The Dragonprince's Heir (25 page)

I rubbed a bruise above my left elbow then walked by him to investigate the sling. I recognized the cloak he'd spread over me before, dusty now and worn. Its corners gathered up in knots like they'd been tied with straps to my horse's collar.

But there were no straps. There was no collar. I raised my hand to where one should have been and felt its invisible shape, malleable beneath my questing fingers. I looked back toward the litter and saw its base was resting gently a hand's width above the earth.

I turned to Themm and found him watching me. "You knew all along?" I asked.

"Of course I did. I did not expect the waterskin, though."

I winced. "I didn't know—"

"No. You didn't." He said it as a pardon. "And I'm pleased to know my nephew can deliver such a solid strike with an improvised weapon. I never saw it coming."

"I'd already planned to sever the chains of fire. I didn't want you to know I could. It seemed such a lucky break when you didn't lash your chains around my skin."

"Hah! No, I was as worried you might break the spell as you were."

I hung my head, feeling sheepish. "So you have always known I could do this? Does Mother know? Does Caleb? They have kept a thousand secrets."

"Oh. Ah...no. I have not known long at all, though perhaps there were hints. But I first learned the shape of it from the letter Dellis sent Seriphenes."

"What is it?" I asked. "What is the shape of it?"

"Every working I've attempted tends to melt wherever it touches your skin. Magic dies around you."

"Oh. What...what does it mean?"

"It means that you are your father's son. Beyond that...it will take much studying to say."

His eyes darted nervously to the horizon once again, though we must have been well outside Tirah's lands by now. Still, he glanced south, and now to west as well.

So I caught his cloak out of its web of air. The magic fought my tug, but the cloak came free as though from sucking mud. I tossed it to a wide-eyed wizard, then scrambled to my saddle. Once we were on the move again, I asked, "Are there no others like me, then?"

"No," he said. "And then again...yes. But the others belch flame and dress in scales."

"I'm...I'm a dragon?"

He laughed at the note of panic in my voice. "You are
not
a dragon. But your father bonded three, and something of him was changed by that connection. I know
he
does not dissolve a wizard's will like this, but it has to be his legacy at work in you."

We rode in silence for a while after that, north and sometimes slightly west along the bank of a lazy river. It was not the same river I had fallen asleep beside. I would not have guessed that so confidently, but the rest of the land looked different, too. Gone were the wide, endless grasslands, replaced by rolling hills and brambled prairie marked here and there with wild wheat. I'd left the rust-red rocks of my homeland far behind and passed through verdant green to the tired brown here.

Every time he glanced off west I thought I saw a smudge against the sky. Not the wide, jagged range of the mountains that hugged the western coast, but a low, dark shadow on the land that might have been a forest, and in its heart a single soaring peak.

In all my life I'd never left the Tower of Drakes, but there had been maps enough to draw a dozen worlds. Some of them had been recovered in ancient bone cases from dragons' hoards, some received as gifts or supplication from landholders begging Father's aid, and many more designed and drawn by the men my father sent out flying over field and stream, over mountain and sea as far they could roam.

I knew the land. I'd memorized its contours and explored the farthest corners in my dreams. And now I rode north along the bank of a rolling river, with a forest to the west with a mountain in its midst.

Those woods had to be the Sorcerer's Stand, and that mountain the one where Father first faced a dragon. That wouldn't be what drew my uncle's nervous glances, though. He chewed his lip and looked across the many miles toward the Academy of Wizardry, where I had enemies aplenty.

And yet...that was impossible. It was a week or more across the open plains from Tirah to the river Brennes. With narrowed eyes, I turned to Themmichus. "How long was I asleep?"

"Almost a day."

"And where are we?"

He laughed. "We're near a place they once called Gath, upon the river Brennes."

"I know of Gath," I said. "It's closer to the northern coast than to Tirah. How in Haven's name—"

"I dragged you through a portal," the wizard said. "Before I'd seen what you can do, or I would not have tried. I didn't dare leave you sleeping so close to Tirah, and the land this way is so empty, no one should have cared."

"You brought me by portal?" I couldn't keep my voice from coming out a growl.

