In the House of Five Dragons

36. Under the Sun

“A single moment can change history. It can build the future or shatter the past.”

- From Our Red History, by Avilla Sallusi

Thainna woke at dawn. She was too excited to sleep any longer. After a brief visit to the bathhouse, she dressed in the nicest tabba that Narissa had sent and braided her damp hair. Did the pale blue tabba clash with the red? Thainna checked her reflection and decided that they looked fine.

Even at this early hour, the entire Mazrem house was in an uproar. Knights in full armor of every color — most carrying some report or list for their superior’s inspection — pushed through the halls with swift, purposeful strides. Servants hauling food and clothes and more papers wound their way past. More than a few stopped as one of the knights asked for directions or had to be guided to the other end of the large house.

The entire Lyceum seemed to be in attendance, as well, along with all of their aides and attendants. A gray-cloaked Nianese man stood just inside the atrium, listening to a pair of Sun Court knights who kept interrupting one another in excitement.

“Thainna!”

She turned to find Bastil chasing after her, scowling. The old steward grabbed her elbow and towed her back out­side.

“There you are,” he said. “I’ve been looking for you for hours.”

Bastil was probably exaggerating, but Thainna dutifully fol­lowed him down the crowded drive.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“Legens Mazrem is already on his way to the Star Court and you’re to join him at once,” Bastil told Thainna without looking back. “I’m sending you down into the city with some of the other knights.”

“Did Gaius leave already? Is he with Rikard?”

“Young Lord Mazrem left with his father, hae,” Bastil answered with a nod.

Thainna smiled so wide that it felt her face would split open. Bastil scowled at her utter failure to treat this day with the gravity it so clearly deserved. But it was just too exciting! Thainna had never seen an Alterran pact made before and no one had ever witnessed one so vast.

Everything seemed so bright and clear and inexplicably more real today. The grass thrust up from the rich brown soil like an army of tiny emerald swords. White clouds raced across a sky the same color and soft, rippling richness as her tabba.

“Thainna!” Bastil called. “I don’t have all day to shepherd you. I have Lady Mazrem’s tasks to look after, too.”

Thainna had fallen behind again and raced to close the dis­tance. She let Bastil usher her into the care of a Moon Court knight who looked familiar. The man sat astride a dappled gray horse that pawed restlessly at the ground. Both horse and rider were eager to be off. The knight was about Gaius’ age, but with a boyish glimmer of excitement in his brown eyes that reminded her more of Rikard.

He held out his hand to help Thainna into the saddle be­hind him.

“Mana Vahn,” the knight greeted her. He turned awkwardly in the saddle and gave her a respectful nod.

“Forgive me, you look familiar, but I can’t…” she admitted.

“Marus Gallard,” the knight told her. “I came to visit Legens Mazrem shortly after his return.”

“You were the one who found Rikard.”

“That’s me, mana.”

“Just Thainna, please.”

“Thainna, then,” Marus answered with a grin not unlike the one she had seen in her own mirror earlier that morning. “Thank you, Thainna.”

“Me? For what?”

“I might have brought the legens’ body back to VEIL, but they say you’re the one who saved his spirit. You’ve been with him at every step.”

Thainna bit her lip and felt the blood hot in her cheeks. A VEIL captain in Sun Court red handed a covered waxboard up to Marus who tucked it into a saddlebag and then looked at Thainna.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Hae!”

Marus urged the horse out into the street, swore and reined out of the way of a chariot. He steered around a pair of litters carrying gossiping noblewomen and out into the crowded street center. Thainna clung tightly to Marus as he rode quickly through Dor­maen. The roads were full of people, even this early in the day.

But what a day!

Everyone wanted to get to Mazrem Square early to claim a good view of the blood pact. Marus had to jump his horse over a heavy sedan chair and its heavier occupant, deposited in the middle of the street by its panting, sweating bearers. Nearby traffic shouted to remove the obstacle, but it would be a few minutes until the men recovered their breath enough. The fat nobleman enthroned in the middle of the road flushed and apologized to everyone with up­raised hands.

