"No," he knelt in front of her, so she could better see his face. All his life he was acting, but now he wanted the masks he wore to slip away. He tried to project sincerity as he spoke. "I mean, yes, I'll give up trying to seduce you. I want you here because you're smart and you're brave and you're tough. Maybe you don't feel like a human, but you're a better human than me. I need you beside me at the summit."

"Aren't you up to the job?"

Pet took a long, deep breath, then shook his head. "No," he said. "We both know I'm a fraud. You're right-I did nothing to win the battle of the Free City. Two prophets, Ragnar and Kamon, rallied their followers to fight for me; they did all the work. And, you're right about Vendevorex. We would have been slaughtered if he hadn't shown up. My sole contribution to the battle was to stand before the crowd and look heroic."

"Yeah," she said. "You do look the part."

Pet grinned. He couldn't believe she'd finally given him a compliment! He returned to his attempt at sincere confession. "We both know I'm the worst person imaginable to have at that table. I've spent my life trying to please sun-dragons. I'm worse than a slave. I've lived as a sun-dragon's pet."

Jandra shook her head. "I'm no better," she said. "I grew up feeling like the daughter of a dragon. I've never known any human family. I'm told my parents are dead, but does that mean I'm all alone? What if I have sisters, or a brother, or even grandparents still alive? The horrible thing is, I wouldn't know what to say to them if they found me. Look at my wardrobe. I dress in gowns with fabrics that resemble the scales of dragons. I braid feathers into my hair to look like the neck fringes of sky-dragons."

"A very fetching look, may I say," Pet said. "You grew up in a palace. You can't be expected to dress in burlap sacks."

"I know. But it's my dreams that frighten me. In my dreams, I'm a dragon. I dream constantly of flying."

"Ah," said Pet. He was bonding with Jandra at last, and he did know something about her particular condition. He reached out and took her hand, cupping it gently with his. "Dreams of flying are usually dreamt by women who are still virgins. They're a symptom of s.e.xual frustration. Perhaps-"

"Perhaps if you leave right now I won't slap you," she said, jerking her hand away.

From the look in her eyes, he could tell she meant it. He stood up, stretching his back. "You can't blame me for trying."

"Just leave," she said, looking down once more at the skull cap. "I was actually starting to feel a little sympathy for you. I should have known it was only another seduction ploy."

Pet turned and walked across the vast and empty room. Flattery hadn't worked on Jandra, lies hadn't gotten him anywhere, and now the truth had failed. For a brief instant, a new and strange thought flickered across his mind: perhaps, if he wished to have her by his side, he should be prepared to accept her as a friend. Instead of constant attempts at seduction, he should simply value her for her fine qualities and welcome her into his life as an equal, or even a superior, rather than as just another conquest. He truly did want her to stand beside him at the upcoming summit. He honestly admired her courage and her convictions. He glanced back across the lonely room. She was standing now, studying herself in a full-length mirror. She was beautiful, slender and virginal, and once more had that vulnerable lost look upon her face. He wanted to say something, but couldn't find the words. When he saw her again, he would work on winning her as a friend. Perhaps then she'd be easier to seduce.

As the door to the star-shaped chamber closed, Jandra looked back over her shoulder. She almost felt like chasing after Pet. He wasn't the best of company, but being alone in this room was painful. to the star-shaped chamber closed, Jandra looked back over her shoulder. She almost felt like chasing after Pet. He wasn't the best of company, but being alone in this room was painful.

For as long as she could remember, this tower had been her home. Once, its walls had been lined with thick, leather-bound tomes and countless parchment scrolls. The interior had been a forest of tables covered with vials and beakers and magnifying lenses of the finest quality.

"The world thinks of what we do as magic," Vendeovorex had told her. "Their ignorance is an important source of our power. We do not manipulate supernatural forces. We move matter and light according to inalterable rules, using tools that must remain invisible to others."

In this room, she'd learned to understand the building blocks of the material world, and the countless ways these blocks could be pulled apart and placed back together. Using her "magic" was an art, a kind of sculpting on the finest scale imaginable.

