The Dragonstone (18 page)

“Good.” Lysanne leaned back in her soft, padded chair and steepled her fingers. “I want you to return to that night in the glade when you saw the vision.”

Arin shifted uneasily and her breathing sharpened.

“It is all right, Dara,” soothed Lysanne. “I am here, as is Aiko, and nothing evil is at hand.”

There came the whisper of steel being drawn as Aiko slid her swords from their scabbards. “I will protect you, my Lady.”

Lysanne frowned at the yellow warrior, but Arin
seemed to relax slightly, though her breathing was yet sharp.

“What do you see and hear, Dara?”

“I see the flames. I hear the horns.”

“Horns?”

“The hunting horns. I know the stag now runs.”

“Ah.” Lysanne nodded. “I understand. But now, Dara, I would have you move forward in time, to when the hunt is done and the hunters returned, to when the vision comes. Tell me now what you see.”

“Blood.”

“Blood?”

“The slain stag is bleeding.”

“And…?”

“And I look away, into the flames.—Oh, oh, oh.” Arin began weeping and her breath came in harsh gasps.

Lysanne leaned forward and took Arin’s hand and winced in pain at her grip. “Stay calm, my dear. Stay calm.”

But Arin squeezed tighter and called out, “Oh, Adon, let it not be.”

“Dara Arin?”

“Slaughter. Bloody slaughter.”

“Dara Arin!”

“Dragons…”

“Dara, listen to me!”

“Oh, the children. Oh, oh, oh…I cannot, I cannot, I cannot…”

Now Lysanne called out sharply, “Lady Arin, listen to me! Step beyond these vile seeings, past the slaughter, past the famine, past the disease, past the pestilence. Find a place of calm.”

Arin jerked her head one way, then another, and back and forth again. “There is, there is no, no place.”

“Then listen to me, Arin. Listen to my voice. Hear me. Time stands still! All is frozen in a single moment! Nothing moves! Nothing at all. Nothing. It is arrested as if in a painting, as if in tapestry.”

Gradually, Arin slowed her thrashing until she was still, though she continued breathing in rapid puffs. She
relaxed her grip, but Lysanne did not take her own bruised hand away.

“Arin, I want you to step past these frozen images until you come to that place where you could endure no more of these sights, where your mind and soul had to flee from the seeing of them. Go to the place where the vision you told to the Council comes to an end, but go no further, for here it is we would see that which was heretofore forgotten by you.”

Arin groaned. “Horror,” she murmured. “Between here and there.”

“Past them, Dara, past them. To the end of your clear telling.”

Again Arin moaned, and it seemed as though she were laboring to cross rugged land. At last her breathing slowed.

“Have you come to the place where your remembered vision ends?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Heed me, I want you to tell me what you see.”

Arin did not speak.

“Tell me,” demanded Lysanne.

Arin shook her head and muttered, “Nothing. I see nothing. All is darkness.”

“Darkness?”

“Aye.”

“And you see nothing whatsoever?”

“Nothing.”

Lost in thought, Lysanne glanced ’round the room, unperceiving. Now she turned back to Arin. “Are there memories from this darkness?”

Arin’s breathing increased. “Yes.”

“Memories of what?”

“Something. A voice, runes, knowledge, I don’t know.”

Lysanne leaned forward and placed a hand to Arin’s forehead.
“Recodare!”
she demanded.

Arin sat up and her eyes snapped open, but they were focused on a point beyond time and space. And in a voice hardly her own she intoned:

And then Arin slumped forward as Lysanne caught her, the Dylvana unconscious to the world.

A
nd that is the whole of the rede?” asked Sage Arilla. “Yes,” replied Lysanne. “Or so I think.” She glanced at Arin.

The Dylvana nodded. “I remember it all, now. Why I forgot it, I cannot say.”

“Chide not thyself, Arin,” said Rissa. “It was a grim vision. Enough to shake all souls.”

“Rissa is right, Dara Arin,” concurred Lysanne. “When the vision first came upon you, it was too much for your soul to bear, and that’s why you fled from it and did not remember all. Yet listen to me, whether or not I helped you to recover that which was hidden, you would have succeeded on your own, given time.”

