“I did think that you would be seconded to Court, which would, in the light of your general attitude toward formality, have been most unfortunate. But the Emperor chose to leave you with your beloved Hawks. And so you have remained.
“But I better understand him now, I think. What was not clear to any of us, even the most aged, has become clearer as you have grown. There is a reason for your existence at this time, and in this place.
“The Dragon Emperor is Emperor for a reason. He sees deeply, and he looks a long way off. If the libraries and galleries are the Arkon’s hoard, the Empire is the Emperor’s.”
“What’s yours?”
“Kaylin!” Tiamaris sounded shocked. He looked quickly at Sanabalis and said, “She failed racial interactions, Lord. She is not—”
But the older Dragon lifted a hand. “I will not, of course, answer the question,” he said quietly, “but I understand that she meant no offense by it.”
In Elantran, Tiamaris said, “Never, ever ask another dragon that question.”
“And never,” Sanabalis added, “ask this Dragon that question a second time.”
She nodded and turned back to the statue for a last lingering glance. “What killed him?” she asked softly.
“No one knows. If you are wondering what could kill him, Kaylin, the answer is the same. Not one of us knows. Perhaps when the time had come and the Lord had served the purpose written in those ancient words, the words—and their power—faded.
“Now, come. There is more.”
“But I don’t understand,” Kaylin whispered to Tiamaris as they followed Sanabalis down the long gallery. “He told me what the Arkon’s hoard was, and what the Emperor’s is. If it’s okay to know that, why is it such a big crime to ask?”
“Both the Arkon and the Emperor have made clear what they hoard,” Tiamaris replied in a very low voice. “It is a matter of public record. But big or small, all Dragons have those things which they prize and value above all else. It is their weakness,” he added, “and often, their strength.”
“I thought it was just gold and jewels and stuff.”
“And perhaps you thought that because those stories were told by humans, who value gold so highly,” was the curt reply. But after a moment, he added, “And in some cases, it was that simple. A long time ago, perhaps. But think, Kaylin—how many Dragons do you know?”
She could count them on the fingers of one hand. Well, two hands if you included the Emperor, but “know” in this case wasn’t exact. She held up one hand. Sanabalis hadn’t interrupted them yet, and she didn’t want to press her luck.
“There were more. There are more, and perhaps in other empires, they also rule. Or sleep the long sleep,” he added quietly. “So many of our kin chose to take the long sleep rather than surrender to the rule of another.”
“Sleep as in dead?”
“No. Dragons seldom use euphemisms where fire and brimstone will do.”
The irony—and condescension—was not lost on Kaylin. “There is no damn way this was covered in any classes about racial bloody integration.”
“True enough. Only those dragons who were unusual enough or young enough could willingly accept the Emperor’s claims to these lands and those within it. To be forbidden both flight and hunt was no part of their desire, and to control those urges, no part of their constitution. You saw me,” he added softly, “when I assumed my true form.”
“This isn’t true?”
“It is a form that is…less primal.”
She nodded. “I saw. I knew why.”
“And you understand that I knowingly courted my own death by making that choice.”
“Yes.”
“Were the Emperor himself not…flexible…we would not now be speaking. But I made the choice because I have duties to the Dragon Court, and in the end, the Emperor saw the necessity of that choice, and accepted it.”
“Or you’d be dead.”
“Indeed.”
“But the Law—”
“There is no Law but the Emperor’s, Kaylin. Should he desire it himself, he could fly through Elantra and burn down the cursed mendicant’s guild—”
“Merchants?”
“Yes, I believe that is its official title. He could devour whole whomever he felt might satiate hunger. He could do anything he desired. No Law would be broken, because he is the Law.”
“But he made our Laws,” Kaylin said, her voice rising. “And he tasked us with their keeping. Do you think we would just stand by?”
“No. I think you would—to a man—perish.”
“And you?”
“Kaylin,” Lord Sanabalis said. “We are almost in the oldest of the libraries. As we approach it, I wish you to consider the wisdom of the question you just asked.”
“He’s still a Hawk,” she said, some of the heat leeching out of the words.
“Indeed. And the Hawks are sworn to serve the Emperor’s Law as it is written and handed down. I do not question your loyalties. I do not even doubt them. Were the Emperor to break the Laws you have sworn to uphold with your life, you would be honor bound to stand against him. He understands this,” the older Dragon added, as they at last reached a very small, very modest-looking door.
“And it was much discussed at the time of its inception. But mortal laws are for mortals, with their fleeting power, their brief span of years. Those Laws were of his creation, Kaylin, and the vows taken and made by those who serve them were also of his creation. For you, child, there can be no other answer.
“But Tiamaris was seconded to the Hawks as a Dragon lord. There is only one answer that he can offer you. Only one, ever. Do not ask him to dissemble. We are Dragons. We who made the choice to remain and watch are those who chose to accept the rule of the Emperor. We are part of his hoard, Kaylin. We are part of the Empire. Do you not understand why there are so few of us?”
And she did. Suddenly, she did.
Her silence trailed on for minutes as the weight of the words took root.
