Mistress of Dragons Read online

  “I have her!” Edward called to Draconas, hastening across the chamber, moving rapidly toward the wall and the place on the floor where his glove lay. “Someone is following us—”

  Edward glanced down at the woman and his voice suddenly seized in his throat. She had come, all unexpectedly, to life. Her eyes were open and they were dark and filled with fire and the reflection of his face. He saw no fear in her unblinking eyes, only a strange and impassive calm that was unnerving, made his skin crawl.

  “Madame,” he stammered, his wits scattered, “Madame, I am not going to harm you. Please believe me—”

  “Melisande,” the elderly woman said, “are you here?”

  “I am here, Mistress,” said another voice, low and sweet and terrible.

  Baffled and confused, still holding onto the elderly woman, Edward turned.

  Pale beauty gleamed in the firelight. Eyes of blue flame and rain sparkled. A face of oval ivory, pure cut, chiseled smooth, touched with carnelian and rose, was drenched in water, freezing to ice. Her face. The face in the topaz. Melisande.

  He stared, confounded, unable to speak or move. The young woman said nothing. The elderly woman was silent. Three hearts beat away the seconds, then, suddenly, the door slammed shut. Edward started at the sound. His nerves were unraveling.

  Melisande glanced over her shoulder at the door, but then swiftly shifted her blue-flame gaze back to him. “Release the Mistress,” she commanded. The words of explanation Edward longed to say grew tangled in smoky perfume and wet tendrils of long fair hair, conflicting thoughts of assassins and magic, insane monks and false nuns and holy quests and somewhere, long ago, the tale of a wild witch of the wood with whom, if a man fell in love, he was lost forever.

  “Mistress Melisande, I mean, Madame”—his words labored to escape the tangle—”I have no intention of ... that is ... Your Mistress is in danger. I overheard—”

  Melisande made a gesture at once so commanding and so filled with grace that it broke the threads of his thoughts, sent them drifting away like strands of cut cobweb.

  “You have committed sacrilege,” said Melisande, her tone dire. “You have laid your foul hands on the sacred body of our Mistress and that is an unpardonable crime for which you will surely be condemned to death.”

  Edward felt the hot blood suffuse his face. He looked down at the elderly woman in his arms, who had remained quiet through all this, letting her minion deal with the situation. She did not move, she did not even seem to breathe. Her eyes held him in their keeping and he was beginning to grow more and more uneasy.

  He knew himself to be in the right, and yet he felt unaccountably in the wrong. He had to explain himself. He had to warn her and the Mistress that somewhere out there was an assassin. His one worry now was Draconas. Edward didn’t want him interfering, and he cast a swift, sidelong glance at the wall that wasn’t a wall, at his glove lying on the floor. Try as he might, he could not penetrate the illusion. He hoped Draconas saw that glance and took its meaning.

  “I will release your Mistress,” Edward said, temporizing, “if you give me a chance to explain myself. I assure you, I mean her no harm.”

  Melisande, by her raised head and tightened lips, seemed about to refuse.

  It was the Mistress who spoke. “We will hear him,” she said.

  Melisande eyed him balefully. “Lay her upon the floor. Have a care. She is very weak.”

  Edward did as he was told, bending his knee to lay the elderly woman, wrapped in the silken coverlet, gently upon the stone floor of the chamber. As he did so, he placed his hand beneath her head, as when holding a baby, so as not to let her head strike the stone. He looked full into her eyes and he looked into a darkness that was darker than the last night of the last day of the end of the world. In the darkness, he saw a malevolence that was a growing, breathing, living thing, a thing that clamped onto his heart with cold, strong hands and started to squeeze it, so that he found it hard to breathe.

  Shuddering, he shrank back, so horrified that he lost his balance. His leg that was supporting him slipped and he fell onto his knees. He could not take his eyes from the terrible eyes of the old woman. She held him in thrall.

  “Now you will punish him, Melisande,” the Mistress instructed.

  He tore his gaze free of the old woman, looked to the face in the topaz, the face in his dreams.

  Ice-pale, blue-fire, Melisande stretched forth her hands.