Of course, all of the tools of teaching were gone now. The king's wicked brother Blasphet had taken command of this tower after he'd been released from the dungeon. He'd turned the room into a torture chamber. Earth-dragons had since cleaned, mopped all the dried blood and gore, and returned Jandra's possessions to their former positions. Now her every step echoed in the vacant chamber. Moonlight seeped through the high windows, painting the marble floors with ghostly shapes. Not that Jandra believed in ghosts. Vendevorex had raised her as a strict materialist, and had always been dismissive of the spiritual world.

"There are indeed realities in this world that cannot be seen," he had said. "We move through a world of fields and forces. We control machines too small for the eyes to discern. We are masters of an unseen world-but the invisible is not the same as the supernatural."

Jandra studied her face in the mirror. In her old life, when she'd looked into this same gla.s.s, she'd been staring at the face of a naive and innocent girl. She'd been through so much since then. She'd nearly died. She'd felt her life slipping between her fingers in warm gushes. What's more, she'd learned to kill. She'd heard the gurgling, wet gasping breaths of a dragon dying by her hands. She closed her eyes, and all the violence of the recent months washed through her mind. She'd learned to fight when she had no strength to fight. She'd learned to live for days in clothes caked and clotted with blood.

She opened her eyes-and found she was still looking into the face of a girl, but a girl who was no longer innocent. She lifted her chin and studied the thin pale line where her throat had been slit. She looked with sorrow at her shoulder-length hair-once it had hung the full length of her back. She'd been forced to cut it to disguise herself. She brushed away the fringe of hair across her scalp that concealed the metal band she had once worn as a tiara. This was a smaller version of Vendevorex's skull cap, a device that allowed her to communicate with the unseen machines that floated by the millions in the air around her. She'd changed her hair to hide it when she'd been a fugitive.

She removed the tiara and placed it on the table.

There was no longer any need to hide who she was.

Indeed, now it was time to proudly announce to the world her true heritage.

She lifted Vendevorex's skull cap and brought it to her brow. Her eyes were locked on their reflection. They were cool hazel circles, devoid of sorrow or joy or hope or fear. They were the same sorts of eyes through which Vendevorex had looked upon the world. She was the inheritor of Vendevorex's power. And, she hoped, she was the inheritor of his wisdom and strength.

She lowered the skull cap onto her head, willing the metal to drape like cloth over the contours of her scalp. She closed her eyes to concentrate on the way the metal felt as it formed a helmet that matched her head and hers alone. Then, with a thought, she willed the malleable metal once more into solid silver.

She opened her eyes, expecting to find herself transformed. Instead, her mouth fell open as she let out a gasp. Behind her in the mirror, his golden eyes gleaming in the dim light of the room, stood Vendevorex.

Blasphet, the Murder G.o.d, woke to the familiar blackness. Since the fiasco of the Free City, Blasphet had been locked in the lowest chamber of the dungeon, his wings, legs, neck, and tail shackled to the bedrock. A dragon with a less vital mind might have been driven mad in the timeless dark. Blasphet philosophically accepted his confinement as an opportunity to contemplate the error of his ways, free from normal distractions. woke to the familiar blackness. Since the fiasco of the Free City, Blasphet had been locked in the lowest chamber of the dungeon, his wings, legs, neck, and tail shackled to the bedrock. A dragon with a less vital mind might have been driven mad in the timeless dark. Blasphet philosophically accepted his confinement as an opportunity to contemplate the error of his ways, free from normal distractions.

Unfortunately, Blasphet still had a few abnormal distractions. When Shandrazel had captured him, he'd known of Blasphet's reputation for concealing poisoned needles and small tools among his feather-scales. He'd unceremoniously plucked Blasphet like an oversized chicken. Now his scales were growing back, with an itch surely unprecedented in all history. To lie in tomblike stillness and be aware of each new feather-scale seeping from its follicle, like a billion tiny insects burrowing from his hide... Was it possible his hatred of Shandrazel was even greater than his hatred of Albekizan?

