You asked how you might deliver Southlands from the Dragon. You said nothing of killing him.
“I—” There on the empty road leading down from Oriana Palace, Lionheart stood still and pressed his fists to his temples. “I must kill . . . I must—”
“Well met, boy.”
Lionheart’s eyes flew open. He felt dizzy, disoriented, for the Lady’s presence was heavy in his mind. Even so, he made out the dark figures surrounding him in an ever-closing circle.
He stood face-to-face with the Duke of Shippening.
“Beastly lout, eh?” said the duke, and his face twisted into an ugly smile. “Funny song, that.”
Lionheart swallowed and shook his head, trying to focus. “It was a . . . a joke, Your Grace,” he stammered. Then he bowed for good measure. “A jester’s joke, no more. A Fool has to—”
While he was still doubled over in his bow, someone smacked him from behind, sending him sprawling at the duke’s feet.
Shippening looked down from around his ample stomach. “I’m not what you take me for, boy,” he said. Then he leaned over and grabbed Lionheart’s shirtfront, hauling him up to stare into his face. The duke’s breath was foul, and he spat when he spoke. “I am not the fool here.” His smile vanished behind the deadliest expression Lionheart had ever seen. “What’s more, I remember you. I don’t forget a face.”
He struck. Lionheart’s head exploded with pain, driving even the Lady from his mind. The duke’s voice was low and biting, like slow-working poison. “You stole my slave from me. You made a laughingstock of me before my guests and took from me a gift from my ally. A gift not easily reclaimed.” He struck again, and his blow was like a hammer, jarring Lionheart’s senses. A third blow, a fourth; then the duke dropped him. Lionheart lay where he fell, his mouth open in soundless agony.
“Take him,” said the duke. “Bind him. We’ve got ourselves a journey tonight.”
They followed one of the Paths.
Lionheart was blindfolded and trussed up like a hunting trophy slung between two broad men. But he felt the moment they stepped onto the Path. It brought back with painful clarity, even through the pounding of his head, that night on the mountain when he had lost himself in the darkness and wandered in a world not his own.
But there was no Rose Red to call to his aid now. Besides, his mouth was gagged.
He still clutched Una’s ring in his hand, however, and he drew comfort from knowing it was there. Whatever else happened, he had what he’d come for. He’d just have to figure out the rest as he went.
Then the presence of the Dragon drove everything else from his mind.
Fire surrounded Lionheart everywhere, even deep inside himself. Fire and rage.
“Years I have wasted!” the Dragon’s voice boomed like thunder. “Five years and more bound in this incarnate body, pursuing that little beast! She is not the one I seek. But I won the game!”
Then, to Lionheart’s surprise—and somewhat to his horror—he heard the Duke of Shippening respond:
“Whatever, Dragon. I could not care less about your little games. Just tell me if I can gut this joker man here and now, or if I must wait a little longer?”
The blindfold was ripped from Lionheart’s face, and he was tossed, still bound, to his knees. When he struggled upright, he found himself staring up at a being at least seven feet tall, with a face like a skull, skin stretched over the bone in a thin sheet. Black hair fell down his shoulders.
His was the face from the portrait in Oriana’s hall. He was the Dragon.
Lionheart screamed inarticulately and hid his face in his bound hands. Poison filled the air; he breathed in lungsful. It boiled his blood.
“Come, Dragon,” said the duke. “You told me to bring the wretch to you, and bring him I have, alive even, though I had ideas enough in another direction. Tell me, can I kill him now?”
The Dragon snarled and hissed, white lips drawing back across his long black teeth. “Prince Lionheart,” he said. “We meet again.”
“A prince, eh?” said the duke and kicked Lionheart in the side. “Thought he had too much snobbery about him by half. That don’t make me like him any better, though. Is he the little brown prince of Southlands what’s been missing all these years? Fancy that.”
Lionheart could not hear the duke. His head pounded with poison.
But he still clutched Una’s ring.
“You were to be the key,” said the Dragon to Lionheart while ignoring Shippening as one might an irritating housefly.
But the duke persisted. “He freed the slave you gave me. Bold as brass, took off the creature’s collar and liberated it! By rights, he should have been put in a gibbet and left to starve years ago. I’m only asking to make up for lost time.”
“Enough,” said the Dragon, gnashing his teeth at the duke. “You’ve done your work, bringing him to me. Now cease your babble before I forget our alliance and have you for a late supper.”