  Ropes made of light, flaring purple-white, twisted from her fingers, twined around Edward’s body. Grasping the rope-light, she lifted him up, and flung him against the stone wall.

  Blinding pain burst behind his eyes. He tasted blood in his mouth and felt himself falling into the malevolent darkness of the old woman’s eyes.

  He struggled against it and heard, as he did so, Melisande’s soft voice say softly and anxiously, “Mistress, are you all right? Did he harm you?”

  And he heard a feeble voice reply, “All is well, Melisande. Do not fret. You must see to our assassin. I thought I heard him move.”

  “I will, Mistress. He will trouble you no more.” Pale beauty stood over him. Darkness pounced and devoured.

  13

  ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE ILLUSION, DRACONAS waited in the darkness that for him wasn’t dark, because at last he had some glimmering of the truth. He had to act quickly, for, if he was right, he did not have much time. He knew the illusion was still in place, for he’d seen Edward searching for him. Poor Edward, still fooled by it.

  Other eyes, eyes more knowledgeable than Edward’s, could penetrate it, however, and those eyes must not see him.

  Moving slowly, so as not to draw unwanted attention, he stood up, put his back against the wall. His mind filled itself with the image of the mountain. He wrapped himself in the bones of the mountain. He became the mountain.

  The king lay very close to the illusory wall, so close that Draconas might have reached out to touch him. He did not touch him, not even to see if he was alive or if he was dead. Hidden in his own illusion, Draconas watched and waited.

  Her work done, her magic cast, Melisande hastened back to the Mistress, knelt down beside her.

  The Mistress’s breathing came in shallow, gargling gasps. Every breath seemed a struggle.

  Melisande slid her hand beneath the pitiably thin shoulders, lifted her head, pillowed it on the bunched-up folds of the coverlet. She eased the Mistress back down.

  “The floor is chill. You should not be lying here. Can you stand?”

  The Mistress shook her head. “Let me . . . rest a moment.”

  Melisande was frightened. The Mistress looked so very ill.

  Taking hold of the Mistress’s thin, wrinkled hand, Melisande pressed the hand to her cheek, wet with rainwater and tears of fear and self-reproach.

  “Mistress, I am so sorry. I should have been there to guard you. Forgive me.”

  “Melisande, hush,” whispered the Mistress. She took hold of the soft young hand in her thin, feeble one, caressed the hand gently, as if reveling in its youth and strength. Her gaze wandered in the direction of Edward, but she could not see him. “Is he dead?”

  “Dead or unconscious,” said Melisande, casting the body a brief, uncaring glance. “If he is dead, we are spared the trouble of a trial. If not, he will be brought to justice for his crime. Now, I will carry you back to your room. Then I will summon help—”

  “Not yet, Melisande,” gasped the Mistress, holding onto the hand more tightly, struggling to speak. “First there is something . . . you must do.”

  Melisande was wet and shivering, starting to feel the ill effects of the blood bane. She feared that soon she might be too weak to carry the Mistress and she dared not leave her alone with the assailant. “I will do anything you ask, Mistress, but first, let me move you to where you will be more comfortable—”

  “Do you defy me, Melisande?” asked the Mistress and she seemed more sad than angry.

  “No, Mistress,” Melisande fal
tered. “I am concerned for your welfare.”

  “Then do as I tell you.”

  The Mistress fell back, gasping. Her eyes closed. She lay still a moment, her body so frail that the beating of her heart shook her entire form.

  Her eyes opened, and their dimming gaze wandered past Melisande to the far end of the chamber. “Go to the altar.”

  Melisande glanced uneasily at the body of the assailant. He was still now, but only a moment before she thought she had heard him stir, give a muffled groan. He wasn’t dead. She hadn’t killed him. Any moment, he might regain consciousness.

  Melisande rubbed her arms to try to ease her shivering. She was tempted to ignore the Mistress’s commands, which were hardly rational at a time like this, and lift her up despite her protests and carry her to her room. She would then summon Bellona, who would know how to deal with the situation. Melisande had never wanted her lover’s strength more than now.