Albekizan had been the central focus of his hatred for half a century. As those years pa.s.sed, Blasphet had enjoyed a thousand enticing visions of how his brother might suffer. Over the years, his schemes had grown in complexity. Once, he'd imagined sawing off his brother's limbs, then hooking his mouth to a tube and force feeding him for months until Albekizan was a bloated blob. Then he would starve his brother, melting off the fat, reducing him to little more than a skeletal torso draped in an enormous sheet of flesh. Finally, he would cut Albekizan open, breaking and rearranging his bones, wiring and pinning them into the shape of a throne. Blasphet would rein over the kingdom from the living throne of his brother, leisurely looking down upon the former king's plaintive eyes, reveling in the despair he would find in them!

He sighed at the memory, and reminded himself that he was here to learn the error of his ways. His biggest error, he knew, was his need to torment his enemies rather than simply kill them.

For Shandrazel, there were no visions of elaborate torture thrones. He would simply close his jaws around the b.a.s.t.a.r.d and rip his throat out! The thought filled him with a warmth that defeated the chill of the bedrock.

Above, Blasphet heard the creak of a door. Once a day, guards would come to feed him gruel and muck up the pool of filth that Blasphet had excreted since their last visit. Blasphet hadn't yet killed any of his guards, though he had thought of a dozen possible ways. Perhaps today he would indulge himself. A faint light seeped through the darkness. The acrid odor of an oil lamp reached his nostrils as the guards descended the stairs.

Something was different. Blasphet c.o.c.ked his head to better to catch the guards' footsteps. The sound was wrong. Whatever approached wasn't as heavy as earth-dragons. Humans? Perhaps coming to take revenge? It seemed so unfair. Human genocide had been Albekizan's vision; Blasphet had taken up the challenge only out of intellectual curiosity. He bore no hatred of mankind, as a whole. Humans had been the only species ever to grant him proper respect. Humans once worshipped him as a G.o.d-the Murder G.o.d. It hadn't been hard to convince an army of a.s.sa.s.sins and spies of his divinity. Humans believed in G.o.ds with the same obvious certainty with which they believed in weather. It was simply in their nature. At the height of his power, before Albekizan had crushed the cult, Blasphet's worshippers had numbered in the thousands.

Keys rattled in the lock of the iron door. Tendrils of light glowed around the edges of the frame. Slowly the door groaned open, pushed by a half dozen earth-dragons, their legs straining. A single earth-dragon should have been more than strong enough to open the heavy door.

Blasphet tilted his head to watch as the earth-dragons marched into the cell. Four more followed, carrying a man-sized bundle of canvas bound tightly with coils of rope. Silently, the earth-dragons advanced, rings of keys jangling in their fists. The six who had opened the door went to the shackles that held him. Without a word of explanation they crouched, slipped the keys into the locks, and turned them. Iron clattered on the stone floor as they pried the shackles loose, grunting with the effort-in the damp dungeon air, the shackles were already beginning to rust.

Blasphet had been staked to the floor on his back. His limbs felt weak, nearly paralyzed, but through sheer will he rolled to his side. The earth-dragons helped him to his belly, then stood back as Blasphet rose on trembling, unsteady legs. He stretched his wings, shaking them, loosening the damp grime that coated them.

As one, the earth-dragons knelt and lowered their tortoise-like heads until their brows touched the ground, their arms stretched before them in a position of prayer.

"You're humans, aren't you?" Blasphet asked, his voice raspy. His throat felt sore and raw where the shackle had been. "The motions of your bodies betray you."

One guard rose, looking up at Blasphet with dark, cloudy eyes. Certainly, they looked liked earth-dragons, and smelled like them as well, but these eyes weren't natural... they looked more like lifeless gla.s.s than a living organ of sight. The earth-dragon placed both hands upon his gray-green head, gave his skull a twist, and lifted it from his shoulders.

A human's head was revealed where the dragon's head had been. It was a young woman, her head shaved, a black tattoo of a serpent coiling above her right eye, writhing across her scalp, then snaking down her neck and shoulder. The other earth-dragons stood and removed their heads as well. Ten women, all in their teens, all with shaved heads. Even their eyebrows were missing.

"We are Sisters of the Serpent," the first one said, bowing her head. She spoke in a soft, reverential tone. "We are your humble servants, O Murder G.o.d. I am Colobi, serpent of the first order. Our disguises were never meant to deceive you."