The packed throng thinned a bit as Marus and Thainna turned away from Mazrem Square and toward the Star Court archouse, but they traveled against the flow of traffic. So Marus turned off the main road and onto a tiny, narrow street that was little more than a long alleyway. When she asked how he knew it, Marus explained that it led to one of the back gates of the court.

“For when knights want to return late and unnoticed to the arc­house,” he said. “Not that we will have much use for things like this anymore. Praise the gods.”

“We’re using it,” Thainna pointed out.

“Well, this is for a good cause, isn’t it?” Marus chuckled. “We’re avoiding traffic, not attention.”

At the back gate, a templar took their names and then waved Thainna and Marus through.

“The legens is in the main yard,” she said.

“Thank you, tes,” said Marus. “Let’s get you to Legens Mazrem, Thainna.”

Marus dismounted and helped Thainna scramble down from the saddle. A young squire in a black saela took the reins and led the spotted horse away. Marus took Thainna through the archouse and out into the courtyard. The lawn wasn’t as crowded as the day Rikard had called for volunteers, but it was still packed and as busy as a beehive. The people gathered here weren’t just listening to a speech today. Every one of them had something to do, some report to de­liver or order to carry out, and each believed his or her task was of paramount importance.

Taller than Thainna by more than a head, Marus was the one who found Rikard. He was, naturally, in the center of the thickest knot of people. Marus pointed her in the right direction.

“Thainna, can you manage alright?” he asked.

When she told him that she would, the Moon Court knight let himself be pulled aside by an Erastrasan man asking after the reports he had brought.

With no small effort, Thainna pushed, shoved and ducked her way through the crowd to Rikard. When he felt her nearby, his eyes lit up and he searched the sea of faces until he found her. Thainna slipped past a short templar and took Rikard’s offered hand. He em­braced her briefly.

I missed you this morning, he thought to her. I’m sorry I couldn’t wait for you at the house.

It’s fine, Thainna reassured him. You’ve got more history to make today. Bastil found me and sent me here with Marus Gallard. Do you remember him?

Hae. He is a good man. Did you–? Rikard thought, but the short templar was trying to get his attention. The woman waved her arms until Rikard turned to look at her.

“Legens, Consul Liam sent a runner,” she told him. “One of the wagons broke an axle. It was carrying a ton of the millet. It’s being transferred to a new wagon, but it will take some time to arrive.”

“Will it run us late?” Rikard asked.

She shrugged. “I’m sorry, legens. He didn’t say.”

“If the runner’s not too badly winded, send him back to get an estimate on the delay. Give him a horse, if he can ride.”

“Hae, legens.”

The templar made her way back through the crowd, and Rikard looked down at Thainna again. When we return home, I will thank Bastil for finding you. I want you to be here today.

I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Do you know what you’ll promise the Alterrans in the pact today?

No. This is not a standard pact. This is much larger and much more complicated. I will ask the Uprising what they need, and we will give it.

Hae. Thainna knew he would and hoped that the rest of VEIL would follow their legens’ lead. Where are Gaius and Lady Laurael?

My wife is at home… resting, I believe. She was out late last night. Doing something for Gaius, she said.

What was it?

I don’t know. I left her the surprise. Gaius is at the square already, setting up a perimeter and overseeing the grain delivery.

You must be so–

“Legens Mazrem! Legens!”

Rikard reluctantly withdrew his attention from Thainna to re­ceive a lengthy, detailed update on the wagons that had arrived in Mazrem Square. Thainna listened, too, but she lacked her father’s knack for numbers. Some of the grain was still missing, she gathered, and more than one broken wagon. Rikard gestured another knight forward to compare their reports and find out where the numbers had gone awry.

A light touch at her elbow made Thainna jump. She whirled to find Caelin cringing and clutching the hem of his tabba.