“I was not required to take the Hawk’s oaths of induction,” Tiamaris told her, almost gently. “And in truth, I thought them foolish and inconsequential. But…” He turned to face her fully, and raised one hand to his neck, to a fine, fine chain that surrounded it. Beneath the weight and color of Imperial robes, she hadn’t seen it clearly.
He pulled it up, and it came easily, until she could see what dangled, like a pendant, at its end. A silver hawk.
“I was proud—I am proud—to bear the Hawk,” he told her gravely. “And in its service, I was allowed to wake, Kaylin, to taste air and flesh and the dust of ages. To breathe.
“And were the time to come again, when the question of your fate balanced on the fine edge of our Lord’s whim, I would not now offend the sergeant so gravely with my arguments.”
“Tiamaris was young, when the Emperor rose,” Sanabalis said quietly. “Too young for the long sleep. Not too young to die. But he is here, and he is as you see him. Of the Court, he argued most vehemently for your death, but of the Court, he is most at home in this strange and cluttered environment you call a city.
“You will be pleased to see there are no door-wards here,” he added.
She had hardly noticed.
He opened the door by taking a key out of his voluminous robes and inserting it into the lock. It was a very strangely shaped key, to Kaylin’s eye, but there was nothing inherently magical about it.
“This,” he told her, “is the oldest of the libraries, and in it are scrolls and tablets that could not be bound into a form that can be easily organized. It was not tried more than once,” he added. “And the man who tried had the foresight to imprint what he read in a memory crystal, which is also now a part of the library.”
“I won’t be able to read any of this,” she said. There wasn’t even a question in it.
“Actually, there may be some phrases or words that you would recognize. High Barrani has changed very little over the ages. But then again, the
form of writing it has changed, so maybe you are correct.
“I feel I must offer a word or two of warning before we enter, however.”
She nodded. “Will the Arkon be there?”
“No. He knows that you are escorted by two Dragons.”
“Good.”
“Touch nothing, Kaylin. If you feel the urge to do so, tell us instantly, and we will prevent it.”
“O-kay…”
“There is a reason for the lack of a door-ward. It may or may not become clear as we enter.”
“Is this some sort of test?”
“Indeed. Everything that doesn’t kill you is.”
He pushed the door open into darkness.
“Mind you,” he added, “surviving doesn’t always mean you passed.”
He could be such a comfort.
The first thing she heard as the door swung shut was a mild curse.
“You didn’t bring a lamp?”
“There are lamps here.”
“I notice they’re not lit,” she said, struggling to keep the heavier sarcasm out of the words, and succeeding as well as she usually did.
“No. Would you care to light them?”
“Light them? I can’t even see them!”
“Oh, very well.” Sanabalis was suddenly illuminated by the glow of an oil lamp.
“You didn’t use magic?”
“No.”
“Then how did you—”
“I breathed on it,” he replied.
“What—you can breathe fire in this shape?”
“Of course. The tricky part is breathing only enough to light the wick.”
“I couldn’t,” Tiamaris told her.
“If you cared to practice, it would come easily.”
Kaylin had the feeling that the Dragon definition of easily encompassed more than her life’s worth of years.
Tiamaris’s fireless snort was as much of an answer as he cared to give.
She watched the old dragon as he traversed the room—which looked oddly like a cave to her eyes. He kept his back toward her, but every time he passed an unlit lamp, it woke in his wake, little tongue of flame leaping at dead air. And it was dead air. There was no movement of breeze in this place, and nothing to suggest that breeze had ever touched it. Certainly no breeze had disturbed the dust and the numerous cobwebs that clung to it.
“People don’t come here much, do they?”
“What gave you that idea?” Dragons, clearly, could be just as sarcastic as any other race. “Don’t feel it necessary to make idle chitchat, Kaylin. I enjoy the rare moments of silence I’m granted.”
As her eyes became accustomed to the light, which was gloomy and orange, she stopped walking. “Sanabalis—”
“Yes?”
“Tell me that that isn’t a body in the corner.”
“I can tell you that isn’t a corner, if it’s of any help,” he replied. “And technically, body is perhaps too fleshy a word.”
Technically true. It was a skeleton, ribs curving up toward the light as it lay supine across floor. “Why is it here?”
“If you mean, how long has it been here, the answer is a good number of years. If you mean why is it considered part of the library, you could try moving it. You could, however, only try once.”
“You told me not to touch anything.”
“Good girl.”
“Would the Arkon kill me?”
“I doubt he would have the chance, although the inclination would probably exist.”
But the skeleton seemed to be wearing a helm of some sort, one that revealed empty sockets. Its long arms were bare, but its wrists were girded in—in something that looked suspiciously like golden bracers. Around what remained of its neck—which really wasn’t much—an amulet caught light, returning it in a flash of blue and gold. If the blue was sapphire, it was a round dome of sapphire, the size of an egg, surrounded on all sides by gold and smaller gems.
Kaylin inched toward the skeleton, and Tiamaris picked up a lamp that stood on a dust-covered pillar. The dust came with it, like a graceless cloud.
