Books of Barakhai - The Beasts of Barakhai Part 28

Prinivere continued, "There were fewer people then, and they all lived within and around a single city, ruled by a kind and intelligent king named Laras.h.i.+an Elrados. He made peace with the dragons. Men could no longer hunt us for sport, and the city would welcome our visits. In return, they donated a portionof their crops, hunts, and animals to the oldest and youngest of us. Favors became as common as conflicts once were. It was not unknown for a dragon to carry someone on his back or to heal an injured man. And the people would help us with thorns and burrs, with flotsam caught beneath our scales, and they educated us about the ways of their civilization. To seal the accord, the dragons presented the king with a powerful talisman, a stone that could amplify magic. Though the humans could not use its power, did not even understand it, the king recognized that it had momentous significance to the dragons and accepted it with great honor and ceremony."

Prinivere fell silent, and her gaze rolled toward the ceiling. Zylas placed a comforting arm around the frail and sagging shoulders. Collins waited in patient silence for her to continue.

"The peace and friends.h.i.+p lasted throughout Laras.h.i.+an's long and just rule and into his grandson's.

Telemar, too, seemed kind and competent. So, when he requested a closer bond between our families, it seemed reasonable to consider the request. Not all of our kind believed it wise, but our elders finally agreed to allow a dragon to take human form with magic for the purposes of breeding with the king's eldest daughter." Prinivere heaved a sigh filled with ancient pain.

"Why?" Collins found himself saying without thinking. Prinivere had explained the reasons, but they did not seem substantial enough. Kingdoms in his world had sealed accords with royal marriages and even exchanges of children; but he could not see any good coming of s.e.xually comingling intelligent species.

"Why indeed." Prinivere's voice emerged in a puff of hoa.r.s.e breath. "With centuries of hindsight, I believe the king wanted to implant magic into his own line. We had tried to teach them, but people lack something in their life substance that we naturally have."

"Or the reverse."

Wholly jarred from her story, Prinivere stared. "What?"

Under the full and intense scrutiny of both of his companions, Collins suddenly wished he had kept his thoughts to himself. Now did not seem the time for an extensive discussion of inheritance. Few enough species could interbreed, and all of those had common ancestors. Chimps shared about ninety-nine percent of their genetics with humans, yet that last one percent created so many differences. It seemed impossible to imagine that dragons and humans could cross-fertilize. Magic, he reminded himself. Magic.

Still feeling the stares, he explained as simply as possible. "Perhaps humans have something dragons don't, something nature uses to protect them from using magic." Worried his words might sound supremacist, he added, "Because we can't handle it or something." Uncertain whether he had dug himself out or deeper, Collins changed the subject. "Why did the dragons want to do it?"

Prinivere ran with the question, to Collins' relief. "The dragons argued several reasons: that an important ally wanted it, that it would bring our peoples closer, that it would force all humans to see us less as animals. And one must not discount simple curiosity. They made sure the king understood the risks to his daughter. She was more than willing, especially once she saw the handsome, charming, mannered man our Ardinithil became. He stayed that way only long enough to get the job done, however, though she made it clear she would have liked to marry him."

"Dragons don't marry?" Collins guessed.

"We don't call it marriage." Prinivere's green eyes swiveled downward to meet Collins' directly. "But we do pair for life." She closed her eyes in a long blink. "We did pair for life. When more than one of us lived."

Three. Collins opened his mouth but glanced at Zylas before speaking. The rat/man shook his head ever so slightly and mouthed something Collins could not comprehend. He guessed Zylas had not yet discussed the two young dragons in the king's care and had some reason to keep him from doing so as well. It seemed unfair to withhold such important information from Prinivere, but he also knew Zylas always had his ancient ancestor's best interests in mind. When the right time came, he would tell her.

Apparently oblivious, Prinivere returned to her story. "Anyway, Ardinithil could have married her-human lives span so short a time, he would have become free to pair again still in his youth. But he had no wish to return to human form, as she surely would have wanted, so he refused. The king accepted this without obvious malice, and life continued much as it had. Until ..." Prinivere trailed off, clearly lost in bygone thought.Collins looked at Zylas, who shrugged. They sat for several moments in silence. Then Collins ventured a guess, "Until the birth of the baby?"

As if awaiting this cue, Prinivere returned to life. "Yes. The babies."

"Twins?"

"Dragons nearly always have twins. Occasionally singles. Rarely triplets. I once heard of four babies together, but only once in several centuries."

Collins suddenly realized why this particular interbreeding bothered him so much. "Dragons have live-born young?"

Prinivere turned her head toward Zylas, as if to get more coherent explanation for Collins' strange questions. Clearly equally befuddled, Zylas raised one shoulder and tipped his head without speaking.

