The Dragon's Son (33 page)

She climbed nimbly from the boat onto the tree roots. Marcus had more
difficulty. He grasped a tree root to use it to steady himself, but the root
was wet and slimy with algae, and his hand slipped off it.

“Here!” Bellona held out her hand.

He took hold of her arm and she wrapped her hand around his forearm,
steadying him. He put one foot on the tree root. His foot slipped. The boat
slid out from beneath him. His heart jolted.

“Jump, damn you!” Bellona ordered, her grip on him tightening.

Marcus didn’t have time to think. He swung his other leg up onto the tree
root, found slippery purchase, and wobbled precariously. Bellona gave him a
yank and he tumbled onto solid ground. As he stood panting and catching his
breath, she untied the boat and cast it adrift.

“What did you do that for?” he asked, wiping sweat from his face. “Won’t we
need the boat to travel back?”

“We can steal one of theirs. I don’t want to leave it here. If those monks
found it, they would know someone had followed them.”

“Of course,” said Marcus, chagrined. “I didn’t think of that.”

If this adventure had taught him anything, it was that he was ill-prepared
for adventure.

Bellona moved close to him, whispered in his ear. “They’re moving deeper
into the forest. They will be easy to track, what with lights and the racket
they’re making. But we can’t take a chance on them hearing us. Watch how you
walk. Tread softly.”

“I can’t tread softly or otherwise,” Marcus returned. “Blast these robes!”
He yanked on the hem of the skirt, which had snagged on a bramble. “How does
anyone walk in these getups?”

“Kilt the skirt up above your knees,” Bellona ordered.

“What are you doing?”

“Taking off my robe. Don’t worry,” she added, seeing him about to protest, “I’ll
put it back on when I need to.”

She twisted the brown bundle under her arm and then helped Marcus hike up
his robes so that he could walk without either tripping over the hem or
catching it on every bush and briar. He and Bellona entered the forest,
following the lights and the sound of voices.

The baby smugglers talked and chatted—the women complaining about the
lateness of the hour and the fact that they would be up all night with
squalling brats; the rowers speaking longingly of cold ale. Marcus tried to
walk with extraordinary caution, but his boots seemed drawn to every dry stick
that cracked beneath them with a sound like a cannon shot and if there was a
hole anywhere along the route, he fell into it.

Part of his problem was sheer weariness. He had taken only a few steps when
he realized he was exhausted. Excitement had kept him going this long, but the
tramp through the woods soon took its toll. He saw no sign of civilization—no
campfires, no -welcoming lights—and he began to think that they were going to
march all night. He was wondering if it was truly possible that a man could
fall asleep on his feet, as he’d heard Gunderson claim, when Bellona halted,
holding out her arm to prevent him from plunging forward.

The baby smugglers stood huddled together in a glade, bathed in moonlight,
waiting for something to happen, seemingly, for they were all of them looking
expectantly at the big man.

Bellona also looked at him, looked at no one but him.

“Who is that?” Marcus asked, seeing the intensity of her fixed gaze. He knew
the answer the moment he asked. “It’s Grald, isn’t it?”

She gave a tight nod, kept hold of him. It was almost as though by keeping
hold of him, she kept hold of herself.

“So that is the dragon,” Marcus said softly, trying to see some sign of the
beast inside the man. Draconas had warned him he wouldn’t—that by stealing a
human’s body, the dragon effectively hid inside it. Still, Marcus thought there
must be some way to tell.

Grald raised his arms and made a banishing motion with his hands. A towering
wall appeared before Marcus’s eyes, its gray stone glimmering in the moonlight.
Then the wall shimmered away and was replaced by forest, thick and dense, and
then the wall reappeared, displacing the forest. Smells and sounds and the feel
of objects around Marcus waxed and waned.

Marcus knew how to give dust motes acorn hats, but he’d never experienced an
illusion perpetrated on such a grand scale, an illusion that caused his senses
to go to war with each other. It was as if one eye saw trees and moonlight and
the other eye saw a wall and moonlight and the conflict met in the center of
his forehead. He shut his eyes, his mind wrestling with the conflicting
versions of reality that seemed to wink in and wink out with every heartbeat.

