Quest Of The Dragon Tamer (Book 1) (10 page)

Ren skirted the corridor, keeping in the shadows. His copper eyes shone with a fury befitting a dragon under attack. She didn’t have to think long.

“Hello there,” she said, offering the diversion Ren needed. “Would you be kind enough to let me out?”

The head guard smiled and motioned for one of the others to unlock the cell. Ren didn’t hesitate. Bounding forward he ran a guard through before the man saw his attacker. The guard approaching their cell started to turn when a knife whizzed past Marva and embedded in his throat. Blood seeped from the wound in a sickening pulse before he toppled, spilling the keys paces away. Marva fell to the ground and reached for the keys through the bars. They were barely out of reach.

Another knife shot past, then another. One hit its target but the other missed as the guard with the rotten teeth scurried down the passage, shouting for assistance. Heartbeats later, echoing footfalls of reinforcements drifted to them. Marva shifted positions and tried again for the keys. Neki slid next to her. His fingers brushed them.

The footfalls grew louder.

Neki grasped the keys and fumbled for the lock. When the door swung open the men ran for the fallen weapons, but Marva knew they wouldn’t be fast enough.

Ren impaled another guard and turned in time to see the reinforcements storming the corridor. He lowered his sword, a calm expression on his face, but Marva froze in terror. There were over twenty guards. They would never be able to fight so many.

Before Quinton or any of Ren’s men could reach their prince, the air around them become dense. Ren began to glow with a silver sheen. The castle walls began to shake. The approaching men screamed as the walls caved inward, others ran back, but none came any farther, and within a heartbeat the entire passageway was blocked with rubble.

“That’s for Eli,” Ren whispered as he studied the rubble with both regret and absolution. His eyes were still lit with an inner power. Marva shivered in spite of herself. She never wanted to get between Ren and someone he loved.

Ren pulled back a hinged stone in the wall, revealing a passage. “Everyone in, quickly!”

They all filed in without question. A torch lay in the distance. It flickered sinisterly against the tall, narrow walls. Muffled curses and shouts arose from the other side, then an explosion. They all started down the passage. Quinton picked Marva up. Before she could protest, her eyes met his. He didn’t carry her for love, but for speed. They needed to get out of the castle – quickly.

- - -

Renee leaned back against the chill earth, her squire asleep at her feet. The outside wall of Zier stood cubits from her. It amazed her how much she didn’t know about the Stardom Castle. She had lived here over twenty years and each year she discovered a new secret. Thank the Maker Lazo had told her about the tunnels.

Renee stroked her squire’s feverish forehead. Tol wasn’t well. Ever since he had arrived at Stardom he had complained of head pains. When a fit overcame him he would shriek in anguish and clutch his head like it was about to explode. Time and again she had taken him to the healer, but the healer only gave him tanga roots to chew. Even tanga, an intense medicine that numbed the subject into feeling almost nothing, hadn’t helped.

His last fit had come just after Ren’s escape. Tol’s screams were harrowing, shriller than they had ever been before, and without another thought she had scooped him up and fled, desperate to reach the tunnels that could take them to safety.

When she entered the tunnels Tol had passed out in her arms.

It was cold, so it had to be approaching late afternoon. Silver striations decorated the walls and ceiling. An old iron pike lay abandoned across from her, its wooden handle rotten and its iron rusty. Although the Stardom mines had once been the largest silver deposits in Zier, they had been dormant for over half a century.

Renee touched the silver band of rule encircling her head. Wyrick always wanted her to wear the band when other lands came to Stardom. She thought the tradition foolish, but when Valor had gained control of Zier she had worn it out of defiance. She didn’t have to worry about that anymore. She tossed the band on the ground.

Tol’s blue eyes slowly fluttered open and filled with fear. Before she could ask how he felt he scampered out of her arms and swung his slight form in all directions, chest heaving. Renee stood, a little uneasy.

“Tol,” she said. “How are you feeling?”

Tol blinked and lowered his arms. “I’m not dead?”

He said it with such apathy she started. She knew Tol had been abused. He was skin and bones when she had first found him abandoned outside the city walls. The boy jumped at every movement, but responded like a flower in the morning’s dew to any type of affection.

