Tatrini noticed Rav’s inspection and seemed pleased. She touched his shoulder. ‘There is Hespereth,’ she said, pointing to the shield in the north. The basilisk queen was a serpent with multiple legs that had scimitar-like claws. Her head was crested with a bristling crown of thorny spikes, while three tongues lolled from her mouth like tassels. ‘Of all the dragons, Hespereth and Paraga, the lord of air, are the most elusive,’ Tatrini said. She indicated the shield in the east. ‘Paraga was once the consort of Foy, the sea dragon queen. He hides in the high mountains of the world. He is the wind.’
Paraga was a delicate creature, with a elongated neck and large eyes. Long whiskers drooped from his jaws and enormous batlike wings sprouted from his shoulders. Rav thought he looked the most friendly of the dragons, but it was difficult to tell from a painting.
There was a noise at the back of the chamber and two figures came out of the shadows. One was Prince Bayard; Rav did not know the other, whom Bayard was supporting as if he were drunk.
‘Good,’ said Tatrini to herself.
Rav was scared of Bayard. He knew his father disliked the prince, but not the reason why. An instinct advised him he should be wary now.
‘This is Tayven Hirantel,’ Tatrini said to the boys, pointing at the seemingly drunken man. ‘Pay no attention to his apparent condition. He is the element of air.’ She addressed Bayard. ‘Put him in his chair at the appropriate quarter.’
Rav could not imagine how so leaden a person could represent the rarefied free element of air. He had little knowledge of magic and its symbols, but lethargy did not suggest the wind to him. Tayven’s limbs lolled like those of a broken doll as Bayard attempted to position him on the throne.
Tatrini placed a palm upon Rav’s back and pushed him towards the west, apparently to stop him staring at what was occurring in the east. ‘Go and sit in your own chair now, child.’ She nodded at Leo. ‘You too, my son.’
Rav had to climb onto the throne rather than sit down in it. His feet did not reach the floor once he’d arranged himself upon its hard seat. He put his small hands upon the carved arms of the chair and a shiver coursed through him. He sensed countless others before him doing the very same thing, and could feel their vanished anticipation. Their fingers would have curled over the ancient carvings, their sweat greasing the wood. Rav stared across the Fire Chamber. It looked bigger to him now. In this place, men in dark robes had discussed Caradore and its future. Someone here had given King Cassilin the confirmation he needed that Caradore was too weak to resist him. The fire mages had summoned up the elements and had constrained the power of the sea dragons. Rav’s fingers dug into the arms of his chair. How could he know this? He knew the name Cassilin vaguely, but could not remember how. He glanced fearfully at Tatrini, who stood before the fire, her head bowed in concentration. To his right, Leo stared at the flames, dwarfed in his seat. To his left, Bayard sat erect and haughty, as a king might, his eyes closed, his head thrown back. Opposite, Tayven Hirantel slumped on his throne, his hair hanging over his face. A thought came clearly into Rav’s mind as if a voice he did not know had spoken it. ‘He’s not meant to be like this. She has done something to him.’
Tatrini drew in her breath deeply through her nose, a sibilation that filled the chamber like the hiss of a great serpent. Slowly, she raised her arms.
For some minutes, the Grand Queen Mother spoke in a language Rav did not understand, but the sound of the alien words raised the hairs along his arms. They were ugly sounds, yet beautiful: guttural hisses and angry clicks engorged with a power that seemed to smoke from Tatrini’s mouth. Rav’s heart now beat so fast, he was afraid it would explode within him. Spots of light danced before his vision. He felt sick.
For a moment, all went black. He blinked and the room swayed around him. He felt so ill that tears came to his eyes. Then his gaze was drawn to the man sitting opposite him.
Tayven had raised his head and was staring intently across the room. His eyes burned intensely blue like the flames in the fire pit. They were not the colour of human eyes. Rav could tell Tayven was shaking, for strands of hair writhed over his face. His fingers gripped the arms of the chair, the knuckles white. The intensity of this image pushed the sickness from Rav’s mind. He was transfixed by the power of Tayven’s eyes.
