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Written by Alioqui
Dawn brought peace as well as the sun, at least for Djairad Arykh. And more importantly, for Lizen. His sister was awake--her sleep was always restless--and already standing at the window, curtains flung open to let in the dim morning light. He had had it barred years ago, and her pale, slender hands curled around the metal rods. She had been eleven when she had gotten lost. She and Djairad had been walking to the Bazaar of the Patchwork Roof. They couldn't afford anything there, of course, but they loved to wander among the stalls and exclaim over the more exotic items--which, to be counted as such in Shazrad, were exotic indeed. "Do you think the wooden animals will still be there?" she asked him, eyes bright with excitement. "Why, which one did you like the best?" He grinned down at her, knowing the answer already. "The dragon, of course! You know that!" Her expression was scornful. He pretended to consider. "Well, love, you might have changed your mind." "Never!" She began to skip. "It was so pretty! But the metal ones, the real ones, they're even prettier." He couldn't disagree with that. The graceful mechanical creatures still made him catch his breath whenever he came close to one. "Maybe you'll grow up to join the House of the Watching Dragon," he teased. "I will! You'll see!" He let go of Lizen's hand to cover his smile just as they were turning a corner. Lizen never made it to the other side. He had frantically searched every part of the city that he knew. Then places that he didn't know. There were places he'd dared not go until he thought of Lizen being there. But she wasn't. He didn't know whether to be relieved or even more worried. He was lucky in that his anxious inquiries earned him nothing worse than insults. But they yielded no answers, either. No one had seen a girl of her description, and a few even gave him sympathetic looks before turning away. Many people lived their entire lives without encountering Shazrad's Veils. And often they were minor incidents: taking one stride and discovering five paces had been stepped over, instead; being turned east instead of north or south instead of west. And he had always heard wilder tales, of course, but had dismissed them as nothing more. If I had believed...would this not have happened? he wondered forlornly. It was dark as he returned to the tiny place he and Lizen had called home. Another long, fruitless day. He fixed in his mind the words he would use for prayer that evening, to beg that he might find her tomorrow. Something stirred in the corner. Djairad fumbled for his knife, praying to the star-eyed god that he would not have to use it. The person whimpered and he realized who the tiny, battered figure was. "Lizen!" He rushed to her and caught her in his arms, almost weeping with joy. She was back. She pushed at him. Her voice was shrill. "Who are you?" "It's me, Djairad. Your brother. I'm so sorry, love. Where have you been?" He took a good look at her ragged clothes and dirt-smudged cheeks. "Are you all right?" Lizen stared at him. Her eyes were wide, and strangely blank. There was no hint of recognition. He felt his heart begin to crumble. Her mind had already done so; her body was back, but some part of her had been lost forever. He cherished what he had. He would never know what had happened to make it so, and that grief was always both old and new. He had tried to get her to make prayer with him that first evening, but she had refused and even become violent. But the next morning, when dragons sang, she had become strangely docile. After they ended, she had returned to her childlike ways. It was a daily pattern now. He worried, sometimes, about the way she made prayer only once a day instead of twice, but the star-eyed god could be merciful. His priests were the ones who cared for Lizen during the day. There were some, he understood, who brought their mind-broken relatives to the temple and simply left them there without ever seeing them again, and it shocked him that they could so harshly ignore the ties of family. He spent what time he could with her, and brought her home every night so that she might be in a place that had once been familiar. During the day, however, he was busy. And so he took Lizen to the temple after finally coaxing her to stand and walk on her own. She still dragged her feet, and he patiently let her do so, glad at least that she was not throwing a tantrum. When they neared the temple and she began to run, he was so startled that several moments passed before he followed after her. She was running toward the temple rather than away-- No. Toward the wall beside the temple courtyard, where a dragon perched. This one was silver with amethyst eyes, and its voice was richer than honey and lighter than the breath Djairad dared not release as his sister ran to it and began to babble excitedly. "You are the little one who was hidden by Veils," it said, bending its neck to look more closely at her. He could not seem to move. Lizen reached daringly upward. The dragon did not react to her gesture, instead turning its head to look at Djairad. "Is she in your care?" He swallowed. He had never thought to hear one of them speak, and certainly not to him. "Yes. Ever since...since ten years ago, she has been like that. Are you the one who returned her?" His voice seemed harsh and coarse after its own. It ignored him and began to croon to Lizen. She wore the same ecstatic expression that she did at dawn, when the dragons sang. No wonder she had found peace in the sound. Not in her brother's presence, which had been so profoundly lacking during those days of whatever she had gone through. "It is the only thing that comforts her," he dared to say. "Dragonsong." "I am disinclined to remain here and serenade her all day," it said. It reared back, spreading its wings, and sprang aloft. Lizen gazed after it wistfully. Djairad hadn't been asking for such a thing...hoping for it, yes, but he would not dared to have presumed such a suggestion. But still, even the brief meeting with the dragon seemed to have subdued Lizen, and she went with him meekly to the temple and did not protest when he handed her into a priest's care. His next steps led him toward the Bazaar; usually he was wise enough to stay away from there, but he felt reckless this morning. A dragon had spoken to him. A dragon had gentled Lizen. It was a rare day. He did not even taste the bit of bread that the priest had given him out of pity as he gnawed on it, his mind leaping forward to other things. Although still early, a crowd was already gathering about the stalls. He joined it, became part of it. As a potential customer he was respectfully greeted and urged to inspect the goods. He sniffed jasmine oil, inspected the keenness of a blade, touched a gauzy shawl that rippled under his hands like a river, and smiled at the good-natured curses at when he shook his head and moved away. He didn't know what he was looking for until he found it. Delicate animals, carved out of a dark wood, were set out for viewing. Birds' feathers and the strands of