Gold Dragon Codex Page 7

  “It’s amazing … completely amazing … and that’s … that’s …” A sudden realization hit him. “That’s absolutely horrible.” He pressed his hand to his forehead and shuddered. “That means it’s all been a lie. Everything. The golden dragon protecting this valley for generations. My uncle’s stories about how the dragon’s goodness ‘inspires us all.’ Even the village festivals where they carry candles to the bottom of the mountain—”

  “They do that?” Kine perked up, staring at him with interest.

  “We’ve been tricked by some … stupid … gnomes.” Sandon ignored him. “Those stories are all a waste of time, and so was my coming up here. This broken old thing can’t help fight Lazuli, and it can’t save my father.” He slunk back to the pillar where Kine was resting and sank onto a padded, dusty bench nearby. “We came all this way for nothing.”

  Kine rubbed his chin. “I met my first gnome when I was just about your age.” The soldier drew his sword up off the ground and inspected the blade carefully before shoving it into the scabbard at his side. “They’re completely crazy. Don’t talk about anything but their inventions, and those don’t ever work right. Something about gnomes makes them either forget the details or overreach the specifications. I don’t know, but no matter what kind of crazy thing they build, it’s always got a tragic flaw.” Kine managed a smile. “Sort of made me like ‘em more, to be honest. Not that I’d ever visit one at home.”

  “Aren’t you listening?” Sandon looked over at him dully. “My father’s going to die.”

  “Not to insult you, Sandon, but that hasn’t changed since this morning. Coming out here didn’t make anything worse.”

  “It didn’t make it better either.”

  “Trying’s the most important part even if you fail miserably.”

  Sandon frowned, looking sideways at the soldier. “I thought Knights of Solamnia were supposed to be a little more cheerful. You know, ‘never say die’ and all that?”

  “You’re the one who said I’m a knight. I never claimed to be one.”

  “But the sword—”

  “Oh, this? I found it on the battlefield when mine broke. Pretty nice sword, so I kept it. I guess you could say that the guy who had it before me didn’t need it anymore.” Kine lifted the sword and looked at the hilt appraisingly. He scraped a fingernail along the edge of the kingfisher. “What kind of bird is this, anyway? Some sort of raven?”

  Sandon sighed. Perfect. Not only was Kine not a knight, he stole things off dead knights on the battlefield. This whole adventure was going downhill fast. Out of morbid curiosity, Sandon asked, “What happened to him?”

  “Who? Oh, the guy with the sword?” The soldier put the weapon away again, knitting his eyebrows into a single line. “Don’t worry about him, Sandon. People die when they go to war.” Kine’s voice went hard and flat, like winter ice. “For all kinds of reasons.”

  Worse and worse. Chills rippled down Sandon’s spine, and it wasn’t just from being in the cool stone cave. Sandon cleared his throat and stood up. “We need to look for another way out of here. There’s no way you’re climbing down.”

  “You got that right. Maybe there’s a trail or a staircase or something in the back of the cave,” Kine said. “I don’t see that the gnomes lived here in the cave, so they must have had a way to get up and down without the dragon construct.”

  “I didn’t go that far when the stone guardian was chasing me, but I did see something flashing back there.”

  “Flashing?”

  “Like a glitter … or a glow.”

  “Like that guardian’s magical energy?” Kine asked. “The glow from inside the stone and copper shell?”

  “Sort of.” Sandon paused at the thought, but pushed himself on to the back of the cave. Even though the soldier had saved his life by jumping in front of the guardian’s punch, he’d also allowed Sandon to believe he was a Knight of Solamnia. He’d lied. And what had happened to the real knight that day on the battlefield?

  Sandon saw it again as he approached the rear of the cave, gently shimmering with a soft, bluish light. “There it is!” Sandon hurried toward it, his wounded leg making him limp across the floor. When he reached it, he found a large, roundish object standing on a dais, the whole covered with a dusty white sheet. Inside the sheet was the blue glow, ebbing and brightening in slow, rhythmic pattern. “It’s covered up,” Sandon called back. “But it doesn’t look like another construct.”

