Silver Dragon Codex Read online

  Books by R.D. Henham

  DEDICATED TO ALL THOSE WHO HAVE EVER HAD TO JUGGLE EIGHT THINGS AT ONCE. COUNT YOURSELVES LUCKY THAT THEY WEREN’T BLADED, SPINNING, AND ON FIRE.

  R.D.H.

  FOR THE REAL BELEN, WHO SPENDS A GREAT DEAL OF HER TIME IN THE SPOTLIGHT, BUT STILL MANAGES TO LOVE HER AUDIENCE AS MUCH AS THEY LOVE HER.

  R.S.

  PROLOGUE

  elen sighed, staring up at the trapeze. Her silvery hair reflected a trickle of the spotlight, which glinted past the heavy, red velvet curtains. She shifted her feet in their ballet slippers, flexing her toes. She closed her eyes and listened to the applause, the shouts of eager children, the roar of a happy crowd—the sounds of home.

  Opening her eyes, she reached for her tremendous fans, pulling the stiff metal handles through her fingers. Every performance was a rush and every burst of cheered applause lifted her heart, making her feel almost as if she, too, could fly like the trapeze artists now so far above the ring. But even amid all that happiness … something was missing. She never spoke of it, never told anyone—that would seem ungrateful. Belen was thankful for all that the little circus had done for her. They’d found her and given her purpose when she was lost and alone.

  She loved to dance, to feel the graceful movements, the powerful spins and swift turns, the leaps that felt almost like taking flight. If anything, the performances always ended too soon, leaving her standing in a melting puddle of spotlight to come to her senses, once more alone on the ground.

  Was it the end of the dance that made her sad?

  Belen shook her head, trying to rid herself of the doubt. Preshow jitters, nothing more, she told herself. There was nothing to be afraid of, no reason to be sad. She’d performed this dance a thousand times and knew every twirl and lunge by heart. Still, she knew what was coming when the music ended. Why did she always feel sad when she was finished dancing?

  Jace passed by her, touched her elbow, and wished her luck in a faint whisper as the music in the ring swelled to a crescendo. The act on stage was almost finished. Belen smiled at him and looked around at the many friends who surrounded her. She knew them all by name, knew their habits and their laughter. They were almost like family.

  Something in her heart twinged, and Belen shuddered from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. She managed to brush away a tear without smearing her greasepaint.

  Belen lifted the feathered dancing fans, painted on her smile, and stepped out onto the stage.

  CHAPTER ONE

  adies and gentlemen! Children of all ages!” a booming voice rumbled out, echoing with the strange tinniness of magical enhancement. “I welcome you to the one, the only, the grandest stage of all—Worver’s Amazing Celestial Circus of Light!”

  Lights came up, blazing over the crowd. The silk panels of the tent fluttered in the breeze of a thousand hands clapping and feet stomping, the crowd cheering at the grand pageant put on before them. Dancing dogs cavorted around the outside of the ring, jumping through hoops to entertain children. Trapeze artists in shining tights waved from the ceiling, swaying back and forth over a wide net.

  Jace stood behind the curtain at the rear of the show, peeping out between the folds as he prepared for his turn on stage. He had to look past the cage that held the arcox—a horrible lobster-clawed creature with chitinous armor and scuttling, clawlike legs beneath its shell—to try and make out the act occurring in the farthest ring. He certainly wasn’t going to get any closer, not with that cage parked there!

  Act after act regaled the crowd with wonders, all organized into perfect harmony by the red-coated ringmaster, Worver. A massive minotaur named Hautos lifted wagons over his head, stacking them one by one. As a finale, he lifted three at once. Ebano Saham, the Mysterious Mystic, narrowed his strange purple eyes as he used the power of his mind to convince audience members that they were chickens.