horses' manes were caught in delicate detail. In the corner of the stall was a dragon lifting its wings. Its jaws were parted, in song, of course. He moved to the other side of the stall and picked up a leaping dolphin. "This might do for a seafaring friend," he mused aloud. "How much?" The bargaining was long and loud. By the time Djairad threw up his arms in disgust and stalked away, he had drawn several other people to look at the carvings. As he pushed his way through, the carver had already transferred his attention to one of them. Djairad made sure to pass by the end of the stall where the dragon was. His hand flickered out, and he deftly palmed the tiny statuette before moving away. Not food, nothing that he could sell, but perhaps it would bring a smile to Lizen's face. He did not feel in the least bit foolish until a grip caught his wrist. "Off to find another mark?" came a cool voice, low for a woman's, but unmistakable for anything else with its richness. He raised his head and faced her squarely: a woman who matched his height, with a lean figure and a sword curving down along her thigh from her hip. He summoned belligerence to his manner despite the panic nibbling at his thoughts. "I am off," he said, trying to jerk his hand back, "to find a merchant who does not charge such exorbitant prices as this one." He thrust his chin back the way he had come. Her light brown eyes studied him from a strong-boned face. "You wouldn't pay in any case," she said bluntly. She tightened her fingers, and with a gasp, Djairad opened his fingers to reveal the carved dragon. She plucked it from his grasp and tucked it into her belt pouch. "I'll return this. But this--" Another squeeze to his wrist. "--I'm afraid I can't." Desperately, he reached for his dagger, but she forestalled that movement by catching his other hand. She was not a large woman, but she possessed a wiry strength. As any warrior of the House of the Crescent Sword would not be as weak as a scrawny, underfed thief. So it was little difficulty that she dragged him, struggling, to the chopping block in the center of the Bazaar. There was an increasing quiet as people began to notice. They always gave a wide berth to the block, but now they drew back even further, although after a certain point they lingered out of some unwilling fascination. Guards seized him and flattened his arm against the block. Djairad tried to fight them off as well as the sobs that rose. One clamped a hand around his throat and he tried to pry it off as he frantically sought air, but growing darkness finally overcame him like a hammer blow. They slapped him awake. His head snapped to one side under the force of their palms, and so he saw the axe as it moved upward, than sliced downward through air, through flesh, and through bone. He screamed, then and once again when they thrust the stump of his arm into pitch. And after that, when he pulled away, they let him. It was dark when he roused, and he was glad for that. At least there was a different reason he might not be able to see his right hand. Not that the pain would let him doubt. He moaned softly against that terrible agony where his hand should have been. The Bazaar was deserted, and the chill of the ground spurred him to try to get up. He moved awkwardly to his feet, realizing only now how much he had depended on pushing down against the ground to perform such a simple action. Djairad took a step toward home, then hesitated. Lizel would be at the temple. If he went to get her, the priests would see his hand--or its lack--and know that he was not a beggar, as he had led them to believe, but a thief. Would they drive her out as well? Perhaps he should leave her there. He could no longer care for her, anyway. He had barely been able to provide for them by selling stolen goods. Now, not even that was possible. "Guardian of the little one." He remembered that voice, like molten metal. He turned and met the amethyst gaze of the dragon. "I thought you wanted nothing to do with me," he said bitterly. "Nothing to do with the young one. I have duties to the House." He could not curl the fingers of his right hand into a fist, and that pain, along with his anger, made him burst out with his next words. "So go and do them." "I am doing one," it said, with little patience. "Listen closely. I am not the only dragon, and there may be another that would be willing to ease your sister's pain. Will you bargain?" He could not afford pride. He bent his head and whispered, "Yes. What do you want?" I have nothing to give. "You are offered a place--a very certain place--in the House. And the little one will receive what she needs. You will be in a position to ensure that." He could not hide his disbelief. "A House wants me? A one-handed thief?" His voice rose, and there was something like laughter threatening to burst out of him, although he felt no humor at all. "Your crippled body is no matter. You will belong to the House of the Watching Dragon. It will consume your life." To anyone else he could have snorted incredulously and turned away from the taunting. But this was a dragon. There was no doubt that the offer indeed came from a genuine House. "And what will I do?" he asked with the remnants of caution remaining to him. "That you will not learn until after you agree," the dragon said. Djairad remembered how once Lizen had wanted to join this House. And oddly, that decided him. "I will give myself to the House," he said. "Mind and crippled body and all, whatever I can offer." "More than you believe," it said, then, "Come." It did not look back. It took him a few moments to catch up with his wonder, and then with it. The stars above seemed bright with hope. A rare day, a rare night. He marveled at how his life had changed, as surely as if he had passed through a Veil. She woke to dragonsong these days, falling about her as sweetly as rain. A fleeting smile crossed her face as she rose and went to the window, which was empty of bars and gave her a clear view of the gleaming, midnight-blue dragon that perched on the wall outside. There was something she was supposed to do... Hesitantly at first, but with growing confidence, she knelt and began to praise a god she only dimly remembered. Far brighter in her memories was a face, weary but kind, and a gentle, tender voice that she would follow. Gone now, for far too long. Lizen broke off in mid-word, stood again, and gazed out at the window. The dragon was singing still, but its head moved so that its aqua eyes could look at her. It never spoke to her, but it sang every morning and evening, cradling her in those moments between wakefulness and deep sleep when dreams were wont to come. And she could recall a time when this was all she had wanted. She looked upward, to the eyes of the god, and quietly finished her prayer. "I want my brother," she said to the star-eyed god, but the morning had already stolen away the sight of the holy stars. A breeze ventured near and touched her face. Light warmed her shoulders where there was no arm to do so. The dragon sang on. <shazrad@cityofveils.com> |
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