Song of the Dragon

that Queen Murialis didn’t see through the lie from the first. It got us fed on the Vestasian Savanna. . and it seemed like just a convenient little lie then.”

The dwarf continued to look at his hands as they worked the wood.

“But now people are dying,” Drakis continued. “The city of the Hak’kaarin is filled with the dead-and RuuKag with them-because of that lie. All of Nothree was burned to the ground and who knows how many of the family and friends of this crew may be dead for all we know-certainly all of them now homeless-because of that lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” Jugar huffed.

“I am not the man,” Drakis said each word with emphasis.

“You could be!” Jugar shouted.

Drakis stood up.

“How do you know?” The dwarf continued as he, too, stood, turning his face up so that their eyes could meet. “You’ve lived your entire life so far as you recall under the thumb of your pathetic elven masters- masters, they call themselves! They stomp about the world taking what they want, bleeding the world pale just to satisfy their whims while the rest of us die for them. They destroyed your people, Drakis. . they hated humanity so much that they killed as many as they could and enslaved those that remained not because you were such prized slaves or warriors but because they wanted every day. . every day, Drakis. . to see the evidence in the flesh of their superiority over conquered humankind. When the dwarves wouldn’t bow to them, they destroyed them, too-oh, yes, they took them apart throne by throne until only the Ninth Throne stood, and even then they would not bow to the Imperial Whim. They paid for it with their last blood!”

“But you!” the dwarf said, taking a step toward Drakis, “You can change all that. One man alone is worthless. . but a legend? A legend can forge a new destiny, Drakis. A legend can change the world! You-me-we’re nothing-lumps of flesh who just wander the world for a few years before we return to the ground that spawned us. But a legend lives forever, boy! A legend has a destiny beyond the life of anyone!”

“I’ve seen the fruits of this legend you’re so pleased about,” Drakis said in a voice that barely carried across the deck. “So far it has motivated hundreds-maybe upward of a thousand-very inspired deaths.”

“You’re missing the grander picture, my boy,” the dwarf replied not unkindly.

“Nonsense,” Urulani interjected. “I’d say he’s got a rather clear understanding of the situation.”

“This from a corsair! A woman whose people subsist on the scraps they can steal from their neighbors while they hide in coves along a coast that no one wants!” Jugar suddenly changed his gruff tone after the look on the captain’s face conveyed her sudden desire to test her dwarf-floating hypothesis. “My apologies, good Captain, it was an ill-advised phrase that I used in the heat of the argument. I should have suggested-and, indeed, do suggest-that the perspective of the Sondau Clan should be broadened beyond their pressing and immediate concerns. Rhonas is at war with the entire world and has brought it to heel.”

The dwarf turned back to Drakis. “The one thing that survived the fall of humanity was this legend-this tale of the great dragon warrior who turned his back on the world and would return again to save it in its hour of most desperate need. The hope of this redemption-this story of justice to come-has found its way in one form or other into every nation and race from the Charos beaches of Mestophia to the breaking waves of Chaenandria’s Lyrac shores. They all look to the north-and wait for the legend to fulfill his destiny and bring peace to their lives. The sands have fallen again and again through the glass of time, our need has grown more desperate with each passing year, and still he has not come.”

“But now you’re here, Drakis,” the dwarf poked the human with the tip of his knife. “Mortals do not get to choose their fates. . their fates choose them. You’re going to be the Drakis. . that’s your fate.”

Drakis gazed down at the dwarf and shook his head. “When we get to these God’s Wall Peaks you keep talking about, then we’ll find out whether I choose my fate or it chooses me. There is only one way to be absolutely sure.”

“Indeed?” the dwarf asked.

“Yes. . the same way one can be absolutely sure as to whether a dwarf floats or not.”

CHAPTER 47

One Among Us

Mala watched Cape Caldron fall astern as the Cydron sailed northwest from the anchorage, her eyes never leaving the coast until it vanished at last below the horizon under a brightening morning sky.

As the sun crossed the tops of the masts, shore again was sighted to the east, this time the Westwall Cliffs rising through the haze on the eastern horizon. This, Urulani informed Drakis, was the farthest western end of Nordesia. Their conversation was somewhat disjointed, however, as Jugar was constantly interrupting with some prattle about the giants that lived in the Westwall Cliffs and who occasionally waded out into the ocean to capture and play with boats that passed too close to the shore. Urulani scoffed at the “child’s tale” as she stood at the tiller, but Drakis quietly noted to himself that she nevertheless kept the ship far from those shores.

It was perhaps two hours later that Urulani pushed the tiller over slightly and the ship’s bow responded, changing their course perpendicular to the falling sun. They were heading truly north now. The Straits of Erebus lay far to the east-that body of water that separated the Lyranian and Drakosian continents. Their course, however, would take them directly north across the eastern expanse of the Charos Ocean as that was the course the song in Drakis’ head seemed to dictate to him.

There was nothing now between them and the sirens that called to Drakis but the open sea.

Drakis stood on the afterdeck of the Cydron, his hand on the tiller as he watched the bow and, more importantly, the stars beyond.

From where he stood he could see the length of the middeck below him. The oars-sweeps, he corrected himself-were pulled in and stored beneath the galley benches. The night had been a clear one and remarkably warm with the trade wind blowing from the southeast off of Nordesia. Urulani had instructed the crew to strike the canvas that they had spread days earlier like a tent over the middeck. There was a lower deck to the Cydron where the crew could bunk among the stores-and where poor Belag had elected to spend most of the voyage, miserable in his seasickness-but tonight most of the crew elected to sleep on the deck beneath the gentle breeze and the great dome of the star-filled night sky. He could see them as shadowy figures on either side of the elevated decking that ran the length of the ship between the port and starboard ranks of galley benches and around the masts, ending at the forecastle deck at the bow.

Come to the shores of the sorrowful. .

Come to the Northerly Lands. .

Come on the ocean. .

Come with devotion. .

Drakis was fancying himself something of a corsair. There was something about the water, its freedom, and the motion of the ship beneath his feet that called to him like the song that still ran through his head. The seas were relatively calm this night and the breezes generally favorable as they made their way northward. Urulani had instructed him on how to man the tiller and steer a course directly north by keeping the bow directed toward a particular place about which all the heavens overhead revolved. She kept a critical eye on him for some time and then, at last satisfied that he would not be a danger to the ship or her crew, she sat with her back against the aft bulwark, folded her arms, and drifted off to sleep.

One is the Guardian of our hope. .

One is the poison we drink. .