Michael Stackpole - When Dragons Rage

Students stood in the white field before the Conservatory, for those who had studied there for years had become at least partially inured to the cold. Those trained in combat dueled each other, male and female alike stripped to the waist, their bodies adorned with colorful tattoos. Magicks crackled between them, the sounds carrying crisply through the cold air. If the combat mages even noticed the rising breeze, they did not seek shelter from it.

Other longtime students wore more clothing, but likewise ignored the wind. The newest students, however—most children and all facing their first winter—huddled together, their backs to the wind. As distant as she was, she could feel them attempting to summon a warming spell. Having been trained on Vilwan, their methods were awkward, their efforts stunted, and their results meager.

Isaura tilted her head slightly to the left and watched them. The Vilwanese students had been plucked from the sea and brought to Aurolan to be trained by Neskartu, but they resisted him and his methods much as they tried to resist the cold. And suffered equally for both.

Isaura did not resist the wind and cold, but embraced it. The Vilwanese saw cold as the absence of heat, but she knew this was merely shortsightedness. There was still heat in the wind, for heat was merely energy, and if there was no energy, there would be no wind. Heat is there; one merely has to know where to seek it .

Another whirlwind bore down on her, and she sensed its intent immediately. She turned, looking back at the frosted fortress of black stone that dominated the high-walled mountain valley. Where the Conservatory had been shaped of stone, the fortress seemed like a tooth that had erupted from the snowy landscape, strong and sharp.

She caught a flash of white in a window of an upper chamber and smiled. Isaura began to walk swiftly toward the castle, the whirlwind tugging at the skirts of her gown, urging her on. She flicked a hand at it, reweaving the threads of energy running through it, and it collapsed into a small cloud of ice dust.

From it rose another whirlwind, this one more powerful. It circled her once, eliciting a shriek of delight as her hair danced on its teasing tendrils. The storm lunged at her, surrounding her in its fury. The wind howled inarticulately, then lifted her up and bore her on an icy pedestal to an upper balcony of the castle.

Isaura laughed aloud, her silver eyes flashing as she soared above the landscape. Outside the valley, far to the north and again to the west, she could see the distant, dark cones of volcanoes with steam rising from them. Vast fields of pure white lay between them, stippled here and there with small clusters of domed buildings. Most of the Aurolani citizenry lived in vast cavern complexes. The buildings she could see largely consisted of shelters for the various flocks and herds raised on the tundra.

The whirlwind set her down gently on the balcony, then swirled tightly into a slender column. She bowed her head graciously. “Thank you, kind sir.”

With barely a sound, the column of ice convulsed and then dissipated.

Smiling, Isaura entered the open arched doorway. Her skin tingled as she passed through the threshold spell that retained the castle’s heat. A few flakes of snow fell from her shoulders and hair, but only the most hardy hit the stone floor. Those that did melted quickly, then evaporated.

She stopped three feet inside the threshold of the grand chamber. It extended on into darkness far ahead of her, easily three times as long as it was wide or high. To the right, in the middle of the wall and opposite the main doors, stood a hearth tall enough for a man to march through and wide enough to accept a whole company. A fire raged therein, bathing the woman standing before it in undulating light.

The woman stood easily as tall as Isaura and had the same slightly pointed ears. Her hair was golden, however, matching her gown, in contrast to Isaura’s snowy mane. Clean-limbed, though heavier than Isaura, the woman had a calm elegance about her that appeared to quiet the riot of flames in the hearth. The fire continued to burn hot, but the flames slowed, twisting and floating like silk on a light breeze.

Isaura smoothed her gown and raked fingers back through her hair. She allowed herself a smile and the barest flash of strong, white teeth, then approached the other woman. “Mother! You’ve returned from the Southlands. Did you succeed?”

“Yes, daughter, I did.” The woman looked over at her with blue-green eyes alive with reflected firelight. “I have some of what I want from Draconis, but a puzzle as well.”

“A puzzle?” Isaura wrinkled her brow. “Is there something wrong?”

“No, my child; do not frown like that. Yours is a face too beautiful to be marred with worry lines.” The woman raised her right hand and beckoned. “Come closer, Isaura. You will help me solve this problem, then all will be well.”

Isaura’s heart leaped in her breast as she moved to her mother’s side. She did know that the Empress Chytrine was not truly her mother. Chytrine had adopted her when she was just a babe, since she had been abandoned by her mother, and of her father there was no record. Her bastardy had not concerned Chytrine, however, who took her in and raised her as if her own, giving her every appropriate benefit as a child legitimately born to the throne.

“I do want to help, Mother. Please, I will do anything I can.”

“Of course you will, child.” Chytrine smiled in a kindly manner, but the smile died quickly, bespeaking concerns that only an empress could bear. “In the south, daughter, they vex me. They slew Anariah in a cruel trap. They lured him into it by using decoys, and linking them to the real fragments of the DragonCrown. The imitations were not good, but Anariah was young and not schooled in lesser magicks. He was unaware of the danger until too late.”

Isaura closed her eyes and lowered her head. Anariah had been a golden dragon with which she had only a passing acquaintance, but he had been one of her mother’s favorites. He had first been drawn to Chytrine because of the one fragment of the DragonCrown she had possessed before the fall of the Fortress Draconis. She told him of her plans for the re-created crown and the dragon allied himself with her cause, becoming a fervent supporter of Chytrine’s campaign against the south.

“Oh, Mother, you have my deepest sympathy.”

“Of course, yes, child. You are most kind.”

The pressure of a finger under her chin lifted her head and Isaura opened her eyes. “I can imagine he was very brave.”

Chytrine nodded solemnly. “He was. His dedication to our cause never wavered. Anariah never hesitated in the cause of liberating the DragonCrown from the southern tyrants. Their possession of it imperiled his kin, even himself, but it was not for dragonkind alone that he acted. He fought to stop the rot of the south from poisoning us.”

Chytrine’s hand fell away and she again gazed into the fire. “Oh, daughter, you have no idea the corruption of the south. This is my fault, and you must forgive me. I have kept you here, in our land, to preserve you. There are times—and I do not mean this as criticism—that you are so sensitive.”

“I know you only want the best for me, Mother.” Isaura smiled. “I am quite content to be here in your realm.”

“It is beautiful, isn’t it? Whenever I travel to the south, I long for it, not just because I hate the oppressive heat, but the stink, the moisture, the way things grow and drag on you.” Chytrine frowned. “You see, Isaura-sweet, the world of Aurolan is simple and it is the way it was meant to be. It is cold; it is unforgiving. Weakness is dispatched in favor of strength. Here we live in accord with the dictates of the world, as it should be.