Legends Read online

  The lung-stinging smoke of smoldering wood choked him into fits of coughing. Jayson emerged from the cinders of what had been the trees surrounding the square of rubble. There, a whisper of magic called to him, stirring the colors somewhere ahead.

  He turned in the direction from which it flowed, peering through the haze for the smoking cinders of what was once the master’s abode.

  A single hooded figure materialized from the gray.

  Jayson’s jaw dropped. Now he knew the source of the power. “Master!”

  Haiberuk pulled his hood back, revealing a grim face.

  Had he trusted Haiberuk, they might have stopped the clan from escaping. He shriveled inside from shame and bowed his head. “Forgive me.”

  The Majera, one of the three immortal beings who created the world, stopped before him and reached a hand to his head. A surge of magic froze Jayson for an instant. In that instant, power rushed through him with a cleansing purpose. Jayson inhaled sharply but a second later let it out.

  When the master removed his hand, Jayson straightened. The pain was gone. He stared in disbelief at the immortal’s calm visage. “Why?”

  “You are the last of this realm. We need all who can be spared.”

  “I deserve no forgiveness for my lack of faith.”

  Haiberuk shook his head. “No less than human. For that you deserve no punishment.”

  “I failed you, and the others.” Jayson swallowed. The others vanished, likely filling the bellies of the hungry beasts. Why had he been spared?

  Haiberuk’s image wavered and grew translucent. “You aided our purpose more than you know. Go and carry out your duties.”

  “What duties?”

  The image faded like smoke.

  If not for the healing, Jayson would’ve questioned the encounter as his imagination. It would not have been the first time he’d breathed in something foul.

  But what duties did he have with the Red Clan free? Only one—to warn others of the hazards of the dragons.

  Renewed by the healing, Jayson left the protected lands behind to travel the outside world once more. He had once sworn to secrecy to prevent Lusiradrol from learning of her clan’s sleep, but now he no longer needed to hide his purpose. In fact, he needed to make humanity aware of the dangers. He would find Calli, and he would tell her the truth.

  __________

  Makleor

  Brrr! Makleor shivered, but the chill wind blew through his soul. He glanced from his work in the study to the closed windows through which a faint wind whistled. Winter came early, but the cold was not physical.

  The magic twisted as if to move away from something empty. He closed his eyes, his right shutting with the left that never saw, and followed the trail through that other sight. Through the magic, he traced it to the approaching threat, a disturbance he recognized from ages past, a darkness one never forgot. His heart nearly stopped.

  They came!

  He closed the dusty tome with a heavy thud and called his staff to his hand from its place against the wall. With that to support him, he rose from his chair but paused at a glance of the Sôrath Ron. Something was wrong—the crystal held by the dragon carved of dragon’s tooth at the top of the wooden staff had clouded.

  It mattered not. He needed no seeing stone to know trouble approached.

  The dark hood of his mantle over gray hair left only his long beard exposed. Long ago he gave up shaving as a young man’s necessity to a woman’s heart. He had no one to impress, and every reason to hide the wrinkles of millennia.

  Leaning on the staff, he hobbled from the upper room in the palace to find Tyrkam. Although it would likely prove futile, he had to warn the man. The warlord could put up some defenses against the beasts.

  Now, where to find him…

  Ah, yes! The closed session with the regional governors, establishing his rule. Rule! Peh! Tyrkam ruled by force. The individual provinces would revolt if he pushed them with unreasonable demands. Makleor had tried to warn him, but Tyrkam refused to listen to reason.

  Unlike the old castle of Wynmere with its dreary halls of stone, Setheadroc Palace shone bright. The stone fit precisely in smooth lines and round columns and gold-accented ceiling murals and sky lights. No plaster was used to cover the rough cuts. No rough stone was exposed. Rivon architecture also used doors that curved to a point, a style they incorporated in parts of the palace of Setheadroc. Simple yet elegant, a work of art. Its beauty almost matched the works of the Ancients.