Prinivere returned her attention to Collins. "Don't all animals have live-born young?"

"Birds lay eggs. Reptiles and amphibians, too." Collins did not know if Barakhains categorized the same way as scientists, so he elaborated, "Turtles, alligators, snakes, frogs." He carefully omitted fish, not wis.h.i.+ng to compare her to a creature they did not consider animal. Dinosaurs.

Zylas cringed, but Prinivere did not seem offended. "Dragons do not lay eggs."

"Oh." That now being obvious, Collins found nothing more to say.

"We have live-born young." Prinivere used Collins' terminology. "Like humans." She rubbed her hands together, looking uncomfortable. "Usually." She folded her fingers in an interlocking pattern, biting her lower lip. "We monitored the pregnancy with magic, and it soon became clear that the babies, both boys, were unhealthy. Usually, we magically ended such pregnancies for the good of our society, the well-being of the parents; but the king refused to give up on them. His attachment to the hybrids became an obsession that changed him, and he would allow nothing and no one to harm them.

"To our leaders' surprise, the unborn gradually regained their health; but they did so at the expense of their mother. Dragons don't sicken as humans do, which is why our healing magic works only on injuries, not diseases. It took our monitors many months to realize what was actually happening. Months pa.s.sed, during which they sensed the babies growing stronger and the mother weaker before they realized the inherent and unconscious evil of the process. The babies were drawing their strength, the very essence of their survival, by draining the life of their mother."

Unlike most Barakhain science, this made sense to Collins. Undernourished women often became ill during pregnancy while the fetus, essentially a parasite, sucked whatever nutrients it could from her blood. No one he knew would consider that process evil, however.

"Once the dragons realized what was happening, they begged the king to allow them to destroy the unborn babies. He refused. For the last few months of the pregnancy, our requests went from wishful to desperate to angry. The king would hear none of it. Even risking the life of his daughter did not seem too high a price for the twins whose very existence he had facilitated for reasons that had once seemed pure and n.o.ble. We explained, we pleaded, we ranted, all to no avail. The twins whom nature intended to be stillborn thrived while the mother meant to lose them lost her own life instead."

Prinivere clambered to her feet, and Zylas scrambled to remain at her side. Her eyes seemed to blaze through their ever-present glaze of water. "The boys looked odd for humans, their eyes too long with oval-shaped pupils, their noses like ..." She placed a hand over her own slitty nostrils. "... well, rather like mine in human form. They had points to their ears, and their skin looked more like dry scales. The humans feared them, and the dragons hated them. But their grandfather adored them. He smothered them with finery and servants, bad-mouthed those who shunned the boys, doted on them to the point of fulfilling their every whim. He demanded that the dragons train the boys in the ways of magic. The dragons, who could sense darkness in their hearts, still felt the boys should die. We refused, re-creating a rift between our societies. The boys grew up deeply spoiled and also deeply embittered."

Prinivere shook herself from head to toe, the movement strangely animal. "The firstborn, Shalas, wanted only to forget what he was, to live his life as a normal human. The second, Shamayas, resented what he should have become. He would watch us flying effortlessly overhead and desperately wished he could spend half his life in dragon form, as he felt he deserved. These desires became as focused and determined as the king's love for his hybrid grandsons, so much so that each developed a single magicalability even without our training. The boys' innate evil, the strong and covetous nature of their wishes, warped them to self-defeating talents. Shalas gained the ability to make others forget, but never himself.

Shamayas could turn other's lives half-animal but not his own."

Collins grimaced at the horrible irony and wished his companions would sit. The story s.h.i.+vered through him like a horror movie, and having the two towering over him only intensified the discomfort.

"So that's how the half-animal transformations came about?"

Prinivere held up a hand, curled like a claw. "Thinking they might find the significance of the dragon's stone, the king gave it to his grandsons. Their terrible powers mightily enhanced, the boys used them in a grander fas.h.i.+on. The first caused the populace to forget. The second inflicted hybrid lives on them, excepting only the king, his queen, and a few others of the royal line who struck their fancy. And, inadvertently, themselves, for they still could not affect what they truly wanted. Greatly desired magics fail on those with evil hearts. In this way, the king of humans achieved ultimate power. Inflicted with the curse, his enemies and subjects could not likely ma.s.s in rebellion. He and his direct descendants would rule forever."

The ability to do such a thing went so far beyond his experience, Collins found it as difficult to accept as he once had his entrance into a world of fantasy. "What exactly did the people forget."

"What came before." Prinivere sank back into her sitting position. Though Zylas remained standing, Collins found himself far more comfortable. "That they had prior lives, ones without the transformation curse. So stories of that time do not trickle down to those alive today. It takes someone like me, someone who was there, to tell it."

