natural and oxidized states: the Trailer Eld’s inner lining was alternately copper and green and the Transformer Eld’s was alternately iron and rust. But it was the Trigger Eld’s cloak that made Rakan hiss. It was there and not there – and Rakan could alternately see through the cloak and not. It existed and didn’t exist at the same time.

He felt the copper-eyed Trailer Eld examine him. Or rather his trail. And he knew that she could see the double twisted strand of his rök.
“You will come to me,”
she said, her voice echoing like a prophecy.
“Your place is with us. Not with the human.”
Rakan stiffened. How did she know about Anna?

The Eld turned and faced each other. “The Meet will now begin,”
said all five voices in unison. They dissipated, filling the rotunda with a metallic light. Rakan stifled the urge to morph, they were there. He could feel them. But he couldn’t see them.

The gong sounded again and a dark brown dragon with the copper crest of a trailer materialized. Haakaramanoth. Flames shot from his open mouth. His black claws were out-stretched to attack. T’eng Sten growled and morphed, lunging for Haakaramonth’s throat.

“Enough,” commanded the Eld in unison, freezing both dragons on the black sand.

There was a stunned silence as T’eng Sten morphed back to his human form and bowed to the circle of Eld that had re-materialized around the two dragons. “My apologies, your Eld. But he has no business being here.”

“That is not for you to decide,” said the Eld. “Return to your place.”

T’eng Sten’s energy shimmered in anger, but he bowed and returned to his throne. Everyone watched the dark brown dragon in an uneasy silence. He bowed his head and morphed to human within the ring of the Eld. Haakon. Rakan growled and tensed to attack, but Yuli froze him in place.
“No,”
she hissed.
“Let the Eld deal with this.”

“By what right do you appear at this Meet, Haakaramanoth?” asked the Shield Eld, her gold-lined cape flashing.

“By the same right as all the other Kairöks here.”

“And where is Paaliaq?” asked Yarlung, her voice piercing the silence.

Haakaramanoth turned to Yarlung with a slight bow. “She disappeared at the same time as Kairök Kraal.”

Rakan could feel the truth of the Old Dragon’s words, and yet something didn’t ring right. Rakan examined Haakaramanoth’s trail. It wasn’t the trail of a Kairök. He didn’t have his own rök even though it felt like he did. Rakan’s rök flickered on the edge of an uncontrolled morph. It was an illusion.

The Trailer Eld entered his mind.
“How interesting that you can see that,”
she said. Her voice froze his mind
. “Either he tells some form of the truth or his need is great. We alone will decide. You will not speak of this.”
A cold slithering ran down the base of Rakan’s skull and he knew that the Eld had set a trigger in his mind.

“There was no need,”
he hissed as soon as she released his mind. But she had blocked him out already. His rök throbbed. He wanted to throw himself at her rigid back and lash into her. She had no right to penetrate his mind like that.

“If that is true, then who is Jing Mei?” Yarlung’s question caused a murmur to reverberate in the rotunda.

“Silence,” commanded the Eld in unison. “Haakaramanoth will answer.”

“She is a whelp of the Cairn,” said Haakaramanoth. A vocal round of protests erupted.

Yarlung snorted. “You lie.”

“Enough,” said the Eld. “We will examine Haakaramanoth and determine the truth of his words. You will return to your own lairs until the Meet is reconvened.” The Eld disappeared, taking Haakaramanoth with them. The Meet dissolved into mayhem as Kairöks jumped from their thrones, clamoring to make themselves heard.

Rakan stayed next to his mother’s empty throne. The Eld’s trails were unlike the other Draak even though they had one strand each. They shimmered like opals. The way June’s did.

* * *

June sat alone in the cafeteria. “Hey, what’s up?” asked Anna, as she and Lysa joined her. “Where’s Erling?”

“Gone,” June said dejectedly.

“What do you mean, gone?” Anna asked.

June picked at her lunch.

Anna looked at Lysa. “When did he leave?”

“This morning,” she said. “Erling wasn’t pleased at being summoned.”

“Why can’t he ever say no?” snapped June.

Lysa shrugged. “Could you?”

“Depends on what they asked me to do,” she said quietly.

“Perhaps,” said Lysa.

June perked up. “Verje is back.”

Anna looked around. She hadn’t felt anything. But a few moments later Verje came in and Lysa stood up. “Excuse me,” she said and walked out of the lunchroom with Verje. June pushed back her chair and raced after them. Anna followed. Something was wrong.

June stopped in the empty hallway and Anna nearly ran into her. “Where did they go?” Anna looked around. She wished she could do that.

June flopped down in the stairway. “They went in the light.”

“What’s wrong?” Anna sat next to her. “Are you worried about Erling?”

“No. About Haakon.”

“Why would you worry about Haakon?”

“Because he’s gone to Pemba’s.”

“But Pemba’s not here.” Anna’s cheeks tingled. “You mean wherever Pemba is, with Dawa?”

June nodded. “Pemba’s mother imprisoned Torsten because he freed Dawa.”

“Maybe it was because he killed someone.”

“Thank god he did. Imagine how many more deaths there would have been if he hadn’t.” June trembled like she had the other day and Anna wished Lysa hadn’t disappeared.

“It’s over now,” Anna said, wrapping an arm around June.

“No it’s not.” June leaned into her. “Haakon cut me off. I can’t feel him anymore. He said he didn’t want to risk them feeling me through him if he was attacked.” June’s pain washed over Anna.