“Caelin?” Thainna sighed. “Bloody hell, man, you scared me. What are you doing here?”

The older Talon held out the satchel that held her bandages and salves. Thainna took it uncertainly. She hadn’t used any of it in days. What was Caelin playing at? He slid in closer until he could whisper right into Thainna’s ear.

“Arliss was looking for you. Got a message from the House, so I told Bastil that you might need your things. He let me ride in with one of the knights. I had nothing else to do,” Caelin told Thainna. “Master Gaius hasn’t been touching his drams of late and Lady Mazrem’s busy with the other house servants. She’s going out again today.”

Caelin’s breath tickled Thainna’s ear uncomfortably, but it was nothing beside the sudden, terrible sinking in her stomach.

“Wait. A message from the House? Gods, what is it?”

“You’re to go report to the Crest. At once.”

“The Crest? Now?”

Thainna barely kept herself from shouting. With an effort, she quashed her fear. She didn’t want to get Rikard’s attention. Not now.

“Arliss said to… to remind you of Thain,” Caelin told her apologetically. “You have to go.”

“Where?”

“There. To him, to the temple district. Do you want to tell Lord Mazrem?”

Thainna fought to maintain her composure. She felt sick. “No, I… I can’t. He’ll know something’s wrong. I have to leave before he notices.”

“Do you want me to tell him?”

“No, he could get the answer from you just as easily. Stay away until this is all over. Come on, we have to go.”

Thainna looked back at Rikard once to make sure that he was still busy, then took Caelin’s hand and towed him out of the Star courtyard. It was much easier to get away from Rikard than it was to get close.

“Get back to the Mazrem house,” she instructed Caelin tightly. “Or anywhere else in the city. Just stay away from Rikard until tomorrow, hae? I… I don’t want him to know.”

“I’m sorry, Thainna.”

“It’s not your fault. We all come running when the Crest calls.”

“Hae,” Caelin agreed darkly.

When she had made certain that the old Talon was on his way out of the Star Court, Thainna contemplated taking Marus’ horse. She was in a hurry, but didn’t want to steal anything that might be missed or that might invite questions.

Thainna struck out across Dormaen at a brisk walk. Whether she lived in the Rows or the Everstones, when the Crest called, she had to crawl across the city to him.

Rikard had no time to dwell on Thainna’s painful absence. He stood atop a hastily constructed stage in the middle of Mazrem Square, self-conscious in the shadow of his own monument. In the center of the plaza, four hundred carts of the Erastrasus grain shipment were arranged in rows, all draped in weighted sailcloth. One corner had been turned up on every wagon to reveal the sickly blue-black bruise of blighted wheat and millet inside.

Seven thousand knights formed up in tight ranks around them, filling Mazrem Square with flashing metal and creaking leather. Past them and separated by a triple guard of enlisted soldiers, half of Dormaen had turned out to watch. Rich noblemen and women in tall sedan chairs, merchants and their wives on litters, thousands standing and jostling each other for a better view, children sitting on their parents’ shoulders and waving. The sound of the crowd was not unlike the ocean Rikard had seen once as a boy… a rustling roar that rose and fell, inarticulate and somehow smooth.

He couldn’t afford to dwell on Thainna’s absence, but Rikard felt it. Where was she?

“Are we ready? Rik? Rik, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Rikard waved off Saul’s concern. There were more important things right now. He turned to Gaius. “Is everyone here?”

“Near as I can tell. All of the captains have reported in. If any­one is missing, it’s on their head, not mine.”

“All that remains is to do this.”

This came from General Castor. The oldest of the VEIL generals stood a little apart from the others, as though their presence might somehow taint him. He polished his bloodcap against a leather strip in the skirt of his armor. Castor wore no sword. No one did. By Rikard’s order, this was a demonstration of peace and no arms were to be worn.

