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  The Dragon’s Son

  Dragonvarld Book 2

  Margaret Weis

  To Bayne and Bette Perrin, with a daughter’s love and respect

  PROLOGUE

  MELISANDE CLOSED HER EYES. SHE DREW IN A LABORED breath, breathed it out in a sigh. The twisted grimace of pain relaxed, smoothed. Her head lolled on the pillow. Her eyes opened, stared at Bel-lona, but they did not see her. Their gaze was fixed and empty.

  Bellona gave an anguished cry.

  Beneath the bed, the two babies lay in a pool of their mother’s blood and wailed as if they knew.

  Melisande’s sons.

  One of them human, born of love and magic.

  One of them half-human and half-dragon, born of evil.

  Both of them hidden away. One in plain view for all the world to see. One in the tangled forest of a grieving and embittered heart.

  None of this had turned out as any of the dragons had planned.

  “Killing the mother was folly,” raved Grald, the dragon father of the half-human son. “Your women were supposed to capture her, bring her to me. She was unusually strong in the dragon magic, as proven by the fact that she bore my son and both she and the babe survived. I could have continued to make use of her, to breed more like her.”

  “You have found others who are serving the same purpose. As for Melisande, she was unusually strong,” Maristara stated coldly. “The threat she posed far outweighed her usefulness. She was the sole human on this earth who knew the truth about the Mistress of Dragons.”

  “A threat she posed to you,” Grald grumbled.

  “A threat to me is a threat to us both,” Maristara returned. “Without the children of Seth, you would have no city, no subjects, no army.”

  “We do not yet have an army.”

  “We will. Our plans can go forward now that Melisande has been removed,” said Maristara, with a dig and a twist of a mental claw.

  “What about the Parliament?”

  “The Parliament of Dragons will do what it has done for a thousand years. Talk and debate. Decide not to decide. Then fly back to their safe and secret lairs and go to sleep.”

  “And the walker. Draconas.” Grald growled the name and mumbled over it, as if it were a bone the dragon would like very much to chew. “You must concede that he is—or could be—a threat.”

  “That is true and we will deal with him, but all in good time. As he so cleverly arranged it, he is our only link to the children— the sons of Melisande. Your son in particular. Kill him and we kill any chance of finding them. Besides, if he were to suddenly turn up dead, think of the uproar. The Parliament might actually be inclined to do something. Best to lull them into complacency. Let the Parliament slumber and let Draconas walk the world on his two human legs.”

  “So long as we keep track of where those human legs of his take him,” said Grald.

  “That is a given,” agreed Maristara.

  Draconas heard two babies crying. Not an unusual sound for human ears to hear, for every second that passed on earth was heralded by a baby’s cry, as some woman somewhere brought forth new life. The cries of babies might be said to be the song of the stars.

  What was unusual was that Draconas—the walker, the dragon who had taken human form—heard the cries of these two babies in his mind. The babes themselves were far away, but the dragon blood in both linked them, all three, together.

  He stood beside the cairn he had raised over the body of their mother and listened to the wails and spoke to her, who would never hear the cries of those she had brought into the world.

  “There are some of my kind who believe it would have been better if your children were now lying dead in your arms, Melisande. Better for us. Better for them. In that instance, we dragons could yawn and roll over and go back to sleep and wake again in a thousand years. But, the children lived and so does the danger from those who brought all this about. We dragons must remain awake and vigilant. Your children were born of blood and death, Melisande, and I believe that is a portent.”

  He placed his hand upon the cold stone and wrote in flames of magic the words:

  Melisande

  Mistress of Dragons

  Picking up his walking staff, Draconas left the tomb. The cries of the babies sounded loud in his mind until each fell asleep, and the wails died away.