  After a pair of lions stalked from the ring, the ringmaster’s hand flew up as if to catch the spotlight. The red tails of his coat fluttered about, and he doffed his top hat grandly as he bowed with a flourish. His thick, black mustache curled up at the ends. His pristine cuffs and collar wavered stiffly under a heavily starched coat. At his side, an agile creature the size of a small monkey danced and cavorted, wearing a clown’s white ruffle around its neck. The strange little pet was covered in grayish fur, glitter painted on the horns that twisted from its head. Wherever the ringmaster went, his funny pet went with him, dancing at his heels and begging for treats sprinkled from his pockets. Worver gestured and the creature danced, bouncing on its rear legs and waving its head back and forth so that the horns on its head glinted in the bright light. Charmed, the audience roared in approval.

  There was only one performance before Jace’s finale. The headliner of the circus was about to go on. Jace never missed her performance. He’d seen her dance every night since she joined the circus almost five years ago.

  “Our next enticement.” Worver swept a white-gloved hand toward the ceiling. Chattering shrilly, his pet leaped up onto his shoulder. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the finest dancer on Krynn! She’s performed for crowned heads of state, major wizards, noble knights. She’s danced from ocean to ocean! The one, the only … the incomparable Lady Belen!”

  The spotlight expanded on a beautiful young woman at the center of the main ring. In her early twenties, luminous with the flush of youth, she stood poised and delicate as the ringmaster introduced her. Her skin was porcelain, long hair the color of starlight on a spiderweb. Her gray eyes opened wide to greet the audience as she bowed regally before them, and in each hand, she held a wide silver folding fan as long as she was tall.

  Jace caught himself sighing and glanced around quickly to make sure no one had noticed. Belen was older than he by a handful of years, and she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  “Born in a mystic land to royalty that reigned long before the Cataclysm but has since been lost, the Lady Belen is the last of a truly noble line …” Ringmaster Worver continued with the introduction, expounding on the strange magical event that brought the Lady Belen to dance at the Amazing Celestial Circus of Light. The audience ate it up as Worver shaped outrageous images with his words—an ancient land, a forlorn queen, her only daughter cast into loneliness, a thousand years out of time …

  Her head humbly bowed for the introduction, Belen glanced back under thick lashes and caught Jace’s eye. With an impish wink, she smiled at him. Jace’s heart sped up and he tugged the curtain tighter, hoping no one in the audience could see him.

  “Almost ready?” The hiss in Jace’s ear made him jump. One of the jugglers—Cerisse—thumped his back. Cerisse was his age, born and raised in the circus just as he had been. She giggled and looked through the curtains out to the ring. “Oh, I see what’s going on … it’s Belen’s turn to perform. Were you staring at her again?” Cerisse’s tone was teasing, but as sharp as the daggers she juggled onstage.

  There was no way to hide the fact that he’d been watching, so Jace grinned sheepishly and ran a hand through his dark blond hair. “She’s amazing.”

  “Yeah.” Cerisse’s smile faded and she looked past him onto the stage. “She is.” Together, they pulled the curtain back and peeked together.

  “Do you think the story Worver’s peddling is true? That she’s a princess?”

  “Not a chance.” Cerisse snorted. “She’s probably the daughter of a goat washer from Northern Ergoth. He changes it every time he introduces her, and every time she smiles as if it’s true. Belen’s been here five years, and still has never told anyone where she comes from or why she’s here.” Cerisse shrugged, the long braid of her auburn hair swinging back and forth behind her shoulders. “If she d
oesn’t care, why should we? Belen brings in crowds, and we all make money. That’s all that matters.”

  Jace couldn’t tear his eyes off Belen, even to respond to Cerisse. The silver-haired woman stood alone in the center of the ring. More graceful than wind on water, Belen lifted her arms, snapping the two metal fans into perfect half-circle arcs. The steel ribs of the fans jutted out just a few inches above their metallic arc—a fact that became clearly noticeable when the end of each rib burst into flame. The audience oohed and aahed, and she turned the props in her hands to show the movement, her hair blowing in the wind the fans generated when they moved. Belen spun the two blazing fans, leaving ethereal trails in the air where the fans passed. Soft music played, slow and lilting, and she began to dance.

  Jace watched her, smiling. It was clear why she’d so quickly gained prominence in the circus, rising from an assistant to a headlining act over the last five years. He’d worked circuses since he was a child, and he’d never seen anyone with her grace and beauty. Jace sighed, as entranced as the rest of her audience.

