Elam (12 page)

“Nay, you cannot be. You were dead. I felt it in my bones like it was happening to myself.”

“I’m his son, Kiaran. This is my brother Casdon. This is—”

The dragon looked at Elam and smiled, cutting off Kiaran.

“You are Jacob’s son. I’d know that chin anywhere. And the eyes of Sally. I had heard that they were to wed. And here they have a son too.” The dragon pulled off his hood and dropped it as he moved toward them. His body was slow to move, Elam noticed. “How? I do not.... I did not know that there were babes of the king and lady queen. And two such fine.... How is it you are here?”

The dragon had been hurt. As soon as he turned to look at him, Elam was taken aback at how bad it was. None of it recent…no, it had happened so long ago that the scars there were faded and dark in places, the wounds long since closed up and healed.

His face had been cut into, deeply. His right eye was gone. In its place was a long scar that had been closed shut by a bad stitch job. And his arm on that side of his body hung limply at his side. There was other damage as well. Some of his scales had burned, and his claws on one hand were chipped badly, worn down in several places. He looked like a war dragon. And Elam remembered them being mentioned at one point during the cleanup.

“You’ve been working. How long have you been here?” The dragon looked at the buildings, then back at him as if he could not remember exactly how he’d gotten there. He stared for a long moment at Ariannona, but for some reason Elam didn’t feel threatened by him. “And your name…I don’t think we got your name.”

“‘Tis you, isn’t it? The witch that woke us all.” Ariannona said she didn’t know what he meant. “We’d been resting. It’s what he told us when he took us to the cellar. To rest. I had seen you there, in his rooms with my sister, and I thought that you were to care for the wee ones when they came. But you woke us after he put us to sleep. Anthony would have...he protected us as best he could, didn’t he?”

“I don’t understand.” Elam shrugged when Asher looked to him for answers. “You’re saying that you were a part of the.... Wait, sister? You’re brother to the queen?”

“Aye, I am. Her only sibling, as a matter of fact. But I cannot shift as she could. Only a dragon can I be, but that’s neither here nor there.” The dragon smiled sadly before continuing. “Anthony saved as many as he could that day. We knew there was to be trouble. The household went about its days not knowing that in a few days we’d all be gone. Eve, she told me that I’d be needed later, that Anthony would put us to rest and that we’d be woke someday to be there for the new king.” He looked at Asher. “That would be you.”

“Yes. I don’t know how that came to be, but I’ve been told that.” The dragon looked at Ariannona again as Asher spoke. “You said that she woke you. Are you talking about the day we were here looking at the entrance? That’s what the magic did for you and the others? It woke you from the rest that Anthony put you in?”

“Aye. My name is Daniel, brother to the queen by half. My mother, she wasn’t a dragon, but my father loved her all the more for it. I was a dragon of war. Not much use after I was injured, but they never took my title away. I think it was because of who I was.” Daniel continued to stare at Ariannona. “You’ve a look of your mother, did you know that? The image is so strong that I thought it her when I saw you.”

“My mother? She died when I was but a babe. I was raised by the village.” He nodded. “You knew her? You know who she was and what happened to her?”

“Oh, I did. She was a fierce rider, your mother. Rode me through the storms of battle like we were one, she did. Never had a rider before that made me feel like we could win. We did too, win wars that were waged against the dragons. And when she was fat with child, she never gave up her time on my back, taking care of the village and the people in it.” When Ariannona staggered, Elam held her. “Then after you were born, we were led to the mountain tops. The army with us was sparse, the war we were waging was only on a few stragglers that thought to take the kingdom’s orchards beyond. We won and we were having a great celebration, food and wine that would make our heads ache in the morn. Too soon I guess. We didn’t see the party of them coming from the split in the rock. Your mother, she kept us together and fought, though we were both hurt badly. But we won, only by the skin of our teeth, and we went home bloodied. Not a man lost. Or so we thought.”

“My mother died, didn’t she? That day, that was the man you lost. She died protecting the castle for the king and queen. I don’t even know her name. It was never said.” Daniel told her and said that he knew not her father. “Zona. My mother’s name was Zona.”

