35. Arienne
35
ARIENNE
Arienne was crossing the snow-covered valley on a chestnut horse. She was clad in light armor according to Emere’s suggestion. Lysandros’s Power generator—his son, Tychon—was in one of the bags hanging from the horse’s side.
White smoke rose from the volcano. With the smoke came an unbroken sort of buzzing, an invisible but palpable tension. It reminded Arienne of a working Power generator.
Arienne stopped the horse before a small stream. In the water’s reflection, her eyes were violet and glowing slightly. Whether because the dragon was near or perhaps Eldred’s Power was spilling from his wounds and into the world, she didn’t know. She splashed her face with the cold water. Behind her, fifty soldiers waited at least ten paces away from her. Farther away, Emere led the way on his horse. They all feared Arienne. She still didn’t dislike this.
Just a little bit more, and she would come upon the mouth of the cave, the secret entrance into the volcano.
“That sword is a dragon’s fang.”
It was Eldred. He spoke for the first time since the fight at Finvera Pass.
Arienne looked over her shoulder, making sure the trailing soldiers were too far to hear her speak. “I know. The princess told me so.”
“That princess is no ordinary woman.”
“Neither am I.”
She’d been dragged to the Capital for being a sorcerer. She’d had to run away, hide, and be chased after for the same reason. But being a sorcerer did not mean she was a slave. Sorcery was strength, and sorcerers had that strength. Arienne had come to realize this on her journey.
Eldred made a sound that was something like a laugh.
“And I, myself, am not an ordinary man.”
“You’re not a man at all.”
The stumps of Eldred’s arms still leaked violet smoke, which by now should’ve overflowed the room but somehow hadn’t. The windows of the room in her mind were twisted from Lysandros’s attack, the books from the bookshelf scattered on the floor.
From ahead, Emere raised an arm and shouted, “Lady Arienne! I have found it. A marked wall. But it does not seem to be a door. I see no cracks or seams…”
Arienne squeezed her legs twice, and her horse trotted forward.
Emere had come down from his horse to inspect the wall. Just as the princess had told Arienne, there were deep sword marks on the stone.
Arienne dismounted and shouldered her bag, its strap biting into her body with the weight of the Power generator.
“Thank you. Please wait here with the other soldiers. I shall enter alone.”
“Will you be all right?”
She nodded and drew Wurmath, the fang of the dragon, from the blue scabbard on her belt. The wall of rock melted at her approach. As soon as she was inside, the wall reappeared behind her. It was dark here, but Wurmath’s slight glow gave enough light for her to see the way, and its warmth calmed her fast-beating heart.
It was not long before she came to another wall, which also vanished when she approached with Wurmath held toward it. A chamber of gray rock walls, larger than any hall of her school, lay before her. And in the middle of the cavern lay something Arienne had never thought to see in her lifetime.
Could such a huge thing be alive? This was her first thought at the sight of the chained, sleeping dragon. Dark red scales covered its enormous bulk; it was the size of a large house. Spear-like teeth overlapped its closed lips. Its many eyes were closed. The folded wings looked like they would cover the whole sky when spread. Each claw of its front paws, upon which its head rested, looked almost as long as she was tall.
To think a human army won against such a creature was incredible.
“It sleeps,” said Eldred.
“I see that.”
Her curiosity overcoming her fear, she took a few steps forward.
“Do you know why it is bound in chains?” Eldred asked.
“Because the Empire couldn’t kill it, so they had to imprison it instead?”
“No. A dragon is like a living Power generator. The Empire stole secrets from many places to concoct its method of sourcing Power. A dragon’s heart is one of these. Gigatherions were created by the Empire in the dragon’s image, and Arland’s fire-dragon is kept alive in case a time comes when it will be more useful.”
Was the humming from the volcano the sound of the dragon’s heart? “They let such a dangerous thing live just in case it might be useful someday?”
“Would you be so afraid of an enemy you’ve conquered once before?” Arienne stared at the chains entwined over the dragon’s bulk. Eldred sneered.
“I shall not distract you. Go ahead. Try severing those chains.”
Arienne rehearsed the cutting spell a few times to loosen her tongue and concentrated on the black chains. She imagined them snapping in her mind. She remembered how Eldred’s and Lysandros’s arms had been severed. She recalled the images she had used when she had severed Tychon from Lysandros. She uttered the incantation. The Power blossomed on the tip of her tongue.
Sparks flew as the imaginary sword bounced off the chains, leaving not a dent. A wind blew past Arienne and hit the wall behind her, leaving a deep gash in the rock.
It didn’t work. And there was nothing else she knew of to try.
