A Memory of Fire (The Dragon War, Book 3) Page 4

  He peeked through one glass circle, trying to see inside, and sucked in his breath. A grin spread across his face.

  "Bantis, you bloody old genius," he said.

  He aimed the cylinder at the sea, still holding it to his eye. Through the glass, the distant batch of islands, which should have appeared as mere specks, loomed large enough for him to count their trees. He lowered the cylinder, raised it again, and laughed.

  "Give it here!" Erry demanded, leaped up, and snatched the cylinder. She stared through it and gasped. "Bloody piss pots! It's magic."

  She spun in a circle, staring through the cylinder at the sea and the hill behind her.

  Leresy shook his head. "Not magic. I don't think so. Bantis said he's an inventor, not a magician."

  She lowered the cylinder and narrowed her eyes. "Well, how the bloody Abyss do you invent glass that makes things bigger?"

  "I don't know." He shrugged. "How do you invent clocks? Or gunpowder? Or steel? Damned if I know. So long as it works. But it's not magic. Magic feels... different. You know how you feel when we shift into dragons? How it sort of... tickles, like soft light, but you can't really feel it? At least, not how you feel a feather or a blanket or heat. You sort of feel it inside you, whispering. That's how magic feels. This?" He took the cylinder from her and stared through it again. "This is clever and I don't understand it, but it feels... mechanical. It's an invention like the great clock back at Castra Luna."

  Erry tapped her thigh. "So is this the big weapon? Portable cannons and a magnifying machine?" She scrunched her lips. "Good weapons for Tirans, perhaps. They need the help. But we're Vir Requis. We can turn into dragons. I'd take dragonfire any day over these hand cannons."

  Leresy shook his head again. "No. Bantis said he was digging for something. Digging for a big weapon." He gestured at the hole that loomed above. "That's where he was digging. Let's take a look."

  He shoved the cylinder under his armpit and lifted one of the discarded shovels. They continued climbing the hillside. They reached the hole—it loomed about the size of a doorway—and peered inside.

  "Nothing but dust and rubble," Erry said. "Damn old man was crazy, I told you."

  "Crazy enough to invent a magnifying machine and portable cannons. If he says there's a weapon here, I'm digging deeper." He climbed into the hole, thrust his shovel down, and scooped pebbles and dirt. "Now go grab another shovel and help me, damn it. I'm not digging alone."

  She grumbled but she grabbed a shovel.

  They dug.

  They dug for a long time.

  After digging through several feet of soil and rock, sweat soaked Leresy. He wiped it off his brow and stripped off his shirt.

  "Feel free to do the same," he told Erry, but she only slammed the shovel against his legs.

  They dug some more, and the sun began to dip into afternoon, casting golden beams into the cave. Still they dug, tossing shovel after shovel of dirt outside.

  "Leresy, damn it!" Erry said. "There's nothing buried here."

  "We haven't dug deep enough." He mopped his brow and dug some more.

  Erry tossed her shovel down and placed her hands on her hips. Dirt covered her.

  "It's an island!" she said. "A damn, stinkin' island in the middle of nowhere. Burn me, it's barely even that. More of a forsaken rock than an island. Why why why would there be a weapon buried here?"

  He gritted his teeth and kept shoveling. "Because there has to be one."

  "What do you mean?" she demanded and grabbed his arm. "Ler, what—"

  He reeled toward her, teeth bared, and tossed his shovel down. It thumped against the dirt.

  "I mean," he hissed, "that I'm not going to believe this is it. All right? I'm not going to believe that... that things just end like this. That my father wins. That Shari wins. That there's blood and fire and pain in Requiem, and we're just going to hide here and remember it and..." Tears budded in his eyes, and he hated himself for it. He spun away lest she saw. "There has to be some way to fight him, Erry. To kill that bastard and to kill the memories."

  He stood, chest heaving and legs shaking, staring at the dirt. He felt her small hands on his shoulders.

  "Ler," she said quietly. She walked around to face him, and her eyes were soft. "And if there isn't a way to fight? If this is all that's left, isn't that enough? You and me?"