“They won’t attack him,” Anna said, reassuring her friend. “There’s no reason to.”

June shook her head. “Pemba and Torsten are different. But the others… all they think about is revenge and power. And they’ll do anything to get it. Like Yttresken and Kariaksuq.”

“Is Kariaksuq still alive?” asked Anna, her heart sinking. She hadn’t even thought about that yet.

“Yes. But Pemba’s mother is worse,” June said quietly.

Anna gripped June. “What if she attacks you?”

“Why would she?”

“Because you’re a Draak and Erling is an Elythia.” Pain ripped through Anna and she fell forward, gasping for air. “What was that?”

But June was gone.

* * *

Rakan paced around his mother’s thermal spa. The gurgling baths made him want to morph into a water dragon.

“Would you relax?” said Yuli, not for the first time. “What’ll Yarlung think if she sees your trail crisscrossing all over the room instead of lying on the bed next to me?”

“I don’t care what she thinks.”

“Well, you should,” snapped Yuli. “I’m trying to help you but I can’t if you won’t play along.”

Rakan stopped pacing. “You’re right.” She was risking her neck for him. “Why can’t we even go outside?” He wanted to hunt for Kariaksuq.

“It’ll only be a few more days until they reconvene the Meet.”

Rakan groaned and sank to one of the beds.

“Lie down. I’ll massage you. Okay?”

Rakan nodded and lay on his stomach. He was going crazy. Yuli’s touch was firm as she kneaded his back, easing his aching muscles. Rakan groaned. They were sore from growing, not from having been used. It was a constant reminder of what had happened when he had chased Kariaksuq.

Yuli and Rakan tensed at the same time. Kariaksuq. She was nearby. He’d kill her now, injunction to stay in or not.

“She’s on the other side of Mapam Yumco,” said Yuli. It was the fresh water lake next to Yarlung’s salty one. “Yarlung’s coming,” said Yuli, quickly lying next to Rakan.

Yuli stood when Yarlung shifted into the spa.

“I want you to capture Kariaksuq,” Yarlung said to Rakan.

“We’re supposed to wait here,” Rakan said testily.

“You don’t technically belong to my Cairn. You can move freely.”

Rakan growled. He had been going crazy for no reason?

“Don’t kill her. She’ll be much more useful alive.” Yarlung turned to Yuli. “Give Rakan’dzor access to the Hold so that he can bring her in quietly.”

Yarlung disappeared. Rakan prepared to do the same but Yuli stopped him.
“I thought you wanted to mate with her, not kill her.”

Rakan pulled away so that Yuli wouldn’t see the image of Anna that floated up to his mind when he thought of mating.

“But you chased her,” she said.

Rakan clenched his fist and shifted out of the room. Kariaksuq was too close to ignore. He found her kneeling in the fresh water of lake Mapam Yumco, her amber colored dress billowing out like a medusa. She turned to look at him, her pitch-black hair stuck in clumps to her back and shoulders in abandon. “Have you come to take me or to kill me?” she snarled and staggered to her feet. “I hate you,” she yelled. She lurched towards Rakan. But she never made it that far. She fell to her knees, blood oozing into the water. Her rök was spinning like crazy as she teetered on the edge of insanity. “Why don’t you kill me?” she yelled. “Kill me, you fool.” She reached out and tried to grab his ankles. “Please.” She dropped into the water. “I can’t kill myself anymore than I could join T’eng Sten. Not after everything I had done.” She thrashed in the water, willing her rök to fly free, but it wouldn’t.

Rakan felt a mix of pity and revulsion for Kariaksuq. He hesitated. It would be so easy to kill her. But he couldn’t kill her in cold blood. It was wrong. His anger had disappeared. She had been used as a tool. Yarlung would only torture her. But his father might be able to help. He reached out to pick her up. “Let me help you.”

She dug her nails into his arms, latching on like a leech. “If you want to help me, kill me.”

“No.”

“Are you too weak?”
She wrapped herself around him.
“Or do you want something else first?”

He tried to fling her away, but she wouldn’t let go.

“Get angry,”
she said.
“Remember what I did to Anna. And know I would do it again if I had to.”
Because she had had no choice. It had been the will of her Kairök. And she had never had the courage to die in rebellion. To die without her rök being released.

Rakan’s anger died as quickly as it had flared back up again. He wrapped Kariaksuq in his arms and felt what she wasn’t saying. He felt her pain and her anguish as her rök opened itself up to him. Her rök knew what it wanted: death, but not in the agonizing pain that Yttresken would have given her. T’eng Sten would’ve given her death, but she hadn’t wanted to face the shame in front of him. As he held her, kneeling in the water with her legs straddling his, he felt her rök come out of her body and hum between them. And he knew what to do. His rök reached out and welcomed her inside and in that split second he knew everything she had ever felt, everything she had ever done. And he knew it was her time to die.

“Swim free, Kariaksuq,”
he said. She went limp in his arms. He willed her rök to re-manifest and sent it into the center of the earth where it wanted to go. Where it would find the burning fire of peace. “You’re free now,” he said, as Kariaksuq’s last breath shuddered through her body.

He sat there, rocking her stiffening body back and forth in the gentle waters of the lake until the sun sank below the horizon. He placed her lifeless body in the water and spread her hair out around her head. “May your body return to what it once was,” he said, gently dissolving the molecules that had been joined to form her physical being. He sat by the lake until the last of the sun’s rays slipped around the earth, staring at the grandeur of the world that made him feel small and insignificant in comparison.