The Seventh Sigil Read online

  He sped through the smoke-filled air like a rocket, turning his body at the last moment to aim at the guns and the open gun ports. When he raked the cannons with fire, flames burst through the gun ports and explosions rocked the warship. Elated, Petard spun around in midair and just for fun snapped a yard off the mizzenmast. Stephano shook his head, but he signaled to Petard that he had done a good job.

  Hroal’s strength was starting to flag. Blood was dripping from his jaws.

  “Hroal, stop. Let Viola take over,” Stephano ordered.

  Hroal eyed the sleek, slender dragon and gave a snort.

  “Too puny. Bird bones.”

  Hroal cast a fierce, pleading look at Stephano. “Great honor, Captain. Won’t let you down.”

  Viola, hearing this, turned to look at Stephano, begging him to order Hroal to quit the battle.

  The blood was flowing freely from the dragon’s horrific wounds. Every flap of his wings cost Hroal a great effort. Yet he persevered, making no complaint. Indeed, he was doing his damnedest to hide his pain. Stephano remembered the flash of pride in the old dragon’s eyes when he had been given this assignment. All his life, Hroal had wanted to fly into battle with the Brigade. He may well have taken his death wound in this fight. If so, he had made his choice of how he wanted to die.

  “Carry on, Hroal,” Stephano said curtly.

  He ignored Viola’s pleading eyes. She was young; she would learn.

  Droal, on the other side of the massive ship, eyed Hroal worriedly and shifted his position to take over the greater share of the ship’s weight.

  “Hurt? How bad?” Droal called worriedly.

  “Keep working,” Hroal growled. “Lord Captain watching.”

  They had only a short distance farther to carry the ship; once they had it in position over the temple, Viola, Hroal, and Droal would turn their flaming breath on the ship and send it crashing down onto the temple dome. Parts of the ship were already on fire. The captain must have given the order to abandon ship, because sailors, including the captain, were jumping into the lifeboats and setting sail.

  Stephano let them escape. His task was to stop the drumming. He shifted in the saddle, looking to the west, where he thought he heard cannon fire. He could not see the enemy ship. He guessed that it was attacking the fort.

  He knew the frustration of needing to be in two places at once. The task at hand could not be hurried. The dragon brothers were moving the huge ship as fast as possible, faster than he had reason to expect, given that one was severely wounded. Looking again to the west he concluded that yes, that was definitely cannon fire.

  Below him the square was empty. Buildings hit by debris were burning. Soldiers massed around the temple, which was located on the north end of the plaza. Miri had told the rebels the temple would be a target, warned them to keep their distance. From inside the temple, the drums thundered, pounding until he thought the sound might drive him mad.

  He could feel a shudder of pain ripple through Viola’s body, see her grit her teeth. The drumming was having a debilitating effect on her and all the dragons.

  He put the spyglass to his eye and shifted in the saddle, trying to observe the battle. His view was obscured by smoke rolling off the burning ships and by the roiling clouds of another storm, wielding its own weapons of wind and rain and deadly lightning.

  Eyeing the storm’s advance, Stephano judged they had maybe a half hour before its full fury broke. He concentrated on the fighting; once the storm was fully upon them the dragons would have a much more difficult time of it. But for now, they were doing damage to the enemy. The warship Petard had attacked was sinking, trailing smoke and fire. He spotted Dag and Verdi in the thick of the battle, along with Petard and two other dragons, fighting one of the larger warships. A green beam lanced out, illuminating the smoke with an ominous glow. A rain squall mingled with the smoke blocked the dragons from view. He stared until his eyes started to ache with the strain, but the smoke was too thick for him to see what had happened.

  Stephano looked down. He and the dragons were close to their destination. The ship was almost in position. With no other enemy ships near, he decided to leave. He could trust Droal and Hroal to follow through. All they had to do was haul the ship a little farther, then destroy the lift tanks and drop it on the temple.

