feeling, a touch of cold, dank air that reminded her of the maze under the Missing City or the caverns under Sanction. She guessed they were in an underground complex in the heart of the promontory. Was this where the Tarmaks buried their honored dead? Were there tombs down here? She groaned and rubbed her throbbing temples.
She plodded onward behind Lanther, concentrating on keeping her feet moving and her body upright. She could hear the Tarmaks talking softly around her, but she paid little heed to what they said. It was too much effort to translate the guttural Tarmakian. They could be talking about the latest crop harvests for all she cared.
“Linsha,” Lanther said quietly. “Look ahead.”
Through her open eye she saw a flickering light curving around a large arched entrance at the end of the passageway. The light was yellowish and danced like firelight. In fact, Linsha realized, there was an odor of smoke on the breeze that wafted up from the archway. Her curiosity stirred. She looked around as the procession walked down the last length of corridor and passed through the archway into the lighted cavern. Linsha’s interest took a sudden leap. They had entered a large, natural cave with a high ceiling and smooth walls. To Linsha, it looked like a sea cave carved out by water, and she wondered how close this place was to the harbor. A stone walkway extended around the walls of the cavern for perhaps twenty feet in either direction before dropping down a long curved ramp to the cavern floor. Torches sat in brackets every few feet along the cave wall, and a row of imperial guards stood stiffly at attention along the gallery wall that overlooked the cavern.
Linsha eyed them curiously and was about to ask Lanther a question about tombs when she caught a familiar sound. Over the sonorous beat of the drum, the shuffling of feet on stone, and the hushed voices of the warriors, she thought she heard the faint sound of something massive breathing. It was an unmistakable sound once she knew what to listen for-the slight brush of scales rubbing together, the bellows-like rush of air through a long neck, the rustle of leathery wings. A dragon! Linsha had spent enough time in the company of Crucible to be able identify his breathing in total darkness. This was not Crucible’s inhalation. Whose was it? She broke away from Lanther, pushed herself between two massive guards and peered over the edge of the wall into the cavern below.
Her breath escaped in an audible gasp. Perhaps fifty feet below lay a dragon curled on abed of sand. It was too dark to see what kind of dragon it was, but enough torchlight reflected off its scales to see it was a metallic. Her fingers tightened on the stone rim of the wall.
“But I didn’t-” she started to say.
A large hand fell heavily on her shoulder. She wheeled, expecting Lanther, and was startled into silence by the stern face of the Emperor looking down at her.
“Drathkin’kela, it is time,” he rumbled in Tarmakian. “Come. There is much to do.”
Feeling stunned, she walked down the ramp to the cavern floor beside the Emperor and came to a halt perhaps twenty feet away from the dragon. In the added light of the new torches, Linsha was able to see the dragon was a brass-a young one from its size. It slept heavily, curled in a tight, protective ball, its head tucked under a wing. She started to walk toward it, but the Emperor took her arm again and called for Lanther. For the sake of self-preservation she did not yank away from the huge Tarmak, but she could not take her eyes off the dragon. A hundred questions swarmed in her mind, and all she could do was stand and look.
The Akkad-Dar came forward proudly to stand beside Linsha. The warriors gathered in a semicircle around them. Priests bustled back and forth, setting up for a ceremony of sorts Linsha didn’t understand. Urudwek’s coffin was laid on a large, flat stone that bore unmistakable scorch marks. In a moment the activity stopped and the gathering fell quiet. The dragon, Linsha noticed, did not stir.
To her right a Keena priest in a sleeveless black robe began to chant what sounded like a long prayer to some god whose name she didn’t recognize. She listened for a moment or two, then her tired mind lost interest and she studied the dragon instead. What she saw worried her. The brass was obviously not in good health. Linsha had seen Iyesta in the peak of good condition and knew what a healthy brass dragon should look like. It should not look so thin. The dragon’s bones pushed up beneath the scaly skin, and its brass coloration looked more like green patina than polished metal. Scales were missing in large patches around its muzzle and back. Worst of all, Linsha knew, it should not be so deep in sleep that it did not respond to a crowd invading its nest. It was possible the dragon had gone into a dormant sleep for self-defense, but Linsha wondered if there was something else wrong. Young brasses were too gregarious, too curious, too interested in life to shut themselves away deliberately from things going on around them. Were the Tarmak doing something to it?