  1

  BELLONA SENT THE BOY OUT TO CHECK HIS RABBIT SNARES. THIS was one chore he never minded, for he was always hungry. When he found that he’d caught nothing, he was only mildly disappointed. He did not have to worry about his next meal this day. Bellona had brought down a fat doe the week before and there would be fresh meat in the house for some time to come. His mind was not on food. Today was the boy’s birthday and he was preoccupied with the memory of what had happened this morning.

  He’d experienced five birthdays up to now. Today made the sixth. He remembered clearly his last three birthdays and he might have been able to remember the birthday before that, but he could not be certain if he was actually remembering the birthday or if he had formed the memory out of those birthdays that had come since.

  The boy dreaded his birthday and looked forward to it, all at the same time. He dreaded the day for the awful solemnity that attended it. He looked forward to the day, too, for on his birthday, Bellona would sit him down and speak with him directly, an unusual occurrence. There were just the two of them—the boy and the woman—but there was little communication between them. The two would sometimes go for days without saying more than a few words to each other.

  At night, especially in the winter, when darkness came so early that neither of them was ready for sleep, Bellona would tell stories of ancient days, ancient warriors, ancient battles, ancient honor and death. The boy never felt as though she was talking to him when she told these stories, however. It was more as if she was talking to them, those who had died. Either that, or talking to herself, as if she was the same audience.

  On his birthday, however, Bellona talked to him, to the boy, and although the words were terrible to hear, he valued them and held them close to him all the rest of the year, because on his day they were his words and belonged to no one else.

  The boy had an imperfect sense of time. He had no need to count the days or months and he remembered the years only because of this one day. He and Bellona lived deep within the forest, isolated and alone, just the two of them. The passage of time for the boy was marked by gentle rain and the return of birdsong, the hot sun of summer, falling leaves, and, after that, snow and bitter cold. Bellona counted the days, however, and he always knew when his birthday was coming, for she would begin to make ready their dwelling in order to receive the special guest.

  Bellona always kept the dwelling neat, for she could not abide disorder. She kept their dwelling in repair, working to make it dry during the spring rains and the summer thunder and warm during the harsh winter. Beyond that, she paid scant attention to it, for she was rarely inside it. Four walls stifled her, she said. She could not breathe inside them. She would often sleep outside, wrapped in her blanket, lying across the door.

  The boy slept inside. He had a liking for walls and a roof and snug darkness. His favorite place in the world, apart from their dwelling, was a cave he had discovered located about a half mile from the dwelling. He visited the cave often, whenever he could escape from his chores. He felt safe in the cave, secure, and he would come there to hide away. He had come to the cave now, to think about his birthday.

  Yesterday, the day before his birthday, Bellona swept the floor of their one-room hut, then laid down the fresh green rushes he’d gathered from the marsh. She cleaned the ashes from the fireplace and sent him to the stream to wash up the two wooden bowls and two horn spoons, the
two eating knives and the two pewter mugs. She shook the dried grass out of the pallet on which he slept and burned it and stuffed it with fresh. She cleared away her tools and the arrows she had been tying from the table, which was one of only three pieces of handmade furniture in the hut. The furniture was not very well made. She was a warrior, she said, not a carpenter. The table wobbled on uneven legs. There was a tipsy chair for her and a low stool for him, a stool that he was fast outgrowing.

  Her cleaning done, Bellona stood inside the small hut, her hands on her hips, and looked around with satisfaction.

  “All is ready for you, Melisande,” Bellona said. “We are here.”

  That night, the night before his birthday, Bellona remained inside the hut, keeping watch. Whenever he woke, which was often, for he was too nervous to sleep, he saw her lying on her side, her dark eyes fixed on the dying embers, the embers glowing in her eyes.

  That morning, first thing, she sent him out to gather flowers. He knew how important the flowers were to her and they had become important for him, too, as being part of the ritual of this day, and he had taken to searching out places where grew the spring wildflowers, in order that he would be prepared.

