Dragon Blood

"You all know the reasons why I have stayed here at Hurog these years past. You probably all know that Jakoven recently called me to Estian. He claimed I was incapable of ruling Hurog and intended that I should prove him right and open a way for him to claim Hurog for the Tallvenish crown."

I paused to let the growl of several of the nobles be heard. Hurog was Shavig, and belonged in Shavig hands, never should it be held by Flatlanders—things like that. I continued before the tide of indignation had a chance to fall.

"It didn't work out as he had pla

Colwick, one of the eastern Shavig holders and the only Shavig lord younger than I, laughed, jumped up from his seat, and said, "I was there. Jakoven sat waiting complacently for his men to bring a stupid lunatic in to display before the court. Ward came in dripping guards off him, leaving them lying about like plucked flowers. He bowed like a courtier and thanked the king for his hospitality." Colwick had something of a case of hero-worship for me; I think he listened to too many hero-songs as a young man.

The smile left his face. He looked around the room, then at me and said, "It was obvious that the king thought he was presenting an idiot before the court. Why was that? What did he do to you?"

The anger in his voice was hot. I pictured in my head what would have happened to Colwick if matters had proceeded as Jakoven had pla

I smiled su

"So you decided to get a little of your own back, Pup?" suggested Orvidin from the back of the room. His voice was a soft thrum that penetrated the shadows of the hall, and everyone turned to him. The aging warrior leaned heavily on a cane. His snow white hair fell unbraided to his waist, a sharp contrast to the iron gray of his short beard. Orvidin was a contemporary of my grandfather's.

"So you took the king's brother home with you to worry Jakoven and lost Iftahar for your uncle," he said.

I nodded my head slowly. "I suppose you could say that Kellen's rescue had something to do with my uncle's loss—yes," I agreed. The tension in the room was taut enough to sing. "Or perhaps after several people had risked everything to help me, the only repayment they asked was to spirit Kellen out of the Asylum where he never should have been in the first place. When they asked this of me, I felt ashamed because I had never thought to demand his release before, even though I knew as well as you that he did not belong there."

Silence echoed in the room. How many of them had given thought to Kellen over the years? Kellen, who had been a quiet, good-natured boy, sentenced to life in a small, dark cell. Had they lied to convince themselves that the fit of illness that Jakoven used to justify his imprisonment of Kellen had been real?

When I felt they'd had time to feel such guilt as they would, I continued. "Both reasons for rescuing Kellen are true. But it is also true that I know Jakoven will not let me or mine hide in peace again. I no longer have the luxury of hiding here in Hurog and hoping the king will forget me again."

"Alizon's rebellion is doomed," I said. I let my gaze sweep across the room and saw agreement in some faces and repressed anger in others. "Or so I thought. But as it turns out, it has never been Alizon's rebellion—it is Kellen's."

I let the murmur of conversation swell for a beat or two, then continued. "So by helping Kellen out of that hellish place—" Someone smiled and I stopped.

"Don't any of you believe the fictions that Jakoven spouts about luxury and good treatment in the Asylum," I said. "I've been there and I wouldn't leave a dog I cared about in the 'gentle' keeping of the men who run the King's Asylum for Noble Embarrassments and Inconveniences."

I'd put too much feeling in it. I would rather have left them believing that all that Jakoven's wizards had done was question me while I played stupid.

I swallowed and continued on in deadly seriousness, my carefully memorized speech forgotten. "So as Orvidin has already speculated, it was entirely self-interest that led me to help Kellen and join in his rebellion. But I believe that it is a self-interest that all Shavigmen share."

I took my tankard off the table and let the sweet water pour down my throat. My uncle gave me a small smile of encouragement that would have been invisible to anyone farther away. I set the empty tankard down, and turned back, trying not to notice the way the sound of the metal tankard hitting the table echoed in the silence of the room.

They want to be convinced, my uncle had said. They'll listen as long as it takes you to do it.

"Let me tell you why it is imperative to your survival that you help us here," I said. "It is the reason that Jakoven will not let my family alone."

I took a deep breath and plunged on. "While I was in the Asylum, I saw Jakoven produce an artifact he found while renovating his castle at Estian: a staff head bearing a dragon with a black gem."

"Are you telling us you think Jakoven found Farsonsbane, Pup?" asked Orvidin.

"I'm telling what I saw," I said. "And I'll tell you that Jakoven told me he found Farsonsbane and I, a wizard, believed him."

"Even so," said someone else. He sat near the eastern Shavig group, but the room was shadowed and I couldn't tell for sure who it was that spoke. "There are no dragons left to activate it."

"Jakoven managed to get the Bane to do something with my blood while he held me," I said. "As soon as I left, he went after one of my half brothers—whom Garranon spirited here."

"You're claiming to be a dragon?" asked Orvidin incredulously, standing up again with such force that the bench he'd sat upon rocked back. "You don't expect us to believe that. I tell you, Pup, I came here ready to throw my support behind Kellen—but I will not abide following a man stupid enough to try to make me swallow a story about a mythological artifact and then compound it by seriously declaring that he bears the blood of dragons." He turned on his heel and gestured to his supporters, who rose noisily to follow him.

I'd hoped no one would draw attention to the reason my blood awakened the Bane. I had pla

The role I'd been assigned this night had been a deliberate attempt to remind those here of our Shavig heritage. I'd come before them as Hurogmeten and not wizard. Duraugh's speech did not mention the Bane at all. As I talked, I'd come to believe that the Council had to know what it was they were facing. Too late I realized that the Hurog warrior I'd shown them was so prosaic it made it impossible for them to accept the Bane and dragons. Myths belong in the darkness, in wild woods, in mages dressed in fantastic garb—not to a too-large man dressed in plain clothes.

"I never claimed to be a dragon," I said, my voice still audible even over the clatter. "Only a Hurog."

But it wasn't my voice that stopped Orvidin. Out of the flickering shadows left by the torchlights, a dragon coalesced in the large walkway that ran from the lord's dais where I sat to the outside doors on the far side of the great hallway.

I glanced at the table where Oreg had been, and sure enough, he was gone.