He was in a forest, for he’d tripped over it, bashed into it, and been
snagged on it. He could smell the moist, damp loam. Hear the fall of a tree
limb. He could see it, when he opened his eyes. And in the next blink the
forest was gone and he stood before a city wall and he could smell it and hear
it. Smell garbage in the alleys and hear boots on cobblestone.

Reality melted and flowed away from beneath his hands and his feet. He grew
dizzy and sagged back against a tree.

“What’s the matter with you?” Bellona whispered, glaring at him. “Keep
quiet! They’ll hear you!”

Too late.

A brown-robed monk whipped around to look behind him. He stood a moment,
staring intently into the night.

Marcus froze, afraid to even breathe lest he make too much noise.

The monk’s hand moved to his waist. He grasped hold of something, drew it
from his belt. The light of one of the lanterns illuminated the object—a small,
wicked-looking dart. With a motion as gentle and graceful as if he were
showering a bride with flower petals, the monk flung the dart straight at them.

Key-up, Marcus almost laughed. This was ludicrous, like a child throwing
rocks. He expected the dart to flutter to the ground at his feet and then it
pierced Bellona’s throat.

Clutching her neck, she toppled backward.

Marcus caught hold of her, lowered her to the ground.

Dark blood welled up around the small, feathered dart. Bellona tried to
speak, but there came only a horrible, gargling sound. Her eyes held Marcus
fast, her gaze a death’s grip on his soul. She made a second desperate attempt
to speak. Her lips, trembling with the agonized effort, formed a V.

“Ven! I know!” he said, his voice shaking. “I will.”

Her body stiffened. Her eyes stared at him, accepting his promise, taking it
with her into death.

“I will,” Marcus repeated, choked.

He didn’t know what to do. One moment she had been standing beside him and
now she was gone. Her sudden, brutal death left him half-stupefied. He stared
in horror at the gruesome wound, at her lifeless eyes. Then the thought struck
him that the killer might not be finished. The next shaft might be aimed at him.
Marcus raised his head.

The monk stood alone before the wall, poised for another throw, alert to any
sound. The smugglers continued on. Several glanced over their shoulders, to see
what was happening, but none of them stopped. They walked up to the wall and
passed through it, as if it had been made of mist, not solid stone.

Grald was gone. Only the monk remained.

Marcus crouched in the darkness, unmoving.

Hearing nothing, the monk slipped the dart back into his belt and,
shrugging, turned and -walked away.

Fire burned inside Marcus, a fire far different from the sparkling gaiety he
used to create sprites and will-o’-the-wisps to frighten the servants. He
seized hold of the flame of his rage, shaped it, molded it, as he had molded
the clay on that riverbank long ago. He rose to his feet. The flames danced on
his palm.

Don’t use the magic. Don’t leave the little room!

Draconas’s warning came back to him. Marcus ignored it. His anger consumed
him as the magic would consume the monk. Marcus moved toward the door of his
room, started to open it.

A claw thrust into the crack of his mind.

Pain seered his brain. Marcus gasped and flung himself against the door. The
claw tried to remain inside, tried to dig deeper. Marcus held fast, braced
himself against the door and, eventually, the claw withdrew. Marcus gave a
shuddering sigh and closed his hand over the flames, quenched them.

The monk would be the last to pass through the wall. Marcus could see no
sign of a gate or even a wicket, yet somehow these people had gone inside the
city. There must be a gate, hidden by an illusion so powerful that he could not
penetrate it. If he lost sight of the monk, he would lose the location of the
gate. Yet Marcus didn’t want to leave Bellona. It didn’t seem right, abandoning
her like this. He looked down to see Yen’s name on her bloodstained lips.

“Take her soul, Lord,” Marcus whispered a hurried prayer, “and let no evil
come to her.”

Rising slowly and quietly, he shook down the robes from around his waist and
drew the cowl over his head to conceal his face. He placed his hands in the
sleeves of his robes, as he had seen the monks do, and walked toward the wall.