  He brought back two fistfuls of the bright blue flowers known by the peculiar name of squill, some dogtooth violets and bleeding heart. He gave them to Bellona, who dunked them in one of the two bowls that she had filled with water. She then set the flowers on the table, and sat in the chair. He squatted on his stool. His claws scraped the floor nervously, bruising the rushes and filling the air with a sweet smell of green and growing things. Bellona looked at him, also something special. On other days, she cast him a glance now and then and only when necessary. The sight of him pained her. He had once assumed he knew why she couldn’t stand to look at him, but he had found out on his last birthday that he’d been wrong.

  She would look at him today. She would also touch him. Her look and her touch made this day doubly special, doubly awful. He waited, tensely, for the moment.

  “Enter, Melisande. You are welcome,” Bellona called. The first rays of the morning sun slid in through the chinks in the wooden logs and stole in through the open door. “You have come to see your son and here he is, waiting to do you honor.

  “Ven.” Bellona turned her gaze full upon him. “Come to me. Let your mother see how you have grown.”

  Yen’s mother, Melisande, was dead. She had died on the day of his birth. Her death and his birth were tangled together, though Ven did not understand how. He knew better than to ask. He had learned, long ago, that Bellona had little patience for questions.

  Ven stood up. His claws made scraping noises as he walked across the dirt floor and he was conscious of the sounds his claws made in the silence that was fragrant, smelled of the flowers and the bruised rushes. He was conscious of the sound because he knew Bellona was conscious of it. On this day she heard it, when on other days she could ignore it.

  Ven saw himself reflected in her dark eyes, the only time in the year he would ever see himself there. He saw a face that was much like the face of other children, except that his face had forgotten how to smile. He saw blue eyes that were fearless, for Bellona had taught him that fear was something he must master. He saw fair hair that his mother cut short, hacking savagely at it with her knife, as if it hurt her. He saw the arms of a child, stronger than most, for he was expected to earn his way in the world. He saw the body of a child, slender now that he had lost his baby fat, his ribs visible beneath sun-browned skin.

  And he saw, in her eyes, his legs. His legs were not the legs of any human child ever born upon this earth. His legs, from the groin down, were the legs of a beast—hunched at the knee, covered all over in glittering blue scales; his long toes ending in sharp claws.

  Ven walked up to Bellona. She rested her hands on his shoulders, and pinched them hard, to make him stand as straight as he could, given his hunched legs. She reached out a hand that was callused and rough to brush the fair hair out of his eyes. She looked at him, looked at him long, and he saw pain twist her stern mouth and deepen the darkness of her eyes.

  “Here is your boy, Melisande. Here is Ven. Bid your mother greeting, Ven.”

  “Greeting, Mother,” said Ven, low and solemn.

  “This day six years ago you were born, Ven,” said Bellona. “For you, this day began in blood and ended in fire. For your mother, this day began in pain and ended in death. I promised her, as she lay dying on this day, six years ago, that I would take her son and raise him and keep him safe. You see, Melisande, that I have kept my vow.”

  Outside the door, a bird sang to its mate. A squirrel chattered and a fox barked. The wind rustled the leaves. Creeping through the open door, a breath brushed Ven softly on the cheek.

  “What is your name?” Bellona asked him, beginning her catechism.

  “Ven,” answered the boy. He didn’t like this part.

  “Your true name,” Bellona said, frowning.

  “Vengeance,” he replied reluctantly.

  “Vengeance,” she repeated.

  Leaning near, she placed her lips upon his forehead in the ritual kiss that she gave him once a year, her gift to him on his birthday. Her lips were rough, like her hands, and the kiss was cool and dry and dispassionate, yet he would feel it all the year long, feel the memory of it. This, too, he would hold close to him.

  “Let your soul rest easy, Melisande,” said Bellona. “Go back to sleep.”

  She let her hands fall from him, took her eyes away from him. Her gaze rested on the flowers and she was sad and far distant.

  “You have the rabbit snares to check, Ven. And,” she added unexpectedly, “tomorrow we’re traveling to the Fairfield faire. We have furs to barter.”