  He was about to tell Droal, when a powerful explosion tore through the merchant ship, upending his world. The shockwave struck Viola and flipped her, head over tail. Stephano hung upside down, held in the saddle by nothing more than the leather straps. Blood rushed to his head and the straps dug painfully into his legs. Just when he feared the straps would break, Viola flew into the roll, as she had been taught, and managed to right herself.

  Stephano clung to the saddle. Dizzy and light-headed, and gasping for breath, he watched his plan to destroy the temple go up in flames.

  The merchant ship was now a fire ship, the silk balloons having gone up with a whoosh. Fire danced along the spars, blazed up the masts and rolled over what was left of the deck. The rigging was gone. No wonder the captain and crew had fled, Stephano thought grimly. The hold must have been packed with gunpowder. The ship was sinking and it was coming down in the wrong place.

  The blast had sent both dragon brothers reeling, and Droal had been injured. His neck and chest were bloody, his scales charred, and though he was still airborne, he had lost altitude and was far below, struggling to reach Hroal, who had broken a wing in the blast, and whose head, neck, and chest were covered in blood.

  He looked at his brother and gave a little nod. Droal bellowed, anguished. Viola cried out in horror.

  Hroal lurched toward the fire ship, latched on to the remnants of the hull and with a final, desperate beating of his crippled wings, carried it over the temple. The blazing ship fell, taking Hroal with it.

  The burning ship landed on the temple’s roof. The building imploded and smoke, dust, and fire rolled up in a billowing cloud. Hroal was gone. Droal roared out his grief and then hung listlessly in the sky, gazing down at the blazing ruin that had become his brother’s funeral pyre.

  They had accomplished their mission. Stephano was free to leave, to fly to see if the fortress was under attack. He did not need Viola’s agonized look to tell him that he could not fly off and leave Droal here by himself. Then there was the battle still raging in the skies. He could see little through the smoke and rain squalls: purple flashes of lightning, green beams and fireballs, orange flames. Dragons wheeled amid the clouds and ships sank, trailing fire. Yet Stephano could not tell if they were winning a glorious victory or going down in ignominious defeat.

  He forced himself to wait precious minutes until he at last located Dag and Verdi.

  “Sergeant Droal!” Stephano called.

  The bereft dragon did not reply or even look up. He was slowly sinking, his wings barely moving. He might well follow his brother. Stephano and Viola flew close, hovered near.

  “Sergeant Droal!” Stephano shouted angrily.

  The dragon turned his head to look up at him.

  “Your brother died a hero,” Stephano said. “His name will be honored in the rolls of heroes of the Brigade. But this fight is not over! Lives hang in the balance. I need you to carry a message to Lieutenant Dag.”

  Droal blinked, and for a moment Stephano feared he had lost him. Then the massive dragon’s head snapped up. Blood covered his chest and neck, his scales were burned, but he was still flying.

  “Sad later. Duty now.”

  Stephano smiled. “Tell the lieutenant an enemy ship is attacking the fortress and I’m going to go help them.”

  “Yes, Captain!” Droal hesitated, then added, “Thank you, Captain. Hroal died proud.”

  The dragon soared into the midst of the storm and the raging battle.

  Stephano gave his orders to Viola; as they flew toward the fortress he thought of Rodrigo. He would be terrified; Master Tutillo, the boy who wanted to be a dragon rider, had never been in combat before; Mir
i and Gythe were there, too; and so were his mother and the Princess Sophia, who would be looking to the fortress as a safe haven.

  “Fly as fast as you can!” Stephano ordered Viola.

  He hunkered down in the saddle as the dragon spread her wings and the wind and rain rushed over him.

  Sad later. Duty now.

  That could be the motto of the Brigade this day.

  39

  In mathematical terms, one could say that the seventh sigil is God plus Man equals Magic. Without the seventh sigil, the equation is Magic divided by Man minus God equals destruction.

  —Father Jacob Northrop, Notes from Prison

  Rodrigo stood on the second story parapet that encircled the fortress just below the bridge that jutted out at a right angle from the side of the beehive-like fort. A single window on the bridge allowed the helmsman to view his surroundings and take readings. Rodrigo’s head was about level with the bottom of the window.

