“Why not?” asked Roo, not entirely sure what was being said. “The King wants justice, doesn’t he?”
Lender smiled, and it was the indulgent look of a master being asked something obvious by a gifted but untutored apprentice. “Our King, more than most, seems interested in justice; something to do with some time he spent in Great Kesh as a youngster, I believe. But he’s also interested in not making it look too easy to kill a nobleman and avoid hanging. There’s justice, and then there’s justice.”
Erik sighed. “And we did kill Stefan.”
Lowering his voice, Lender said, “Did you go to find him with murder in your heart?”
Erik was silent a minute, then said, “Yes, I guess I did. I knew he was going to try something with Rosalyn; I knew what I would find and I knew I’d end up killing Stefan. I can’t even say I just went to protect her.”
Lender glanced at Roo. The slight boy nodded and Lender let out a long sigh. “If that’s true, I doubt any power can save you from that.” He pointed out the high window at the gibbet.
Erik nodded, and Lender left without further comment.
6
Discovery
The creature stirred.
The woman stood patiently as the creature’s companions moved to one side. Several others huddled in distant corners of the immense hall, speaking quietly to one another, while those who had been attending the sleeping monster crossed to join them. The woman ignored them and studied the waking creature. To the mortal eye, the beast appeared to be the grandmother of all dragonkind, a gigantic being whose bulk massed high above her servants. She loomed enormous even in the vast hail that served as her home. In distant sconces, oil lamps flickered, but both the dragon and the woman needed little natural light to navigate the gloom. A faint scent of spice hung on the air, perhaps as an artifact of the making of the oil, perhaps to sweeten the air; the woman didn’t know.
At last the dragon opened eyes the size of palace windows and blinked. She stretched, and lowered her head as she yawned, displaying ivory teeth the size of flashers, the giant two-handed scimitars used in Great Kesh. Her skin was the reason for the absence of more illumination, for it consisted of gems, fused over plates once golden in color. Brighter illumination caused a riot of rainbow light throughout the hail and while capable of arts beyond most human understanding, the dragon found the constantly dancing reflections gave her a headache.
The woman had met dragons before, though nothing quite like this one, and while little could impress her, she conceded to herself that this was indeed an impressive-looking being. They had “spoken” to each other using magic arts, but this was their first true meeting in the flesh. Despite attempts at keeping the identity of this creature hidden over the last half century, legends of the “great jeweled dragon” had already surfaced in various parts of the Kingdom.
But the woman knew this was no true dragon, despite being the get of dragons at birth. The spirit of the original dragon had perished in the great battle that had climaxed in this very hall almost fifty years before. Inhabiting the vessel that had once known the mind of Ryath, daughter of Rhuagh—perhaps the greatest of all golden dragons—was a consciousness alien and ancient: the Oracle of Aal.
A great rumbling voice issued from within the throat of the creature. “Greetings, Miranda. How fare you?”
The woman nodded as she said, “I am well. The travel from the statue at Malac’s Cross is disorienting.”
“It was designed to be so. Only those with a certain gift may trigger it, and I wish to ensure that whatever talents they possess, they are vague about the true location of this hall.”
Miranda nodded in agreement. “Understood. How fare you?”
“Time grows short. The heat tires me and I sleep more each day. Soon I shall enter the birth sleep and then shall I end this phase of existence.”
“Time grows short indeed. How much longer will we have your guidance?”
“Already the future grows clouded and dim to me. My daughter will not have the gift for the first twenty years of her life, so soon, for five years of my birth sleep and twenty years of my daughter’s infancy, you will be as you were before I came to this world. There is more.”
“What?”
“Much of what I should see I cannot, which means only that my own future is involved; for to all creatures, even me, knowledge of their own future is denied.”
The Oracle of Aal was considered the oldest being in the universe, ancient when the Valheru rose to challenge the gods during the Chaos Wars. Thinking of that, Miranda turned to look at a dais behind the oracle. Willing a shift in her perception, the woman saw the stone flick into existence. A fey green in color, it pulsed with an inner light. She stared at its hypnotic rhythms for a moment, then said, “Are they stirring again?”