Something followed Castor, trailing behind him and wafting all around him like a lingering smell. Like ashes and old iron and cold stone. What was it?

If he didn’t have time to find Thainna, Rikard thought unhappily, then he certainly didn’t have time to wonder about Castor. The Sun Court general had sworn himself to the pact. There would be time to deal with the rest later. For now, the city and the empire needed her knights.

“Hae,” Rikard agreed. “Are you ready for this?”

The other men nodded. It was a lie, of course. None of them were ready. Dealing with Alterra always had a price, but it was a price they paid gladly.

Rikard stepped up to the edge of the stage. He raised his hands and the crowd roared, calling out his name. The knights hammered their fists against their breastplates in a single deafening crash. Rikard waited until the noise died away before he spoke, but he still had to shout to make himself heard across even a fraction of the vast throng.

“What has been can never be again,” Rikard said in as loud a voice as he could. “I cannot make the Verita et Illumina Lansinos what they were in the days before Carce became an empire. Nor would I! We are no longer nations at war. The only war that re­mains is within our own borders, against the beasts of our own nature, the philosopher’s dragons!”

A murmur rose from the crowd as his words rippled through them, repeated for those who couldn’t hear Rikard. He felt their taut nerves, thrumming inside him with every drumbeat of his own pounding heart. Blood rushed in his ears, making it almost impossible to hear his own voice. Only the breathless press in his lungs reassured Rikard he was speaking at all.

“When a man succumbs to his dragons, he doesn’t suffer alone. All around him suffer and VEIL gave in to our dragons. Not every knight, nor every knight equally, but our crime is no less. We are all brothers together before you, and together we swear our­selves to a new and higher road! We are promised protectors to Terra and to Alterra. Our pacts, our oaths to ourselves and our allies, are the lifeblood of worlds!”

Rikard knew that most of the crowd didn’t care much about the Alterra, but that was the very heart of the problem. Without Terran dreams and ideas, the spark of fierce changeability and imagination that was so uniquely human, all Alterra would fade away.

“To every man and woman of Carce, to every question and answer of the Uprising, we give of ourselves. To Terra, we return the summer harvest of Erastrasus. To Alterra, we give our blood, our pact. Knights of VEIL, stand to attention!” Rikard called.

“Hae, legens!” they answered together.

Seven thousand knights snapped to attention. Backs straight, heads held high and proud. Rikard had been wrong. They were ready for this. Every one of them! He thumbed open the cap of his finger and raised his right hand. Behind Rikard, his son and gen­erals did the same. The knights raised their cannulas, filling the plaza with gold like a field of wheat under the sun. The crowd ap­plauded thunderously and roared their praise.

Flickerdim, I remember now! This, this is why I returned to Terra. Even if we somehow managed to defeat the Shatter, none of it would have mattered if we forgot you, if VEIL left you in silence. I remember, my friends. I bleed for you now, for my people and for yours!

Rikard knelt and traced a circle of his blood on the stage. Gaius stepped forward.

“You know what to do!” he told the knights. “Keep your head and keep your focus. We’re not the VEIL he knew thirty years ago. We’re even better than that! Let’s show Legens Mazrem what we can do.”

Grunting a little, Gaius knelt beside his father and winked. Rikard felt more than saw it as his blood flowed onto the wooden platform and his senses began to spread. In thousands, the knights of VEIL sank to their knees on the cobblestones and filled the swirling autumn air with the sea-salt tang of blood. Rikard reached and felt their minds open, ready and waiting. Willing. Whatever their Alterran brothers needed, they would be honored to give. The generals knelt behind Rikard, scribing their own crimson circles and joining the pact.

Slowly at first, and then with rising confidence, thousands of fingers traced the pact glyphs. A call to the Alterra to seek out the memories, the understanding of the wheat and millet, how to re­write this blighted, useless chaff into what it was meant to be.