“Arriving at the castle, like we did, we were taken care of. Each of us were pampered a bit too much, Zona never leaving my side. Had I only looked. Had I just asked her if she was hurt. But my own injuries were great and I thought me to die.... I should have asked her, but I did not.” He looked away and wiped at the tears on his weathered cheeks before he looked back at them. “Magic helped me…I lost my eye, part of my teeth. I knew as surely as I lay there that I was done, my heart, my body no longer strong. Zona told me of things she was going to do now, her days of riding into war over. A garden she told me, one that her babe could play by. A cow for fresh milk she’d buy and put in the pasture for me to torment into sour milk. But when I was better, she told me as I lay there, my body starting even then to mend, she told me...made me promise that I’d not be bitter, that I’d make sure that no one knew who you were.”

“Why not?” Daniel looked at Asher when he asked. “The king and queen would have taken care of her, right? Raised her as their own?”

“Aye, they might have. But I don’t think they knew about her until it was too late. She was lost to them by then, and it took them many years to find her. But they did.” Daniel looked at them once again. “She said that men would come for you, being the daughter of a rider. Men did not like a woman who could lead. They liked them less when they carried a man’s babe that was not known to them.”

“So she let a village raise me so I’d be safe.” Daniel nodded. “Thank you for that. I would never have known that had you not come here.”

“I’ve been here. All this time.” He looked around and then at Asher. “When the doors were opened by magic, it woke us all. Anthony and Eve, they said that someday the new king would need an army to run the house. A servant to tell them of things past. I knew nothing of what they spoke of. I was old even then and still not at my best. But sleep we did. I know not for sure what happened to them, but felt their deaths as soon as I woke. I knew they were thinking that they were to be killed soon after we were laid down, but as to the how of it, I’m not sure. Nor did I, I’m ashamed to say, know of the babes she’d had. Must have known you’d be hurt too in all that. And now, now we work to restore the mess left behind.”

Elam and the others moved around the other buildings and found most of them in very good condition, considering how old they were. Trees had grown up in cracks of the stones on a few. Tables in them were long since rotted and turned back to the earth. The drying room was filled, however, and Daniel told them what each one of the hanging herbs and dried flowers would do. The seeds, he told them, were as good as if they’d been freshly put there.

“Caroline will love this.” Daniel asked him how the old witch was doing. “She comes to help us on occasion. Helping with the new magic that we acquire. It’s been a trial at times I think, keeping it all straight. She’ll be glad to see you.”

“She’s a good one. Caroline was forever testing her magic on things. Me and the other dragons, we’d let her. We knew that should she have hurt any of us, she’d take care to fix it. But she never did. I will say, I don’t know that she knew of this area. Not many did. Anthony thought to keep the castle safe from those that came in under falsehoods.” Daniel moved slowly, his body huge but not entirely in good shape. When he stopped abruptly, each of them looked to the sky, thinking they were under attack. He turned to them all with a grin on his badly scarred face. “Have you been inside it? The lower levels?”

“No. We had planned on it. But.... Recently we found the body of the king. And our plans to put the king and queen somewhere was being discussed. I think we sort of forgot about it here.” Daniel asked Asher what they were planning to do. “All of us are deciding that together.”

“So much like him. You’d think you were his son as well. Anthony would have been proud of you all. Eve too. My goodness, she has babies. Who knew it would come to them so late in their lives?” Asher told him that there were twelve of them. Six sons of Jacob and Sally and six to the king and queen. Daniel nodded, his eyes full of unshed tears. “I’ve a family again. A great family. Thank you for this. For waking us. When they put us here, hugged us the last time, my heart broke for them. And for me. My sister, my lovely sister, didn’t deserve whatever fate had in store for her. And Anthony, he loved his mate with all that he was. I’m sure that they would have loved their boys much the same way. But life, it seems, has plans, and now I’m happy to say that I get to be a part of it again. Come, I’ve much to show you. And tell you.”

He led them to the castle. Elam looked into the dark opening when the stone was moved and said they’d have to come back when they were more prepared. Daniel only laughed and reached inside. With a snap of his fingers the entire place brightened like it was daylight inside.