  “Jace, you idiot, wake up!” Cerisse smacked him harder. “You should be getting ready!”

  He blinked. “How much longer do I have?”

  “Belen’s act lasts six minutes. When she finishes, you need to be ready to scale to the high platform.” Cerisse pointed, smile tight beneath her white greasepaint. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  The tightrope stretched—almost invisible—a hundred feet in the air. Jace stared, frowning. Just a rope. Just a thread of hemp between two poles. Jace had walked it a thousand times, trained on it since he was a child. His father had too, and his grandfather. Jace came from a long line of circus folk. There was nothing to be afraid of, he told himself. Accidents … were rare.

  “I’ll be ready,” Jace said, but his voice cracked.

  “You’d better be,” Cerisse said, patting his shoulder. “They aren’t putting up a net.”

  “Yeah. I told them not to. That’s how it has to be done.” A sinking feeling chilled Jace’s bones. He closed his eyes, trying to imagine the feel of the rope beneath his feet. Nothing to worry about, he told himself. I’ve done this in practice a hundred times.

  Then again, so had Dad.

  Jace shook himself, trying to settle his nerves. He could do it. There was no difference between doing it on stage and in practice. The audience signaled Belen’s finale with an awed rush of applause that pounded through the seats.

  “All right, here she comes. She’s taking her last bow.” Cerisse pulled back the curtain and gestured. “The lights go out … right about now!”

  Beyond the curtain, Worver waved his top hat as Belen waved once more to the crowd. The brilliant lights spangled from her silver dress, fans glittering in delicate hands as she saluted the stomping, cheering crowd. When the light faded, Jace could hear the soft padding of her feet as she turned and ran toward them. Without so much as rippling the soft fabric, Belen swept through the parted velvet and sat down on a nearby crate.

  “Oh, Jace! Cerisse! Were you watching?” Jace felt a warm glow settle in his stomach as Belen looked at him, setting her fans down. Her neck and shoulders were daubed in sweat from the dance, her breath coming in puffs. A moment after her fans were set down, an invisible stagehand lifted them. Soft cloths began scrubbing the metal grooves, held by invisible hands. Belen hardly noticed, murmuring a polite thanks to the invisible helpers before turning to Jace. “Was it a good performance?” Belen’s delicate features were pressed with worry. “I think I messed up one of the steps …”

  “You looked great. Even if you did, I didn’t notice a thing, so the audience definitely couldn’t tell.” Jace beamed as brightly as the fire that had lit the fans. “Wonderful, as usual. Perfect.” He couldn’t stop talking. “You were amazing.”

  When Belen wasn’t looking, Cerisse rolled her eyes.

  “You’re such a good friend to say that.” Belen shook out her silver hair. “I was so nervous. I had a strange feeling that something was going to go wrong tonight, something terrible. But nothing happened, did it?” She shrugged and turned a little red. “I guess it was just silliness.”

  Jace started to answer, but choked on the words as Cerisse started shoving him toward the climbing pole. “I have to go …”

  “Oh!” Belen blinked. “That’s right! You’re the finale! No time to chatter on, then. We’ll talk later. Fortune find you, Jace. I’ll be watching!” Belen pressed his hand between hers, leaving a bit of glitter on his palm before she stepped away.

  She’d be watching? Jace gulped again. With no time to spare, he ran forward into the darkness.

  When he reached the edge of the main ring, Jace grasped the handholds on the pole holding the wire aloft. Puffs of chalk rose where he set his hands. All around him, the darkened ring was a flurry of activity though he stood there alone. Ropes above jerked, seeming to tie themselves to stiff poles that held the structure aloft, and rakes floated out from the rear to scratch the ground flat beneath the wire. An unseen hand swept up popcorn from the edges of the ring, and another tightened the pins that held the pole in the ground. Two workers oversaw the net’s removal, and Jace stared with a bit of longing as it was carefully untied, dropped to the ground, and then rolled neatly away. She’d be watching.

  His heart fluttered, and it wasn’t just from the height.