Tatrini’s voice sounded muffled, as if heard through a thick stone wall. The air in the chamber sparkled, even though it was in shadow. The only light emanated from the throne opposite and the man who sat upon it.
How long Rav was transfixed by Tayven’s stare, he could not tell, but then, in an instant, time and space seemed to fracture. With a nauseating jolt, Rav felt as if something sucked him off his seat and hurled him across the room. One moment he was sitting on his throne, the next found himself standing next to Tayven. It was like a dream and with the bizarre logic of dreams, it was natural and right.
Tayven began to convulse, his mouth wide in a rictus of pain. Without thinking, Rav reached out and gripped one of Tayven’s taut hands. He could feel the bones grinding beneath his fingers. ‘Stop it,’ he said, ‘stop it.’
He glanced round, seeking Tatrini’s help, but the air in the chamber was a whirl of colour, obscuring everything within it. Rav could no longer see any of the others. Why didn’t Tatrini do something? Perhaps it was meant to happen.
Tayven uttered a coarse gasp and then fell still and silent. He wasn’t breathing. Rav stared into his face, his empty stare, for what felt like long minutes, but which was perhaps only seconds. Then, Tayven’s eyes swivelled abruptly towards him. Rav started back, but was unable to move his hands. It was as if he and Tayven were fused together: the bones and fibres of their fingers had become one. Rav did not feel afraid, but was on the verge of fear. He had never felt so strange.
‘You,’ Tayven said huskily. ‘Sinaclara.’
Rav realised that Tayven was no longer looking at him, but beyond him. He turned and caught a fleeting glimpse of a tall column of blue smoke that surged forward. It passed right through Rav’s body, bending it like a bow, forcing him onto tiptoe, filling him with both cold and heat. He uttered a choked cry.
A woman dressed in a peacock blue gown stood before him. Her long red hair fell in a complicated tangle of loops and plaits over her breast and down her back. Her face was pale and sombre and in her hands, she held a crown. It looked as if it was made of bone or coral, with tall delicate spines. Some of the spines were broken, and Rav thought that every injury the crown had received told a great story that would take whole days to relate. The woman held the crown out to Tayven, and said, ‘Take it, Bard, for you know to whom it belongs.’
Tayven reached out, pulling away from Rav’s grip. It felt as if his flesh and bone passed entirely through Rav’s own. The crown hung suspended in the air between the woman’s hands, surrounded by a soft radiance emanating from her fingers. The moment Tayven touched the crown, Rav was hit by a blast of energy that smacked him up towards the ceiling. His spine collided with the carved vaults: an explosion of pain. It was as if a great metal hook had passed through his body and now he dangled from it, helpless.
Panicking, limbs flailing, Rav screamed for help. In terror, he called his mother’s name, his father’s, even his grandmother’s. He could see Tatrini beside the fire pit and her mouth was moving. Rav could not hear her words. Bayard and Leo stared at Tatrini, oblivious of anything else. Tayven, the man of air, still stood before the blue woman. Rav expelled a shrill scream: he couldn’t help himself.
Then, a deep female voice murmured close to his ear. ‘Hush now, child. You must take this for your own.’
He thought at first that someone else was up there with him, but very soon his eyes were drawn to the shield above the water throne. The image of the dragon queen had come alive. She turned her head and now she gazed upon him, her long black tongue flickering out across the vast distance to touch his cheek. She was tasting the salt of his tears. The tongue flicked away again, leaving his
skin cold where Foy had kissed it. He looked down, calmer now, and saw that his body still stood beside the throne below. How could he be in two places at once? It was weird, but he was no longer frightened. Neither did his body hurt. There was no hook through his back. He was floating free. Gazing down, he saw the body below begin to change. It grew taller, flickering as it did so. Its hair grew longer, writhing down its back. Rav saw himself become his own father. Valraven stood below him, serene and without expression. Tayven bowed to one knee, holding the crown up before him. Then he rose and placed it upon Valraven’s head.
At once, Rav was hurled back to the ground. His head collided with the stone floor and darkness consumed him.