“Welcome to the castle of the king and queen.” Daniel looked at Asher as he continued. “My lord, you must enter first so that the walls know that ‘tis you.”

“What would happen if someone else were to enter?” Daniel looked at the walls, then back at Asher. “Do I even want to know?”

“The walls of the keep here have been very unforgiving before, my lord. Should one enter now, even after the magic woke us, they would be crushed by the falling stone, their bodies left to rot and show others that this is a kingdom for one and one only.” Asher looked inside as Daniel spoke quietly. “You will enter with us and it will see who is there as a friend, and allow them entrance whenever they open the doors. Their hearts, you see, will guide them inward.”

“And anyone that enters with them, someone making them come in? What happens to them?” Daniel only had to point to the crushed bones on the floor to the right. “I see. It knows, as you said.”

“The magic here, the castle and the land around it, it is far and away the most powerful magic in the world. You will be safe here from now on.”

Elam hoped so. It was a scary thought as to how deep they were under the stone above them.

Chapter 11

Asher wasn’t sure what he expected when the entire family gathered to enter the lower levels of the keep. Dirt, yes, a great deal of it. Stones that needed to be removed even. But this wasn’t at all what he’d thought they’d find down here.

“It’s so nice.”

He agreed with Essie. It was really nice. The walls stood strong, the path, Daniel told them, had been cleaned when they woke. And the rooms on this side of the long hall, five in all, were as lovely and as pristine as if they might have been only just put together.

“This room is mine. It’s a bit bigger than the others. My size and all.” Asher looked in when the others did. “As you can see, we had things just so. It mattered little to them that we’d be sleeping through most of the living here. Still do, I suppose. Have it nice, I mean. There was no reason for any of us to believe that we’d be down here so long. But now that I think on it, I guess we should have.”

None of the rooms had much in the way of furniture. No dressers to speak of, but then why would a dragon need clothing? There was a smallish room in each of the larger ones, and Daniel explained that they were for personal items they’d brought down with him. He reached into his little room and pulled out the leg guards to his war gear.

“The rest, it was in here too. But when the doors were opened for us, I wasn’t sure what we’d find, so I dressed up.” He tucked the guards under his useless arm. “I must have been a sight coming out of that building like I did. Glad now that there wasn’t a party to greet us. Might have taken me to task and done more damage to my poor old body.”

“You did scare us a little.” Daniel nodded and moved to the next few rooms. Asher winked at Elam.
I was more in awe of the crest than of him, to be honest.

Me too. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the castle crest on him
. They moved on, looking into each room, hearing about the people that lived in them for centuries.

The smaller dragons had been in charge of the scraps in the halls, he told them. They could and did eat what they wanted of it, but for the most part took it to the burn room. Even then the trash had been properly disposed of and not dumped to hurt the land. Asher supposed it was because they were so close to the earth that they’d know long before it was proper to clean up after yourself. There were only but four of them, Daniel told them, but they could work a castle from top to bottom several times a day.

Two of the other dragons, Dane and Wendell, were brother and sister. They bickered a great deal but worked well together. Their jobs had been to guard the entrance. If anyone were to try and come in when the doors were opened, they were to warn the others that there would be a shift in the wall and to hang on. It had been a fun game, Daniel said to him, to see who the castle walls deemed unworthy.

“It only happened once in all the time I was here. Few tried once it was known that coming in to the castle this way, without an invite, would be the end of your life. Wendell, he would ask the names of all that entered, nod once, and then he’d point the way to go. Dane, she’d just watch them, her tail in her hand for whatever reason. I think she thought herself scary. She was, mind you, but the tail thing? I never figured it out to this day. Yes. Only once was all it took.” Asher shuddered.

Asher figured that once word got out that the castle was unbreachable, no one would try again. Not with the threat of being crushed to death under stone and magic. When they got to the end of the rooms, Daniel asked them if they were ready for the rest of it.

“The rest of what? I thought this was the only floor.” Daniel said that there was one above this one, but he wasn’t sure of the condition. “Then I don’t understand.”

