The ring of five dragons, p.11
The Ring of Five Dragons, page 11
part #1 of The Pearl Series
It was not until he was safely back inside the regent’s palace that Lead-Major Frawn suspected that he was being followed. Of all the Haaar-kyut, he had been chosen by the Kundalan mistress to be the regent’s eyes and ears among the traitors who had gathered around Prime Factor Stogggul’s black-and-crimson skirts. Giyan had chosen well, for she had seen in Frawn that which his superiors had not: a V’ornn with keen intellect and fierce hearts, who nonetheless was born to the wrong caste. To protect himself, he had formed this decidedly dull exterior so that none of his superior officers would ever ask too much of him. He had invoked the reputation of being straightforward and utterly reliable. He was also as nondescript as a V’ornn could get, which is why Prime Factor Stogggul had singled him out to turn traitor. He was, however, ignorant of Kinnnus Morcha’s treachery, and this lack would, finally, be his undoing.
This suspicion of being followed was the first inkling he had that things were amiss. Now he wondered whether he had been followed from the time he left the Prime Factor’s residence. He had been so anxious to deliver his news to the Kundalan mistress who was his contact that he had not been as careful as he should have been. Cursing himself, he strode down the hallway toward the great staircase to the second story.
Instead of mounting the staircase, as he had planned, he went around it. He held the ion cannon close to his side, comforted by its weight. Night had gripped Kundala in its winged embrace. Moonrise had yet to commence, but the spray of stars seen through the openings delivered an icy, glittering light that mingled uneasily with that thrown off by the fusion lamps. Giving the impression that he was making his way to the Haaar-kyut auxiliary barracks, he turned abruptly down a shadow-filled passageway, went up two short flights of stairs to the gallery that overlooked the regent’s Great Listening Hall. He went swiftly and silently along the rear of the gallery, keeping to the shadows as best he could. He stopped often to listen for the muffled footfalls he was certain he heard behind him.
Midway along the gallery, he paused long enough to thumb a hidden latch the Kundalan mistress had described to him. A slender section of the wall swiveled inward. The moment he stepped through, he put his back against the door and shut it.
Safe, he thought. He paused a moment to collect his thoughts. He needed to make his rendezvous with the Kundalan mistress, and he did not have much time. As she had directed, he went three paces forward and two to the right. Putting his hand out, he found the latch set flush in the wall and pushed with his thumb. He stepped out into a hallway on the second story
“You must tell me how you achieved that trick,” Line-General Kinn-nus Morcha said.
Frawn sucked in air as his hearts trip-hammered in his chest. “Oh, you startled me, commandant.”
“What are you doing in the residence ring, Lead-Major? And armed with an ion cannon, no less. Are you planning to mount a coup?”
“Of course not, sir!” Frawn flushed. “The Kundalan mistress sent me to fetch—“
“To fetch what?” Kinnnus Moreha stepped closer. “Information?”
Frawn was wide-eyed with terror. “Information, commandant? I don’t understand—Eh.”
The Line-General had slapped the ion cannon out of his hands and was dragging him back into the hidden room. “Now you listen to me, you slimy patch of filth, I’m onto what you have been doing—shuttling back and forth between the palace and Stogggul’s residence. Do not insult me with denials. I myself have seen you.” He shook Frawn until his tender parts rattled painfully. “What traitorous activities have you been brewing with the Prime Factor?”
“I … I have only been pretending to go along with him. He plans a coup. This very night his men will steal into the palace, kill the regent and his entire family. I am to man the west-ring guard station so that I can let his cadre in. But I was on my way to tell—“
“The regent?” Kinnnus Morcha’s grip tightened.
“The regent’s mistress.”
“The Kundalan Looorm?”
“Yes. She is my contact. I am late for our rendezvous.”
“Ah. Then by all means let us go to her with all due haste.” The Line-General released his grip. “I myself will escort you to her so that no traitor may interfere.” He grinned as they emerged back onto the residence-ring balcony. “Who knows how many Wennn Stogggul has enlisted from the Haaar-kyut.”