  But the sights were not his concern. Finding Tyrkam within them was.

  He stopped at a closed door and listened. Muffled familiar voices filtered from the other side.

  Without knocking, Makleor commanded the door open. The table of rough-looking figures in various degrees of raiment from mail to leather hauberks silenced. From the far end, Tyrkam’s glare hit him like a winter blast, his darker complexion standing out among the fairer men of Ayrule.

  “This better be important, old one.”

  Makleor allowed a faint smile and bowed his head. “Important, yes. Your life—lives—it bears.”

  Tyrkam straightened, his jaw clenched. When he said nothing, Makleor continued. “Legends arise. On the winds of destruction they will soon arrive.”

  “Speak sense, wizard!” Tyrkam crossed his arms.

  If that’s what it took to light a fire under the man, so be it. “She comes, my lord, borne by kin.”

  Tyrkam’s arms fell slack. “Lusiradrol!” He rushed to the window and threw open the shutters to a cold, biting wind. A low howl reached them, an unearthly scream in the distance that could have been the wind but for its chill on the soul.

  Tyrkam whirled on his gathering. “Make ready the palace. Rouse the men for battle.”

  The officers frowned in confusion. “What is it, my lord?” one of them asked.

  “Dragons.”

  The men turned to one another with questioning looks.

  “Wizard!”

  Wizard, indeed. Makleor was magi, the last of the Great Magi, the children of Tahronen. Only the Majera, the creators of their world, were more powerful than he. But Tyrkam had no idea.

  “Cast your spells to protect this place.”

  Makleor bowed his head and turned to leave. From behind him the questions arose. Once outside the room, he chuckled. The human would pay for his crimes against his own for selling his soul to a demon of a woman.

  For the moment the only sound in the corridor rose from the steady tap of his staff. Soon it would fill with the clamor of men in armor.

  Makleor took the opportunity of the quiet and formed the magic to protect the palace. By the time he reached the stairs, he maintained a barrier that would keep a dragon out. He descended the spiral stairway to find Tahronen, while drawing the forces of magic together to strengthen the barrier.

  He reached the second floor and followed the colors of magic to the queen’s chambers. Two figures holding hands down a sunlit path towered above him in dark-oiled oak, carved on the massive doors.

  He pushed one of the doors aside with magic—his strength was inadequate—and stepped into the bedchambers. The door thumped closed behind him.

  The three golden-haired women ignored him. Instead, they focused their attention on the center of their triad, where a glowing ball hovered in the air. Their blue eyes fixed on movement within the orb.

  Makleor hobbled to them, certain of what the orb contained. Their attention focused on the images.

  “You would be safer elsewhere,” he said.

  “They’re not on the warpath. I suspect other reasons.” Tahronen never turned when she answered. The ageless face of a young woman gazed into the sphere. One of the three Majera, she had given rise to the magi long ago, when she took men of the Second Race as lovers. The children of the Light were known as magi for that part of their heritage that granted them access to magic.

  Of slightest figure, Damaera glanced beyond the orb to him, her face rigid with deep shadows where t
here should be ample flesh. She hated him for his part in her daughter’s abduction, though it had to be done. Her sister, Gayleana—resembling Damaera in many details but taller and of normal flesh for a healthy woman—focused with Tahronen on the orb.

  Makleor stepped closer and examined the woman on the red beast within the orb. Instead of the dark anger he knew too well, a mischievous smile hinted of other intentions. The coal black of her hair hung in a braid down her back. It matched the depths of her eyes, which revealed much about her thoughts.

  “The master manipulator.”

  Tahronen’s fine lips curved into a smile on a youthful, immortal face. “Perhaps Tyrkam shall have a guest?”

  He nodded his agreement. For all appearances, he would guess the same purpose to Lusiradrol’s approach that Tahronen might suspect. “You’ll be well?”

  “She’ll not find us here.”