“Lord Sanabalis,” Tiamaris said softly.
The figure of the robed, elder Dragon stopped moving. He turned slowly to face his former student, as his current student knelt carefully before the skeleton, keeping her hands above her lap as she undid her shirt’s buttons at the wrist, and pulled them up to reveal the bracer that she thought of as her own personal cage.
“This came from here,” she said, a hint of question in the statement.
“Yes,” was the quiet reply.
“What kind of a library signs out artifacts?”
“This one, obviously.”
She looked at her wrist and inhaled dust sharply. “The gems—”
But Sanabalis had come back, and Tiamaris was standing above her. They could both see that the gems that studded the bracer—the gems that had to be pressed in sequence in order to open it—were flashing in quick bursts of light, with no hands to touch them or invoke them.
She watched the sequence with wide eyes. “It’s not—it’s not—”
“No. It is not the pattern to open the bracer.” His pale brow rose slightly. “Why did you think to look?”
She shook her head.
And cried out in shock as her arm lifted of its own accord.
Tiamaris caught her arm at the elbow, taking great care not to touch the bracer itself. She thought he would break her arm, because her arm kept moving, and dragging the weight of a grown Dragon with it as it went. Kaylin was struggling to help Tiamaris in any way she could, but she wasn’t his match in either size or strength, and what he couldn’t do, she had no hope of achieving.
“What are you trying to touch?” Sanabalis asked sharply.
“Nothing!”
But she knew that her wrist was moving in a straight line toward the body itself, toward the pendant that still glowed a shock of blue, incandescence trapped in crystal. “The pendant—”
“What pendant?” he asked, his voice even more sharp than it had been. The day had just gone from bad to worse, something she would have bet her own money against being possible.
“The glowing blue pendant around his neck.”
“Tiamaris?”
“I do not see it, either, Lord.”
“Pick her up and take her out of the room, now.”
“She seems to have gained a lot of weight in the past few minutes,” was his reply, although it was strained. He was trying to lift her, one hand on her arm, and the other around her slender waist. And it wasn’t working. “Any aid you would care to offer would be appreciated,” he added.
Sanabalis cursed softly—softly enough that Kaylin, with her special affinity for swearing, couldn’t catch the words. He set his lamp down somewhere, and he came to her other side, catching the arm that wasn’t moving and attempting to pull her back.
“Tell me what you see,” the Dragon said in her ear, as he grunted with pointless effort.
“He’s wearing a gold necklace. It has a large pendant that’s weighing it down. Big rock. Looks like a sapphire, except no facets. It’s circled in gold, and there are gems in the gold—”
“Kaylin!”
“Flashing gems,” she said, and cursed in Leontine. “You can see the bracer?”
“Yes. Of course.”
“I think it’s flashing in time with the stones on the pendant—two diamonds, two rubies, two sapphires.”
His curse this time was distinctly louder, and she still couldn’t understand it. Tiamaris, however, could. “She was not to know,” he said, breathing heavily between syllables. “There is not one of us, save perhaps the Emperor himself, who understands the workings of the artifact she wears.”
“Yes, and it’s that Emperor who is going to be asking the questions if we don’t get her out of here.”
Inch by agonizing inch—which was a pretty accurate description because it felt as if her tendons were going to give—she drew closer to the pendant.
Close enough to touch it, although her hand was curled in a fist, denying till the last what seemed inevitable. Sanabalis’s weight and strength, combined with Tiamaris’s, had slowed her enough that she could now clearly see what she hadn’t seen before: there was a mark at the center of the smooth, round crystal, and it was the mark itself that radiated blue in such profound brilliance.
She said, “It’s a word.”
“What?”
“There’s a word at the heart of the pendant.”
“What word?”
“I can’t read any of the ones on me,” she snapped. “But it’s the same language.”
Indeed, a voice said. And not a voice she recognized.
“Sanabalis?”
“Do not touch it—”
“I don’t think it matters anymore.”
The empty sockets beneath the helm began to glow, and the color was orange, the exact orange that heralded the slow build of Dragon rage.
The skeleton rose.
And this, this evidence of life where none existed, was plainly obviously to both of the Dragons who were clinging to Kaylin. “I don’t suppose either of you knew who he was—”
“No,” was Sanabalis’s grim reply. “But I’ve no doubt we’ll soon know more than any Dragon before us save perhaps the Emperor or the Arkon.”
Daughter.
He rose, and as he rose, the glow from his eyes spread out across his bone structure, covering it, masking it in light, if flesh could be light. She could see through it, but only the Hawk in her noticed.
Why have you come?
“Can—can either of you hear him?”
“No.”
“He’s talking to me—” The bracer at her wrist clicked, opened, and fell. Kaylin and two dragons suddenly toppled backward in an awkward splay of limbs. They scrabbled to their feet just as awkwardly, Kaylin’s hand hitting the sheath of her dagger as she steadied herself.
Sanabalis roared.
And so, too, did the stranger.
“Sanabalis, don’t—”
But he had heard the roar, where the words had been silent to him, and he stilled. It was not a relaxed stillness.