Flooded with relief, Frawn nodded and led the way down the corridor. He passed the door to the regent’s quarters. Behind him, Kinnnus Morcha’s strong right arm twitched. They soon came to shadowed doorways. At the second one, Frawn stopped. His knuckles rapped out a soft set of taps. After an unaccountably long time, the door opened a crack.
With a roar, Kinnnus Morcha drew his double-bladed shock-sword and ran it though Prawn’s back. With a sharp crack like a bolt of thunder, the ion-charged blades shattered his spinal column. Morcha used his bulk like a battering ram, staving in the door as he strode into the chamber. Instead of the Kundalan skcettta, he found himself face-to-face with the regent.
“Kinnnus—” he began, just as the Line-General thrust his sword points into his neck. Blood gouted over the carpet.
“A quick death is my gift, regent. For all we meant to each other. You were misguided, but you were fair in your dealings with me and my Khagggun.” Kinnnus Morcha stood over Eleusis’ body. “Your heirs will thank me. Wennn Stogggul would have you tortured until you vomited up all your secrets. I have spared you that indignity, at least, and hopefully kept a rein on his power.”
Giyan, returning to her chambers after fetching the datura inoxia, heard the commotion. Being in the garden at the time of the attack had saved her. She screamed as Kinnnus Morcha swiped sideways with his sword, severing Eleusis’ head from the twitching shoulders.
The Line-General ran after her, stalking through the rooms, his sword above his head, ready to deliver the death blow, but she had vanished. With Eleusis’ dripping head held before him like a gruesome lantern, he went swiftly through each room of the apartment without discovering where she had gone.
“N’Luuura take her!” he cried in rage and frustration. He stared into the regent’s bloody face. Was it his imagination or did it hold an expression of surprise and sadness? N’Luuura take him, why had he fallen under the spell of that bloody sorceress?
Just then, he heard the sounds of armed combat, knew that Wennn Stogggul’s pack had made its way through the west-ring door, whose guards he had killed upon returning to the palace.
He ran back through the rooms and out onto the balcony. It was imperative that he show himself, show those still loyal to the regent that they were fighting for a ghost. It was over, he knew—or would be as soon as they hoisted Annon’s head alongside that of his father. Nothing less would satisfy Prime Factor Stogggul, for as long as Annon lived the Ashera Dynasty would remain alive, and Stogggul’s dream of ascending to the regent’s chair would be just that: a dream. As for his overweening desire for the salamuuun trade, that would have to wait for another day. He rushed down the balcony, joined members of
Stogggul’s Khagggun pack as they were battering down the door to the regent’s suite.
“The regent is dead” he cried, holding high the bloody head of Eleusis. “Now for the son. Fetch him so that I may slay him with the same sword that felled his father.”
Spook!
When he awoke, Annon had a headache the approximate size and weight of a bull hindemuth. He lay in the underground cavern, staring straight up at the oculus. For a moment, his mind was blank, in self-defense perhaps, the way the body will go numb to protect itself from the onset of pain. Then it all came flooding back to him: the smell of bitterroot, the flight down the spiral staircase, the near encounter with the unknown terror, then the chute to the subterranean caverns, the round door opening and his confrontation with—well, Enlil only knew what that thing was.
And that was the last he remembered until awakening here, drenched in the cool blue-green light from the fusion lamps in the palace above, flowing through the oculus. All at once, he became aware of a change in the light and, shielding his eyes, he rose up on one elbow and stared upward. Through the translucent lens of the oculus, he could make out the shadows of people, running this way and that. As he watched, one of them fell, spread-eagled across one section of the oculus. What was going on in the palace above?
He rolled over, groaned as his pounding head threatened to blind him. He closed his eyes for a moment, but the vertigo made him gag. He opened his eyes, drew his legs beneath him, and tried to stand. He keeled over, put the heel of his hand down to cushion his fall, discovered a book lying on the stone floor. It was small, bound in stained leather that looked very old. Surely, it had not been there before. He picked it up and opened it. It was filled with Kundalan writing—runes and symbols, lines of complex text he could not read. He stashed the book in the waistband of his trousers and slowly got to his feet, reeling a little.