  Moving more slowly, Kine followed. He paused to lean against the closest pillar, lips twisted in a sardonic smile. “Don’t worry. If it comes to life and attacks us, I’ll beat it up for you by slamming myself into it, just like the last one.”

  Sandon couldn’t help but chuckle. He reached to grip the fabric, twisting his fingers into the weave. “Here goes.”

  With a tug, he pulled the dusty sheet free.

  eneath the sheet was a strange contraption like nothing Sandon had seen before. The round base looked like Gallia’s largest washing tub turned upside down, but made of gold and brass and bound with odd blue metal. On either side of the raised base were two curved prongs shaped like half circles, arching upward toward one another at the top. They didn’t quite touch there, leaving a gap between them about two feet wide. The center of the big metal prongs was open, like a disk, and slightly translucent. It was like looking into glistening water—Sandon could see objects through the disk when he looked, but they were all blurry and rippled by the effect. Like heat waves radiating upward, ripples lifted from the base and radiated along the length of the prongs, flickering lightly when they reached the open top of the machine.

  “This isn’t like the others.” Sandon squatted, looking more closely at the base. Inside, he could hear the faint whir of cogs and springs, and the crackle of magical energy. “Still gnome made, I think. It sounds like the others.”

  “Great. That means it’s flawed,” Kine said.

  “Flawed?”

  “Like the stone guardians. Remember how they had a weak spot when they lifted their arms?”

  “Oh!” Sandon said. “You could see the gears under them.”

  “Right. It was easy enough to kill them if you could just hit them in their weak spot. Everything gnomes make is that way—some sort of crazy flaw, or far too easily breakable, or otherwise completely messed up, no matter how well it works otherwise.” Kine crouched beside the boy and peered through the glassy disk. “If I had to guess, I’d say this was a portal. It’s probably how the person who flew that dragon apparatus got up here. It’d be a lot easier than climbing up the cliff.”

  “Well, until three or four years ago, when the village was attacked by bandits or there was some threat in the area, my dad would climb to the top of the tower and blow the ancestral horn. It wouldn’t take long before the gold dragon would rise up from the mountains and fly over the valley.” Sandon reached out and touched the base of the arch. A prickly energy flowed beneath his fingers. “They wouldn’t have had more than a few minutes to get up here, so there’s no way they could have traveled the way we did.”

  “Well, if this got them here, I’m willing to believe it got them out too.” Kine straightened gingerly and shifted the weight of the sword at his belt. “I’m going to go first. You follow me after a count of fifty.” The soldier furrowed his brow. “Whoever’s on the other side won’t be happy to see unexpected visitors, so be ready for a fight.”

  “Yeah, well, they’ve abandoned the barony. I don’t care if it’s because there’s a real dragon here now and they’re afraid of Lazuli. It’s not all right, the way they vanished when we needed them.”

  Straightening, Kine nodded. “Well, you’ll get your chance to tell them that in just a minute. Remember, count first. Then follow.”

  “Got it.”

  Kine drew his sword again, hand clamping over the symbols on the hilt. He held it out in front of him and stepped into the circular area between the two big prongs. Like stepping into water, his body pierc
ed the rippling area and was surrounded by crackling energy. The light radiated from the soldier’s form, completely obscuring him. Then, with a bright flash, the light died, leaving sparks flashing in Sandon’s eyes and smoke rising from the base. Flawed? More like barely working! Blinking and rubbing his eyes, Sandon looked around, glancing to both sides of the portal. Kine was gone.

  Either the portal worked, Sandon thought to himself, or Kine just got disintegrated.

  Just in case, Sandon spent the next fifty seconds looking all around the portal for any unusual piles of ash.

  When the count was finished, Sandon took a deep breath, pushed away his fear, and followed the soldier through the rippling arch. It felt like jelly on his skin, thick and gooey, making Sandon instinctively close his eyes and pinch his nose shut with one hand. He could feel it ripple over his skin when he pushed forward, breaking through the plane of the arch. It felt cold, slippery, and sticky. The stickiness washed past him and was gone, leaving behind only a thin wetness on Sandon’s skin. Everything felt cold and light, and Sandon wondered if all of his organs were in the right places.