  Jace climbed hand over hand up the pole, pulling himself higher and higher above the ground. The rainbow-striped canvas of the big-top roof stretched like a wide sky above him. The faces of men, women, and children flowed like a sea below. And the only thing between him and the hard-packed dirt was a single thin rope, just more than forty feet long. Signaling with a broad gesture, Jace let Ringmaster Worver know he was ready. Now or never.

  “Aaaaaand now,” Worver’s voice boomed out, “our finale! Ladies and gentlemen, listen to my story carefully—tonight is a very special night!” He lowered the tone of his voice to a conspiratorial murmur, the sound still carrying clearly through the tent via some sort of magical amplification. Eager for more, the audience riveted its attention on him, a living thing focused on Worver’s every move.

  “Five years ago in this very tent, a brilliant star flamed—and was extinguished. Jordan Pettier, Jordan the Undaunted, attempted the first and only netless quadruple tuck flip to ever be performed in any circus anywhere on Krynn! He made that attempt on the very high wire you now see strung above you. I say ‘attempt,’ ladies and gentlemen, because to this day that trick has never been successfully performed.

  “Jordan the Undaunted gave it his very best … and failed.”

  The spotlight focused first on the wire, and then on Jace, blinding him with its brilliance. He struggled to smile though he couldn’t see anything, and tried to think of anything but the huge, gaping chasm ahead of him.

  “Jordan never set foot on that tightrope again, and it has never been strung in the big top, in honor of his memory. His passing was as if a candle had been snuffed—the best and brightest among us, extinguished in his prime. A tragedy, my good people, of the highest sort. But tonight, ladies and gentlemen, Worver’s Amazing Celestial Circus of Light will right that wrong and change history forever!” A wave of applause shook the tent, rippling from silk-seamed wall to hard-packed floor.

  “Above you, the untested, untried—but ready to face his father’s memory—Jace Pettier, son of Jordan the Undaunted!” Jace gulped as he was introduced, trying to keep the smile plastered on his face. Worver’s words were a bit of an exaggeration. True, he’d never performed this trick before, but a lifetime of learning how to be a circus acrobat made him anything but untested.

  Worver raised both hands, his implike pet dancing around his knees. “Tonight, Jace will perform for you the same trick that felled his father. Before this audience, he will redeem the name of Pettier and prove that they are, once more, the finest high-wire family ever to perform on Krynn!

  “On behalf of the entire Amazing Celestial
Circus of Light, I ask that you remember any slip of the foot or loss of concentration could cause the same catastrophe! May we have silence for the brave young man, if you please!”

  Drums softly rolled beneath the oohing of the crowd as Jace stepped out onto the high wire. His steps firm and certain, he walked along it far above the dirt floor of the ring, waving his arms to either side in greeting to the wide-eyed spectators below. First, he did a few passes on the rope to show the audience his skill. The rope was strong beneath his feet. He turned around, clearing a single jump into the air to test the high wire’s stiffness. With more surety, Jace allowed the rebound of the wire’s bounce to snap him up again, twisting his body into a single flip before he landed squarely back on the thick rope. The crowd burst into short-lived applause, once more quieted by the ringmaster’s carefully timed call for silence.

  “Are you ready, young Jace?” Worver swept his hat from his head and placed it over his heart, looking up at him with an exaggerated tremble. “Are you certain? You could turn back now, my boy, before all is lost …” Good old Worver, playing it up right to the end. The audience stared, its focus a palpable thing, like a weight on Jace’s shoulders. As planned, he waved twice in acknowledgement, and the drumroll swept to a crescendo. Worver stepped back, out of the spotlight, and Jace spread his arms to either side.

  He would need a great deal of snap from the rope to throw him high enough to complete four whole rolls in the air before he landed again. Three was the most that any other circus performer had done, even with a net. Four was considered impossible—but he’d done it in practice, and his father had done it before a crowd … well, until his foot slipped on the landing and he fell the long distance to the ring below. No. Jace shook his head. I can’t think about that right now.

  Never look at the ground. He heard his father’s voice remind him from their lessons when Jace was still a child. Never look down. Not even when you’re falling. It doesn’t help.