Song of the Dragon

by the shoulders. “You can know the truth for yourself! You don’t need the word of an old dwarf or anyone else for that matter. You want to know about the gods-I’ll tell you about the gods! The gods know the future because they understand the past. You cannot see where you’re going if you forget where you’ve been. You can be like the gods-you can come to know who you truly are, who you’ve truly been, and you can shape your own destiny. All you have to do is not participate in Devotions tonight.”

“That’s insane,” Drakis said, pulling back. “Everything that has gone wrong in my life lately has been because I haven’t been able to perform my Devotions.”

“House Devotions are your problem, Drakis,” Jugar growled in frustration. “It’s how they keep you the happy little slave! They make you forget the pain and the suffering and the loss and the agony of your existence every night. But if that’s what you want-if you want to remain the blissful slave-boy who wants to forget that his master regularly beats him into the shadow of death just for the pleasure it brings him, whose daughter plays with him like her personal filthy toy. . if you want to be the slave who just dreams of a better life that will forever be promised and never delivered. . if that is what you want, then take House Devotions tonight and go back to sleep, Drakis!”

The dwarf spat on the polished floor.

“But if you do. . you’ll condemn all of us to sleep forever.”

CHAPTER 13

The Altar

House devotions were the touchstone of every elven household. Each evening-from the over five thousand elves of the First and Second Estates assembled to see and be seen in the glowing courts of the Imperial Cloud Palace to the handful of Fourth and Fifth Estate elves gathered in a humble garden on the farthest frontiers of the Empire-every citizen and slave of Rhonas gathered about their respective altars to offer their Devotions.

The ceremony was universal and unerringly prescribed. At the House Altar, usually situated in the subatria garden although any large space where the House Aether Well was located would suffice, every member of the household would gather. Each would arrange themselves according to their estate-those of highest rank nearest the altar with lesser estates in successive groups behind them ending with those of the Seventh Estate-the slaves of the Empire.

The rites were conducted by the Lord of the House and began with the invoking of the Emperor’s blessing on the proceedings and rededicating the household to bring its actions and thoughts in accord with the Emperor’s Will. This was followed by beseeching the blessing of the particular gods worshiped by that family upon the House and its servants, each god placated in turn, their praises lauded and then chorused in turn by the assembly. Then, the glories of the House were praised, and, in the case of recent battles, its treasures were displayed to the House as evidence of their power and entitled rank in the Empire. Only when the status of the House had been thus properly accounted did the Devotions proper begin.

It was the ranking member of the highest Estate who first knelt before the altar, placed his hands on its surface, and murmured his Devotions. Occasionally, a House might be blessed with the visit of a member of a higher Estate, and in such rare instances, he would take precedence in the ceremony; but in nearly all cases the Lord of the House was first to offer Devotions, and such was true of House Timuran. His words and thoughts were thus communicated through the medium of the altar and its connected Aether Well to the realms of both the gods and the blessed Emperor. The words of the supplication were always in the ancient elven tongue and conjured the Aether magic, filling the House Aether Well with light during the Lord’s Devotions. Then, by turns, each subsequent member of the household knelt before the altar, pressed their hands against the stone, and paid homage to the gods and the Emperor whom the gods had chosen.

For the slaves of the Empire, who were the last to approach the altar and universally the greatest in numbers, it was always a moment of rest and hope. To touch the altar was to touch-for the briefest of moments- the power of the Empire and the gods. It left them with the profound feeling of being bound to something greater than themselves and, during the long days of their servitude, granted them each night a sublime rest beyond anything else in their experience.

It was this thought that carried every slave through the day-the anticipation of the ecstasy that came with the Devotions each night. It was the embodiment of their hope to rise in status and someday become citizens themselves.

No slave ever willingly missed Devotions.

Drakis could not keep his hands still. Standing against the curving wall around the central garden, he was uncomfortable inside his own skin. Though he could no longer feel the scars on his back, they still burned in his mind, causing his back muscles to spasm involuntarily, flinching again with each imagined strike of the firereed.

“What’s wrong with you?” Belag rumbled under his breath. It was as close to a whisper as the manticore could manage as he stood next to the human. “You look as though you were about to die.”

Drakis shook his head quickly. His eyes were locked on the altar. It stood at the bottom of the great curved bowl that formed the central garden of House Timuran, just at the base of the towering crystalline facets of the Aether Well. The Well plunged into the earth below like a dagger, anchoring the entire household with the land on which it rested and connected it with the House Wells around them. Those, in turn, were connected to the Wells of the Houses beyond-in theory-until all the Wells of the Empire connected to the great Well of the Emperor in the heart of Rhonas itself. He glanced above the garden to where the towering avatria-supported by the force of the Aether emanating from the Well-floated just clear of the upper reaches of the subatria’s garden wall. The underside of the avatria was a hemisphere of fitted alabaster carved with intricate patterns of inlaid blue sapphire. It was achingly beautiful and cold as a tomb.

His tomb.

“You can live, if you choose,” the dwarf urged from Drakis’ left. “You can know the truth. . the truth about the elves. . the truth about yourself. .”

Drakis shot the dwarf a withering look and then turned back to face the altar. Timuran was in the ceremonial robes that he wore each night, though he looked far less resplendent than Drakis remembered him in his mind’s eye. He was just finishing his invocation of the Emperor’s Will. Now, with his hands reaching above him-toward the base of the avatria it seemed-he called upon the gods Jolnar and Rhon for their blessings upon his House in bringing to it the power of destiny and victory in battle.

He looked away. Timuran had always been like a father to him-a demanding yet benevolent and wise master. He could barely conceive of the cruelty that he had experienced at his master’s hand, and yet it had happened, and, according to the dwarf, from the evidence on his own back it had happened many times before.

He suddenly realized that he had not actually seen his own back-nor was he likely to do so. All he had was the word of this dwarf who, so far, had been filled only with words. Jugar had made a lot of promises and had not truly delivered yet on a single one. Perhaps, he considered, it was all an elaborate trick by the dwarf.

But the beating the dwarf had predicted had been no trick. His near death had been no trick. And his healing and what happened afterward. .

Drakis glanced at Tsi-Shebin where she stood next to her father. Her black eyes were featureless, and yet he was sure they were staring directly at him. He shuddered again, forcing the memories out of his mind and looking away.

His eyes settled on the members of the household arrayed about the garden for the Devotion. The garden was largely empty, due in no small part to the fact that most of the Centurai were still spread out among the folds between here and the battlefield nearly one hundred and thirty leagues to the north. Nearest to the center of the