  Wincing, he opened his eyes. Smoke was rising all around him, and most of the hair on his arms had been singed off. His eyebrows felt a little short too, and when he shook his head, a thin stream of ash fluttered down from his hair. He was standing in a thin hallway, completely surrounded by stone. The corridor was no more than five feet wide, and very short—really, more like a log closet than anything else. He was standing in a portal exactly like the other, glistening faintly and shedding a dim light. By its glow, Sandon could see Kine crouched at the other end of the hallway, sword by his side on the ground. He was fiddling with something in front of him. As Sandon stepped down from the portal’s golden base, he heard something click.

  “Got it,” Kine said proudly.

  Part of the wall swung away, revealing a room on the other side. Kine froze, gesturing to Sandon to remain still, and listened. Three long breaths later, he stood up, sword in hand, and gently pushed open the secret door.

  “Swords afire,” Sandon gasped, borrowing the soldier’s oath. “That’s my mother’s room!”

  The chamber inside was dusty and unused, with sheets over the chairs. There was a heavy smell of disuse. The stale room was filled with dust and the windows were gray with years of soot and grime. Her books were still on the bookshelves, and the big desk she’d used to write letters and keep the baronial records stood dark and empty near the windows. The bed was still made, bedspread smooth, pillows leaning against the headboard. On the bed stand beside the pillows, Sandon saw bottles of perfume.

  Her jewelry box was still on her dresser, lid open to reveal necklaces and rings. The fireplace was barren and the metal frame was sooty and empty. Her little reading table by the fireplace had been tipped over. Sandon walked toward it and found three books lying on the floor. “It’s been years since I’ve been in here.” He bent down to pick them up, feeling the stiff leather covers and the crackling paper.

  “Your mother, hm? The baroness?” Kine walked carefully across the plush rugs, trying not to leave heavy boot marks on the blue pile. “What happened to her?”

  “She died three years ago.” Sandon realized he was avoiding the question. Starting over, he said, “She was poisoned.”

  “Poisoned? By whom?”

  “We used to have a lot of travelers passing through the valley, and my mother was really big on helping them out. That’s why I knew about the succor law—Mother used it a lot back then to take in wanderers and make sure they had a good meal before they went on their way. Whenever soldiers came into Hartfall on their way back from the war, or refugees from other areas of Solamnia that were harder hit than we were, Mother would help them all. We’d ride out and invite them into the palace, and open the barracks if we needed to, to let entire caravans get a rest when it was stormy.” Sandon righted the reading table and placed the books, one by one, back on top. “One night, when we were hosting a large group of travelers, my mother was found on the floor in her chambers. There was poison in her wine. The guards heard her fall down after she drank some, and they broke into the room, but she died before Father could come to her side.”

  “That’s horrible. Sandon, I’m sorry.”

  Sandon kept his eyes on the books, flipping the pages idly. “I miss her a lot. My dad threw out every traveler we had in the keep and never let anyone back in. He never offered help to soldiers passing through, and without Mother to push him, he stopped going out of his way for people. I don’t guess anyone can blame him. If I hadn’t spoken up to give you succor, you probably wouldn’t have been let in either.” Sandon walked to the door of the room and tugged on it. Locked. His father had given an order that the room be sealed right after his mother’s death, and to Sandon’s knowledge, nobody had been in here ever since. “We’re locked in. Maybe there’s a key in here somewhere that we can use to get out?”

  “Three years?” Kine shuffled through the room, poking at things. “That’s when the gold dragon stopped appearing too.”

  “Yeah. I guess we know why now, don’t we?” Sandon sighed “Mom must have flown the dragon. I wonder if Dad knew that?” He considered, and then shook his head. “No. If he did, he wouldn’t have kept going up to the tower and blowing the horn. He did that for years after she died, always hoping that the gold dragon would return.”

  “He might have been throwing off suspicion.” Kine shrugged.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  Kine kept his back to Sandon, fiddling through the quill pens on the big desk. “Who found your mom?”

  “Jonas, one of the guards.”

  “And he ran to get your dad? Where was your dad?”