  He lowered his head and pulled her into an embrace. He held her tightly, crushing her against him. He smoothed her hair and closed his burning eyes.

  "I thought it would be," he said, voice choked. "I wanted to forget. I wanted to just live here with you. To start a new life. Not a prince of Requiem and an orphan from Lynport, but just... just two people on an island. But I can't forget. I can't." His voice cracked. "I still see it, Erry. All of it. The dragons burning Castra Luna and killing so many, killing Nairi and the others. And the war and blood at Lynport. And my father... my father grabbing me and Kaelyn, beating us, laughing as we bled and screamed. I can't forget it. You can't know what that's like."

  She held his head with both hands and growled up at him. "Can't I? I was there with you. At Castra Luna. At Lynport. I fought through the mud and fire with you. And no, your father never beat me when I was a girl. But enough men did. I grew up a dock rat, filthy and skinny and afraid. I know what pain is. And I can't forget either, and I never will. But that doesn't mean we have to go back. We don't have to go chase that world again. That life of ours... that life is over. We have a new life here."

  "I don't," he said. "I don't think I ever will. Not until I go back and face him. Not until I close that door. The door is distant, all the way across the sea, but I can feel the cold wind still blowing through it. So I have to find this weapon. And I have to kill my father." He lifted the shovel again. "So please, Erry, please. Help me dig."

  Night was falling, and the cave was almost pitch black, when Leresy's shovel crunched and red light glowed.

  His heart burst into a gallop. At his side, Erry gasped. The soft red light gleamed under the soil. Leresy drove his shovel deeper, loosening the dirt. The red glow intensified.

  "Burn me," he said, knelt, and began to clear away soil with his hands. "Erry, look at this."

  She knelt and helped clear away the dirt. Hundreds of red shards glowed below, each one no larger than a pea.

  "They look like pomegranate seeds," Erry said, lifting one in wonder. It glowed in her hand.

  "Or like droplets of blood," said Leresy.

  He grabbed a few and held them in his palm. They felt unnaturally cold. He raised them to his eye, scrutinizing them. Each stone seemed made of glass, and red liquid swirled within. Their surface was angular as cut gems, though each pebble had a different shape.

  "What are they?" Erry asked. "Some kind of crystal?"

  Leresy smiled and closed his palm around them.

  "Magic," he said. "Our big weapon."

  SILA

  He stood upon the deck of his ship, stared at the cove that surrounded him, and clutched the railing until his knuckles turned white.

  Sila didn't know why he still came here. His ship, a three-masted carrack named the Golden Crane, had not raised its anchor in eighteen years. Its planks had begun to rot, and barnacles covered its hull. Its hold still whispered with ghosts. Dragonfire had blackened its starboard, and though the sails were now folded, Sila knew that burnt holes still peppered them. Only the ship's figurehead, a flying crane of giltwood, still bore some former glory.

  And what of myself? he wondered. Did he too bear any lingering glory, a golden figurehead for his people? Or was he but a rotting hull, as captive on Maiden Island as his ship?

  Once Sila had captained this vessel through storms and battles. Once he had led refugees out of fire and into new life. Once he had been a leader, a savior, a man who made his father proud.

  "And now I linger, a relic like the rest of this wreck," he said to his ship.

  And now his people needed h
im again. Now two of their ghosts had washed ashore with the old man. Now two demons of the past, mere nightmares for so long, breathed upon Maiden Island, this sanctuary Sila had protected for so long. Now he needed to decide. And yet he only stood here upon his deck, far from his people and their tormentors—a place of solitude, of memory, of thoughts that whispered like the sea.

  Cliffs rose above the surrounding shores, topped with palms. Nestled into the small of the maiden's back, the cove faced south, hidden from the northern enemy. Five other ships rose around him, each as barren as the Golden Crane. Often Sila thought of burning these ships. Should the dragons scout these seas from the south, the masts would reveal their sanctuary. Yet for eighteen years, Sila had hidden his people among the trees and kept his ships alive. He had watched his daughter born and raised into a woman on this island. He had watched his people, once ragged refugees, build a new life. And he had kept these ships. He had kept his vengeance burning.