  He examined the construct he and his crew of crafter masons had carved onto the stone wall.

  The fortress already had protective magical constructs designed by Father Antonius, now of the Arcanum. Rodrigo and the masons had been impressed with the priest’s work. Even after all these years, though the magical constructs he had inscribed were weakened—as was happening to all magical constructs these days—they hadn’t been significantly damaged. Indeed, Rodrigo noted that they had survived better than most constructs were surviving these days.

  The crafters were dubious about the new construct, which was extremely simple in design, consisting of a circle formed by the six basic sigils on top and their mirror images on the bottom.

  The masons could not understand why they were told to carve the six sigils backward. Rodrigo had said this was modern thinking, all the rage at court instead of telling them the simple truth, that the constructs were contramagic. If he had told them that, he would have faced a revolt. Rodrigo said the seventh sigil was his own design, a magical theory he was testing.

  The masons had sent their foreman to protest to Captain de Guichen that Rodrigo’s construct wouldn’t work and was, in their professional opinion, a waste of valuable time. Stephano had curtly told them they were to follow Rodrigo’s instructions without question or they would all find themselves reduced in rank and pay. He had been so grim and so formidable that the foreman had retired precipitously. There were no more complaints after that.

  Rodrigo had been so busy trying to repair the damaged constructs in other critical parts of the fortress, such as those that operated the cannons, that he had not had the time to see if the seventh sigil construct was surviving the barrage of contramagic from the drumming. The cannons were now as good as they were ever going to be, which meant they might or might not fire.

  Given the devastating effect the drumming was having on magical constructs throughout the fortress, Rodrigo was concerned about the amount of damage the seventh sigil had sustained. Stephano had ordered him to activate it, on the chance the fortress might come under attack.

  “I don’t think that will happen,” Stephano had said soothingly, seeing Rodrigo go quite pale. “The dragons will keep the Bottom Dwellers occupied; they’ll be fighting for their lives. But since you added the construct in order to protect the bridge, you might check to see if it works.”

  Rodrigo frowned at the construct carved in the wall. Not being able to work the magic with his mind like a savant, he would have to touch the sigil to activate it. He had told the crafters to carve the uppermost sigil in the circle close to the parapet, so that all he had to do was lean over the low wall and put his hand on that sigil.

  He regarded the wet wall with distaste, then heaved a sigh and braced himself, and was about to do his part for king and country by sacrificing his last clean shirt, when he was joined by Master Tutillo, lugging a tarp.

  “I thought you could use this, sir.”

  “Bless you, lad! You know what I need before I need it,” Rodrigo remarked. “Just fling that over the wall, will you?”

  Master Tutillo spread the tarp over the wall.

  “Do you mind if I stay to watch, sir?”

  “Be my guest,” said Rodrigo, studying the construct.

  “What does it do?” Master Tutillo asked, leaning over the roof to see.

  “It is supposed to protect the bridge in case we’re attacked,” said Rodrigo. “Stephano says an attack isn’t the least bit likely, but he thought it well to be prepared.”

  “Good idea,” said Master Tutillo. “If he and Lieutenant Dag and the dragons are all killed, the enemy would throw everything they had at us.”

  Rodrigo stared at the young man in shock.

  “You … you don’t think that’s likely, do you?” Rodrigo asked, shaken.

  “Well, you never know, do you, sir? Just as well to be prepared,” said Master Tutillo cheerfully.

  Rodrigo looked out toward the battle. He couldn’t see much, given the smoke and the first rain squalls of an advancing wizard storm. Sometimes he could see a dragon or an enemy ship, but mostly it was orange fire and green beams flaring among the clouds. Rodrigo had no idea who was winning. He was reminded of the terrible time during the failed revolution when he had waited for Stephano to return from battle. He remembered vividly the news that his friend was lost and presumed dead.

  He shook off the unhappy memory and dropped down flat on the tarp. Stretching out his hand, he touched the very top sigil, which was the sigil of fire done backward. He spoke words of contramagic that Father Jacob had taught him and felt the energy flow through him and into the construct.

