Daniel Abraham - The Dragon's Path

The litter was ornate, bearing the crest and colors of House Kalliam, but with a blaze of cloth on either side in the grey and blue of Palliako. It had two velvet-upholstered chairs facing each other, and eight Tralgu squatted by the poles. Dawson took the seat that faced backward. Geder pushed a lock of greasy hair back from his eyes. His legs were trembling from the ride. The arrow slits and murder holes all through the city wall were crowded with smiling eyes.

“I don’t understand,” Geder said.

“A few of my friends and I have sponsored your revel. They’re traditional for a leader returning from military victory.”

Geder turned around slowly. Something heavy seemed to have taken root in his belly, and the high stone rising above him tilted a little, like a young tree in a high wind. His mouth was dry.

“Victory?” he said.

“The sacrifice of Vanai,” Dawson said. “Bold and commanding. It was a braver decision than this kingdom has seen in a generation, and there are those of us who would see that fierceness return to Antea.”

In Geder’s mind, a woman crawled up over the walls of the dead city, flames leaping behind the darkness of her body. In his memory, she fell. The roar of the flames filled his ears again as if it had followed him, and his vision narrowed. That was a victory ? Wide Tralgu hands took his shoulder and guided him into his seat. He stared dumbly at Dawson as the litter shifted under them, and they rose.

The southern gate opened into a rough square. Geder had been there before, and knew what the chaos of beggars, merchants, and guards, oxen and carts and feral dogs looked like. This was like walking into the Camnipol dreamed by a boy who had only heard its glories described. Three hundred people at the least stood behind another honor guard, waving banners of House Palliako. A platform stood to the right with men in embroidered cloaks and cloth-of-gold tunics. There was the Baron of Watermarch. Beside him, a young man in the colors of House Skestinin. Not the lord himself, but perhaps his eldest son. Perhaps half a dozen more whom Geder’s reeling mind half recognized before the litter moved on. And then, at the end, his head held high and tears streaming down his cheeks, Geder saw his father’s face, and he saw the pride in it.

The crowd followed, cheering and tossing handfuls of flowers and paper-wrapped candies. The sound of them overwhelmed any hope of conversation, so he could only stare at Lord Kalliam in amazement.

At a meeting of half a dozen streets, the litter hesitated. Near the Kingspire, the buildings grew three and four stories high and people hung out of every window, watching him pass. A girl high and to his left pitched out a fistful of bright-colored ribbon, the threads dancing in the air as they fell. Geder waved to her, and something veritiginous and sweet washed through him.

Despite what he’d done, he was a hero. Because of what he’d done. It was more than relief; it was reprieve, forgiveness, and absolution. He lifted his arms, drinking in the adulation like a starving man. If it was a dream, he’d rather die than wake from it.

It was a difficult decision,” Geder said, leaning across the table and talking loud. “To raze a city like that is a terrible thing. I didn’t choose that path lightly.”

“Absolutely not,” the second son of the Baron of Nurring said, hardly slurring his words at all. “But that’s the point, isn’t it? Where’s the valor in doing the easy thing? There isn’t any. But to face the dilemma. Take action.”

“Definitive action,” Geder said.

“Exactly,” the boy replied. “Definitive action.”

The revel grounds connected to Dawson Kalliam’s mansion. It wasn’t as grand as the ballrooms and gardens on an actual holding, but it was near. And to have so much room inside the walls of the Undying City said more than three times the space in the countryside. Candles glowed up and down the high-domed walls, and blown glass lanterns hung from threads too thin to see in the dusk. Wall-wide doors opened to fresh gardens that still smelled of turned earth and early flowers. The feast and dance had run their course. Half a dozen highborn men had taken to the dais to proclaim the virtues of Geder’s actions in the Free Cities.

There had been none of the weakness, timidity, and corruption that had poisoned the generals of Antea for too long now, they said. Geder Palliako had shown his mettle not only to the Free Cities, not only to the world. He had shown it to his own countrymen. Through his actions, he had reminded them all what purity could accomplish. Even the king had sent a messenger with a written notice recognizing Geder’s return to Camnipol.

The applause had been intoxicating. The respect and admiration of men who hadn’t so much as nodded to him in any of his times at court. Then the dance. Geder generally avoided that particular court pastime, but Dawson Kalliam’s wife Clara had insisted that that he accompany her around the garden yard at least once, and by the time he’d made the circuit, he felt almost surefooted. He’d made another few rounds with a few younger, unattached women before his thighs and ankles began to protest sharply enough to stop him. Jorey had brought his leather cloak, and as the day cooled toward night and the wine and beer flowed a bit more freely, Geder was glad of it.

“The mark of a real leader,” Geder said, and then lost the thread. “The mark of a leader…”

“I hope you’ll excuse me,” his father said. “Geder, my boy?”

Geder rose to his feet and his drinking companion nodded his respect and turned away, his steps generally steady.

“It’s getting late for an old man,” Lerer Palliako said, “but I couldn’t go without seeing you. You have exceeded anything I could have hoped. I haven’t seen people talking about our family in terms like this since… Well, ever, I suppose.”

“Let me go with you,” Geder said.

“No no no. It’s your night. Enjoy it.”

“I’d enjoy talking with you,” Geder said, and his father’s eyes softened.

“Well, then.”

Together, Geder and his father found Lady Kalliam and offered their profound thanks. Somehow the conversation turned until they were accepting her kind words, and they left with the feeling that the night had been an intimate affair with old friends they’d rarely seen. She insisted that they take the litter that had carried Geder through the streets earlier. Walking through the darkened streets wasn’t safe, and even if it had been, it wouldn’t do. Jorey appeared as they were about to take their last leave and offered Geder his hand. Geder almost wept, taking it.

As the Tralgu slaves hauled them through the night-dark streets, Geder looked at the stars scattered across the sky. Away from the gleeful crowd, the elation of relief cooled a degree. He was surprised to find that some part of the dread was still there, not sharp anymore, not strong, but present. Not even fear, but the as yet unbroken habit of fear.

His father cleared his throat.

“You’re on the rise, my boy. You’re very much on the rise.”

“I don’t know about that,” Geder said.

“Oh, no. No, I heard those men tonight. You’ve caught the court at a delicate time. You’re in very real danger of becoming a symbol of something.” His father’s intonation was merry, but there was something in the way he held his shoulders that made Geder think of a man bracing for a blow.

“I’m not a court pigeon,” Geder said. “I’ll be pleased to come home and work through some of the books that I found down there. You’d like some of them. I’ve started a translation of an essay about the last dragons that claims to date from only a few hundred years after Morade fell. You’d like it.”