The monk entered. Marcus watched closely, impressing the exact location on
his mind, for he guessed that there was only a small aperture, for all those
who had entered did so walking single-file. He kept going, even as his eyes
told him he was about to dash out his brains against solid stone. He had to
keep going. He could not stop or show any hesitation, for the monk might be on
the other side, watching.

Reaching the wall, Marcus gritted his teeth, plunged ahead.

The stone wafted away like wisps of fog. His next step landed on
cobblestone.

Tall buildings of gray stone reared into the moonlit night, jostling each
other for a place near the wall. Alleyways branched off a main street. Other
streets branched off the alleys. He was in a city—a huge city, a city the size
of Idlyswylde. Was this illusion? Or was this reality?

Marcus reached out his hand to touch the wall and felt stone, cold and hard.
The misty gate was gone. Or did illusion mask it? He tried, experimentally, to
walk back through the wall, and bumped into stone, giving himself a hard knock
on the forehead. He looked up the wall and down, hoping to see an exit, a way
out. The chunks of rock used to construct the wall were a darkish color,
streaked with sandy white, and arranged all higgledy-piggledy, confusing to the
eye. A gate was there—must be there— but it was well-hidden.

The monk had gone. The smugglers had departed. There was no sign of Grald.
Marcus was alone on the street, yet he had the feeling that eyes were watching
him. He’d been foolish, trying to walk back through the wall. No monk—as he was
supposed to be—would have done that.

“I can’t stay here,” he muttered. “I have to keep moving. But where do I go?”

The street was empty. He detected the faint sound of voices fading away in
the distance somewhere to his left and he began walking in the opposite
direction. He walked swiftly, as though he was proceeding with his business. He
had only taken a few steps -when there came a noise behind him.

Marcus glanced over his shoulder.

Grald had apparently just entered through the gate, for the big man stood
near the wall. If he glanced down the street he could not fail to see Marcus.

Ducking his head, Marcus pulled the cowl low over his face, and increased
his pace. With every step he took, he waited tensely for the sound of the
dragon coming after him.

There was only silence.

Marcus walked and kept walking. A panicked urge to look behind him came over
him and he fought against it, clenching his jaw until his neck muscles ached
from the strain, forcing himself to keep facing forward. When he arrived at a
street corner, he ducked around a building, and halted, shaking. He decided to
risk a look. Sheltering behind the wall, he cast a swift glance back down the
street, the way he had come.

Grald was nowhere in sight.

Weak with relief, Marcus closed his eyes and fell back against the wall. An
aching in his hands caused him to look down. He found that his hands were
balled into fists and when he pried loose his fingers, he noticed something
sticky had gummed them together.

Blood. Bellona’s blood.

Marcus’s stomach heaved. His legs prickled. He went cold and then horribly
hot. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. He tasted bile in his mouth and
he realized that, unless he stopped himself, he was going to pass out.

Squatting down on his haunches, he lowered his head between his knees, and
made himself breathe deeply.

The sick sensation passed. He continued to gulp in cool air.

Thinking himself safe for the moment, he fled into his little room, where he
could be alone.

Someone else was there, standing outside the door. Blue eyes and a child’s
hand.

Marcus tried to look into his brother’s mind, enter his room, but all Marcus
could see was glare white.

“Open the door,” said Ven. “Let me in.”

Marcus did not hesitate. He opened the door.

The dragon’s claw lanced through his eyes, blinding him. The claw seized
hold of him and began to drag him out of the room. Marcus fought, frantically,
to escape the claw’s grasp, but the talons pierced deep into his mind and he
could not free himself.

In desperation, Marcus looked to his brother for help.

Yen’s eyes watched impassively and, as the claw dug deeper into Marcus,
seeking his soul, the eyes closed.

Go
away! the child cried. Get out!

A burning sapling on a riverbank.

A sword, my father’s sword . . .

Marcus forged a sword of blazing, molten magic. He lifted the sword in both
his hands and leaving his room, he ran into the dark lair that was the dragon’s
mind.

In the flaring yellow light of shock, Marcus could see the dragon clearly.
Grald was caught off” guard, surprised beyond measure, just as Draconas had
been surprised, so many years ago, by the sight of a human invading his mind.