"Of course," said Blasphet, flexing his fore-talons, feeling the blood flowing into them with a pleasant tingle. "What's in the bundle?"

"We knew you would be hungry for proper nourishment," Colobi said. "We kidnapped Valandant, Kanst's youngest."

Blasphet nodded, his eyes wide with admiration. Kanst was dead now, but he had been Blasphet's cousin, so Valandant was his own kin, albeit somewhat removed. Kanst had also been commander of Albekizan's armies. His widow and family would still be well-guarded. These Sisters of the Serpents were promising. It pleased him that his worshipers showed such initiative and competence.

They carried the bundle forth. It struggled feebly. Valandant was only two years old, little bigger than the girls who carried him. Of all the dragon races, only sun-dragons formed family units. The death of a child this young, following so soon on the deaths of Kanst and Albekizan, would cause grief of unimaginable sharpness for all his family.

The humans unrolled the canvas. The young dragon struggled but his wings were pinned behind his back by an iron ring that pierced the skin just inside the wrist joint at the fore-talons. His legs were tied together by a thick cord of hemp, and his snout was shut by a similar cord. Valandant whipped his tail around wildly, causing the humans to jump back.

"Shhhhh," Blasphet said, leaning over the frightened dragon. In the lamp light, Valandant's red feather-scales glistened like blood. His wide eyes were damp with tears.

Suddenly, thirst ripped Blasphet from snout to belly. He opened his jaws wide, took Valandant's slender neck between his teeth, then clamped down, piercing it. Hot salty gushes spilled across his tongue. The fragrant iron-tinged tang of blood filled his nose. He grabbed the still struggling dragon and lifted him over his head, upending him like a jug of wine. He drank from the now limp body, blood dribbling down his neck and falling in hot drops upon his belly until his thirst was quenched.

Blasphet tossed the emptied corpse aside. He rubbed in the blood that coated his scales with his fore-claws, luxuriating in its warmth. He looked at his blood-soaked claws. For a moment, the gore made it seem as if they had reverted to their natural red coloring. However, as he licked the blood away, he found his scales had once more grown in clear, leaving the black hide beneath showing through. Once he had speculated that it was lack of sunlight that leached the color from his scales. Now, he wondered if it wasn't some long-term side effect of the poisons he'd ingested over the years. He was pleased with the look of his new scales-they were bristly, even spiky. It made his skin look angry.

The Sisters of the Serpent stared at him in awe. The fresh blood inside him burned like liquid fire in his belly. Murder G.o.d, they had called him. It had been too long since he'd heard the words from human lips.

"Your gift pleases me," he said. Then, he randomly pointed to five of the sisters. "You will come with me. We shall go to my temple. I a.s.sume you've built a temple?"

"Of course, my lord," said Colobi.

"You five," he said, eying the others. "You won't be coming home. I've hidden poisoned knives throughout the castle. I will tell you where to find them. Then, I want you to charge forth and kill as many creatures as you can, in celebration of my return. Dragons of all species, humans, horses, ox-dogs, rats... if it breathes, make it stop. Kill with no regard for your own safety. Kill until something kills you. If you kill everyone in the castle, kill each other. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, O Murder G.o.d," the five said in unison, their eyes fixed upon him as if he were the most precious thing in the universe.

Chapter Four:.

Laughter Spitting Blood

"Ven!" Jandra shouted, spinning to face her mentor. "You're alive!" spinning to face her mentor. "You're alive!"

"No," Vendevorex said. "I'm almost certainly dead."

Jandra paused, confused. Vendevorex had died in her arms, it was true, but she couldn't ignore the plain evidence of her eyes. Vendevorex was alive. His sky-blue chest expanded and contracted with each breath. His scales nearly shimmered. From the strong, sharp lines of his shoulders to the well-formed legs that held him with such balance and poise, Vendevorex was the picture of health.

She ran forward to embrace him, throwing her arms around him, then through him. His body fluttered like smoke.

She jumped back, her voice catching in her throat; some primitive part of her mind felt certain she was in the presence of a ghost. Quickly, the more rational part of her brain deduced the truth.

"You're an illusion," she said.