Gasping, he put his back against the round Storehouse Door. The Kundalan runes seemed to sear his flesh. At length, it dawned on him that he was outside the door and that it was closed. Meters of solid rock now lay between him and the thing that had grabbed him. What had it done .to him? What had it wanted? Why was he here now on the other side of the door? All these questions merely exacerbated his headache. He bent over, holding his forehead in his hands while his entire body throbbed.
Through the pain he heard his name being called. His head snapped up, and he groaned in agony. Giyan’s voice, shrill with a hearts-wrenching edge of panic, came from what seemed a long way off. The instant he answered her, he found her inside his head. She began to guide him to her. He asked her what was wrong, but she only urged him to hurry, hurry or it would be too late. Too late for what? he asked her silently. Please, please, please hurry The words swam in his head like frenzied fish, goading him on.
He had expected her to direct him to a stairway up to the main floor of the palace, but instead she directed him deeper into the caverns. The farther he got from the oculus, the less light there was. In darkness, he was obliged to rely entirehvon her directions. He did not hesitate. It was a matter of faith—a word she had taught him, one which he never had cause to test until tonight. It was an odd thing, he thought as he stumbled onward, to have such blind faith in someone—especially when that someone was a Kundalan! For some reason, he remembered the Kundalan female he and Kurgan had stumbled upon this afternoon down by the stream. His mind’s eye opened like a whistleflower to the sun, and it was as if he were staring into her face again. He tried to discover what it was that had passed between them, felt it, grabbed at it, found it just out of reach. Then, as abruptly as it had appeared, the image vanished, and he was engulfed in darkness again.
Reach out your hand, Giyan’s voice said in his head.
He did as she directed, felt her hand grasp his. Then she had pulled him into a fierce embrace.
“Thank Müna you are safe!” she whispered.
“Safe from what?” he asked.
She admonished him to lower his voice as she led the way. “Not what—who. Prime Factor Stogggul. He has moved against your father.”
Annon’s hearts contracted and he pulled up short. “Then I must go to him. He will need my help.”
“That is impossible—“
“No!” he jerked away from her, turned in the blackness and started back the way they had come. “I will not listen to you! What do you know, anyway? You are Kundalan!”
“Annon!” she cried, her voice full of terrible anguish. “Your father is beyond your help. He is dead—“
“That’s a lie!” Annon cried. “Kinnnus Morcha would never allow—“
“It was Morcha who slew him—Morcha the traitor, seduced by a deal with Wennn Stogggul.”
“No, it can’t be!” But he paused, thinking of the commotion he had seen through the lens of the oculus, someone falling, spread-eagled, possibly—no, probably—dead. “Ah, N’Luuura take the enemies of the Ashera!”
“Yes,” she said with surprising venom. “N’Luuura take them all!”
He dug his knuckles into the ridges of his hairless skull. “My father is… dead?”
She came to him then and laid his head against her breast, but he jerked away.
“No! I’m not a little boy anymore. I am the eldest Ashera. By the Law of Succession I am the regent now. I must go back and command—“
“You will not go back,” Giyan said firmly. “Stogggul’s pack of Kha-gggun has joined with those Haaar-kyut who follow Morcha. They control the palace now. Everyone loyal to your father lies in a pool of blood—except you and me.”
“But I have a duty—“
“Listen to me, Annon, at this very moment they are scouring the palace for us. The Prime Factor is desperate to destroy you because you are the only person standing in his way.”
“My sisters?”
“Dead. As well as their children. All dead.” Her eyes leveled on him, and he could feel that intensity she brought to his lessons. “Your duty now is to stay alive.”
“All of them dead?” He turned this way and that. Tears stood quivering in the corners of his eyes, and he was shamed. He turned to her. “Remember the seer?” He saw her look. “The old V’ornn on the street corner. He said I that I should beware. That I was marked by the Ancient One.”
