Warrior (2 page)

“Blind?” Taushin repeated. “You have mentioned this label in describing yourself.”

“Sometimes I can see shapes and shadows,” Zena said, “and sometimes I am totally without vision, but I have overcome my lack of eyesight. My other senses are more acute.”

Blinking, Magnar turned away from the probing glow. “So that is his handicap—blindness. Truly this is severe enough to fulfill the prophecy.”

Taushin’s expression turned sour. “Zena, you feared a bodily deformity of limbs or wings, but I suspect that this is worse. Still, I would not be blind if I had a different companion, one who could see. I could look through her eyes.”

“I can only beg your tolerance,” Zena said. “I promise upon my life to serve you with every skill and talent I possess. If not for that Starlighter …” She tightened her jaw. Her eyesight had been stolen long ago by Cassabrie, but Cassabrie had paid the price with great suffering and death. There was no use airing once again a story that never failed to make her boil.

“Yes, you told me about Cassabrie.” Taushin lowered his eye glow to the floor. “You have also mentioned Koren. She is a Starlighter as well. She could serve as my eyes.”

Zena stroked his neck, pressing her fingers in as deeply as his armor would allow. “Serve as your eyes? But, my liege, only hours ago she threatened to kill you.”

“An empty threat, I assure you. When I call for her, she will return.”

“She is dangerous,” Magnar said. “She has the power to hypnotize any dragon who watches her stories come to life.”

“So I have been told.” Taushin blinked again, momentarily shutting off the blue rays. “Perhaps a dragon who cannot watch her stories will be immune.”

“I see your point. An intriguing advantage.” Magnar averted his gaze and appeared to be looking at the hole in the ceiling, an exit for flying dragons. “If you are the prophesied king, then you have been born with a message for me. When you deliver that, and I deem it to be adequate, I will be satisfied and abdicate my throne.”

“As if you could stop me from taking it.” Taushin smiled, exposing two razor-sharp fangs. As his lips relaxed, hiding the fangs, his voice altered to a deep register, mysterious in tone and bearing a hypnotic cadence. “Fear not, Magnar. As your father promised, the key to the portal will come to you, carried by a girl from Darksphere. Yet, beware. Although she appears to be nothing more than a ragged refugee, she possesses great gifts akin to those of a Starlighter. You must not underestimate her.” After a short pause, he added, “Zerrod has spoken.”

“Zerrod?” Magnar’s ears perked up. “How could you know my father’s name?”

“Perhaps now you are convinced that I am, indeed, the new king.” Taushin’s eyes shone bluer and brighter than ever. “Before you leave, I must ask you to do something for me.”

Magnar bowed his head. “As always, I am at your service.”

“Call for a gathering of dragons and humans alike.” Taushin sat up high on his haunches with a wing bent across his chest. “I will present myself to them this very evening at the Zodiac. Dragons and humans alike will welcome the dawning of a new day, an era that has no need for slaves.”

“Perhaps. At least until they learn what those words mean.” Magnar looked up at the hole again. “Our search for the dragon assassins should be complete by then, so everyone will be available.” After bowing again, he flew upward in a tight spiral and through the opening.

As soon as Magnar disappeared, Zena stroked Taushin again. Nearly blind once more, she sighed. “Are you certain of your decision to call Koren? Are my services insufficient?”

He arched his back, apparently enjoying the strenuous massage. “You are a benefit beyond all estimation, but you cannot give me sight.”

She thrust her hand into her pocket and withdrew the velvet box. Both hands trembling, she snapped it open and grasped the Starlighter’s finger. Her eyesight immediately began to clear, as always. “Look through me now,” she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking. “You will see. I can serve you as well as Koren can.”

Taushin looked into her eyes for a moment, then turned aside. “Yours is an aided vision that will eventually fail. Why should I rely on the recipient of light when I can have the source?”

She brushed away a tear. “I … I understand. You must have the best servant possible. Yet, if I may be so bold, there is no substitute for loyalty. She of the green eyes and red hair will not soon be persuaded to worship you as I do. Cassabrie could not be tamed, so I expect the same from Koren. And Cassabrie may yet create a stir. I have not told you this, but her spirit lives on. I saw it myself.”