"Correct," Vendevorex answered. "An interactive recording stored within the skull cap. I don't know the circ.u.mstances of my demise, Jandra, but you are the only one with the proper training to have triggered my helmet when you donned it. The fact you're seeing me shows that the helmet is functioning. As the device continues to adapt itself to your brain, you will discover it to be a much more powerful tool than your tiara. Unfortunately, this increased power comes with increased risks."

Jandra raised her hands and ran her finger along the rim of the helmet where it rested against her forehead. More powerful? She'd always a.s.sumed that Ven's skull cap and her tiara were equally functional. Were different capacities the reason Vendevorex's abilities had seemed so advanced?

"Just as the helmet will adjust itself to better interface with your brain, it will adjust your brain to better interface with it. In the coming days, the helm will expand the range and sensitivity of your senses. You may find this disorienting. In time, you will adapt."

Jandra held her breath, trying to discover if she could hear anything new or different. It didn't seem so.

"The helmet provides an interface between your mind and the outer world, but your true abilities lie in the training and knowledge within you. The helmet will gently restructure your neural pathways to make them more efficient, allow you finer control over your memories. Most of this will happen as you sleep, but there may be some carry over into your waking life. This may result in hallucinations. Be careful... you may injure innocents by attacking threats that exist only in your imagination. Conversely, you may hesitate in the face of genuine danger. This effect will fade after a few years as your brain reaches its most efficient structure."

"A few years?" Jandra said, her heart sinking. Her mind felt adequate already. What could possibly be worth years of not being able to trust her own eyes?

"Finally," said Vendevorex, "I must warn you of the most serious threat. I'm not the creator of the helmet. It is a tool from the hidden city known as Atlantis. You may have wondered why, given my abilities, I took a subservient position in the court of Albekizan, and seldom used my power to truly alter the world."

Jandra had often been frustrated by her mentor's reluctance to use his powers more aggressively.

"The helmet wasn't a gift from the Atlanteans. It was stolen. Take care to avoid their attention. You may think that after so many years the Atlanteans are no longer searching for their property. Unfortunately, time is no obstacle to the Atlanteans who are, for all practical purposes, immortals. I have no doubt they will come for the device. It may even be that they were simply waiting for my death to reclaim it. You may be in grave danger. Use utmost caution should you encounter an Atlantean. Their powers will exceed yours by an unimaginable factor. However, this doesn't mean they can't be defeated. Atlanteans possess one flaw that may prove fatal should you choose to exploit it. All Atlanteans-"

Vendevorex's voice was drowned out by a shout from below, a cry of rage that sounded violently torn from the shouter's throat. It was followed by the voice of an earth-dragon screaming, "Stay back!" Though the voices originated several floors beneath her with layers of thick stone to m.u.f.fle them, the words sounded almost as if they had been spoken in the same room.

As she thought about the voices, images flickered through her mind. The faces of thousands of earth-dragons she'd met flashed before her in an instant. A heartbeat later, the images were gone, and a single face remained in her memory, that of a guard named Ledax. She barely knew him, having only heard him speak once in all the years he carried out his duties around the palace. Yet, she somehow knew it was his voice that had shouted the warning to stay back. She also knew, with equal certainty, that the first shout she had heard had come from the lips of a human woman.

Below, Ledax let out a pained grunt. The woman's gurgling scream transformed into a satisfied, eerie giggle.

Jandra ran for the steps, slowed somewhat by her heavy funeral gown. She wished it was shorter. As she moved, the gown inched upward to her knees. The fabric pleated into a loose skirt, allowing her legs greater freedom. She leaped down the stairs, taking them three and four at a time. She could hear the chilling laughter growing closer. She burst into the room, freezing as she took in the gory scene. Vendevorex's warning of hallucinations suddenly seemed relevant.