He frowned, confused. "Do you object?"

"I've waited all my life to meet a wizard. I've waited all my life to see true magic done. Father took it with him when he left, and the king brought me a handful of magicians I was not allowed to see. Now you've brought me by portal across a thousand miles...while I was sound asleep."

Understanding dawned in his eyes, and then he grinned. "Ah, worry not, my boy. There's wonders still for you to see."

"I didn't break the portal, then?"

He shook his head. "No. It is another kind of magic. It's a...spell I cast upon another place, to make it so like this place, that they're both the same. I think perhaps if I let you stand too long at the other end, you might dissolve the working by your presence. But if you only took a step away, even that much seems unlikely."

I licked my lips then glanced sideways at him. "Then why are we at Gath?"

"We're not at Gath. I didn't dare open a portal even that close to the Academy, lest they notice us. And I suspect they watch the garden almost as well as their own grounds."

I frowned. "Who are they?"

"The Masters of the Academy," Themm said. "I should say, 'we,' but I have been so long at court. Still, if they knew you were here...."

He let the thought hang in grim foreboding, but my attention was on other things. "Forget the Masters. Why have we come so far at all? This is opposite the way I need to go!"

"No, Taryn. I understand you must want to be at the capitol. But Isabelle has Caleb to protect her, and you're far safer away from there."

"I know!" I shouted. "I left them at Cara with good reason."

"You left on purpose? Oh, Taryn. This is an awful time for an adventure. Tirah alone could have been devastating—"

"I never meant to go to Tirah! I only want to go home. Take me to the Tower. Now."

For a long time he stared at me. Then he pursed his lips. "Well. This is unexpected. I'd anticipated difficulty convincing you to go."

"You'll have none. I want to go. Make a portal for me to see and take me there."

"There are certain magics that will prevent—"

"I know the Tower's defenses!" I snapped. "But you can take me close."

He glanced back west again then met my eyes. "I want to take you to the Tower. You have my word. But there is something we must accomplish first."

"No. I'm sorry to defy you, but it's just as you said: This is an awful time for an adventure. I have responsibilities."

"And none greater than this." He said it with such sincerity that I stopped to listen. He nodded. "There's important work for you at Gath."

"Whose work?"

"Hm?"

"Whose work?" I demanded. "Is it the Academy's? Is it yours? Is it somehow Father's? Whose?"

He caught my shoulders and met my eyes. "Taryn, it's yours."

"I don't believe you."

"There is nothing in the world more important for you to do than this."

"You're wrong. There's nothing more important than my mother. I ran away from her to save her heartache, not to take wild risks."

"But Taryn, your father—"

I shook my head. "Father gave his life to save the world, and perhaps I can call him a hero for it, but that price is paid. When he left Mother behind, when he left the whole world on her shoulders, he made her my priority."

My uncle smiled down at me, patronizing and unashamed of it. "You do him proud—"

"No. It's not for him. I've learned to understand the choice he made, but I do what I do for my mother's sake. And for my own. It is not for him."

He chuckled. "That...is precisely what I mean. He'd make that very speech if he were here. The man I knew, I mean."

"You were friends?"

"Before he met your mother, even. Or...almost. Yes. We were friends. He taught me things that made no sense at all inside the Academy's walls, but they served me well indeed in Timmon's court."

I looked away. My father had taught me nothing, but that hurt too much to say. My hands clenched into fists around the leather reins. "I have no wish to visit Gath! Take me to the Tower."

He shook his head. "That would not be fair."

"I am not concerned with fair. I have responsibilities. Take me to the Tower, now!"

The wizard sighed. "There is much you do not know."

My horse whinnied his complaint as I reined too sharply. "Then tell me! Tell me everything or take me home."

His mouth opened and closed. He looked away. "I think the words would do more harm than good."

"That suits me well enough. I don't really want the words."

He sighed and shrugged. "Give me three days. Four, at most. Long enough to see—"

"No. I've wasted too many days already."

"Just one then. Just until the dawn. That's not too much to ask."

I caught my breath and stopped myself short of shouting at him. It was not too much to ask. There was nothing in my power to force his hand. And yet...I couldn't bear to wait. I shook my head. "Today. It has to be today."

