Return of the Exile

egg? Linsha’s eye opened further and she pushed herself up the wall to a better sitting position.

Reverently the two priests laid the box on the smoldering ashes atop the hot slab and stood back. One handed the Akkad-Dar a pair of heavy leather gloves. The box must have been hot, for even with the gloves Lanther moved quickly to remove the lid and lift the contents onto the slab. The warriors crowded around, blocking Linsha’s view.

Linsha struggled to her hands and knees. She still couldn’t see past the bulky bodies of the Tarmaks. A strong suspicion gave her the strength to pull herself up the wall to a standing position, and at that moment Lanther held the object overhead for all to see. The Tarmaks cheered.

Linsha stifled a cry. An oblong shape, little more than two feet long, lay in his gloved hands. It gleamed in the torchlight with a polished pale gold sheen. It was a brass dragon egg. Her egg. Linsha struggled forward on legs that had the strength of gelatin, but before she had made it three steps, Lanther lowered the egg and she heard a sickening crack.

Her heart fell to her feet. “Lanther, you bastard!” she screamed.

Surprised and startled Tarmaks turned and gave way before her furious advance. She shoved and staggered her way through the ring of warriors to the slab and Lanther in time to see him thrust a dagger into the top of the egg, where a small hole had already been started.

“Hold her,” Lanther ordered.

Two warriors snatched Linsha’s arms and pinned them behind her back, giving her no chance to get closer. She didn’t have the strength left to fight a butterfly, let alone two burly Tarmaks. Her face twisted into a mask of grief and disgust.

“How could you?” she cried. “You gave those eggs to me.”

He grinned his mischievous grin of old. “I gave you dragon eggs that are safely lying where we left them. This was one I kept out for myself for this occasion. Now, be quiet and watch. This is a rare opportunity. Females are not usually allowed to attend these ceremonies.”

Before her stricken gaze, he continued to stab the dagger into the egg until he had cut a circular hole in the top. He pried off the cut piece of shell and poured the contents of the egg into a large stone bowl.

Appalled, Linsha stared as the small, slick dragon embryo squirmed once or twice in the puddle of albumen in the bowl before it lay still. It was perfectly formed and more developed than she expected it to be. Tears ran unnoticed through the blue paint on her face.

Lanther turned to face the warriors and raised his dripping dagger high. “The feast of dragon blood will be prepared tonight! Who will drink the Awlgu’arud Drathkin?”

A shouted roar from the warriors answered him and echoed through the cavern. While the Emperor, the Akkad-Dar, and the warriors watched, the two Keena priests chopped the dead embryo to small pieces, mixed its body with the bloody ruined contents of its egg, and added hot water. They also mixed in powders and other liquids, something dark that looked like blood, and some herbs and wine until they had made a revolting-looking soup. The drummer beat on his drum once more and the attendants sang a harsh, discordant chant that grated on Linsha’s shaky self-control. She watched, sickened, as the priests stirred the contents of the stone bowl and let it steam gently on the hot slab. When the potion was ready, the high priest fished through the hot contents and pulled out the dragonlet’s tiny skull. He filled it with the liquid and bowing, handed it to the Akkad-Dar.

Lanther raised the skull in a salute. “Hail to the godson, Amarrel, Keeper of Dragons, Champion of the White Flame and beloved of the goddess, and hail to the Dark Queen, mistress of the world and ruler of the dead!” With a bow he passed the skull to the Emperor who drank the contents in a single swallow.

Lanther and the Tarmaks roared their approval. As the warriors pushed forward for their taste of the potion, Linsha felt the grip on her arms loosen. Her two guards, eager for their own share, released her and pushed her back and out of the way. Linsha staggered several steps, bent over, and vomited on the sand. Her legs trembled beneath her; her head throbbed with pain. She wanted no part of this savage ceremony, but she did not have the strength left to climb the stairs back to the upper levels of the palace. She had to lie down and she had to do it now. Wiping her mouth, she looked up and saw the dragon curled up in its induced state of sleep. The dragon was a stranger. But Linsha was a prisoner, too, and in the brief moment of mental joining, Linsha had sensed a desperate loneliness and fear in Sirenfal that matched her own. She felt drawn to the dragon and empathetic to her plight and hoped that Sirenfal wouldn’t mind a little company.

Growing weaker by the moment, Linsha forced her legs to walk to Sirenfal’s sandy nest. She felt the heat of the brass dragon radiate outward like a warm oven, and gratefully she fell to her hands and knees and crawled until she could sit up against the dragon’s bent leg. In spite of the shouts of the Tarmaks and the beating of the drum, she was asleep before her head settled against the brass scales.

She came to a state of awareness in a chamber of pale shadows. Looking around, she thought perhaps she was still in the dragon’s cave. The air was damp and smelled of stone and saltwater; the spaces echoed around her. But if that was where she was, some time had passed, for the Tarmaks were gone and the cave was silent and empty. There was no sign of Sirenfal. Light filtered in from somewhere overhead and reflected on a pale mist that swirled in from an opening she sensed but could not see.

Who are you? The voice, light and feminine, spoke directly into her mind.

Linsha peered into the dim fog around her and saw only more shadows. “I told you. I am a friend.”

So you say. But you wear the paint of a Tarmak warrior and you attend their ceremonies.

Linsha studied her skin, which was indeed still blue. Only the pain, the tingling, the cuts, and the bruises were gone. “I am a Knight of the Rose of the Solamnic Order and a friend of Iyesta. I was captured and brought here because of a debt of honor.”

It must he an important debt.

“Iyesta asked me to protect a clutch of eggs.”

A sharp intake of breath somewhere close by cut across her words. She paused, staring harder into the mist.

“I have not been very successful so far,” she added.

Sirenfal’s thought came back heavy with sadness. If there is even one left, you have been more fortunate than I. The Tarmaks destroyed my entire clutch.

Linsha climbed slowly to her feet. Her pain and nausea were gone. In fact she felt nothing, not even the chill of the mist gently wafting around her. “How long have you been here?”

A lifetime. The answer came sighing back. About eight years, I think. Their priests and that dreadful man captured me with spells and stole my eggs. I think they killed my mate.

Linsha was horrified. “How could they keep you imprisoned?”

Because I am a dragon? There was a soft earthy chuckle, and a petite, delicate woman stepped out of the mist and stood in front of Linsha. Her light brown eyes bored into Linsha’s jewel green ones. Even dragons can be vulnerable.

“Sirenfal.”

The woman nodded. She was as beautiful as an elf maiden with honey-gold hair that swept around her shoulders and fine-boned features that looked like porcelain.

Linsha was not surprised. Some dragons could easily shapeshift and often did so for a variety of reasons. Bronzes in particular liked to shift their forms and many spent years disguised as humans-a fact Linsha knew all too well. She met Sirenfal’s sad gaze without judgment or fear, only curiosity. The dragon woman did not look well. Her gold hair hung limp around her thin face, and her skin was pale and drawn. She had none of the vivid life and vivacious quality of Iyesta in her human form. She seemed more of a wraith, a thin shadow of her younger self.

The man called Lanther has taught these Keena priests how to use spells created by the Dark Mystics. They in turn have taught him some of the secret potions of the Keena. They keep me sedated and under thrall while they experiment on me, harvest my scales, and leech my magic. They killed my eggs in those horrible ceremonies.

Linsha listened, appalled by the dragon’s misery. A terrible suspicion crept into her mind, prompted by the