  “I’ve never seen anything like that, sir!” said Master Tutillo in awe. “How do you make the magic glow green?”

  “Do you have some magic in you, Master Tutillo?” Rodrigo asked.

  “I’m a fair channeler, sir. Our parish priest wanted me to go to school to study it, but I never wanted to do anything except sail the Breath. My father was captain of the Glow Worm until he got his leg blowed off by a cannonball in the battle of Blue Angel. A captain friend of his offered to take me on. I’ve never seen green magic … Wait!”

  Master Tutillo stared at Rodrigo with wide eyes. “Yes, I have! The weapons those fiends use shoot balls of fire and it’s green! Is that devil magic, sir?”

  “There is no such thing as ‘devil’ magic,” said Rodrigo.

  The working of the magic made him feel better, warmed away the chill of the fear in his gut. He watched as the green contramagic spread from one sigil to the other. He had no need to touch the six magic sigils. He reached down to touch the first magical sigil and spoke the word, “fire.” They all began to glow blue.

  That left only the seventh sigil.

  “The one in the middle is still dark,” said Master Tutillo.

  “That’s stating the bloody obvious,” Rodrigo muttered.

  He had expected the seventh sigil to light up with the others. It was in the center, where he couldn’t reach it. A flaw in his planning, he had to concede.

  “But, damn it, I thought it would work with the others. Why isn’t it? It must be working. The rest of them aren’t devouring each other.”

  Though he did notice they were starting to glow more faintly.

  Rodrigo considered that seventh sigil and gnawed his lip. He rarely took anything in life seriously and that included religion. He enjoyed teasing the deeply devout Dag, who made no secret of the fact that he believed Rodrigo was damned for all eternity.

  When it came to magic, he had always believed that it was rooted in science, and scoffed at those who claimed magic was miraculous. But then Father Jacob had revealed his discovery of the seventh sigil that allowed magic and contramagic to work in harmony, neither destroying the other. Father Jacob had said the seventh sigil was God. Rodrigo was certain he would eventually come up with a scientific explanation, but at the moment he couldn’t.

  “Must I pray over it?” Rodrigo had asked the priest. “No offense, Father, but I haven’t said a p
rayer since I was a prattling lad at Nanny’s knee. I’m afraid God would hear me and burst out into a hearty guffaw.”

  “Say what is in your heart,” Father Jacob had replied, smiling. “God or science. It’s all the same.”

  Rodrigo had his doubts about that. Still, he didn’t seem to have much choice and he had the feeling that if he gave the matter some thought and sorted it all out, the priest might actually be right. Rodrigo nervously considered a prayer that wouldn’t cause God to smite him with a thunderbolt, and he thought of his friends out there in the battle, fighting for their lives. Rodrigo said the words he had said long years ago during that last terrible battle, when he was waiting for Stephano.

  “Bring them home.”

  The seventh sigil began to glow with a shimmering blue-green radiance.

  “You did it, sir!” Master Tutillo cried triumphantly. He looked expectantly at Rodrigo. “What does it do?”

  Rodrigo gazed at the construct. “Damned if I know.”

  “Don’t worry, sir,” said Master Tutillo. “Captain de Guichen and the Dragon Brigade will send those fiends to the bottom of the world. Except I guess we are at the bottom of the world, aren’t we? Never thought about that before. Would you like a cup of tea laced with a little Calvados, sir?”

  “I would love one,” said Rodrigo gratefully. “Except just leave the tea out, will you? I’ll be in my room.”

  Master Tutillo dashed off. The tarp having offered only minimal protection, Rodrigo went to change his muddy, wet shirt. He was walking down the shadowy, dimly lit corridor, heading for his room, when he thought he saw a flash of blue-green light slither along on the wall.

  Rodrigo glanced at it, startled. The light vanished. He shrugged and went back to wondering if he would be able to clean the mud off the lace of his shirt cuffs. A flash of the same color appeared right in front of him, shining from a construct on the interior wall.