Collins realized what had to come next. "What happened to the dragons?"

"Our magic saved us from the effects of the first spell, but we could only temper the second.

Suddenly, we found ourselves involuntarily human for part of every day, and that made us furious. A horde of dragons descended upon the castle. We killed the king and the half-breeds who should never have existed, but we could not reverse the evil they had inflicted without the magnifying crystal. We never found it. The crowned prince declared war against us, and the slaughter began."

Prinivere's eyes grew even more watery, and a tear dragged down her wrinkled cheek. "Armies and bounties-a man could become rich in a day simply by proving he had killed one of us. Our magic helped, but it has its limits. They wore us down and, one by one, they killed us." As she spoke, she sank lower and lower so that she had to glance up to meet Collins' eyes. Clearly, she believed herself finished, but he had to know one more thing.

"Some of you survived."

"One," Zylas said, his voice seeming out of place after his long silence. "Only one."

"They knew our exact number." Prinivere now sounded as feeble as she looked. "We had given them that, the means of our own extermination."

"How?" Collins asked hesitantly. He wanted to know, though it would surely force Prinivere to relive the worst of her memories. "How did you survive?"

"I-" She choked, and Collins closed his eyes, suffering stabbing pangs of guilt for even having asked.

He would never have dared press Joel Goldbaum's grandfather for details of the concentration camp he had narrowly escaped.

Collins said hastily, "Never mind," but Prinivere seemed not to hear him.

' 'One day, my mate staggered to our cave, mortally wounded.'' The tears flowed freely now, thickening her voice. "All my magic couldn't save him; we both knew it. And they had trailed him to the cave. We said our good-byes. Quickly, I cleaned up those wounds that the people could see, gave him as much strength as I could, and he charged from the cave with all the vengeful agony of an aggrieved cave-mate. They killed him- twice. By the time they managed to climb to the cave, I had made myself appear dead as well. They mistook me for their first kill, crawled off to die, and him for the second. They claimed our tail tips, as the bounty required, and left us both for dead."

A heavy silence followed Prinivere's story. Collins could think of nothing better to say. "I'm sorry.

Very very sorry."

Zylas crouched, forestalling the obvious question. "She dared not leave the cave often, barely keptherself alive. She waited until long after the old-age death of the crowned prince and his successor before showing even her human self. She found a good man who claimed he would love her no matter what her switch-form, but she never let him see it. She did bear him twins, then left him to raise them, checking in when she could in human form. Once they had safely grown, becoming acceptable animals at coming-of-age, she mostly disappeared from their lives, watching only from a distance."

Though it sounded harsh, Collins believed he understood the reason. "She aged much more slowly than they did, and she would soon look younger than her own children."

Zylas nodded, "And they might figure out what she was, endangering all of them. But she oversaw their descendants, including, distantly, me. My wife, too, carried Prinivere's bloodline, which explains why our daughter ..." His tone became as strained as Prinivere's.

Collins lowered a head that felt heavy with the ma.s.s of details laid upon him by people he had alternately considered friends and betrayers. He had so much to contemplate: to consider, internalize, or discard.

Zylas studied Collins. As if reading his mind, the albino said softly, "I'm going to lay one more thing on you before we leave you to your thoughts."

Collins met the pale gaze and nodded soberly.

"The king's newest law states that Random unions can no longer occur. Couple that with the previous edicts forbidding certain creatures from breeding as Regulars, and many lines will end. Where you come from, it may not seem like such a bad thing to eliminate rats and mice, snakes and opossums, and other animals you consider vermin. But to us, it's . . . it's . . ."

Collins filled in the word, "Genocide." He sat up straight and tall. "It's genocide, pure and simple. And it's very, very wrong." He could not come up with words strong enough to fit the outrage now rus.h.i.+ng through him.

Zylas gave him a weak smile. "I'm glad you see it our way."

Chapter 19.

THEY left Collins on his own for nearly an hour while the information they had given him swirled through his mind. Despite the quant.i.ty, it all came together with a strange and surprising ease. Zylas and the others had a desperate need and an honest battle that they could not fight without Prinivere's magic enhanced by the missing crystal, and the dragon's great age and frailness made time very short indeed.

His education since elementary school had stressed the inherent fairness and validity of democracy.

Kingdoms and dictators.h.i.+ps did not fit into his view of justice without the moderating influence of parliaments, congresses, and houses. America had been built by rebels; and though the system did not always work smoothly, as the most recent presidential election could attest, he still strongly believed in the underlying tenets of its governmental system.

Running footsteps seized Collins' attention. Worried about security, he lurched to his feet just as Korfius came skidding into the room. He charged Collins with the exuberance of a puppy, then stopped suddenly, as if uncertain what to do next. Wheaten hair fell across his forehead in an untended tousle, and his dark eyes glimmered with excitement.