“Mayhap time is what we have little of,” said Vanidar Silverleaf.

“Perhaps it is too late even now,” agreed Arin glumly.

Lysanne sighed. “Wild magic is vexing.”

Rissa turned to her and frowned. “Vexing?”

Lysanne nodded. “This vision of Lady Arin’s—wild magic does not tell us when it is to happen. The vision could tell of events occurring at this very moment, or that which is soon to occur, or that which might occur ten thousand years in the future.”

Arin held out a negating palm. “We cannot gamble on the chance that the doom lies years in the future, for if we are wrong the consequences are too great. Instead we must believe that even now events are moving apace. Else why would the vision have come to me now?”

Lysanne turned up her hands, for she had no answer to Arin’s question.

They sat in a cluster of comfortable chairs in the
common room of the guest quarters, the Elves and the two Mages. The Ryodoan warrior, Aiko, sat against a wall some distance from them and directly behind Arin.

“But the rede,” said Perin, “what does it mean?”

“A complete mystery, that,” added Biren.

Lysanne shook her head. “No, Alor Biren, not a complete mystery. Even now there is some we can glean from it, but not all.”

Melor looked at the white-haired Mage and said, “I agree.”

Biren turned to Melor. “And that is…?”

“Yes, do tell,” added Perin.

Melor shrugged, then said, “Dara Arin has been given a mission.”

“Mission?” asked Biren.

“To do what?” asked Perin.

“To find the Jaded Soul,” said Melor.

Both Lysanne and Sage Arilla nodded in accord.

Biren glanced from one to the other. “And this so-called Jaded Soul…?”

“The Green Stone of Xian,” said Arilla.

“The Dragonstone,” said Lysanne.

“Hmm,” mused Perin.

“But why would it be called the Jaded Soul?” asked Biren.

“It looks like jade,” replied Perin.

“Mayhap there’s more to it than that,” responded Biren.

“And mayhap not,” said Perin.

Arin took a deep breath and exhaled. “If we only knew something of the stone and why the Dragons fear it.”

“There is a legend,” came a voice from behind. It was Aiko. She sat in a lotus position, her back against the wall, her eyes closed.

Arin turned about. “Legend, Aiko?”

Aiko opened her dark, almond eyes. “To the west and north of Ryodo lies an ancient land called Moko. The
soshoku
of Moko, all
onna,
say one day a
mahotsukai yushi odatemono
will come and will bear the mark of the Dragon. He will lead the people of Moko in conquest of all the world. And he will possess a mighty talisman and Dragons shall bow to his will.”

Arin held out a hand to stay Aiko’s voice. “Aiko, thou didst use words in a tongue I speak not.”

“Forgive me, my Lady.” Aiko paused in reflection, then said, “Ah. Yes. ‘The
soshoku
of Moko are all
onna,’
means, the priesthood of Moko are all women; and a
mahotsukai yushi odatemono
is a Mage warrior-king.”

Arilla said, “And the people of Moko believe that a Mage warrior-king will one day lead them in the conquest of the world, and he will have Dragons at his command?”

“Forget not the talisman,” said Lysanne. “It could be the Dragonstone.”

“The missing Dragonstone,” growled Rissa.

Lysanne nodded and looked at Aiko, but the Ryodoan warrior shrugged and said, “If the legend is true.”

“Perhaps it is just fancy,” said Biren.

“Mage warrior-king or no,” said Perin, “we’ve got to find the Dragonstone and keep it from the hands of those who would use it for ill, whatever it may do.” He turned to Arin. “Where will we start? In Moko?”

Vanidar Silverleaf leapt to his feet and paced back and forth in agitation; he clenched his fists white-knuckle tight and he shook his head in ire. “Perin,” he gritted, “
we
do not start at all.”

“Not start at all?” asked Biren, shocked. “Whatever dost thou mean, Vanidar?”

