Song of the Dragon

race. His sharp, narrow chin jutted out from the angular features of his face. The back of his head was elongated compared to the other creatures of the world, a protuberance that the Imperial Will had pronounced at once as unquestioned evidence of both the physical and mental superiority of their race. His elegantly elongated ears framed his face, and the hair that rimmed his protruding crown fell back in long, white strands. He still wore a common lime-colored work tunic beneath the mantle of his House. The mantle was a required sign of his authority whenever formally holding audience, though today it had apparently been hastily donned. He held his long baton restlessly in his hands, the Imperial medallion fixed to its head turning repeatedly, flashing occasionally in the column of light cast down from overhead.

But it was the featureless, black eyes staring down the thin, hooked nose that held Drakis in such awe that he forgot to answer.

“Drakis,” Sha-Timuran repeated from behind a thin veil of patience.

“By your will, my Lord!”

“So you have returned to us from the war,” the elven lord said with quiet detachment. “My great warrior- now leader of my Centurai, it seems. ChuKang has fallen, and yet somehow-somehow-you managed to survive.”

Drakis swallowed. “My Lord! My brother warrior ChuKang was great, indeed, and led the Centurai of your House to great honor. We followed him into the heart of the Dwarven Throne and. .”

Sha-Timuran held up his long-fingered left hand, his right still gripping the baton. His voice wheezed with the sound of rusted blades sliding together. “We have heard the stories of that final battle-indeed, all the elven world, it seems, is talking about the fall of the dwarves, news of it having reached the Imperial ear itself. How could it be helped since the House of Tajeran has insured it to be impossible not to hear the tale?”

Sha-Timuran’s long, pale fingers twitched along the handle of the baton.

“Tajeran. . ah, that noble House of my neighbor.” Sha-Timuran stood now from his throne, his voice rising with each step of his bare, narrow feet, “A neighbor who shall never let me forget that a warrior of my own House. . my own House. . held the crown of the dwarves in his hands and tossed it into HIS hands!”

“But, my Lord,” Drakis blinked in confusion. Lord Timuran was a kind master who prized him. Lord Timuran had never spoken harshly with him in all the years of his life. “If you will but hear me. . you will understand. .”

“THREW IT TO HIM!” Lord Timuran screamed, his voice squealing with a sound like scraping glass. “Tossed it to my neighbor’s warriors as if it were scraps from the table!”

Instinctively, Drakis leaned back from the onslaught, catching himself with one hand behind him before he could fall to the floor. Sha-Timuran stood over the startled warrior, his hands shaking with fury. “But, my Lord, your warriors . . we saved them for you, and I thought I was throwing the crown to. .”

“Saved them?” Sha-Timuran’s lips twitched into a hideous grimace. “You thought?”

In a sudden eruption of rage, the elf lord’s baton slammed against Drakis’ face, its medallion cracking his jaw. The sharp edges of its ornamental wings cut furrows across his cheeks and nose that instantly erupted with welling blood. Drakis’ head pitched sideways with the blow, its power twisting him around until he fell with his face against the marble.

Through the haze enveloping his mind, Drakis saw his blood staining the marble beneath him.

Marble, he noticed only now, that had been deeply stained before.

The pain of his broken face was nothing compared to the confusion that overwhelmed his mind. Drakis had fought and killed many creatures-human and otherwise-who had done him far less harm. Yet all he could think was that Timuran was good. Timuran was kind. Timuran was father to them all. Surely there had been some mistake. His master, he thought, did not understand. He pushed himself up, kneeling on the floor, his hands clasped together as he turned to grovel before the elf lord.

“I didn’t want them saved you stupid, thoughtless hoomani! I wanted the crown! But now my neighbor has the crown, and in his appreciation of your ‘gift,’ he arranged to have you delivered to me at once-so that all the Myrdin-dai would know which House of the Western Provinces gave away the greatest prize of the war!” Sha- Timuran shouted through a rage that seemed boundless, beyond control or thought. His hands were working the length of the baton handle now, twisting it and pulling at it. “You embarrass my House, you embarrass my name, you make me the heart of every citizen’s laughter from one end of the Empire to the other, and you think that is worth saving the pointless, worthless lives of a few slaves! You will pay for the insult-someone always has to pay, Drakis-someone always has to pay. Hoo-mani always have to pay! ”

The baton handle separated under Sha-Timuran’s hands, revealing as they pulled apart the long strands of a living firereed. The nine fronds of the plant extended nearly six feet in length, a whip waving menacingly in the air as Timuran raised his arm above his head.

Drakis’ eyes went wide. His speech was slurred by the sudden swelling of his cracked jaw but he spoke past the pain. “My Lord! The bounty we brought you! The greatest treasure of the dwarves. .”

“Bounty?” Sha-Timuran snapped. “You bring me a dwarven fool and an ugly piece of rock and call it ‘bounty’?”

Sha-Timuran’s arm swung. The fronds flashed suddenly through the columns of light, wrapping around Drakis’ back. The razor-sharp hooks of the firereed cut through his tunic, burrowing down into the flesh of his back. Searing pain engulfed the human as Sha-Timuran pulled, raking the fronds across his back, their barbs tearing his flesh and leaving his nerve endings raw and exposed.

Drakis’ tears mixed with the blood flowing from his face. “Please,” he choked. “I’ll do anything for you! Tell me and it shall be done!”

Sha-Timuran, his hand raised for another blow, gazed for a moment at Drakis through the solid blackness of his eyes.

Then, with a coldness Drakis had never known, Sha-Timuran slowly smiled.

The firereed whip cracked again through the hall, ripping at Drakis’ back and tearing new furrows in his skin and muscles.

“Master! Please!” Drakis sobbed like the confused child he was, “Tell me what you want!”

The blows rained down on him faster now, the pain becoming an overwhelming, encompassing reality. Drakis panicked within himself, repeating the same words over and over again through the cries and sobs that were wrenched from his soul.

“Please. . I’ll do anything. . tell me what you want!”

The last thing Drakis knew was the sound of the whip grating against his own bones. .

. . And the sound of Sha-Timuran’s angry laughter.

CHAPTER 11

Taboo

“Truly, Draki, I’m finding this tiresome,” spoke the reedy, high voice, calling him back from oblivion.

Drakis’ sight returned to him slowly along with his awareness. He was staring up into a hazy, dim green fog as pungent, conflicting smells assaulted his nostrils.

I’m not dead, he thought. But I should have been.

“I thought perhaps you had finally managed to anger Father enough to butcher you at last,” the voice spoke once more with its dangerous, high-pitched purr. “I’ll admit that I was tempted to just let him kill you-trouble that you are-but after all the effort I’ve put into you, I just couldn’t let you go. Not yet.”