Instead of answering he turned in his saddle, staring north along the river's bank and calculating. "Very well. We'll try. But first you'll have to ride for all you're worth."

"Why?"

"Because I will not take you from this place until you've been to visit Gath. I swear it on my father's name. And I believe once we are there you'll change your mind."

I raised my chin. "The Tower is my first priority. You will not change my mind."

He smiled, so assured, but I could see the shades of sadness in his eyes. He only said, "We'll see," then he was racing on ahead. I stretched out low over my horse's neck and chased him all the way to Gath.

I knew the place long before we arrived. The land out here was empty, but it was mostly healed. But we came to a place where the angry orange rays of the setting sun showed scars as black and raw as if the dragons were still flying.

Nothing grew for miles. The very dirt was scorched, and where our horses walked the charcoal cracked and popped in protest. The line of it stretched left and right as far as I could see, but I could see the slow curve as well. It was a huge circle of devastation centered on some place still up ahead.

The only thing untainted in that place was the living river. Deep and slow and ever-changing, it rolled at our right hand, curling in and out amid the ruin. Far ahead, I could imagine the wide lake wrapped almost lovingly around a little spit of land. I knew it from the maps. Gath-upon-Brennes.

But first we had to cross the char, and for all the haste my uncle had shown before, now he went slowly, carefully...almost reverently. I followed right behind him, eyes and ears alert, but there was no other sound than the rolling river and the eerie crunch of the horses' hooves.

After some distance, the blistered land around us became uneven, thrown up here or there into a hummock, or carved away into a deep, squared pit. I'd passed a hundred of these shapes, obscured by the stretching shadows, before I finally understood. Then I looked ahead and saw the path the wizard followed.

It was straight and even, perhaps eight paces wide, but left and right there were the ruins. Almost none reached higher than a pace or two above the ground, but now that I knew to look, I saw the squared-off walls. I saw the steps down into cellars. It was the ruins of a town.

I swallowed hard. Not a town, but a city. I looked behind me, then aside at miles of the devastation. Larger than my father's fortress. Larger than Tirah, perhaps. That little bit of land had been the heart, perhaps, but this had been a sprawling city spanning the mighty river. How many men had died here? I shuddered at the thought.

This was not Tirah, where only the outlying farms had been burned down. It was not Eriden, where Captain Tanner's neighbors died in ones and twos, dragged out of their burrows. It was not even Cara, where whole blocks had gone up in flames. This was a thriving city scored to ash. It was ten thousand lives—perhaps a hundred thousand lives—turned into coal.

At every step the horses' hooves went
crunch
, and something deep inside me screamed in horror. I understood the wizard's reverence, then, but all I wanted was to break and run. I wanted to be through this place and out, away. I trembled in the saddle, but he only plodded on.

He had promised to take me safely home. I fixed my mind on that, focused on my calming breaths, and followed him to the heart of desolation.

First I saw the wall. It rose above the ruins clean and unbroken. It was not the sorcerous construct my father had wrought to protect the Tower, but rough-worked stone. Still, somehow it seemed to shine like silver against all the shadow. It rose taller than a man and might have made a perfect circle, but its eastern end connected to a tall stone bridge that arched out over the lake.

This was the place, then, the center of it all. This wall still stood, and from beyond it came the little sounds of life: leaves rustled in the breeze, birds cried out, and crickets sang. After all the eerie silence, those tiny sounds seemed like a ringing choir.

A gate of polished steel stood at the end of this old boulevard, strong enough to stop an army, but now it stood open. It was not until my uncle dropped out of his saddle and swept a deep bow that I saw the lady standing in the gate's arch. She was lovely.

She was everything this place was not. She was beautiful and made of brilliant colors. Her hair was gold, her skin was brown, her eyes were green, and her dress was rosy-red and river-blue. She stood taller than Caleb, thinner than Mother, and yet she did not look fragile. She looked alien instead. Strange and powerful. Graceful and kind. She turned those eyes on me, and I felt a chill chase down through my chest and settle in my spine. I flung myself from my saddle to kneel beside my uncle.