Silverleaf stopped and turned, his gaze sweeping over everyone there. “The rede. Arin’s rede. If we go with her, she will fail.”

“What?” barked Ruar.

Silverleaf looked at Arin. “Say the rede again, Dara.”

Arin spoke quietly:

Now Silverleaf turned to the others. “Heed the words of her vision: ‘Take these with thee, no more, no less, else thou wilt fail to find the Jaded Soul.’

“Dara Arin’s mission is to find the Jaded Soul, and she must take with her only those who meet the terms of the rede and none else. And although I know not the answer to the conundrum of her vision, this I can say: not a single person among us suits the riddle of the rede.”

“Not true,” called Aiko. All eyes turned her way. She had a peculiar look on her face, something akin to guilt, as she stood and moved to come before Arin. Aiko knelt at Arin’s feet and lowered her gaze and would not meet the Dylvana’s eyes. Then she buried her face in her hands and lowered her head to the floor in shame, and her voice could but barely be heard. “Forgive me, my Lady, but this you must know: I am the cat who fell from grace.”

A
rin leaned down and took Aiko by the shoulders and raised her to a kneeling position, but the Ryodoan kept her eyes downcast and would not meet the Dylvana’s gaze.

Perin said, “Aiko, thou art no cat.”

“Aye,” added Biren. “How couldst thou be the cat of Dara Arin’s vision, the cat who fell from grace?”

Her eyes focused on the floor, Aiko bleakly said, “I betrayed my father.”

*   *   *

Hiroko died giving birth to Aiko, and Armsmaster Kurita was left with the care of her, his only child. Grieving, he departed the
shiro
of Lord Yodama and took his newborn and household to live in his home in the Kumotta Mountains.

The Armsmaster had always wanted a son to follow the warrior tradition, and in spite of the fact that Aiko was a girl and in spite of the law of the land, he raised her in the ways of
senso o suru hito.
He taught her the bow and stave and spear, and the way of the two swords; he taught her the throwing of daggers and of shiruken, the riding of horses and the ways of the lance; and he taught her the art of unarmed combat as well—for in Lord Yodama’s shiro, Kurita had been master and mentor in all these things.

When she had reached but sixteen summers, war came unto the province, and a messenger rode to the mountain, and Kurita once again donned his armor to fight at the side of Lord Yodama. He rode away that day and left his daughter behind.

Yet the moment he was out of sight, Aiko donned her own armor, leather and scaled with brass, and took up her
weapons and mounted her horse and followed slowly after, her face hidden behind a silken mask.

She rode down to the valleys below and overtook her father’s
rentai
marching in the army north to meet the foe, and she merged her horse into Lord Yodama’s Red Tiger cavalry ranks.

The men of the mounted regiment said nought as they were joined by this anonymous youth, for it was the custom of untried young men to come to war wearing silken masks so that no dishonor would fall upon them or their families should their services to the Warlord prove to be undistinguished in any way. Yet should they show valor in battle, then according to form the mask would be ceremoniously removed and the warrior and his family honored. Regardless, at least for now Aiko remained anonymous as Yodama’s brigades passed across the land.

In the days that followed, Aiko was careful never to expose herself to the men when she relieved herself or when she washed or bathed, else they would discover she was female.

At last Yodama’s army came face to face with Hirota’s, and they amassed in drawn up ranks on opposite sides of a shallow valley, a sparkling stream coursing through at the bottom, a stream which soon would run red.

In the first battle with Hirota’s army, Aiko was a savage reaper, for her father had taught her well.

In the second battle, she and three others broke through a ring of the foe and rescued the entrapped Lord Yodama himself. She and Yodama were the only ones to escape alive, and this primarily because of her flashing steel.

In the ceremony that followed, Aiko did not remove her silken mask even though it was custom. Lord Yodama was surprised at her desire to remain anonymous, yet in the historical past others had also retained their masks, and so Lord Yodama did not insist. Instead he named her to the Order of the Red Tiger and sent her to the tent of the
onna-mahotsukai
and commanded the witch to give this warrior his requisite tattoo. This Aiko could not refuse.