She stepped forward, wanting to comfort him, but unsure how. His eyes vacillated between boy and animal. When his lower lip quivered and his shoulders sagged, she quickly closed the distance and scooped him up in her arms. He clung to her as if he had been absolved a great debt.

She rocked him, smoothing his blond hair and whispering reassurances. Tol wiped his tear-streaked face with the back of his hand. Tears still clung to his eyelashes, but as he surveyed the abandoned mine his blue eyes flashed with the curiosity of a child.

“The fit was bad this time, wasn’t it?” Renee asked, needing reassurance the pain had dissipated. She knew it had been deadly. Maybe Tol knew that too.

“Yes,” he said, squirming out of her arms and trotting over to examine the abandoned pike.

“Careful. It’s rusty.”

Tol stepped back. Renee marveled. She had never met a child who obeyed as well as Tol.

“Where are we?” Tol asked as he climbed into her lap.

“We’re in a tunnel at the edge of the castle that was once a shaft in an old silver mine. Now it acts as an escape passage.”

Tol looked around. “I like it here. I feel safe.”

Renee relaxed. “I feel a lot better myself. I’m just worried about my friends back at Stardom.”

Tol turned in her arms. “Don’t go back.”

“I won’t. Valor would only use me to harm those I love. I can’t go back.”

The fervor went out of Tol’s eyes as he snuggled against her. “Good. I don’t want to hurt you.”

Renee opened her mouth to speak, but no words came. Was his comment just his way of showing her he didn’t want her to leave? Surely that was it. Tol would never do anything to harm her.

Renee closed her eyes and pulled Tol closer, condemning her apprehension as foolishness. Tol had been abused and neglected, and he feared she would abandon him too. She kissed his head, eyes welling with tears.

It was approaching dusk. The only light crept through a small crack in the outer wall. The silver streaks surrounding them reminded her of thin trails of slugs, careening this way and that, transforming the dreary tunnel into a marvel of beauty.

Renee closed her eyes and silently prayed to the Maker Ren was safe, but not even thoughts of Ren could stop images of Michel creeping into her head. When Lazo had first told her about Michel’s presence her knees had almost given way. Had Michel come to hate her over the years? Although they had both betrayed Wyrick, in a way, she had also betrayed Michel. She thought it had been the right thing to do at the time, the only answer to a love that had been stifled, but now she wasn’t so sure. Michel had suffered far more than she. Soon now she may be facing her past. She could only pray Ren would forgive her.

Chapter 6

Zorc looked up from the book he had read many times before. The binding was so old some of its leather hung in shreds. There was something in the air he hadn’t sensed a breath ago, something familiar …

He heaved a sigh, chastising himself. It was his imagination … only imagination. Turning the page he focused on the words. The air tingled. Zorc straightened. Did he really feel it? Closing his eyes, he breathed in the damp air.

Magic
.

Zorc swallowed his excitement and hurried to the mirror propped against the far side of the cavern. He bent forward to inspect himself. Still the same, nothing had changed: the same dark eyes, the same widow’s peak, the same ebony hair. Zorc frowned, silently cursing his foolishness. He was too eager, much too eager. Zorc drew a disappointed breath, but before he turned he noticed something glimmering in the torchlight.

“I’ll be staggered,” Zorc said as he gently touched the gray hair above his right temple. He was beginning to age!

Zorc spun with arms wide, waist-long dark hair twirling around him like a war banner. He felt so good he drew up his robes and began to dance the way he had in the Alcazar. For three hundred ninety-eight years he had been waiting. That was far longer than any of the great ones had expected and far longer then he thought he could bear. Waiting wasn’t bad when you had someone to wait with, but only two of those years had been spent with another. Zorc wondered for the thousandth time what had happened to Galor. He could almost imagine the seer’s excitement at the thought of his foretelling coming to life. Zorc felt a pang of sadness as he thought of his friend but brightened at the thought of seeing the sun, feeling the breeze in his hair, smelling a flower, and feeling the gentle ache of hunger.

After almost four centuries in a lonely, dismal cave he would have contact with the outside world, with people, and with the Chosen.

His smile withered. His time in isolation may be over but now he would be faced with challenges too terrifying to dwell on. He needed to consult the crystal again. He needed to be sure.