A sharp pain in her hand stunned her out of her wandering thoughts, and she came back to the ceremony to find the Emperor had cut the palm of her hand with a sharp knife. Blood oozed from the shallow wound and trickled down her wrist.
“Enough!” she cried. “If you want blood, I have plenty leaking out from other places.”
But the Tarmaks and Lanther ignored her. The Emperor cut Lanther’s palm as well, and to Linsha’s disgust he pressed their two hands together to mingle their blood. The warriors cheered their approval. The Emperor appeared stiff and formal, less than pleased, but he made a speech about the skill, prowess, and courage of the Akkad-Dar, how he had made an excellent choice for a mate, and how the Akkad-Dar would further the cause of the Tarmak empire. Linsha swayed on her feet and decided that if she was going to vomit, now would be a good time. The Emperor proclaimed the betrothal between the Akkad-Dar and the Drathkin’kela to be official and threatened a heinous death to anyone who tried to put them asunder. Linsha stifled a yawn.
To her relief, that part of the ceremonies seemed to be over, for Lanther pulled his hand away and the priests turned from them to the coffin on the slab of stone. A young priest carried out an ancient text bound in leather and tied with silk cords. It lay cushioned on a silk pillow and was presented with due reverence to the chief priest. The older Keena carefully opened the vellum pages and began another long series of chanted prayers.
Linsha caught the name of Amarrel and little else. The priest spoke too fast for her to follow. “Oh, please hurry,” Linsha muttered, rubbing her aching temples.
Lanther heard her as he wiped the blood off on a cloth provided by an attendant. He nodded sympathetically. “It will be over soon,” he whispered.
A second attendant approached with something in his hands covered with a red cloth. Lanther uncovered the item and lifted it for Linsha to see. It was the golden mask of the Akkad.
Linsha bit back a cry of dismay at the sight of that metal face. Too many times she had looked into the dark eyeholes and suffered at the hand of its wearer. Too many evil memories were attached to its ornate surface.
Lanther simply smiled and slid the mask over his face. The torchlight gleamed on the polished surface of the mask and flickered on his bare skin as he raised his arms to the coffin of his friend and general and joined in the prayers for the dead.
Feeling sick, Linsha pulled the blue robe tighter around her and eased back out of the way. She did not want any part in any more Tarmak ceremonies. Fortunately, the warriors did not seem to be paying attention to her now that the betrothal ceremony was completed. They were concentrating on the death rites for the old Akkad and on the priests who were chanting prayers and scattering his coffin with some kind of oil and herbs. Linsha slid a few steps back and glanced around again. No one paid her any heed. Dropping the robe to the sandy floor, she moved away from the torches and the gathered warriors and eased slowly around the wall toward the dragon. She stayed in what shadows there were and made no sudden movements to attract attention.
It took her several minutes, but when she finally reached the dragon’s side the priests were still droning and no one had called her away from the beast. In the uncertain light of the torches she took a closer look at the dragon and was stunned by what she saw. Kiri-Jolith, she thought in horror, what had the Tarmaks done to this poor creature? The dragon was not bound by chain or rope, but the scars of some sort of bond clearly marred the dragon’s legs. Its sides were mere slabs of ribs and its neck looked thin and hollow. Even its smell was wrong. Linsha knew from experience that brasses had a distinctive odor similar to hot sand or hot metal. But this one smelled of rotted seaweed and diseased flesh. High on its back, Linsha spotted another wound that looked hideously familiar-a patch of blackened scales about the size of a platter. She had seen a wound like that only on one other dragon-Crucible, and he had nearly died from it. Her anger rose again. How could they? How could anyone treat a dragon like this?
She spotted several scales lying on the sand where they had fallen from the dragon’s body. Keeping her movements slow, she bent down and palmed one before anyone noticed. She wasn’t sure if she would need a scale from this dragon, but taking the scale wouldn’t hurt the animal and she thought maybe she had a use for it.