  “Melisande,” said the Mistress, her feeble voice sharpening. “What I ask of you is important. Go to the altar.”

  All her life, Melisande had obeyed the commands of the Mistress, obeyed out of love and respect, not out of fear. She could not now disobey, especially as this command might be the Mistress’s last.

  Melisande kissed the Mistress’s hand, laid it across her breast. She cast one final, hard look at the man. He lay still. Maybe that groan had been his last. Satisfied that for the moment, at least, he posed no threat, Melisande walked to the back of the chamber, where the marble altar stood.

  The Mistress had barely strength enough to turn her head. Her eyes were the only part of her that seemed alive and they followed Melisande’s every movement, a hunger burning in them. The Eye carved into the floor watched, too.

  Arriving at the altar, Melisande knelt in front of it, on her blanket, where she was accustomed to kneel. She staggered as she sank down. Shock and fatigue and the blood bane were combining to weaken her. She closed her eyes, clasped her hands together tightly, and prayed a small prayer for herself, asking for strength.

  “I am here at the altar, Mistress,” said Melisande, keeping her voice from shaking through a great effort of will. “What is it you would have me do?”

  “Ask no questions, Melisande,” said the Mistress. She sounded eager, impatient. “Do exactly as I command you. Stand up and go into the alcove behind the altar.”

  Melisande turned to regard the Mistress in wonder. She felt vaguely uneasy, though she could not tell why. The Mistress did not sound like herself.

  “Stand up,” said the Mistress insistently, “and go into the alcove.”

  Melisande rose unsteadily, not certain she had heard right. “Only the Mistress of Dragons may enter the alcove—”

  “And you will be Mistress soon, won’t you, Melisande. Do as I tell you.”

  Troubled, Melisande did as she was bade. From when she had first entered this chamber as a novitiate ten years before, she had viewed the mysterious and shadowy alcove behind the altar as the most holy place in the world, sacred and sacrosanct, awful and wonderful. When she had dared to dream that one day she might become Mistress, she had allowed herself to dream of what it would be like to come back here, to walk up the three stairs that separated the alcove from the rest of the chamber, to move past the burning brazier, to take her place at the altar, to look out over the faces of the sisters gathered around the Eye, faces that looked to her with trust and confidence.

  This was not the moment she had dreamed. There was something wrong, something ghastly. She was not the Mistress. She had no right to be here. Melisande moved slowly, reluctantly, hoping that the Mistress would change her mind and order her to halt. Her foot on the first stair, Melisande turned around.

  “Mistress, please. It is not right. Let me take you back—”

  “Proceed, Melisande,” said the Mistress and her voice was iron-cold and iron-sharp.

  Sighing deeply, trying to reassure herself that this could not be sacrilege, for the Mistress herself had ordered it and the Mistress was wise in all things, Melisande climbed the three stairs and entered the alcove.

  The light of the brazier could not penetrate the shadows that had been here when the alcove was hollowed out of the rock hundreds of years ago. The shadows were cool and dark and did not threaten, but they did not welcome either. Melisande sought for the holy peace that must reside here, but she could not find it. The shadows seemed like hounds, waiting to leap on her at their master’s bidding.

  “Nonsense,” she said to herself. “It is only a fancy of the sickness.”

  She was no longer shivering, but hot with fever. She turned to face the Mistress, found herself looking into the Eye. It was huge and all-encompassing, and it stared straight at her.

  Melisande leaned her elbows on the altar, clasped her hands and rested her burning forehead against them. She had to be strong. If she collapsed, the Mistress would be alone and helpless.

  “Mistress,” said Melisande, “forgive my weakness, but I am not well. Let me go—”

  “You will be well, Melisande,” said the Mistress. “Well and young and strong and invincible. Open the sarcophagus.”

  “There is no sarcophagus, Mistress,” Melisande said. Her heart ached with pity. She saw now that the Mistress had slipped into the delusional state that came sometimes to the very old. “There is only the marble altar. I am going to take you back to your room now—”

  The Mistress sprang to her feet. The silken coverlet spilled from around her shoulders and lay in a gold-threaded puddle around her bare ankles. Her thin body quivered with intensity.