  He froze the way the rabbits froze whenever he came near. He hated the faire. Once a year, they went to either Fairfield or another town for Bellona to barter fur pelts, exchanging them for salt and flour and tools and whatever else they needed, which wasn’t much. At the faire were the children who looked like Ven from the waist up, but were not like him from the waist down. And though Bellona hid his beast’s legs beneath long woolen breeches and a long woolen tunic and hid his clawed feet inside leather boots, she could not hide the fact that he did not walk as did other children.

  “I don’t want to go,” he said to her that morning, the morning of his birthday. “I want to stay here. I’ll be all right on my own.”

  He hoped for a moment she might let him, for there was a thoughtful look on her face instead of the scowl of displeasure that he expected. At length, however, she shook her head.

  “No. You have to come. I need your help.”

  That might be true, but that wasn’t the reason. She was making him go to torture him, to test him. She was always testing him. Tests to make him strong. He was angry at her and his anger blazed red in his mind and he said words he was surprised to hear.

  “Today is my birthday. You made me greet my mother. Why is it I never greet my father?”

  Bellona looked at him again—twice in one day—but this time he could not see himself in her eyes. He saw fury.

  She struck him with her open hand, struck him a blow that knocked him in a heap to the dirt floor. He tasted blood in his mouth and the green smell of the rushes.

  Ven picked himself up. His ears rang and his head hurt. Blood dribbled from his lip and he spit out a baby tooth that had been loose anyway. He did not cry, for tears were a weakness. He looked at her and she looked at him. He understood about his father then. Ven didn’t know how he understood, but he did. He turned and ran out, his claws tearing the rushes.

  He checked the rabbit snares, which were empty, and then came to this place, his place, the cave, where he felt safe, secure. He thought about his mother, who had given him his face—the face that pained Bellona to look upon because she had loved Ven’s mother dearly and grieved her deeply and she blamed Ven for her loss. And, not for the first time in his life, Ven thought about his father.
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  The father, who had given him his legs—the legs of a beast— and who was the reason for his name.

  2

  VEN SPENT THE DAY IN THE CAVE. BELLONA WOULD NOT miss him. He was free to do what he liked during the day, so long as he completed his chores. The rule was to be home by sunset. The one time he broke that rule, ventured too far away, so that he was late coming back, Bellona whipped him with a willow branch, then made him stand in the middle of the room all night. If he started to slump or doze off, she flicked him with the branch.

  The cave was not a large one, to Yen’s disappointment, for he often saw visions in his mind of vast caverns with enormous chambers and labyrinthine passages to be endlessly explored. Sometimes, at night, if Ven couldn’t sleep or if the snarl of the wild cat or the snuffling and pawing of a bear around their hut woke him, he would imagine he was curled up safely in the darkest, deepest depths of his cave, so that no one in the world could ever, ever find him. Not even his mother.

  Yen’s cave had only one chamber and had apparently been used by a bear taking its long sleep in the winter. Last fall, Ven had been certain that the bear would return to claim it and he had prepared himself to defend it, for under Bellona’s tutelage he was already a deft hand with a small bow. Fortunately for him and for the bear, the animal had smelled his strange and vaguely terrifying scent and sought another refuge, leaving Ven in sole possession of the cave.

  Screened by a heavy stand of trees and a jumble of rock, the cave was always in shadow. Ven loved the darkness, for it was not dark to him. For him, darkness was filled with vibrant colors, wild and clashing and dazzling, that blazed across his mind. Alone, safe and protected by the darkness, he could close his eyes and watch the colors, touch them, handle them, shape them, as Bellona shaped the arrowheads or planed the arrow’s shaft.

  He played with the colors on this day, his birthday. He tossed the colors into the air and caught them as they fell. He used the colors to form an image of his mother, Melisande, giving her his face, for Bellona had told him last year on his birthday that he had his mother’s face.