Chris Wraight - Master of Dragons

Imladrik’s heart beat hard, the blood thudding in his ears. The twin swords in his hands felt heavy. He felt the potential in them, and for an instant imagined the storm he could unleash if he chose to.

Caledor did not waver. Imladrik stared down at him, his mind a torment of emotions, his face a mask. Then he looked away.

‘You are the Phoenix King,’ he said, softly.

‘And your brother,’ added Caledor, relenting a little with a half-smile.

Imladrik turned away, ready to stride back down the length of the hall. He shot a withering glance at Hulviar, then started to walk.

‘For what’s it’s worth,’ he said.

Thoriol lay back against the cushions, feeling his muscles relax. Soft lute music filled the background, calming him, easing the tensions that had filled his mind during the long descent from the mountains.

He didn’t like to think back over the journey. He had taken a steed from one of the hardscrabble settlements just outside Kor Evril and ridden along stony tracks down to Lothern, weathering incessant salt-thick wind until Eataine’s gentler land had taken hold.

The country of Caledor had always left him cold, and he had never understood what his father saw in it. To his eyes, it was all black rock and smouldering craters, scoured by the elements and beset by legends of past glory. In comparison to Cothique, his mother’s land, where grass-crowned cliffs stood proudly against the ocean and the air was sweet from the woodlands of Avelorn, it seemed a meagre, desolate place.

As a child Thoriol had been proud of his father’s lineage. He had boasted to his playmates about it, enjoying it when they had stared back at him, mouths open, as he had told them stories about the great dragons. Some of them had even been true.

Thoriol smiled as he remembered. It was hard not to smile. After nearly half a decanter of heliath the whole world seemed essentially benign.

He looked around him. The house of pleasure was much like most of the others he had spent time in, though, this being Lothern, more richly appointed. Long drapes of diaphanous silk hung from high ceilings, wafting from the gentle movement of bodies. The tinkle of a fountain sounded from somewhere close by, part-masked by the hum of conversation. He saw lissom figures drifting in and out of the various private chambers, both male and female, all with the flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes that spoke of exotic consumptions. The light was subdued; a dim cloud of reds and purples, thick with curls of smoke.

Thoriol shifted on his couch, enjoying the give of it against his skin. After so long in the saddle it felt good to be somewhere more civilised. You had to be discreet — such places were secretive by nature — but if you knew the right palms to press it was always possible to find what you were after.

The failure with the Sun Dragon barely troubled him now. It had troubled him, badly, just after it had happened. For a time he had allowed himself to be tortured by familiar feelings of inadequacy, the same feelings that had dogged him ever since he had been old enough to understand that his boastful tales of dragons and battles would need to be replaced one day with deeds of his own. After a while even his old playmates had stopped thinking of his heritage as a blessing — none of them had had such achievements to live up to as they reached gingerly towards adulthood.

Thoriol had his mother’s temper in so many things. He had loved the books she had shown him as a child, poring over them, tracing the runes on the parchment, committing the sacred words to memory. He had imagined he would end up as a loremaster like her, locked in some isolated tower studying the mysteries of the aethyr or the poetry of the sages.

But his mother had never pushed him to follow that path, and when his father had begun to school him in the lore of the dragon riders, she had supported him.

‘This is important,’ she had told Thoriol, smiling reassuringly. ‘Think of it: you are the heir. One day you will ride the great ones into war. Part of me envies you, for I will never understand them, but do this for him. Do this for both of us.’

He had wanted to tell her then, but somehow the words never came. As the months passed it had become harder to change course. His tomes of lore had been left in Tor Vael, slowly mouldering — after that he had worked to grow used to the cold and the hardness of life at Kor Evril. He had studied diligently, memorising the rites of summoning, learning the mental disciplines, spending hours in caverns in an attempt to decipher the tremors and hisses that gave away the rousing of a dragon below.

On some days he had truly believed he could master it. There had been times — not many, but they had existed — when he had looked up into Caledor’s bleak skies and seen the raw beauty in them that so excited his father.

But he had never truly fooled himself. He had always known the truth, and had festered away in resentment of it. There had been times when he had wanted to shout it out aloud, to rage at his father who had worked so patiently with him.

‘Can you not see it?’ he had wanted to yell. ‘I have no talent for this! You know every nuance of these creatures — are you no judge of my own?’

Throughout it all Imladrik had never been cruel, never domineering; it was just that he had never understood, not even for a moment, why one of his bloodline would not leap at the chance of becoming a dragon rider. Imladrik was doing what a father should — passing on the keys to greatness, schooling him, nurturing the talent that surely lay somewhere buried deep within.

Thoriol took another long draught of heliath .

At least the deceptions were over. That, along with much else, was a comfort.

‘You are new here,’ came a lilting voice close to his ear.

Thoriol turned to see a hostess curled up on the couch next to him. She had dark hair, as straight as falling water, and almond-shaped eyes. The scent of cloves rose from her high-collared dress.

‘True,’ he replied, propping himself up on an elbow to get a better look at her.

‘Is everything to your satisfaction?’ she asked.

‘Quite, thank you.’

‘I can fetch more heliath . Or a dream-philtre.’

‘Dream-philtre?’

She smiled conspiratorially. ‘The poppy.’

‘Ah. I thought that was… prohibited.’

‘You have a trustworthy face. I believe you can keep a secret.’

Thoriol laughed. ‘I keep many secrets.’

‘Tell some to me?’ the hostess asked. ‘I am as discreet as the night.’

‘I’m sure.’ Thoriol held his goblet up to the diffuse light. The cloudy blooms from the lanterns reflected in the cut crystal. ‘I did not come here to talk. I came here to forget.’

‘We can help you with that. We can help you with anything.’

Thoriol saw his reflection in the glass. He gazed at it wearily. ‘Can you help me to escape?’

‘That is a speciality.’

‘You do not know whom I am escaping from. He is powerful. Very powerful.’

‘Many powerful figures come through these doors,’ said the hostess.

Thoriol found himself looking at her lips as she spoke. They were such soft lips.

‘They are all much the same as one another,’ she added, ‘once you get under the robes.’

Thoriol laughed again. For some reason, he found himself wanting to laugh at almost everything she said. ‘I like you.’

‘I am glad. Tell me more about where you wish to go.’

‘As far as possible,’ said Thoriol wistfully. ‘I would go where nobody knows me. I would spend my days with no expectations. I would take time, I would think. Perhaps I would reconsider some choices I have made. Perhaps I would change a great deal.’