  "Because I have to believe," he whispered to the cove. "I have to believe that we can go back. That we can still fight the enemy. That we can still rebuild our desert home."

  Tiranor, his land of dunes and oases, had burned in the fire of the red spiral. But those dunes still whispered inside him. He kept that memory as alive as his fleet.

  "Father! Father, why do you do this?"

  The voice came from behind him, and Sila turned to see his daughter emerge from the hull. She joined him on the deck.

  "Miya!" he said and a frown twisted his face. "How long have you been here? What are you doing on the Golden Crane?"

  Miya glared at him, fists on her hips. "And why shouldn't I stand here? I'm your only daughter, and this ship is my birthright. She's as much mine as yours."

  Eighteen years old, Miya had been only a whisper in her mother's womb when Frey Cadigus had burned their kingdom. She had been born in the shallow waters of this very cove, shaded by cliffs and palms, and grown wild along the beaches and among the trees. Today she stood before him as a golden-skinned, scabby-kneed island girl with fiery blue eyes, long platinum hair, and a shark-tooth necklace. While the older folk Sila led still wore the traditional robes of the desert, Miya was a wild thing, dressed in leaves and caked in sand, a primordial child who'd never known civilization. In her left hand, she held a spear with a stone head, and across her shoulders she wore the bow she had carved herself and stringed with vine.

  "This ship will be yours when I'm dead," Sila said to her. "And I plan on living as long as your grandfather."

  She stomped up closer. "Father, how long do you plan to keep this up?"

  He turned away from her, leaned across the railing, and stared at the cliffs that ringed the cove. Gulls and herons flew among the trees above. Somewhere between those trees the two sat chained.

  Sun God bless us, he thought with a chill. Two living Vir Requis. Two demons from the past—here, chained on my island.

  "Father, don't ignore me." Miya came to stand beside him and glared. "You cannot simply keep them chained up like that, like... beasts."

  He raised his eyebrow. "I seem to have been doing a good job of it."

  She groaned. "They're not here to hurt us. They could have burned us all from the air. They didn't blow fire. They let themselves be caught rather than kill us. And now you will keep them chained and—"

  "Miya!" He spun toward her. "For years, I've let you nurse baby birds that fell from nests, toss back fish you pitied, and collect your baskets of caterpillars. But these are no poor animals for you to tend to. These are dragons. These are—"

  "They are not dragons," she said, eyes flashing. "Not anymore. They are humans now—a man and a woman—and you chained them to a tree."

  "Shapeshifters," he said and spat overboard. "Demons. You weren't there, Miya. You weren't in Tiranor when they burned us."

  She looked up into his eyes. "Did they burn us—those two? Valien and Kaelyn?"

  "Oh, so they have names now?"

  "Yes! They do. I've talked to them, and they have names, and they have stories of their own. They are good Vir Requis, Father. They're... different from the ones you fought."

  He snorted.

  The ones I fought.

  No, Sila had not fought the dragons eighteen years ago. His brothers had. His friends had. They had all burned. But Sila... he was either wiser or he was a coward. Sila had fled. He had loaded his ships with survivors and sailed away. And he left the others behind. He left the millions to burn.

  He looked down at the hull of his ship. He could still see those fingernails clawing at the wood, still hear the people begging to be saved.

  "The ships are full!" he had shouted that day. "I will return for you. I will return!"

  They had wept. They had tried to swim after him. He had loaded his fleet with men, women, and children, cramming them like cargo, a weight nearly too great to bear. He brought them to these islands. And when he sailed back to Tiranor for the others... they were all gone. He found only bones and ash and lingering screams over the water.

  "They are all demons," he said, voice barely more than a whisper. "And you should not have talked to them, daughter. I forbid you to speak with them again."

  It was her turn to snort. "I speak to whoever I like. Remember what you used to call me when I was a child?"

  "You are still a child."

  She shook her head. "I am eighteen."

  He nodded. "A child."

  She growled and stamped her feet. "What did you always call me?"

  He groaned and felt his pain melt. "An insufferable, pigheaded, scrawny-legged pest?"