“They knew they were being sieged upon.” Asher nodded. “We were very busy up until they brought us down here the final time. Bringing things down to be safe. Not much in the way of foods, mind you, but we did bring down seeds and other things. Eve, she wanted to preserve for you as much as she could.”

“What sort of things?” Essie took his hand in hers as she spoke to the dragon. “You mean like paintings and such?”

“Aye, and such.” Daniel laughed. “Come. Let me show you what we have for you. I’m sure you’re going to.... It took us near a fortnight to put it all here. Working around the others so they’d not have any idea. Then my Eve, she had all the staff leave the castle days before she told us what was to happen. Told them it was a holiday for them, gave them coin to use to have a bit of merriment. I think some of them knew what was going on, had guessed it. But they got most of the staff and others out. Was there a great deal of damage done? I figured fire. Smelled it when I woke, burned my nose at the odor of it.”

“The walls were burned so badly that they fell inward. The king, Anthony, he held it for as long as he could. We think now so that his wife could get to safety. I would imagine that they both knew when the other died.” Daniel said that they would, their hearts beat as one. “We’ve been cleaning it out, moving stone to the sides to rebuild. I’m not sure what else we might find, but we have found a book that belonged to someone in the household. It talks about the furniture and who built it. Diagrams of some of the tapestries and art that they had collected. And we’ve been using it and Elbert’s knowledge as to how to get things replaced.”

They were moving down the hall again, but took a right at a small split in the stone. Had it not been pointed out to him, Asher was sure that he would have missed it altogether. But as soon as he entered, Asher realized that they had not just preserved things that they could use, but memories for them all.

“As you can see, I think they knew what you’d be about. Eve would linger over some of the things brought here, paintings and such. Somewhere there’s a painting of them together too, but I think it in the back of things.” Asher nodded as he tried to take it all in. “There wasn’t any time to place it well. There was a time when I think we wished we had. At the end, we were stacking things just to get them all in here.”

There were paintings of the castle, as well as the woods and mountain behind it. A painting of the lake when it was only just forming. The gardens had been captured in another, while yet another caught the dragons at play. The sky was filled with the images of what Asher was sure were the king and queen, more paintings behind those stacked neatly in long deep rows. Some of them hung on the walls with care, the room’s floor too full to hold them.

There were pottery bowls in perfect condition and in as many colors as there were sizes. Baskets that looked like they’d only just been woven. Gourds hung from the beams, their seeds rattling when someone bumped them. There were cups and saucers, tankers and long trenchers. Pewter forks and knives beside spoons to stir with and to serve.

Platters looked like the bits and pieces that they’d seen above when they’d removed the stones. There were bolts of cloth, silk, and cotton in wooden crates that looked as fresh as if they had only just been made, colors still so bright that Asher wanted to take it in the sunlight and see if it was really that blue or purple.

There was a rack of swords, all of them bright with their beauty, the crest at each handle like the one on the chest plate of the dragon who wore it. Chainmail was laid out neatly on a table nearby. Bridles for horses, seats for the dragons who went to war for them beside them. Asher was looking at one of the many books, its pages yellowed a little but the words on the page no harder to read than a newspaper that only just came out today, when Ariannona came to stand near him.

“I have one for you.” He turned to look at her. “Dragon book. I took it from Ralph the first time I saw him. I’ll get it to you when we return to the house. It’s a book of names.”

“Names?” She nodded and explained. “He had a book of every dragon ever born and when they died? Who would have given him such a thing? Did they not know that it could destroy all we worked for?”

“Calm your goats. I got it, didn’t I? And he got it from Helena. I think he and her were partners of a sort. She would have known his ancestor back then.” He asked her where it was. “I have a great many things...not like this, but some that I have hidden away over the years. Not for you. I had no idea you even existed. Nor would I have cared. But I have them.”

He wanted to both hug Ariannona and strangle her on a daily basis. She’d burn a person to the quick with her temper and make you laugh at her jokes. Her and her mates, they were perfectly suited, he thought.

“Asher?” He started to tell Elam when he said his name what he thought they could do with some of these things, but then he saw his face. There was something very.... Asher wasn’t sure what he could see on his brother’s face. He put down the book he had and moved to him, looking too for the source of his concern.

