BANISHER OF DRAGONS
“This way, this way.” Agemon’s robes flapped against his legs as he strode down the corridor.
He led them past offices and workshops, and Karigan wondered what he wanted her to see. When she’d looked Brienne’s way, the Weapon had just shrugged.
He stopped abruptly at a big, carved door and took a lamp from an alcove.
“This is the storeroom,” he said.
“For what?” Karigan asked.
He did not answer, but pushed the door open. They followed him inside and found the room stacked from floor to ceiling with shields.
“Oh, my,” Brienne said.
“Look for the dragonfly device, the king told us,” Agemon said. “So we looked for all the objects with dragonflies on them. Then, oh no, Sir Karigan says it is not a dragonfly, but a flying dragon.” He yanked on a tendril of his gray hair. “The hours, the sacrifice of finding all the dragonfly things! But we obeyed and looked for all the flying dragon things. Then Sir Karigan says, a flying fire-breathing dragon on a shield. The work! The hours!”
Karigan gazed at the towering stacks with dismay. Brienne pulled out a shield. It was rectangular and featured a field of red with a stylized dragon, wings extended, spouting flame. A tag dangled from it.
“That one doesn’t look old enough,” Karigan said. “Anschilde lived during the time of the sea kings, so it would be kind of ancient.”
Agemon groaned.
“Well,” Brienne replied, “that may narrow it down some.” She gazed at the tag. “Says ‘Prince Halden,’ followed by a lot of numbers.”
“Those are catalog numbers so we know its history and where it is supposed to be by looking in our records,” Agemon explained.
Even if the ancient age of Anschilde’s shield would help eliminate some of those that were piled in this room as Brienne suggested, Karigan was no less daunted.
“How many are in here?” she asked Agemon.
“The caretakers I assigned to the task stopped counting after one thousand,” he replied. “You will begin looking through them soon, yes?”
Not today, she thought. She wanted that bath and nap. “Soon,” she replied. “I don’t . . .” She trailed off as a ghostly shape took form near one of the stacks. Its features resolved so that Karigan recognized Beryl Spencer. She stood there, or maybe floated slightly above the floor, and stared at the stacks of shields. She did not speak.
“You don’t know what?” Brienne asked.
Beryl turned to Karigan, expressionless and silent. Then she left the room. Karigan rushed after her out into the corridor.
“Sir Karigan?” Brienne called. She and Agemon followed.
“Where does she think she is going?” Agemon demanded.
“I don’t know,” Brienne replied.
Karigan ignored them and concentrated on following Beryl. Sometimes the ghost faded out, only to reappear again some ways down the corridor. She led them past more workshops until she came to a door. She paused and gazed at Karigan expectantly, then passed right through the door. Karigan opened it and found Beryl waiting on the other side.
“This leads to the Sealender crypts,” Agemon said. “I do not understand. What does she want here?”
“I don’t know,” Brienne said, “but she seems to be onto something.”
The iconography of the domed crypt integrated the Sealender gull with familiar symbols of the gods carved into the walls. The winged figure of Westrion was present, of course, and Salvistar, and the crescent moon of Aeryc. Karigan shivered to think she had seen these gods and spoken with them.
An obelisk bearing the names of Sealender royalty stood in the center of the chamber. Their remains rested on shelves inset into the walls. She spotted the remains of King Darien the Second, brother of Princess Florence, whose armor she had worn, and other names with which she was familiar. Some of the shelves lacked linen-wrapped dead as though the Sealenders had not expected the line to end abruptly with King Agates some two hundred years ago.
“Where is King Agates?” Karigan asked.
Agemon pointed to a lowermost shelf. She bent and peered into shadow at the lumpy form. A gold, jewel-encrusted crown rested atop what must have been his chest. She shivered again. Two hundred years in the past, she had seen the corpse of Agates being carried on a bier by Weapons just after he had died, that same crown resting on his chest. Pulled by time, she’d been, to witness the roots of the Clan Wars. That Agates had been placed in a low, shadowy shelf was testament to the turmoil his dying without an heir had caused, which some believed had been an intentional act to sow chaos. And yet, without the turmoil, the Hillanders, and thus Zachary, would have never come into power.
“Was there something you needed to see here?” Brienne asked her.
Beryl waited beneath an archway, her luminescence fluctuating as she pointed beyond.
“Um, no,” Karigan said.
She hurried to the archway and followed the ghost into another chamber devoted to the Sealenders. Murals of ocean scenes featuring seagulls aloft, and fishermen in sailing dories plying their trade, brightened the walls. There were sarcophagi in this chamber of royal clan members, and, prominently, a lifelike marble statue of a heroic figure clad in armor with a cloak draped over her shoulder. In her hand she held a saber. Karigan did not have to read the inscription on the pedestal to know it was Rider Princess Florence Aventine. Florence gazed into eternity from across centuries, and as cold as marble might be, and as distant as they were in time, Karigan could not help but feel kinship with her.
