House of Shadows(90)
Feeling her absence at his back, Mage Ankennes glanced around and said, “Nemienne!”
She jumped, and hurried to catch him up. “I’m sorry. It’s beautiful,” she said humbly at his impatient look.
After a moment, the mage’s mouth crooked a little. “It is,” he conceded. He held his lamp a little higher, and the light it cast forth brightened, shoving the dark farther back, and farther still, until they could see the vastness of stone through which they walked. Nemienne stared around with awe.
The mage, watching her, smiled more freely. “I had forgotten what it was like to see this for the first time. More impressive in its way than any of the works of men, is it not? This is a living water that runs here. I believe the water itself is what shapes the stone, through ages unmeasured by our ephemeral kingdoms.”
Nemienne nodded, though she didn’t understand exactly what he meant.
“Listen!” said the mage. “Do you hear? There is the black pool. These caverns are like my house: unpredictable in distance and arrangement. But the dragon’s chamber is not far now.”
They passed between two great pillars and stepped over a sharp-edged ridge of stone laid like a blade across their path. The light of the lamps swung around them, never steady, so that shadows rose and stretched out and subsided again as they moved. Then they turned around the edge of a rippling curtain of stone and found, at last, the wide black pool before them, with the white dragon curving in and out of the cavern wall behind it. The mage walked to the edge of the pool and paused there, holding his lantern high as he stared across the water.
Nemienne came up beside the mage, looked at him uncertainly, then turned back to gaze at the dragon. It was just as magnificent as she had remembered. Nemienne had known exactly how it would look, and yet she was almost frightened to see the truth of her memory.
“Geriodde Nerenne ken Seriantes is called the Dragon of Lirionne,” commented Mage Ankennes, holding his lamp high and gazing without expression at the stone monster before them. “After his great-grandfather, Taliente Neredde ken Seriantes, who was first given that title by the peoples he conquered.”
Nemienne nodded, her eyes wide.
“This, however, is the true dragon: the Dragon of Lonne. It has slept here beneath Kerre Maraddras for years unto years, curled into the stone, the living stone growing around it. Its breath forms the high clouds that are torn to shreds by the knife-edged peaks, and the mists that creep into Lonne on winter nights. Its heart is cold, and its fire colder. When it shifts in its sleep, the mountains tremble and crack. Its blood is black and powerful.”
“It—it’s not—” Nemienne’s voice shook, and she closed her mouth and swallowed.
Mage Ankennes looked down at her, his expression somber, but not unkind. “It is alive. Merely quiescent.”
“I—I thought it had been carved—”
The mage’s mouth crooked. “The Dragon of Lonne could never have been made by the hands of men, no matter how masterful their craft. No. It is allied with stone and stone protects it, but it is not a made thing.” He turned back to contemplate the dragon again. “I have been trying for years, with all my arts, to destroy it.”
“You—” Nemienne stared at him in terror and amazement, both distraught that he might destroy so splendid a creature and awed by his temerity.
“The darkness of the dragon’s heart has crept into the heart of Lonne.” Passion had entered the mage’s tone; his voice shook with it. “Taliente Seriantes was the first of the kings of Lirionne to find it here. Its power drew him into the dark. He used to come here simply to gaze upon the dragon. It seduced him—the mere awareness of its presence seduced him, and the slow seeping of power from these caverns. It was why he founded a city here, and why he made Lonne the capital of his kingdom. But dragons are creatures of darkness, antithetical to the bright, vigorous world of men. My studies have made it clear to me that the power that flows from them cannot be turned toward the service of any great good.”
Nemienne didn’t understand what he meant. Or she did, she thought, but it didn’t seem to agree with the things she’d been reading. She said tentatively, “But Kelle Iasodde says—”
“Iasodde never understood what he studied,” Mage Ankennes said impatiently. “Or more likely he did not wish to accept it. Men, even mages, even kings, have a great desire to believe what they wish to be true. Especially kings.” His mouth had tightened, and he bit off his words more sharply. “They will not make the hard choices, and they will never turn away from power. No more than Iasodde himself has any Seriantes ever accepted the inherent corruption that flows from the dragon. Not even when the corruption of the Dragon of Lonne crept into their very hearts. Or the hearts of their sons.”