With a jolt, he was awake. His body felt strange, all wrong, as if it had been twisted into complicated knots and had only just untangled itself. He realised he was back on the throne in the west quarter. Opposite, Tayven was staring at him through lank strands of hair. There was no blue woman beside him, no Dragon Lord.
Rav uttered a wordless shout, and only when his grandmother stopped speaking did he realise she had continued her invocation throughout the entire episode. The part of himself that had never moved from the throne had heard it.
‘Rav?’ Tatrini said.
Rav could not speak now. He was conscious of a shrill, vibrating hum issuing from the walls.
Opposite him, Tayven stood up, his body burning with a peculiar white light. Rav was compelled to point at him with one hand.
In the south, Bayard made an anguished noise and leapt from his seat.
Tayven raised his right hand, pulled it back behind his head. He made a gesture of release, as if he were throwing something. Rav could see neither missile nor bolt of energy, but Bayard was hurled back against his throne. Rav felt the impact in his own bones.
‘Tayven!’ Tatrini roared. ‘Sit down. You cannot do this.’
In a blur, Tayven ran across the room, pushing the Grand Queen Mother from his path. She staggered, her hip crashing into the wall around the fire pit.
Rav shrank back against his chair, sure that Tayven was about to commit murder. He was curious, in a morbid horrified way, but also repulsed. When Tayven made contact with Bayard’s flesh, there would blood, lots of it.
Bayard cowered back, perhaps unmanned by the strange nature of the attack. Tayven loomed over him, his hair flying up as if it were wound with ribbons of lightning. His hands were hooked claws.
‘Tayven!’ Tatrini cried. She ran towards her threatened son.
Tayven took hold of Bayard’s shoulders and lifted him bodily from the throne. At the same time, Tatrini threw herself upon Tayven’s back. With desperate fingers, she reached blindly towards his face, his eyes. Rav could not bear to think of those searing orbs ruined, but Tayven shrugged Tatrini off. The Grand Queen Mother stumbled back, holding her throat as if it pained her.
Now it would happen. The eerie vibration in the room had become a shriek.
Tayven held Bayard up with superhuman strength, as if the prince weighed no more than a child. Bayard’s expression was that of stark terror. He was no longer a person to be feared.
Then Tayven laughed. He lowered Bayard back onto the throne and, to Rav’s utter astonishment, kissed him briefly on the mouth. Bayard spluttered, rubbed the backs of his hands over his lips as if to wipe away a caustic fluid. The humming sound diminished, although it did not cease.
Dismissing Bayard from his attention, Tayven turned to Tatrini and said, ‘There is no power on this earth that shall contain me.’ His voice was low, echoing.
‘Who are you?’ Tatrini cried hoarsely, still gripping her throat. ‘Name yourself.’
‘Do you not know me, great queen?’ Tayven said. ‘I am that which you summoned.’
‘I saw a woman in my mind, dressed all in blue. Are you her?’
‘Sinaclara? No. I am Paraga, power of air. She put the will of the crown inside me.’
‘The crown is ours,’ Tatrini said. ‘You are ours.’ She had recovered her composure and stood with straight spine, her hands curled into fists at her sides.
‘The Crown of Silence belongs to no one,’ Paraga said. ‘But the True King belongs to it. If it rests upon the brow of any but the rightful bearer, it will bring chaos and destruction.’
‘Did you summon the sorceress Sinaclara to this place? What was the purpose of it?’
‘The owner of this body has answered your questions without reserve,’ Paraga said, ‘for he had no choice, but now no philtre in existence can sway his tongue against his will. I will tell you this: your rite connected the sorceress with all that you do. He, she and I are connected. She is the Guardian of the Crown.’
‘Does she still possess it?’
‘She does not possess it. She is its Guardian.’
‘And she lives in Breeland?’
Paraga did not speak for a while, then made Tayven’s face smile. ‘Great queen, you have already gained this information from him.’
‘But where in Breeland?’
‘You must discover that for yourself.’
‘You say the philtres will no longer affect Tayven. It seems we must test your theory.’
