Song of the Dragon

them all. Better to let him believe whatever kept him calm for the time being.

“By Thorgrin’s beard and all the jewels of Bardak,” Jugar muttered in a tone more nervous than angry. “Where do you think you’re leading us, lass?”

Murialis, Queen of the Fae, looked down her nose at the fuming dwarf. “Your impertinence shall be forgiven, master dwarf, but I must warn you against trying my patience. We are not amused by your antics, fool, and your disrespect in this hallowed place. We have come to pay homage to your betters, and I would thank you not to interfere in that which you do not fully comprehend!”

Drakis cleared his throat. They were much closer to the Hecariat than he had hoped, but the Queen had insisted that they divert more southerly and could not be persuaded otherwise. The tower of rock itself was still perhaps three or four leagues to the south, but its brooding presence unnerved him.

Worse, the plain surrounding the Hecariat was strewn with rock, blasted with great black stains. Most of the stones were nondescript pieces of shattered granite, but occasionally one side of the boulders showed carvings of strange, winged animals or of figures in warrior pose.

The Lyric-or Queen or whoever she was-had not given them any trouble since they had left Togrun Fel, but that in itself gave Drakis cause for worry. The woman had walked for over a week now westward across the plains with regal step and imperious demeanor. However, for someone, who claimed to have been a slave of the Empire for many years she showed no signs whatsoever of the same memory trauma from which the rest of them were suffering. Perhaps it was an effect of her being of the faery-if, in fact she even was faery-but her very lack of problems troubled him.

The Lyric turned from the dwarf and strode with casual step among the boulders. From time to time she would stop, stoop slightly and examine the rock before straightening back up and moving on.

“What is she looking for?” RuuKag snarled, his eyes darting about.

“I don’t know,” Drakis answered in exasperation. “We’ve been wandering this stone field for most of the morning and I still don’t know.”

“I cannot exhort you in stronger terms,” the dwarf spoke with emphasis but was careful to pitch his voice so that the Queen would not hear him. “The Hecariat-that very mountainous pillar to which we have unwisely turned our backs-never sleeps. The lights that play upon its summit herald the doom of any who awaken the spirits that still strive within its cursed halls. I am but a humble dwarven fool, but wise would be the soul who could convince this ‘Queen’ to move her royal court to a safer distance. . where is she?”

Drakis, distracted by the anxious Jugar, looked up.

The Lyric had vanished.

The Lyric lay asleep under a twilight sky.

The stones of the Hecariat stood about her, the carved faces all turned toward her. The air lay gentle as a blanket about her. No blade of grass moved. No cloud shifted in the sky above. The world was silent and watchful.

An enormous woman stepped from behind a broken stone, crossing the grass with silent steps as she approached the lithe form lying beneath the frozen sky. The hem of her turquoise robe brushed across the blades without disturbing them. Brown hair fell in waves around her cherubic face. She stopped and watched the sleeping human with a deep sympathy in her eyes.

A second figure stepped from behind a shattered pillar. This one was a broad-shouldered human woman with powerful arm muscles and a narrow, determined jaw. She wore armor of leather tooled with ancient symbols and carried a scimitar with practiced ease. Her dark eyes, too, were on the Lyric.

“Murialis,” the human warrior-woman spoke in hushed tones as she nodded in acknowledgment to the large woman.

“It is good to see you as well, Felicia,” said Murialis in a whisper.

“Does she sleep still?” asked Felicia of the Mists, leaning closer over the Lyric.

“She does,” Murialis nodded, “and so she must remain.”

A new figure-a chimerian in mismatched armor-stepped hesitantly from behind a jumble of rocks, its four hands shaking slightly as they gripped four blood-soaked swords. The chimerian spoke warily as it approached. “Who are you?”

“I am Murialis, Queen of the Faery,” the enormous woman answered. “This is Felicia of the Mists-Raider of the Nordesian Coast. And who are you?”

“I am. . I am Dyan, assassin warrior of the Shadowclan,” the chimerian answered, slowly returning all four sword blades to their scabbards crossing its back.

“You are new here?” Felicia asked.

“Yes,” Dyan answered then nodded toward the Lyric, still sleeping on the large flat slab before them. “Is she the reason we are here?”

“Yes,” Murialis answered. “We have come for her.”

A ghostly man, transparent down to his long, flowing hair drifted through a stone to meet with the three females in their observations. These were joined almost at once by four more figures stepping from behind even more stones-a towering female manticore in ancient battle armor, a sad elven woman in tattered robes, a pinch- faced human woman in an elaborate black-mantled robe, and a small, female gnome carrying a sack over her shoulder. These joined with the others, forming a circle about the sleeping form of the Lyric, all gazing down upon her.

“Who is she?” asked Dyan, the chimerian.

“She is all of us now,” said the black-robed woman.

“Better to ask who she was,” spoke the ghostly man.

“Who was she then?” Dyan said as she gazed down on the sleeping figure.

“She was loving,” the gnome said sadly.

“She was an incomparable talent,” said the black-robed woman.

“She was powerful,” agreed Murialis.

“She was fragile,” said the sad elf.

“She is fragile still,” said Felicia. “We are all she has to protect her. She has seen too much, heard too much. She cannot protect herself from the truth of her past. Without us to watch over her, her mind would be forever broken, and she would cease to exist.”

“And we would no longer exist along with her,” the ghostly man added.

“I have protected her,” Murialis said, stretching out her hand and brushing it gently across the stubble of her growing hair. “I shall live in her and for her. I shall continue to stand between her and the truth that would destroy her and all of us. And each of us must be prepared to do the same.”

“But we are only characters from the stories she has told,” Felicia said, frustration evident in her quiet voice. “We are only dreams.”

“Then we shall be made real through her,” Murialis replied. “We shall stand between her and the truth of the world, and within our circle she will be safe.”

“Will she not feel our pains, too?” the sad elven female asked with concern.

“Yes,” Murialis responded. “And we shall bear them, too.”

“Lyric?” Drakis called carefully. “Uh, Murialis?”

Mala nudged him, then whispered. “Listen!”

Weeping.

They found her lying across a great stone half buried in the plain. A carving of a woman, her face broken and now missing, lay beneath the Lyric’s embrace. The Lyric sobbed, tears running down her cheeks and washing streaks across the blasted stone.

“Tianya!” she cried. “My sister and darling! That your tragic love should have brought this doom upon all your people! Was it not enough to break your heart? Did you have to break the hearts of the mothers and daughters of your ruined kingdom, too! May the woodland spirits curse a passion that should cause such pain!”

Drakis leaned toward the dwarf. “What is she talking about?”