Ledax was splayed limply on the floor, blood oozing from a gash in his shoulder. Crouched over him was a naked girl, younger than Jandra, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and belly painted with blood. Her lips were spread wide in an evil grin. Dark red saliva streamed down her chin as she giggled. Black, serpentine tattoos decorated the skin of her scalp and neck. Similar inkings coiled down her thighs and arms. In her right hand, she held a long dagger, its black blade glistening. The girl's eyes made Jandra hesitate, wondering if she'd slipped into a nightmarish hallucination. The girl's pupils were vacant black circles set in bloodshot pools of pink. Jandra had faced killers before. She'd stared down tatterwings, locked eyes with earth-dragons, and stood defiant in the gaze of sun-dragons. Nothing prepared her for the empty void of the girl's eyes, the hollow, unblinking stare of a fanatic transformed into an instrument of death.

While Jandra was frozen by her doubts, the girl suffered no such paralysis. With a grunt she leapt, swinging her dagger in a high overhead chop aimed at Jandra's face.

Jandra raised her hand to catch the girl's arm. The black blade sank into Jandra's palm, puncturing it. Droplets of blood splashed against her face. Instantly, her hand numbed; with her next heartbeat, her whole arm went limp. The girl drew back, still grinning. A third heartbeat numbed Jandra's entire torso. There was no fourth heartbeat. Her lungs no longer drew breath. In serene silence, her body lifeless as a doll, Jandra crumbled to the cold floor. She tried to blink and couldn't. She could only watch, suffocating, as the girl leapt over her.

In her dying, paralyzed body, Jandra listened helplessly as the girl laughed her way down the hall, in search of more victims.

Pet glumly walked through the palace, lost in thought. When he'd been the companion of the sun-dragon Chakthalla, he would amuse himself in the evenings by stealing out to visit young women in the nearby village. He'd not been with a woman since he met Jandra, mostly due to spending the majority of his time as Albekizan's prisoner. Still, he was free now. The human town of Richmond wasn't too far away. Yet he found himself unable to imagine the company of anyone but Jandra. What was wrong with him? through the palace, lost in thought. When he'd been the companion of the sun-dragon Chakthalla, he would amuse himself in the evenings by stealing out to visit young women in the nearby village. He'd not been with a woman since he met Jandra, mostly due to spending the majority of his time as Albekizan's prisoner. Still, he was free now. The human town of Richmond wasn't too far away. Yet he found himself unable to imagine the company of anyone but Jandra. What was wrong with him?

He found himself heading to the courtyard with the heated baths. One of Albekizan's ancestors had built giant pools whose waters were warmed by a system of pipes that ran through hidden furnaces. Pet thought it would be comforting to sink into those warm waters and let his worries melt away.

Alas, as he stepped into the brick courtyard, he discovered it was already occupied. Shandrazel was sitting in the main pool. Shandrazel was the heir of Albekizan. The sun-dragon's blood red scales glistened in the flickering torchlight surrounding the bath. Beside him in the pool was Androkom, the high biologian, apparently taking a moment to relax in the aftermath of the fiasco of Vendevorex's funeral.

Pet turned to leave, but Shandrazel shouted out, "Ah! Bitterwood. Come join us."

Pet looked around, wondering where Bitterwood was, before remembering that he was now Bitterwood. He'd claimed the name as part of a ruse to save the villagers near Chakthalla's castle. As a consequence of his deception, he'd been branded with the ident.i.ty of Bitterwood by King Albekizan himself before thousands of his fellow humans in the Free City. By all rights, Shandrazel should have treated him as a mortal enemy. Yet, either Shandrazel didn't believe Pet's ruse, or else Shandrazel was completely drunk on his dream of launching a new age of peace and justice, and willing even to forgive a man famous for killing dragons.

Pet gave a charming smile as he approached the pool.

"We were just discussing the upcoming summit," said Shandrazel. "We would love to hear your thoughts."

"Okay," Pet said, loosening his belt. He slipped out of his clothes unselfconsciously. He'd never been embarra.s.sed by his own nudity. He held his breath and leapt into the water. The pool was quite deep, built for the comfort of a sun-dragon, creatures that stood over twice the height of humans. The water was uncomfortably hot, almost scalding. Pet rose to the surface with a gasp. He noticed an oily film on the water. Fish were a major component of the diets of dragons, and the oil coated their scales as they preened themselves. Pet would require a bath after this bath.

"So," he said, bracing himself against the edge of the pool. "What did you want my opinion on?"