Tayven’s body shrugged carelessly. ‘As you will.’ Then he began to shudder violently, and the light went out of him. The strange high-pitched humming in the chamber ceased. For a few moments, Tayven stood swaying on the spot, then straightened up and rubbed his hands through his hair. He looked weary, dazed. Rav could tell the voice of the cockatrice had left him.
Tatrini reached out and touched Tayven’s arm briefly, as if afraid to let her hand linger upon him. ‘That was magnificent,’ she said. ‘More than I could have hoped for.’
Tayven looked at her through his hair, his expression enigmatic.
Tatrini frowned, then said, ‘You could have escaped here, but you did not. Why? Why didn’t you kill Bayard when you had the chance?’
For the briefest instant, Tayven glanced over at Rav, but Rav was sure Tatrini did not notice. ‘The dragons must be summoned, but beware of who you invest with their combined power.’
‘You kissed Bayard,’ Tatrini said carefully. ‘Is this a sign that he is the one?’
‘He is fire,’ Tayven replied, ‘of that there is no doubt.’
‘What of your enmity?’
Tayven glanced at Bayard, as someone might glance at the body of a dead foe. ‘I know of a man who clung to past grudges,’ he said. ‘It weakened him. I will not do the same.’
Tatrini narrowed her eyes. Rav could tell that many meanings lurked in Tayven’s words. He could not understand them, and neither could his grandmother, he thought.
‘So you will work with me?’ Tatrini asked. ‘With us?’
‘You must decide whether you can trust me,’ Tayven replied.
Tatrini considered for a moment. ‘Your change of heart concerning Bayard is sudden. That, I mistrust.’
Both she and Tayven turned their gaze to Bayard, who still crouched upon his throne, his knees drawn up to his chest. ‘Would you trust a demon?’ he said in a cracked voice.
‘You trusted me enough to paw at me in my cell,’ Tayven said in a reasonable voice. ‘Did I harm you then?’
‘You were drugged,’ Bayard said.
Tayven laughed caustically. ‘How noble of you to admit that in front of others,’ he said. ‘The question is: how long did that drug last? I was charitable, prince, not to spit upon your words of love. I indulged your fantasy, and I had no good reason to do that. At one time I would have given my own life to take yours.’
Bayard said nothing. His face was white, even his lips, while his eyes looked too dark and too large.
‘You are perverse, Tayven,’ Tatrini said. ‘Your motives are unclear.’
Tayven merely shrugged. ‘If I choose to live in the past, I am still its victim,’ he said.
Tatrini narrowed her eyes. ‘You would have to be more than a man to own such strength and virt
ue. Much more than a man.’
‘I do not speak from virtue,’ Tayven said, ‘and I do not forgive. I have merely elected to free myself from needless pain. It does not require strength. It is, in fact, very easy.’
Tatrini did not appear to be convinced, and neither was Rav. He did not know what had happened in the past between Tayven and Prince Bayard, but sensed that it was terrible. He did not think that Tayven was lying now, but playing with words. It was the first time Rav realised how powerful words could be.
‘There is something you want from this situation,’ Tatrini said. ‘What other reason would you have to comply with us?’
‘None,’ Tayven said, ‘but that does not mean you can’t benefit. For now, I am in accord with your aims.’
‘Did the cockatrice reveal something to you? Or did the sorceress give you information?’
‘I know only that what proceeds here is part of a pattern, and that I am part of it.’
Tatrini released her breath, as if she’d been holding it for some time. ‘Then, with wariness, but also satisfaction, I will recognise our alliance.’ She turned and gestured to both Leo and Rav. ‘Come here.’
Rav slid down from his throne. Glancing at Leo, he saw that his uncle appeared to be frozen in shock. Rav went over to him and took his hand. The flesh was icy cold. Leo breathed quick and shallow, the pupils of his eyes very large. ‘It’s all right,’ Rav murmured. ‘Come.’
Leo directed a mad-eyed glance at Rav and swallowed convulsively, as if it hurt to do so.
‘It’s over,’ Rav said.
Reluctantly, Leo slid out down from the throne and allowed Rav to lead him across the chamber. Rav felt as if he held the hand of a much younger child and recognised the glow of pride in his heart. He had done better than Leo this night.