“Nonsense. I told you.”
“Maybe he saw all this.” His eyes were open wide in shock and fear. “What am I to do? This is all happening too fast.”
“Shock tactics. A key part of Stogggul’s plan,” Giyan whispered.
“What about the Gyrgon?” Annon said. “They must be my allies. By law I replace my father as regent when he dies.”
Giyan put her hand over his okummmon. “Do not be so certain. Have you been Summoned? Have the Gyrgon contacted you as they should have?” His silence goaded her on. “The only way to defeat Stogggul is to escape the palace and the city. To gain time to consider your options, to discover who may still be loyal to the Ashera, to discover from which quarters help may come. You cannot do this yourself. Please, Annon, you must believe me.”
Believe a Kundalan, he thought. Everyone is mad, including me.
“All right,” he said at last. “Lead the way.”
Sudden light flared and Annon shaded his eyes, squinting, his hearts racing. Had they been discovered so soon? But no, he saw as his eyes adjusted, Giyan had lighted the remnant of an old pitch torch with a firestick. The thing coughed and sputtered and threatened to extinguish itself, but Giyan cupped her hands, shielding it from a draft and it regained life. She stood before him, dressed oddly for her in Tusku-gggun robes complete with the traditional sifeyn, the cowl that covered her head.
He looked around, saw how V’ornn technology had carved out a series of saclike cells in this section of the bedrock. He peered inside, already knowing what he would find.
“How long did Kundalan prisoners last in there?” Giyan stared at the strange and eerie scalpels, clamps, wires, spadelike blades and pincers that protruded from the curved walls and ceiling like pustules on someone dying of duur fever. “Typically.”
Annon poked his head into the second cell. It smelled very bad. “It depended on how willing the prisoner was to speak.”
“What you really mean is that it depended on the form of torture the interrogators used.”
Annon turned to her, but ignored her accusation. “Why are we lingering here?” He stamped first one foot, then another. “You said yourself—“
Giyan shoved her left palm toward him. “We will not get far no matter where we go or how cleverly we hide, when I have this.”
“The okuuut!”
She nodded. “My identity implant. With this, they can track me anywhere we go.” Her eyes were large, catching the bright yellow spark of the pitch torch. “We must be rid of it.”
“But how?”
She produced Kurgan’s bolt, held it out to him haft first.
“No,” he said, his stomachs lurching. “You cannot mean—!”
“Annon, it must be done.” When she saw him backing away, she said: “Listen to me, it is your duty—your first duty as the new regent. You must protect yourself. At all costs.”
“But it will hurt so much!”
She smiled. “Not so much as you fear. I will guide you every step of the…”
Her words trailed off. Annon saw her staring at him. “What is it?”
“Annon, in Müna’s name!” She pointed at his bare torso.
He looked down at his chest, his ribs—his ribs! There were no wounds, just a small discoloration. He pressed his fingers to his rib cage. No pain, so soreness, not even the hint of an ache. And the peculiar throbbing of the gyreagle talon was gone.
He looked back at her in wonder and started to tell her what had happened, but stopped as she thrust the haft of the bolt into his hand.
“There’s no time,” she whispered. “Tell me as you work. It will serve to distract me.”
The best place for her to sit was inside one of the cells. He chose the least foul-smelling one and, taking the lighted torch, squatted beside her. But when he examined the four-tined point of the bolt he shook his head.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“This will never work.”
“But you’ve got to—“
He held up a hand as he rose. He went over to the wall full of interrogation implements, chose the sickle-bladed scalpel, and returned with it. He thrust the blade into the flame, cleansing it. Giyan watched the thing as if it were a poison-adder.
He held the glowing edge of the curved scalpel over the okuuut, waiting only for it to cool sufficiently.
“This is ironic, don’t you think?” She looked straight into his eyes, would not look at the V’ornn-made horrors of their surroundings.
“I don’t know where to begin,” Annon said.