  "Father!" She gave a sound like an enraged hippo. "No! You know what you called me. Princess of the Islands. That was your name for me. I was born here, the daughter of our leader. Not born in Tiranor like the rest, but born wild and free, an islander. A princess." She swept her arm through the air, gesturing at the cove. "This is my kingdom, and I go where I like, and I speak to whom I please. So I spoke to your prisoners. And they told me stories. And they want to speak to you too. Will you listen to them?"

  He sighed.

  He had led merchant fleets through storms. He had battled pirates and kraken. He had led thousands of refugees from inferno into safety. His arms were thick and tattooed with serpents, his shoulders were wide, and his stare, he knew, caused even the strongest sailors to mutter and look away. Yet Miya, it seemed, never saw him as a hero. To her, he was not the burly captain with the withering stare, only her lumbering, old-fashioned father.

  Perhaps no man is a hero to his eighteen-year-old daughter, he thought and grumbled.

  "I will speak with them once, Miya," he said. "I will let them tell their story. And if I am not satisfied... they will suffer my justice."

  Miya sucked in her breath and narrowed her eyes. She began to object, but he hushed her with a glare. Sila had not condemned a man to death in ten years, not since one sailor had slain another after losing a game of dice. He had turned Maiden Island into a land of order, of harsh discipline, and of harsh justice.

  If more of those beasts follow, he thought, all this will end. The new life I built for my people will burn too. He closed his eyes and saw the dying again, thousands in the water, screaming for him, thrashing like flies in blood, scratching at his hull as he sailed away. If Requiem flies against us again, Maiden Island too will burn.

  They took a rowboat to the beach, then walked the hidden paths up the maiden's waist. Mint bushes rose around them, bustling with mice. Cedars grew like dark columns. Carob, olive, and pear trees rustled, heavy with fruit. Vines crawled over boulders and the branches of oaks. Frogs and crickets trilled in the grass, herons and jays flew overhead, and turtles sunbathed upon rocks.

  I gave Miya a good home here, he thought, looking at her walking beside him, her face tanned deep gold, her blue eyes bright. I will not let this place burn too.

  A mile from the cove, they reached the maiden's neck, a declivity between the hills o
f her head and shoulder. The waterfall crashed down ahead, the maiden's hair, and between the trees, their village sprawled.

  Sila wasn't sure when he'd stopped calling this place a "camp" and started calling it a "village." They had landed here eighteen years ago as refugees, shivering and afraid and famished. Today were they still refugees or simply islanders?

  Four thousand souls lived upon Maiden Island, survivors of the slaughter and those born upon the island. Their huts spread between the trees. Some elders still bore the white, woolen tunics of Tiranor, sturdy garments that had lasted the years. Most now wore clothes of maidenspun, a fabric they wove from local leaves and wild cotton. Some, especially the children, simply wore clothes of grass, leaves, and fur.

  Looking at the children who ran around, near naked and laughing and wild, Sila sighed.

  "We came from a land of golden obelisks, temples that kissed the sky, libraries with a million books, and statues of such beauty that grown men wept to behold them. We fled a beautiful, wise civilization that had ruled the desert for thousands of years." He shook his head ruefully. "And eighteen years later, we're running around half-naked in the mud."

  His daughter, her own legs muddy up to the knees, flashed him a grin. "And we thank you for it."

  Walking across a grassy plateau dotted with gopher holes, he saw a squad of arquebusers drilling a volley. They stood in five lines, ten men in each, holding their guns to their chests. Across the plateau rose a dragon effigy, life-sized and built of wood, grass, and wicker. Sila paused from walking and placed a hand on his daughter's shoulder.

  "Watch," he told her.

  The first five men stepped forward, standing in profile to Sila. They raised their arquebuses, masterworks of oak and iron, and pointed the muzzles toward the wicker effigy. They pulled the triggers, and booms crashed over the island, so loud that even Miya, who had seen these drills before, jumped and winced. Smoke blasted. The smell of gunpowder flared. Rounds crashed into the wicker dragon, tearing holes through it.