  Makleor smiled. Of course. The Majera had her own plans that would not permit room for Lusiradrol’s intentions. She protected the queen and her sister, like the rest of the Lumathir, the descendants of her children, the brothers and sisters Makleor long ago outlived because of the white dragon’s curse.

  With as much of a bow as his tired bones allowed, he left the three women.

  Tahronen would likely transport them directly to the gates of the city in which the Lumathir dwelt, especially since the queen had recovered from her illness.

  Tyrkam would rage about not being able to question the queen further. If the warlord chose to punish him for their disappearance, Makleor feared nothing. He was immortal, cursed by the white dragon to pay for his betrayal. He welcomed the release from life, so he could die in peace. That would not come until the dragon returned to lift his curse.

  Until then, Makleor would do all he could to ensure the prophecy came to pass.

  Until that happened, he would deal with Lusiradrol and Tyrkam.

  __________

  Lusiradrol

  The palace was not what it had been. She needed no magic to alter her sight. Magnificent spires reached for the sky but caught no sunlight. They no longer shone as if made of gold but were tarnished by the scorch marks of Tyrkam’s attack.

  Lusiradrol hated it as it had been. It symbolized all she hoped to destroy. The imperfections satisfied her.

  Soon. By the speed of Fresthan, they would be there before Tyrkam could prepare any defenses. She could have transported herself right into Tyrkam’s walking path, but the dragon would provide an intimidation effect upon his soldiers.

  In the ancient times, the humans refused to call her clan dragons, but gave them another name instead—wyverns. They considered the creations of the Majera to be the true dragons. The Red Clan were the dragons of the Darklord but humans denied them their heritage. She was one of them and would not tolerate the disrespect.

  The flap of giant wings beat the air on either side of her and the wind of flight blew across her face. She straddled one of the largest of the red dragons, Fresthan, the patriarch. His rough scales formed a perfect seat for her on his shoulders, although she would have preferred flying herself.

  Awakening her clan had been easy, after destroying the elite guards. The Sh’lahmar had protected the vault in which the feared beasts slept. The mage who cast the spell was careless in his procedures, since in his haste he had not prevented the dragons from a simple awakening spell. All to her favor.

  Lusiradrol smirked. Despite all his care to prevent her from dominating the world, the old mage lapsed by not doing more to destroy her clan.

  Perhaps he could not.

  A weakness? She pushed aside the fact that his spell and the guards had prevented her clan from three thousand years of destruction. “The old man is limited, else he would have killed you all.” She patted the thick scales beneath her.

  Fresthan’s only response came in the steady rise and fall of his shoulder muscles with the flap of his wings.

  The white dragon had cursed her to human form all those millennia ago. She longed to feel the wind beneath her wings, her tail steadying her flight. He escaped her once already, but she would banish his spirit forever. He and that old man stole all she was.

  She could not pass through the gateway to Eyr Droc, the Second Realm, where the princess and Gilthiel’s spirit now resided.

  But a mortal like Tyrkam could. He would fulfill her desire for vengeance.

  The city in the distance grew larger amid the rolling green hills. The closer they glided, the clearer she made out the blackened areas. Repairs were a low priority from the looks of it.

  A hint of Light touched her black core, irritating her into snarl. Makleor was in the palace, but there was another of greater power.

  Damn him! Tyrkam knew that she feared the old mage. Although she now doubted the old man could kill her, he was still dangerous. That was why the warlord kept him around. Now he added another to protect him. Wise, or very foolish.

  One way or another, she would have her way.

  Lusiradrol made mental notes and alterations to her plans.

  As they passed over Setheadroc, Fresthan spiraled down to the palace and its city. The people below rushed about as if they could stop her. She almost laughed at such beliefs. No arrow nor sword could pierce dragon scales. Human weapons only hurt dragons if they penetrated vulnerable areas—the soft flesh beneath the scales or the unprotected skin over the hearing lobes. But one had to counter the magic of a dragon to get that close. Tyrkam was a fool if he believed such pitiful weapons could stop her.