Dormaen watched with breathless anticipation. Through slitted eyes, Rikard felt the air shimmer as though summer-hot, but the curling breeze remained cool. The crowd murmured. What was happening? Rikard reached inward instead of out, questing for Flickerdim’s dusky-bright presence. Where was the wisdom? Rikard searched, spreading his senses out cumulusly.

Flickerdim…! I’ve brought them, my brave knights. We are ready. Reach out to me and seal our pact!

But something was terribly wrong. Cold, colorless fire licked at the base of the tree-tower, smothering it in cracked ice. Flickerdim reached back through the veil toward Rikard, but he moved so slowly, too uncertainly for a wisdom. Something was wrong with the great serpent’s eyes. They were pale and hazy, clouds over the full moon… He was blind!

Stumble called from somewhere in the infinite distance. No, not infinite… It snapped in an instant into a hard, finite shape that was too far away. The Uprising was under siege. Stumble flew toward the bright VEIL blood on the glassy gray ground, but the frozen air held the young curiosity at bay.

No!

Rikard reached desperately for Flickerdim and Stumble, but his Terran senses screamed at him. The freezing fire was not con­fined to Alterra. It was pushing through. Rikard wrenched his eyes and stared. The air over the covered grain wagons shimmered like a mirage, but seethed more violently than any desert air. And cold… Not even the deepest Fiore winter was that cold.

This was wrong. Rikard’s fear rippled out through the ranks of VEIL knights. A collective shiver became a frightened tremble. All except one spot of icy certainty, the cold iron spike that held everything in frozen stillness. Rikard flung his curiosity in every direction, seeking out the terrible, glacial lynchpin of the attack.

“Father! Damn it, Rikard! What’s happening?”

At his son’s panicked cry, Rikard surged to his feet. Gaius wasn’t the only one screaming. The knights closest to the grain wagons were on their feet and staggering back, but they were packed too closely and the ground was slippery with blood. The civilians were too far away to make out the details and pressed curiously forward.

Rikard shouted for them to get back, but no one heard him over the frightened knights. He reached desperately through the veil. Flickerdim, Stumble… I need you! We can’t let this happen!

For one stuttering heartbeat, Rikard felt their thoughts touch against his, as tenuous as a secret. If Flickerdim could just reach him, Rikard would regain control of the pact.

The cold stretched into eternity, twisted and snapped with a terrible sound. Shattering and breaking.

Pain, suffering that crushes hopes. Loss to take away even the will to fight.

It was so hard to focus, to hold on to that whisper-thin link to the Uprising. The Shattering cold pressed in on Rikard with the weight of mountains. He cast all of his old armors up around him, memories of his brother knights–

Cowards.

The Shatter sank hooked, icy talons into the thought and tore it away.

Home– Rikard countered.

Has changed. This is not the world you knew.

My family! My son, my wife!

The memories of Laurael that had shielded him for thirty years were as weak now as wet paper before the Shatter. The empty Al­terra howled silently, deafeningly.

Love. I am loved… Rikard thought desperately. He wept with the effort and clung to himself.

The Shatter seized upon the flagging resolve. Love. She left you alone in the cold, the ice cracked. She left you to burn and fall. She’s lying to you.

…Thainna.

She left.

You’re alone.

Rikard could hold on no longer.

The fragile bond snapped and the Uprising was swallowed by broken distance. In Terra, the seething air over the lines of wagons broke. White-hot flames erupted all across wood and moldering wheat. The inferno exploded outward, filling the Mazrem Square with fire.

A hundred frightened cries became more as the VEIL knights recoiled. The wagons’ canvas covers blackened and curled, burning away within seconds. A blazing wind hurled flaming wheat into the rapidly darkening sky. Thick black smoke poured out across Maz­rem Square, cloying and choking. The crowd broke apart like a dropped glass, thousands of people shrieking and trampling each other, beating savagely at their own clothes as embers set them aflame.