  “You are not Mistress yet, Melisande!” she cried and there was something terrible in her tone. “Obey me.”

  Melisande’s throat constricted. Her mouth went dry. If this was madness, it might be best to humor it, lest the Mistress would come to more harm in her unnatural excitement.

  “Very well, Mistress. I will lift the lid of the ... sarcophagus.”

  Melisande spread her hands upon the top of the marble altar, examined it searchingly. The altar was long and narrow and it did have the look of a tomb, though she had never noticed that until now. Perhaps that is what had put this idea into the Mistress’s enfeebled mind. The top of the altar might well be a covering, for its marble rim overlapped the main part. She looked up, to find the Mistress’s eyes on her.

  “The lid is heavy,” said the Mistress, “but if you push hard, using both hands, you can move it.”

  If this was madness, it spoke with the voice of reason. Queasy with a fear to which she could put no name, Melisande placed both hands upon the top of the stone altar and shoved, hard, as the Mistress had told her. The top moved.

  Melisande’s hands shook. Her mouth dried up, her palms were wet with sweat. She felt sick and was afraid she might pass out.

  “Push harder,” said the Mistress.

  “No, Mistress, please,” pleaded Melisande, a prey to terror.

  “Open it!”

  With the last of her strength, Melisande shoved. The marble lid moved, grating, grinding.

  Within was darkness, deep and endless as the final darkness that closes our eyes, never to open them. Air wafted cool, but with a strange smell, not musty or dank, as of a tomb, but a horrible smell of fresh blood. Melisande gagged and would have drawn back, away from death and the smell of blood, but she could not move.

  Fear gripped her, held her fast.

  The marble lid slid open of its own volition. Shuddering, unwilling, but unable to help herself, Melisande looked into the tomb.

  The Mistress stared back at her.

  A shudder of horror drove through Melisande’s body. She could not scream or make a sound. She gripped the altar for support or she would have fallen.

  The Mistress lay inside the tomb. Her face was the same beloved face that Melisande had known all her life, lined with the passing of the years, but on that face was an expression of indescribable torment and agony. The smell of fresh blood came from the gaping, hid
eous wound in the woman’s chest.

  Her heart had been torn out of her body. Yet, by some power, the Mistress lived.

  The eyes that stared into Melisande’s were horrifyingly aware. The woman’s hands were clenched to fists to endure the unending pain. The mouth gaped wide in a scream that could never be heard. She could not move. She could not cry out. She could not breathe. Yet she could not die.

  How long had she lain here like this? How long had she been a prisoner in the unending darkness, a prisoner of pain and terror?

  Melisande lifted her frightened gaze to the living Mistress, who was now approaching her, moving closer and closer, and Melisande knew the time had been long, very long. Years and years of agony, endless darkness, unbearable loneliness, fear.

  The Mistress held in her hand a golden locket. One of Melisande’s earliest memories was wanting to touch and fondle that beautiful locket.

  “You are wondering what I did with her heart. Her heart is in here, Melisande,” said the Mistress, moving closer. “When I open the locket, she will die.”

  “What are you?” Melisande cried, clinging to the tomb, life clinging to death. “Who are you?”

  “I am you, Melisande,” said the Mistress softly. Her hand reached out to her, to her beating heart. “Or I soon will be.”

  The hand of flesh withered away, became a claw—a claw glistening with scales, its talons sharp and shining.

  A dragon’s claw.

  14

  EDWARD STIRRED AND GROANED. HIS HANDS twitched. From the other side of his illusion, Draconas whispered harshly, “Keep still!”

  His head aching and his wits befuddled, Edward readily obeyed the command. He pressed his cheek against the cold stone, closed his eyes to the flaring light, and willed the dizziness and nausea to pass. He listened to the two women speak casually, callously of his death. He was in danger, but he did not have the vaguest notion how or why.

  He had a hazy recollection of what had happened to him, though none of it made sense. Slender, delicate fingers, from which burst forth arcing streams of radiant light that burned his flesh and clothes, sent tingling jolts through his bloodstream. He might not have believed it, but he could feel the burns on his skin.