Zorc glanced back at his reflection. “You’re here because the world is at risk once more, but this time the threat can’t be stopped in the same way. Never forget that. You can’t be the way you were. You must be the way you are, the way you need to be. You’re here for the Chosen.”

He turned and hurried down the dark expanse that led to the crystal cavern. It had been a long time since he had made the trip, years even. He looked down at the impressions in the gray stone. His own footfalls had made them from his frequent pacing and many trips to the crystal in his early years of isolation.

When he reached the darker section of the passage he slowed to appreciate the beauty of the nightmoss glowing an illustrious yellow. Nightmoss had been his only indication of the passage of time. In the summer months the moss was yellow; in the spring, green; in the fall, orange; and in the winter without color.

His mind turned to the issue at hand, the Chosen and the prophecy. Zorc hoped he hadn’t overlooked any interpretation of the prophecy. He had analyzed every contingency he could imagine, and there had been ample time to think. What else was there to do? After Galor had left the silence had almost driven him mad, but he had slowly grown accustomed to the quiet. It amazed him how much he had adapted to being alone. At times he thought he could remain alone forever, and that frightened him more than the quest he had been assigned. Now with magic’s rebirth he yearned to leave the confines of the cave and experience life again. He was determined not to fail.

He entered the chamber where the crystal resided. Large stalactites and stalagmites glistened in the gloom. The Silver Eye sat in the middle of the cavern, glowing a soft silvery-blue, casting shadows over the cave and causing the white formations to glow with a haunting sheen. The crystal had an aura about it, an awareness that caused Zorc’s skin to prickle. Even the base seemed real. Three silver dragons formed it, their sapphire eyes shinning with a rage befitting the silver dragon. Everywhere you walked those blue eyes watched you. Zorc often wondered if those eyes were guarding you from the secrets in the Eye or guarding the secrets in the Eye from you.

The crystal, formed at the beginning of magical times, had been passed down to each Calvet, the wizard director, as a stark reminder of how powerful the Quy could be. Until the Wizard War the Silver Eye was just one more mystery of the Alcazar. Now he knew its purpose. The Silver Eye held the goodness of the Quy. Zorc liked to think of it as holding part of magic’s soul, but although the Eye contained goodness that goodness could be fatal and needed to be feared.

To his knowledge he was the only wizard who had ever seen the Silver Eye in use, even if that use was superficial. Zorc only used the crystal to speak with the mind inside. He would never unlock the Silver Eye’s true power.

As Zorc approached the Eye, he opened his mind and whispered Krov’s name. The crystal immediately began to glow with a bright silver light, transforming the cryptic cave into a crystal palace.

“It’s time, Krov.”

“Yes, it’s time,” his old master’s voice echoed from the ball. Although it was Krov’s voice it contained none of Krov’s emotion. The voice was monotone, dull and lifeless. It had disturbed Zorc when he had first heard it, but he had grown numb to it years ago.

Zorc paused, trying to phrase his question carefully. The crystal didn’t offer any information on its own accord. You had to ask the right questions for it to answer, and if you asked the right questions in the wrong way it could lead you off on a divergent path. Zorc had learned to think before he spoke. It saved time.

“The Chosen has rebirthed the power?”

“Yes.”

“How did he rebirth it?”

“His love had great need.”

“I see,” Zorc replied, contemplating his next question. The crystal pulsated with life, patiently waiting for Zorc to continue.

“The dragon awakened his need?”

“Yes.”

Zorc replayed the prophecy in his mind. “Was Barracus the traitor?”

“You know that, Zorc.”

Zorc waved his hands in frustration at the crystal’s reprimand. “Yes, I know. I’m the One?”

“You know that as well.”

“We were the ones?”

“Yes.”

“Dragons are the thorn?”

“No.”

Zorc froze with mouth agape. Dragons weren’t the thorn? After three hundred ninety-eight years the thorn had changed? Zorc stared at the Silver Eye, mind racing. On multiple occasions Galor had dreamed of a silver dragon crashing through the Eye of the Dragon, bellowing a warning and bringing the darkness. They had discussed it amongst themselves and with the crystal. Silver dragons had been destroyed years ago. When Galor had seen the rebirth of silver dragons they were sure to be the prophecy’s thorn. Although silver dragons didn’t use magic they possessed magical traits that could create magic, powerful magic, and if silver dragons were to come back into existence…