The chest that he was standing in front of was opened so that Asher was behind it. He wasn’t sure he wanted to see what was in it. All sorts of things seemed to jump in his head at once. A dead body. The head of several men who had stormed the castle over the years. Slugs or some sort of plague that was going to eat its way into his brain.

You need to stop watching horror flicks
. He glanced over at Essie when she spoke to him.
Seriously, all that worry, and all you have to do is walk over and look. For all you know it might be the keys to a new car.... No, it can’t be that. No cars then. It could be that it’s—

Okay, you’ve made your point.
He stood beside Elam and looked at the chest. He looked at Essie then.
You might want to come here. This is all about you.

As she neared them, Elam stepped back but not too far. Asher felt his heart in his chest. The find was going to be...he’d never expected to see this. Not in all of his life. Pulling it from the chest, he held it above her head.

“Essie, my queen, this is for you.” She backed up and he laughed. “There’s a note with your name on it and everything. The queen wanted you to have it.”

“I don’t think so.” The crown was heavy, and he wanted to see it on her head. “You put that back in there and we’ll pretend you didn’t see it.”

“You can’t un-see a crown, Essie. And like I said, she has a note here for you. And it says for the new queen, with your name.” She was shaking her head when Kiaran put his hands on her arms. “Come on, love. You have to wear it at least one time.”

He’d not noticed until then that the room had grown quiet. Even the rattle of the seeds had gone silent as they all waited to see Essie with the crown upon her head. Taking another step toward her, Elam started reading the note that had been left with it.

“My darling Essie.” He paused. “Darling? She must have had you mixed up with someone else. Anyway. My darling Essie. I so wish that I could have seen this upon your head. There is one for Kiaran as well. It is in another case. The three of you, all together on the throne, would have been such a wondrous sight.”

“Someone find the case with Kiaran’s in it.” As they scrambled to find it, Asher looked at Essie again. “She wanted you to have it. Put it here for safekeeping so that you, as a queen, would wear it. Please? For me, put it on one time so that I can see you.”

“I don’t like you for this.” He nodded at her and knew that she really wasn’t mad at him. “And a family portrait together is out of the question.”

He didn’t deny that. Because as surely as he was standing there waiting for her, he knew that she’d sit for one. And it would hang in the front of the castle just like the others had before, he’d bet. When she closed her eyes, he placed the crown upon her head.

The gold of it was as bright as the day it had been forged, with so many diamonds and other gems in it that it looked like a golden showcase just for them, just resting on her head. Dragons adorned either side of the front piece, holding the largest diamond in their hands, their wings spread out behind them. He’d bet that whoever had made this had had the king’s drawing in front of him, each detail of it precisely and exactly what he’d wanted.

His, the one that they’d found by the former king, looked just like this one, only this one was smaller and a good deal cleaner. The fall of the stone had only done minor damage, nothing that couldn’t be fixed by a trusted jeweler.

Kiaran was crowned as well. He stood behind Essie, the two of them simply too beautiful to use words to describe them. And when he heard a rustle behind him, he turned to see that everyone in the room had gone down on one knee before them. Asher went to his mates and held them in his arms. Christ, he loved these two people so very much.

~~~

Ariannona sat on the hillside and watched the water flow by her. She’d been there for a little while, telling everyone that she’d needed a few minutes. When someone sat beside her, she looked over at Jacob and smiled at him. If it had been anyone else, she might have told them to get lost.

“The weeks before I was summoned to the castle to meet my Sally, I had a chance to see all the wondrous things that his lordship and his lovely mate had been doing for us all. There was little crime in our little world. We had battles and great wars, but there was no theft to speak of. No one went without, and we were happy.” He leaned back on his hands and continued. “My mother had passed the winter before, and I’d been trying my best to make a little money so that I might one day find a bride, have a few children, and die at peace with the world as it was.”

“Then Helena the black came along and ruined it all.” He nodded with a laugh. “Daniel, I remember him a little. He was a good dragon, but I never really had any interaction with him. You and I, can you believe that we were here with that dragon and never knew who he was to Eve? And all that time, he knew my mother.”