  Ignoring the bustle of soldiers and common folk, she directed her mount to a place outside, where the two protective walls met. Fresthan obeyed.

  The wall formed no obstacle to the size of the dragon. He hunched down to rest his claw-tipped wings at the battlements. Men scattered from the sharp, curved hooks, which sent bits of stone crumbling to the courtyard below.

  With a hungry eye on the humans, Fresthan lowered his head to the wall for her.

  The men stared dumbfounded and afraid as she jumped from the dragon’s snout to the walk. Lusiradrol studied them, searching for the face she hoped to find. If she knew Tyrkam, he would be hiding. A knowing smile crept to her black lips.

  She patted the nose of the dragon. “They cannot hurt me. I’ll return soon from this errand. Have patience.” She added the last at the touch of her brother’s hunger. The crimson beast had eaten, but not enough to stave off his appetite. He could wait until she finished, unless she needed him to make an example.

  Fresthan huffed a cloud of smoke from his nostrils in warning to the armed soldiers and lifted his claws from the wall.

  Lusiradrol called on the magic to transport her within feet of Tyrkam.

  The magic failed.

  His mage had cast a spell. She growled and turned to the men. Behind her, her brother’s steps trailed off.

  With her hands on her hips, she spoke so all could hear. “I demand an audience with your Overlord Tyrkam!” She spat the title in mockery. Overlord of nothing! He was a pitiable fool if he believed this would last.

  The men looked to each other for someone else to respond. None wished to confront her. As it should be. All should fear her, but for the moment, she wished to face the man who dared challenge her. “NOW!”

  The thunder of her voice made them jump. One of them stepped forward hesitantly. “I will. Follow me.” He waved her forward.

  Lusiradrol followed. The others cleared a wide path before him leading to the steps of the Grand Hall. The normal activity of the palace courtyard stood frozen in its motions. All eyes watched her pass.

  The soldier commanded the doors be opened for her and men rushed to open the tall, ornate doors. Proper respect would gain them a little more time to live.

  Despite the light from the windows above, her shadow stretching down the hall silenced the few people littering the high-ceilinged chamber. Six wide columns—three on each side of the center aisle with its diamond and square patterned floor tiles—rose overhead, su
pporting balconies above.

  From the staircase along the far side, Tyrkam strode down, surrounded by his guards. His decorated armor reflected the light of the candelabra with the sheen of polished metal. His dark skin tone stood out from the pale-complexions of the Ayrulean guards around him.

  In contrast, her black riding outfit absorbed all light in the room like the deepest shadow. She glided across the floor and stopped several strides from the bottom of the stairs. Tyrkam said nothing as he descended, although the scowl amid the ring of thick, black hair encircling his mouth said enough.

  Only when he reached the floor of patterned tiles did he say anything. His words came out in an icy hiss. “Dragon!”

  Dragon, indeed. He complimented her. “Lord Tyrkam, or should I say, ‘My liege’? Or have you taken this land as a gift for me?” Not that she needed or wanted land. She simply plucked his emotions.

  Despite his efforts at control, his eyes betrayed his fear of her. It intoxicated her with power. He knew she would come only as his superior.

  And he was without his protector. The mage hid from her sight. His presence stirred elsewhere in the palace, along with the greater power she sensed from a distance. Good. He would not interfere.

  But that other power… A sense of familiarity about it crept to her memories. She could almost identify it…

  “What’s your purpose here?”

  Lusiradrol blinked away her distraction and refocused on the stubborn human before her. “You owe me a debt.”

  “I owe you nothing.”

  Anger flared within her, but she suppressed the expression of it with a forced smirk. “I gave you the tools to make this possible. For that you promised to find my clan. You did nothing.” Her voice cooled. She needed him cooperative, not combative. “I offer a chance to make amends.”