“How regrettable. Why not try again?”
Arienne by now had spent enough time with Eldred to recognize when he was mocking her.
Still, she tried again. This time, she swung Loran’s sword Wurmath on the chain as she cast the spell. The blade got caught in it. Her right arm and hand screamed in pain. The dragon groaned in its sleep. She pulled at the sword, trying to dislodge it, but it refused to budge. In her struggle, her hand slipped from the hilt. Arienne fell backward on her behind.
“Those chains were forged by the greatest of the great sorcerers of the Empire. They will not break for the likes of your little tricks.”
“ You taught me this magic!”
“First, that spell is one you made up based on my magic, something akin to a baby’s babble. Second, you are simply too ignorant of true magic to understand the depth of it.”
“That babble sliced off your arms.”
“Then you should know, if you could do that after only a little of my guidance, I can more than break that chain myself. Release my legs.”
And there it was, the request she had been expecting to hear again for some time. She hadn’t expected, however, that her answer to Eldred would determine whether she would return to the fortress as a success or a failure.
“You defeated me once. Do you still fear me?”
Arland had never felt like a true home to her, but ever since she’d met Loran, she had felt a conviction that this task was something she had to do. All she had done until now was run away. Which was necessary then, but now she needed to accomplish something else. She needed to break the chain. She needed to do this if she did not want to have to run and hide ever again. If that meant having to face Eldred outside her mind’s room and defeat him again, so be it.
She looked in the room of her mind. It had been close to collapsing ever since Lysandros’s attack. Eldred was already standing and was facing her as she entered. She could see the discolored teeth in his face.
Imagining herself inside the room, Arienne unraveled the bandages from his legs. She cringed at the wet sound of skin being ripped as the bandages came off.
“Good,” Eldred said, without a hint of pain or discomfort. “I shall keep my promise.”
The unraveled bandages floated in the air and made a circle. A violet whirlpool ensued. Eldred limped toward it, perhaps the first steps he had taken in nearly two centuries.
Arienne immediately regretted what she had done.
She was trying to grab him when something exploded, and her consciousness was thrown out of the room of her mind.
Through a sudden, splitting pain, she gripped her head and tried to see what was happening before her. There was the dragon. The chains. And Eldred. He stood on his two feet, on the cavern floor. And behind him was the violet whirlpool.
His arms had regenerated. Eldred noticed Arienne’s confusion.
“These arms? You see, that thing only happened in your mind. That was just imagination. I am no longer at the mercy of your mind.” He turned to the dragon and said, in a satisfied voice, “Now I shall have my revenge.”
A face she had seen before, words she had heard before. Perhaps in a dream.
“The chains?”
“They will be severed, as I do what I must. Do not worry, little sorcerer. I will not let such a magnificent beast be kept in chains… And now that I am free, the world will be unchained as well, its wonders restored. I will rule as a god-king, as I had so long ago.” Arienne recalled what Eldred had said, back at the tower in the forest, before the inquisitors came. It was a wondrous time when magic was grand, and we ruled supreme…
Eldred placed a hand on the sleeping dragon and spoke a long incantation. Another violet whirlpool appeared in the air.
“How simple the mind of a dragon can be! But deep. Very suitable, for me to create a room within it.”
“What are you saying?”
Eldred didn’t answer as he stepped into the whirlpool. Arienne hesitated only a moment before trying to follow, but she was too late. The whirlpool disappeared.
Then the dragon suddenly raised its head and roared.
Its body shook. Its wings spread wide. A hazy violet aura filled the dragon’s many eyes like a grim omen. The cave seemed to shrink in comparison. Arienne stumbled backward, trying to get away.
Chips of volcanic rock fell from above. The dragon stretched its four legs and stood. It folded its wings. It spoke in a voice too heavy to be misunderstood as human.
“I am finally received by a vessel worthy of a king!”
It fluttered its left wing, then its right. The resulting wind made it difficult for Arienne to remain standing.
“This magnificent strength of flesh, Power as if containing a generator of its own… Behold, Arienne, what a true sorcerer is!”
Eldred, with his dragon mouth, recited Arienne’s incantation of severance, but with a foreboding of Power far beyond what Arienne had thought was possible. There was a sound so loud it felt like her eardrums would split. The runes on the black chains shone and screamed at once. They snapped in a hundred places and listlessly slid down the scaled hide of the dragon to the cavern floor, before the dragon turned its many eyes on Arienne.
“You have done well. In return, I shall bestow upon you the honor of being the first sacrifice. I have always wanted to know what a human tasted like to a dragon.”
The dragon’s tongue slithered from its mouth, red as lava and split into three prongs.