Taushin’s ears flattened, and a reddish hue tinted his eyes’ glow. “I assume you have not yet found the body from which you cut that finger.”

“Not yet.” She caressed one of his wings. The leathery texture felt good against her skin. “I have not been able to prove my theory, but I strongly suspect that Arxad knows where it is. If you question him, he might—”

“There is no need to question Arxad. From what you tell me, he would never reveal secrets that will bring harm to his precious humans. I will locate Cassabrie’s body myself. Even now I feel its presence. It is close, perhaps even within these walls. If we are able to obtain it, we will have the ultimate bait to lure the spirit of Cassabrie into our grasp. With her and Koren working together, nothing can stop us from resurrecting the Northlands star or from dominating every inhabited world.”

“Two Starlighters?” Zena said. “How can we restrain such power? How will you coerce them to do your will?”

“Koren is easy prey. I have read her mind, and I know her weakness, a soft spot we will have no trouble exploiting. Cassabrie, however, will not be so easily persuaded.”

Zena held the finger in front of her eyes. “Trust me. Cassabrie longs for restoration. Even if we never find her body, we can lead her to believe that we have it. With this bait, perhaps we can control her as well.”

Taushin’s blue rays penetrated Zena’s eyes and reflected back at the finger. “As you said, there is no substitute for loyalty. Who else could conjure such a deceptive scheme?”

Zena smiled, her lips trembling. “And our schemes have only just begun.”

Balancing on vine-tied logs, Jason pushed a steering pole into shallow water and guided his raft toward a moonlit bank on the right. Koren slept curled on her side, in spite of the northbound river’s quickening current. A few hours earlier, they had anchored their rickety craft using a vine and stone and then dozed atop the river, hoping the water offered protection from any wild beasts that might be roaming the shores. Although those hours passed without incident, Jason had awakened many times, pain from the head wound Magnar had inflicted throbbing in time with his heartbeats, and his hypersensitive ears alerting him to every strange noise. After the fifth time a loud owl-like hoot sent his hand flying to the hilt of his sword, he decided to get up and try to make some progress in spite of his weariness.

He touched the wound with a finger. The bleeding had stopped, but the pain raged on. Like a seasoned warrior, he would have to ignore it and press forward.

Koren, on the other hand, seemed undisturbed. With her head resting on her hands and her Starlighter cloak covering her body from neck to ankles, she appeared to be as comfortable as if she were lying on a feather-stuffed mattress and satin sheets. Even when an occasional splash misted her hair, she merely fidgeted. This Starlighter, as she called herself, had clearly exhausted every ounce of energy.

When the front end of the logs bumped against the shore, Jason gave the pole a final shove, pushing them higher on the sandy bank and making the raft tilt toward the river. Even then, Koren didn’t budge.

He knelt close and listened, trying to tune out the sounds of running water behind him, a talent he had learned from his brother Adrian. As Koren drew breaths in a steady rhythm, her eyelids twitched, making tiny droplets glisten on her delicate lashes. The bright moon, Trisarian, had passed its zenith but floated high enough to illuminate her features—a small nose on a face as smooth as silk, hair so fiery red it seemed that the mist should sizzle on contact, and thin lips posed in a slight pucker, somewhat dry and peeling from her slave labors in the heat of the day.

He set his hand inches above her hair. It seemed a shame to wake her, especially after witnessing the deeds that had spent her energy. Her amazing storytelling gifts allowed her to create ghostly characters who acted out a tale that recalled the capture of humans from Jason’s home planet, Major Four.

In the story, the humans’ brave leader, Uriel Blackstone, resisted enslavement, escaped, and returned home through a portal deep within a mine where slaves drilled for pheterone, a gas that dragons require for survival. Back on his home planet, Uriel tried to mount a rescue, but no one believed him. In fact, the authorities accused him of killing the Lost Ones, as Uriel called them, and they confined him to an insane asylum where he spent the rest of his life.