  “Dad was in his office, right down the hall. Kine! My dad had nothing to do with it! He was devastated! My mom’s death really hit him hard. He started doing everything differently. He threw out all of the people we’d been trying to help, he locked Mom’s rooms—”

  “So nobody else could find the gold dragon and go fight Lazuli.”

  Infuriated, Sandon stormed over to the soldier and punched him in the arm. Kine yelped in surprise and spun around, and Sandon saw that his mother’s desk drawer was open. Slamming it shut, he growled, “If you’re trying to say that my father killed my mother, you’re wrong.”

  “Your mother is the actual baronial line, right? Her parents were baron and baroness before she was. Your father is a soldier she married—”

  “A soldier from Hartfall who guarded and defended this barony!”

  “—and right after she died, Lazuli showed up. I’m just saying you should think about it, that’s all.”

  “Well, I’m not going to think about it! I’m sick of you, Kine. Even before we went up to the cave, you were making mean comments about my dad. What’s wrong with you? He took you in and fed you. He’s given you a place to rest and be safe for a while.”

  “He’s working with a blue dragon.” Kine’s tone was flat and deadly. “Nobody in Hartfall is safe.”

  Just then, there was a pounding on the door of the room. “Who’s in there?” Sandon’s yelling must have alerted the guard. “Open this door and surrender!” The voice was thick and husky, guttural with wine and good living. “I’m a wizard! I’ll … blow the door in! Do you hear me?” Despite the brave words, the voice sounded anything but confident.

  “It’s me, Wizard Yattak!” Sandon went to the door and thumped on his side of the wooden paneling. “The door’s locked. We can’t get out!”

  “Sandon?” The second voice sounded like Uncle Vilfrand’s. Sandon heard the captain give Jonas an order to go get the key. “We’ll get you out of there immediately. Who’s in there with you?”

  “Uh …” This wasn’t going to go well, but there was no way to hide it. “Kine.”

  “Vicious beast! Horrible wretch!” Yattak moaned like an old aunt at a wedding. “He’s kidnapped the baron’s son! Holding him for ransom! We’re all ruined when Baron
Camiel finds out!”

  “Kine! Does he have a weapon? Sandon, are you in danger?” Sandon heard a key turn in the lock, and Vilfrand shoved the door open ferociously. Three guards holding halberds stood behind him, weapons at the ready. Vilfrand drew his sword and reached to grab Sandon’s shoulder and drag him into the hallway. “By Paladine! Are you all right, Sandon? Did he hurt you?”

  Still angry at the soldier, Sandon answered, “I’m fine.” He turned and glared at Kine.

  Yattak was clutching his heart as if it might burst. “Heavens bless us! It’s a miracle!” Sandon saw the long-suffering apprentice, Umar, clutch at the wizard’s ruby red robes and steady him, offering up a canteen that looked almost empty. Yattak took a long swig of it and then stared blearily at Kine. “You’re a wise man to not provoke me. Because you’ve released the hostage, I shall not strike! My magic will remain hidden—a secret of the ages!” A faint belch distorted the last word, and Yattak frowned in annoyance. “Count your blessings, scoundrel.”

  “What were you doing in there?” Vilfrand looked Sandon in the eye. “What did he want?”

  Uh-oh. Sandon wasn’t ready to tell Vilfrand the truth about the golden dragon. He remembered how disappointed he himself had been to find out that it was nothing but a construct. What if the rest of the village knew? With Lazuli threatening them and the baron about to sacrifice himself—stupid Kine, of course he wasn’t working with the blue!—the people of Hartfall didn’t have a lot of hope. Telling them their legendary protector was nothing more than a lump of cogs and gears would crush them. But how could he lie to his uncle? Sandon opened his mouth, unsure what to say, and ended up shaking his head instead.

  “Money, I suppose. Jewelry. They’re all the same, these filthy grunts,” Vilfrand spat. “You give them an inch, and they’ll rob you for a mile. I’m glad your father stopped taking them in. I’m sorry you had to learn that lesson so sharply, Sandon, but at least he didn’t hurt you.” He turned to Kine. “Breaking and entering. Kidnapping of the baron’s son and heir.” Vilfrand counted off the charges protectively, keeping Sandon close. “We’ll have you behind bars for the rest of your life. I don’t care if you are a knight.”