Dragon Blood

8—WARDWICK

What you do when no one is watching reveals your true character.

Day by day I was failing, hour by hour it was harder to ride the pain. The greater portion of the panic gripping me had nothing to do with the herbs in the water I drank; I lost hope.

Oreg, where are you?

Sometimes the demons brought me back to my cell when the morning sun trickled through the small, grated window far above me. I would stare at the pale light on the straw because the window hurt my eyes. In my more cognizant moments I realized they weren't letting me sleep.

At some point I quit eating the food they left, but I managed to remember that the water was important, and I gagged it down before crawling to my straw cave.

I could tell it was almost time for the monsters by the relative clearness of my thoughts. The door opened and I tried to pretend I wasn't there, burrowing into the straw until they couldn't find me.

But it wasn't the usual monsters, because the door shut, leaving the intruder caged with me. The break in routine was frightening and the resulting adrenaline rush sent me to my feet.

A woman stood just inside the door in a plain woolen robe. In her right hand she held a wooden rake.

"Tisala." The small voice spoke for the first time in a long time, but it was virtually lost in the sea of terror that drowned me. It hadn't taken long to learn that anything new was bad.

She walked in tentatively, a horrible creature with seven heads who was going to poison me with the tears that tracked down her face. I scuttled away from her as far as I could, but she kept coming.

"Tis," I said, though I hadn't pla

She backed away then, and left me to my safe haven while she raked out the straw that didn't belong to my nest. I stood glued to the far wall, shaking.

When she left, I wept as she had, but I didn't know why. I didn't stop until the monsters came again.

They held my head under the water this time, but I didn't struggle because Jade Eyes told me not to. I held my breath until I passed out. Then they—and I—did it again.

This was something new, and in my drugged exhaustion it seemed perfectly sane to peer through the depths of the water and look for … safety, sanity, I don't know what. It seemed to me that I could see it just on the outside of my vision.

"See what?" Jade Eyes asked, after I awoke coughing and choking the second time.

I blinked at him like an idiot; even after four years, the mask of stupidity I wore throughout my youth was more at home on my face than not. Tosten liked to tease me about it.

Tosten. Hurog.

"Something to fill the hole in me," I said, realizing after I said it that it was true. I rolled off the wet bench and back into the water without help this time.

Hurog, I thought Dragon, come take me.

Dragon claws snatched at me, dragon magic, filled me for a moment. I knew this dragon.

"Oreg!" I screamed underwater.

Then between one instant and the next it was gone, and the hole that separation from Hurog always left inside me was all the emptier for having once been filled. It was infinitely worse than the pain in my head, and some part of me believed that I would never be whole again. That this time they would succeed in taking Hurog from me.

A hand, not dragon claws, hauled me out of the water and strapped me down to the table in the center of the room.

"Did you feel that? asked Jade Eyes excitedly to his fellow mage. "That's what his magic felt like on the trip over here. Have you ever felt anything like it?"

I cried for Oreg's loss. Even in the state I was in, I realized that Oreg had tried to rescue me—and he'd failed. There would be no rescue. And if Oreg couldn't rescue me, no one could.

"It was unusual," said Arten. "But Jakoven was firm that we break him. I think we've done it. The drugs should be mostly out of his system and he still threw himself into the water that last time. I suppose he might be trying to kill himself, but that flare of magic …"

"He was looking for something," said Jade Eyes, petting my forehead. "Weren't you, Ward?"

His voice was so soft and soothing, I couldn't help but reply. "Dragons," I said, sobbing out the words. "The dragon is gone."

Arten nodded abruptly. "I'll be back with Jakoven," he said. "Amuse yourself until I return at his convenience. Don't take him back to his cell. I'll tell Jakoven you've managed to re-create the effect you noticed bringing him here. But I think he's impatient to get on with his plans." On those words he left me alone with Jade Eyes.

Amuse himself Jade Eyes did. And it was different this time. The knowledge that not even Oreg could get me out had broken some hard core of resistance. The thin veneer, the shadow of my old mask that I wore to protect myself, crumbled completely and there was nothing left to save me. I screamed when the pain flamed through my body, robbing me of all control. I sobbed for it to stop, then sobbed and shook when it did and the pain was replaced by caressing hands. I wished fervently for the pain rather than the sure knowledge that it would begin again, and over and over I received my wish.

It was during one of the «rest» periods that Jakoven finally came. I didn't hear him enter, didn't notice him until he struck me lightly on the face.

"Ah, Ward, my boy. Good to see you," he said.

I stared at him blankly, far past worrying about the newly familiar smells that accompanied Jade Eyes entertainments: feces and urine, blood and sweat. Nor was I concerned about the tears that continued to slide down my cheeks, though I was aware that all of these things would once have embarrassed me—especially the tears.

"Hurogs don't cry." It was not my i

I think Jakoven thought the heat in my eyes was directed at him, not realizing I was almost beyond recognizing who he was.

"Do you know why you are here?"

No, I thought. "Hurog," I said in a voice so hoarse and deep that it must have been difficult to understand. Then the tissues of my throat, swollen from screaming, closed up, and I couldn't utter another word.

Jakoven looked away from me and said, "Leave us. Stay, Jade Eyes."

The room emptied. I hadn't realized until then that there was anyone else in it but the king, Jade Eyes, and me, but a number of mage robes passed by my eye.

When they were gone, Jakoven pulled up a stool and sat by my head so I could see him. The Tallvenish king who ruled the Five Kingdoms including my own Shavig was, in many ways, the epitome of what a king should be. His voice was rich and carrying, the kind of voice that could encourage armies in battle. His face was regular without being handsome—the face of a general, perhaps, or a … well, a king.

"Arten tells me that you've amazed my Jade Eyes, who thinks you've happened upon a new form of magic." The king shook his head with a kingly smile. "He's young yet, and hasn't met many self-taught mages—as I have." He reached out with a clean white cloth and wiped my cheeks, but I continued to cry without knowing why. "When a mage teaches himself magic, he has little control, leaking power he should capture and use. Your father really should have sent you out for training. I doubt you even know when you set up your magic guardian to watch your sleep—that's what gives it the feeling of sentience he received."

"But—" protested Jade Eyes.

"Quiet, my lad. You're young yet and convinced you know all the answers. I know the guardian spell is advanced—but someone thought it up once. I imagine they did it in much the same way our young friend here did. Poor boy." He crooned to me and kissed me.