Because of Koren’s storytelling, Magnar, the dragon who had captured the Lost Ones, became hypnotized, which allowed Jason to purloin a key that unlocked Koren’s chains. After some shrewd negotiating, Arxad flew them to this river, and, after providing counsel to travel to the Northlands where a helper awaited, he returned to the dragon village, leaving them on their own.

Jason moved his hand away from Koren’s head. It would be better to let her recharge her dragon-charming gift. If not for her ability, they would both likely be dead. They could wait a little while longer, at least until—

Koren sucked in a breath and shot to a sitting position. Holding her hands against her heaving chest, she stared with wide eyes. “I can … I can feel him … like a fire burning inside.”

“Him?” Jason met her gaze. “Who?”

After taking a deeper breath, she swallowed. “The prince. The dragon in the egg. I hear his voice. I feel his presence.”

Using a cup he had fashioned from leaves, he dipped out a little water from the river and handed it to her. “How do you know it’s the prince?”

After taking a drink, she slid her hand into his and clutched it tightly. Her green eyes looked like copper fire in the moonlight. “While I was chained next to the black egg, he spoke to my mind, almost like he was inside me. It’s the same now.”

“What’s he saying?”

Koren withdrew her hand and looked southward toward the village, separated from them by countless miles and the great wall that, with aid from a mountain range to the south, hemmed in the dragons’ realm. Her tone altered to a stretched-out, ghostly cadence. “Come back to me, Starlighter. I am Taushin, the newborn prince and soon-to-be king. Together, you and I can break the tyranny and help your people find liberty.”

“Taushin?”

She nodded. “I’ve never heard that name before.”

He jabbed the pole into the ground. “No matter what he says, he’s a dragon, so he’s not on our side.”

She shifted her gaze to her lap where she threaded the leaf cup through her fingers. “I know, Jason. I know.”

He bent lower to catch a glimpse of her face, now pensive and confused. “You don’t
want
to go back, do you?”

“Of course not. It’s just that …” She let out a deep sigh and looked up at the moon. “If he really does want to help us, we’ll never find out.”

Jason stood upright and reached for her. “Better to stay the course for the Northlands and find the person Arxad mentioned.”

When she grasped his hand, he pulled her up and helped her step to solid ground. She nudged the raft with the toes of a bare foot. “Why did you bring us to shore?”

“Arxad mentioned a waterfall. I think I hear it, and the water’s getting rougher.” He picked up a pumpkin-sized cloth bundle, food Arxad had supplied, and walked out onto a dry grassy field. He stopped and scanned the moonlit expanse, a fairly flat terrain. “We’ll have to go on foot.”

Koren joined him, yawning and stretching. “Did you get any sleep?”

“Some. A hooting bird kept waking me up.” While attaching the food bundle to his belt, he looked back at the river. “But I had a strange feeling that something else lurked out there, something that watched us, waiting for us to come to shore. So I decided to forget about sleeping and ride the river until that feeling went away.”

She slid her fingers around his arm. “Then we’ll have to find a safe place to sleep, maybe in some bushes.”

“Not yet. We’ll sleep during the day. March while it’s night. We don’t want a dragon patrol to spot us.”

Koren looked up at the moon. “Trisarian is so bright, if the dragons sent a patrol, even at night they would probably see—” Her head tilted to the side. “How strange!”

“What?” Jason followed her line of sight. A cloud bank drifted close to the moon, the leading edge reaching toward it with gray fingers. “The clouds are strange?”

She wrinkled her brow. “It rarely rains in the lowlands, so clouds are usually confined to the mountains. I have seen them veil Trisarian before, but not until later in the cool season.”

“Then we’re in luck. The darker the better.” Turning slowly, Jason scanned the area again. Soon, the landscape would be shrouded, so he had to take in as much visual information as possible. Now his confident remark about darkness seemed premature. The feeling that something lurked returned, pricking his senses. It was out there somewhere. Would darkness embolden the creature? Give it an opportunity to attack?