them.”
“The humans would only flee were we to wage unfettered genocide against them. It’s much easier to draw them all together in one place. When I am through, there will be no men left in the kingdom.” Blasphet leaned against the stone rail and said, dreamily, “Who knows what will take their place?”
“What do you mean?” Metron asked.
“Once it’s complete, the city before you could comfortably house perhaps a hundred thousand humans. I plan to fill the city with over a million. I will kill a steady number of them daily, of course, so that the king won’t grow too suspicious of my true plan.”
“Which is?”
Blasphet spread his wings in a gesture that encompassed the city. “To study life on a grand scale! Imagine what we can learn with a million subjects to study. Food will be limited so fights will take place constantly as the strong take the food from the weak. Soon there will be no pretense of lawfulness anywhere within the Free City. The strongest men will take what is needed to live and breed with the women most capable of survival. Their children will add to the population pressure within the city.”
Metron shivered in the cool breeze that blew up against the tower. “This is a nightmarish vision,” he said.
“Compared to their waking life, the humans within these walls will pray for nightmares. Diseases will flourish in a city so bloated with corpses. The bodies of their kind will become the humans’ only sustenance and rainfall their only water. Yet I am certain some will survive, even flourish. I do not think they will be human anymore, but something much hardier, something that can survive any suffering. What secrets will such a being hold, Metron?”
Metron turned away from the city. He stepped back inside, his wings wrapped tightly around him to fend off the chill. He said, softly, “What if, before then, I can give you your answer? I learn the secret source of life and reveal it? You will stop this plan?”
Blasphet cocked his head. “You’ve found the answer?”
“No.”
“My experiments will continue, then.”
“By my very profession, I am one who places faith in books,” Metron said. “It’s true that I haven’t found the answer in my studies, but there are still great stores of ancient knowledge kept by other biologians throughout the kingdom. I shall consult them. I ask only that you hold off on your experiments until such time as I can complete my search.”
“Bring me your answer when and if you find it, fellow conspirator. But I won’t stop my research while I wait.”
Metron started to speak, then stopped. Blasphet knew the old dragon had no choice but to agree to his terms.
“Very well,” Metron said. “I will go. The quicker I begin my search, the quicker I can halt this madness.”
“Of course,” Blasphet said. “May the flames of the ancestors bring you luck in your quest.”
“I didn’t think you believed in the flames of the ancestors,” Metron said.
“No. Neither, I suspect, do you. Now hurry on. My subject in the next room is most likely dead by now, but I wish to weigh his organs while they are still fresh.”
Metron hurried from the room, passing through the lab without turning his face toward the pale body on the slab. Blasphet locked the door behind him but didn’t return to his work, which suddenly bored him. He returned to the balcony to look at the Free City. Soon, the sound of construction would give way to the constant cries of men in torment as his city filled to overflowing. How pleasant it would be to sleep to such music.
PET STIRRED FROM sleep. He wasn’t alone. He opened his eyes and found Zanzeroth looming over him. Pet glanced to the door of the tent. The guards were gone.
Zanzeroth bent his face close to Pet’s. His wounds were terrible. Stained gauze was stuffed into the gaping hole in the center of the aged dragon’'s snout. Black blood caked between his teeth. His eye patch was gone, revealing a scarred, ragged hole where his right eye should have been. His left eye was fixed on Pet’s face. The old dragon’s breath reeked of gore and goom.
In his claw, Zanzeroth held one of the arrows that had been pulled from his body. He raised it to his bloodied face. His tongue flickered out, licking the notched end of the arrow where the fingers would hold it against the string.
Then Zanzeroth moved his head to Pet’s chained hands. Pet squirmed as the hunter’s raspy tongue danced along his fingertips for a long moment.
The aged hunter then sat back, contemplating Pet in the darkness. He reached out a claw and, one by one, undid the buttons of Pet’s silk shirt. He pushed the cloth open, exposing Pet’s bare chest.
“Not a scar on you,” Zanzeroth whispered. He pulled Pet’s shirt closed. He leaned down and said, so softly that Pet wasn’t sure of the words, “I wanted to make certain.”
Zanzeroth turned and moved back toward the tent flap, half limping and swaying like a drunkard. He cast one last glance back as he pushed open the tent flap. Pet could see the body of a guard sprawled in the mud outside. Zanzeroth nodded.
“Sleep tight,” he said before the tent flaps closed behind him, leaving Pet alone.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: SATISFACTION
A WEEK AFTER his visit with Blasphet, Metron restlessly flipped the pages of an illuminated tome, waiting for sunset. Earlier, he’d watched Kanst returning, leading a band of captured humans to the Free City. Little time was left to avert the impending atrocities. Fortunately, his fellow biologians had pledged their assistance in researching Blasphet’s question. Today held the appointed hour for their responses.
As the last rays of daylight faded, Metron closed the tome before him. He straightened the green sashes that hung across his chest, then descended from his private chambers into the main body of the library. Here the long, high bookshelves were arranged in twisting rows, forming a maze in which even experienced biologians might find themselves lost. The narrow passageways between the shelves barely allowed room for sky-dragons to creep between them; sun-dragons never ventured into this area of the library. Metron often wondered if this was by accident or design.
Metron navigated the rows with a speed born of experience. He entered into a side chamber that was filled with crates of uncataloged books and looked around to make certain no one was watching. Then he pushed aside the crates along the far side of the room, revealing a smooth stone wall. The illusion of solid rock would have fooled Vendevorex himself. The builders of this place had access to many secret arts. Metron stepped forward, the wall rippling as it swallowed him.
Beyond the false wall, Metron’s scales bristled. The air here was thick and electric, ice-water cold yet smelling of heated iron. From all directions came a buzz of angry bees. Most unnerving off all, the room had no floor, no walls, no ceiling. All around him was a uniform, blank whiteness. It had been seven decades since he first stepped foot in this strange space, and still the sensation of toppling into an unending void threatened to overwhelm him. Despite the information his eyes gave him, he knew his feet rested on a solid surface. He tapped his staff against the unseen floor to assure himself.
This was the Snow Room, the secret meeting chamber of the biologians. There were thirty such chambers throughout the kingdom, and all predated the libraries that surrounded them. From this point, it was possible to see all who stood in those distant chambers, though hundreds of miles separated them. As he stared into the nothingness, he soon began to see the image of another biologian, materializing beside him like a traveler emerging from a fog.
It was Daknagol, the only biologian older than himself. Daknagol had initiated him in the secret of the Snow Room all those long years ago.
“Cursed place,” Daknagol grumbled. The fine scales around his eyes crinkled into a mask of disgust. “How this chamber filled me with wonder in my youth. Now, following every visit, I’m seized with prodigious vomiting. The humans who built this place must have been wicked indeed.”
“Hold your tongue, honorable Daknagol,” Metron said.