“Sir Karigan?” Brienne asked.
Her voice brought Karigan back to the present, and a swirl of ghostly translucence drew her attention to Beryl, who stood before a wall with a mural that depicted men and women repairing fishing nets. As Karigan watched, Beryl walked through the wall. Karigan stepped up to it and stared at the mural.
“What is it?” Brienne asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Come, come,” Agemon said, “I have not all day for a green who wishes to admire artwork. I have much work to do. Yes, very much work.”
On a hunch, Karigan felt around the stonework until she came across one block that protruded more than the others. It featured a gull perched on pilings painted on it.
“Of course,” she said, and pushed the block.
The sound of mechanisms that had not moved in a very long time suddenly came to life with much creaking and grinding from somewhere within the wall. It made even Brienne jump.
“What? What?” Agemon cried. “What is this?”
The wall slowly opened, and fetid, dusty air flowed out of a chamber beyond. They could see little inside, so Brienne grabbed a wall lamp.
When they entered, they found a crude chamber with natural rock as the rear wall. Agemon seemed offended by the existence of a chamber he had not known about, and that had cobwebs and dust everywhere.
“This should not be here,” he said. “It does not exist. If it did, we would know of it, and it would be clean, perfectly clean.”
“It may not be in your records,” Brienne told him, “but it surely exists.” She sneezed.
“It can and it does,” Karigan said. “And so does the shield.”
The lamplight fell on a boulder upon which sat a crude wooden box. The shield leaned against the boulder. It was an oval of wood, and beneath the many layers of dust was painted a flying dragon spouting flame.
“Thank you,” Karigan murmured to Beryl.
The ghost nodded in return, and her form dissolved to nothing, perhaps never to be seen again, leaving Karigan with a sense of melancholy.
“What does it say on the lid?” Brienne was gazing at the wood box.
Karigan looked. Old Sacoridian glyphs were carved into it, along with the depiction of a flying gull.
Muttering to himself about dust, Agemon joined them and gazed at the inscription. He adjusted his specs and said, “Here lies Anschilde, who banished the sea kings and their dragons. Hmmph! His bones have been here all along and we did not know.” He lifted the lid, and sure enough there was a pile of human bones inside, upon which sat a skull. “This is a disgrace; yes, yes, we have disgraced the dead.” He walked in a circle tugging on his hair. “We must clean this place immediately. We must honor Anschilde, progenitor of the Sealenders!” He exited the chamber, still pulling on his hair and muttering to himself.
“Poor Agemon,” Brienne said. “This is really sending him over the edge. He prides himself on knowing everything there is to know about the tombs, and he doesn’t handle surprises well.”
Evidently, Karigan thought.
“How did you know the shield was here?” Brienne asked.
“I didn’t. I had guidance.”
A knowing look came into Brienne’s eyes and she nodded. “What of the shield? What will you do with it?”
“I suppose we leave it here for now,” Karigan replied, “and let the king know it’s been found. After that, it’s up to him.”
The two exited the chamber, and Brienne said, “So Anschilde was a banisher of dragons. Do you suppose that means they really existed?”
Karigan shrugged. She’d seen so much that was strange over the last five years that she would not have been surprised if they had.
Back in the Rider wing, Mara asked Trace to pass word of Torq’s death and the discovery of the shield to Connly, who could then relay it to Zachary. That left Karigan to her own devices so she could finally bathe and rest. Ghost Kitty was banished from her chamber for a time. She might have been the one to cut off Torq’s head, but she hadn’t tried to eat it, and the thought of the cat licking the tip of her nose like he sometimes did was not to be borne.
The next day, she arose sore but rested and unmuddy. Someone must have let Ghost Kitty into her chamber because she found him curled at her feet. She smiled and petted his head, and forgave him his natural carnivorous inclinations, so long as he didn’t acquire a taste for human flesh on a regular basis.
She went about her day, arm in sling as instructed, checking on Condor, Loon, and Bluebird, and trying to unknot the Rider accounts for Mara. Both she and Daro had been away too long, leaving Mara to do the best she could with everything else going on, which meant the ledgers were a disaster. She heard also that Zachary was likely to return to the castle later in the day.
At the second bell in the afternoon, she had an appointment to visit with Estora. It would be a relief to step away from the books for a while. They were giving her a headache.
Truthfully, it was all nicely normal, and knowing that she would not have to raise a sword against anyone this day was freeing and made her feel immensely light and happy.
She left the Rider wing, looking forward to visiting with Estora, her friend, as opposed to Estora, her queen. Maybe she’d even get to meet the royal heirs.