The fire was spreading quickly, leaping from cart to cart and scorching the stone beneath. The stage was burning, too, creaking and popping as the supports caught and began to buckle. Rikard stood rooted to the spot, gaping in horror as his worlds burned. Gaius shouted at him and Saul tugged at his arm.

“Rik! Come on, we’ve got to get back,” Saul called.

“Leave him!” shouted Nikas Hern. “He did this! Let the bastard burn!”

Swearing loudly, Gaius punched Hern in the gut. “You bloodless coward! This isn’t his fault!”

“This whole thing was his idea,” Hern wheezed, doubled over and clutching his stomach. “He hates VEIL and wants to burn us out like an infection!”

“Don’t be an idiot!”

“This isn’t the time to argue!” Saul shouted. “Get down before we fall down!”

This can’t be happening… Rikard let his friend and son pull him down from the stage and out into the quickly emptying plaza. The smoky air was full of tolling bells. The alarm, a fire in the heart of Dormaen. Hot smoke seared his throat.

“Where’s Castor?” asked Hern through a fit of coughing.

“He was the first one down,” Gaius rasped. “He’s got even fewer guts than you, Nikas!”

“Not now, damn you all. Keep going! We’re not doing anyone any good dead. We need to get out before anything else,” Saul said.

The entire world was charred black and blazing red. Everything was ash. Rikard reached for Flickerdim and Stumble… Surely they could extinguish the flames that the other Alterra had lit. But Rik­ard felt only a hot-cold emptiness and silence.

Cut away, a world alone. They won… The Shatter. They have Shattered our faith.

Spurred to animal panic by Rikard’s own fear, most of the other knights had fled Mazrem Square, but a few remained, led by the blue shape of Marus Gallard. The Moon Court knight waved to Rikard and his three companions. They gathered to Rikard like iron to a magnet and he wanted to scream at them.

I did this! It’s my fault! I couldn’t hold on, I couldn’t hold the pact together…

“We have to get moving, sirs!” Marus shouted.

Gaius grabbed his father’s arm and they ran, fleeing the leaping, spreading flames. Everything in front of them was black on black, silhouettes in the smoke, and then a nightmare of cruelly twisting, crackling red as another building caught flame.

Turning down a third street, the air was finally clear enough to slow down. Rikard sagged bonelessly against the door of a studio. The sun shone red through the smoke, reduced to a smoldering spot of blood hanging high in the sky. Burning, blighted wheat was everywhere, smoking and filling the air with flying embers. The alarm bells drowned out all other sound until Rikard’s head rang with the noise.

“Saerus is going to glut his damned self today if we can’t get that fire under control,” Gaius said.

Marus shook his head. “Everyone was in Mazrem Square. It’s going to take too long for anyone to answer the alarm bells.”

“What’s that?” Hern asked suddenly.

He pointed down the street and Rikard squinted through the unnatural gloam. For a wild moment, he thought that the embers had coalesced into men and they marched now through Dor­maen, claiming the city as their own.

No, Rikard realized — the silhouettes were knights in red Sun Court armor, escorting a cask-shaped water wagon pulled by a pair of massive draft horses. One of the knights sat in the driver’s seat, whipping at the horses’ heaving, sweating flanks. Hern and a few of the others that had followed Rikard cheered weakly as the Sun Court knights rushed past.

“How could they be here already?” Saul asked, bewildered. “No one could have gotten the water wagons rolling so quickly!”

“It doesn’t matter now,” Rikard said. “We will follow them and lend what help we can.”

The Sun Court knights had been ready for the fire. They had expected this… but there was no time and no point in casting blame now. Dormaen was burning. Rikard pushed himself upright and ran on feet that felt like lead to catch up with the Sun Court wagon. Spitting oaths and ashes, the other knights followed.

<< Chapter 35 | Table of Contents | Chapter 37 >>

Are you enjoying the story? Do you like it enough to throw a few bucks our way? Then tip the authors!

In the House of Five Dragons is available in ebook and paperback.