Collins caught the boy into an embrace, struck by the thinness of his limbs. For an instant, Korfius stiffened. Then, his arms cinched around Collins' waist, and he buried his face in the royal tunic.

Falima came striding in after the boy. "Korfius, you were supposed to-" She broke off as her gaze fell on Collins, and she went utterly silent. She looked at the boy and man enwrapped together, and a smile softened her otherwise pinched features.

Korfius released Collins and took two steps backward. "You're back, Your Majesty."

Collins winced at the lie, finding it suddenly intolerable. "Look, Korfius. I'm not really-"

The boy did not let him finish. "I know. But I still think of you as my prince."

Now knowing what the king of Barakhai had decreed, what at least this portion of the populace thought of him, Collins did not take the words as a compliment.

Falima s.h.i.+fted nervously from foot to foot. Collins almost expected her to whicker before she finally spoke. "I'm sorry, Ben. I ... should have trusted you sooner. Treated you better." Collins was not sure he agreed. "I understand why you didn't." "Still-"

"Still nothing." Collins felt embarra.s.sed by Falima's apology. It would have taken him at least as long to force himself to a.s.sociate with someone he considered a cannibal, let alone to treat him courteously. "I understand. You're a good woman in a bad situation. I know you've had to make a lot of hard choices.

Giving up a life usually reserved for high-ranking Regulars to help a criminal stranger who seemed incompetent couldn't have been easy. I'm sorry I put you in that position." He extended his arms.

Falima moved around Korfius to take her place in Collins' embrace. He folded his grip around her, enjoying the warm softness of her. After the scrawny boy, she felt so substantial, so real. A rush of joy overpowered him momentarily, and the world narrowed to the two of them.

When Falima stepped back, Collins realized Zylas had also entered the cavern, quietly leaning against a craggy wall near the entrance. Dressed in his standard black, eyes eclipsed by his broad-brimmed hat,he wore a bold look of determination. A knife as long as a short sword hung at his waist. "May I a.s.sume from this you've forgiven one another?"

Collins' brow furrowed. "I wasn't aware we were fighting."

Zylas shrugged. "When he's out of switch-form, I'll send in Ialin, too."

Collins could not help picturing the glare of withering mistrust Ialin always wore in his presence. "I doubt you'll catch us hugging."

Zylas raised and lowered his brows, then nodded fatalistically. "Probably not." He flipped something into the air. Torchlight sheened from its surface as it spun toward Falima, and Collins recognized it as the translation stone. "I'm off."

Falima caught the stone in both hands, then gave Zylas a tortured look.

"Off where?" Collins turned toward Falima to confirm an answer he had not yet even gotten. He could hardly believe Zylas had so casually tossed over his most valued possession. The gesture carried an air of finality.

"To finish the job, of course. To get the crystal."

Collins blinked, confused. "Get the crystal? But it's-" Realization dawned. "You can't go to the castle. They'll kill you."

"Not if they don't catch me."

Collins' expression tightened into a frown. He hoped Falima would read the anxiety he felt. "You can't-"

"I can." Zylas adjusted his hat. "And I don't have a choice." His demeanor turned serious. "I'm sorry I brought you here; and the others, too. It wasn't fair to expect outsiders to risk their lives for us."

Collins started to protest, but Zylas silenced him with a gesture.

"With the first, I didn't realize the danger. Then, I convinced myself I could make changes that would keep them safe, that the significance of what I brought them to do outweighed any threat." Zylas repositioned his hat. "You've convinced me otherwise. I've always been willing to die for the cause.

Others already have. Now, it's just my turn."

Collins did not agree. "Your dying isn't going to accomplish anything." It was not completely true, a.s.suming martyrs inflamed their followers as much in Barakhai as in the only world Collins had considered real until a few days ago.

"Who says I'm going to die?" The question lacked the fort.i.tude required to make the decision seem determined rather than insane. Zylas' earlier bold words contradicted the brave sentiment. They all knew that, alone, he would achieve little but his own demise. "Have some faith in me."

"I did, and I do," Collins insisted. "Enough to expect you not to run off alone and half-c.o.c.ked on a suicide mission."

That brought a smile. "You know, when I'm not holding the translation stone, you make a lot less sense." Almost immediately, the grin wilted and disappeared. "There's something you need to know, Ben.

Something I should have told you sooner."

Now seemed as good a time as any for confessions. Collins braced himself for another horrible revelation.

"I told you Vernon and I have entered your world as a mouse and as a rat. You know that, once there, we don't switch forms."

"The Law of Conservation of Ma.s.s and Energy."