The Dragon's Path

Geder

The high priest - Basrahip or possibly the Basrahip, it was hard to tell - leaned back on his leather-and-iron stool. His thick, powerful fingers rubbed at his forehead. Around them, the candles flickered and hissed, their smoke filling the room with the smell of burning fat. Geder licked his lips.

"My first tutor was a Tralgu," he said.

Basrahip pursed his lips, considered Geder, and shook his wide head. No. Geder swallowed his delight and tried again.

"I learned to swim at the seashore."

The broad head shook slowly. No.

"I had a favorite dog when I was young. A hunting beast named Mo."

The high priest's smile was beatific. His teeth seemed almost unnaturally wide. He pointed a thick finger at Geder's chest.

"Yes," he said.

Geder clapped his hands and laughed. It wasn't the first time the high priest had made the demonstration, but it was always a source of amazement. No matter what the lie, no matter what voice Geder told it in, how he held his body or changed the pitch of his voice, the huge man knew which words were false and which true. He never guessed incorrectly.

"And it's really a goddess that lets you do this?" Geder said. "Because I never came across a reference to that. The Righteous Servant was supposed to have been something Morade created, like the thirteen races and the dragon's roads."

"No. We were here before the dragons. When the great web was strung and the stars hung upon it, the goddess was present. The Sinir Kushku is her gift to the faithful. When the great collapse came, the dragons were fearful of her power. They fought against each other, each wishing the friendship and patronage of the Sinir Kushku for himself. The great Morade pretended an alliance, but the goddess knew when treachery came into his heart. She guided us here, where we might be safe, far from the world and its struggles, to wait until the time came for our return."

"This is totally unlike any account I ever read," Geder said.

"Do you doubt me?" Basrahip asked, his voice low and gentle and with the strange throbbing that seemed to inflect all his speech.

"Not at all," Geder said. "I'm amazed! A whole era before the dragons? It's something no one has written about. Not that I've ever seen."

Outside the small stone room, the stars glittered in the sky and the crescent moon lit the cascade of stones. In the darkness, Geder could almost imagine the great stone dragon above the temple wall moving, turning its head. The odd green crickets that infested the temple sang in shuddering chorus. Geder wrapped his arms around his legs, grinning.

"I cannot tell you how pleased I am that I found this place," Geder said.

"You are an honored man of a great nation," the high priest said. "I am pleased that you have come so far to find our humble temple."

Geder waved the comment away, embarrassed. It had taken the better part of a day to explain that, while he was nobility, prince was a particular title where he came from, and couldn't be applied so widely. He'd spent most of his life being called lord and my lord, and even though it meant the same thing, honored man of a great nation left him self-conscious.

Basrahip rose and stretched as, in the distance, a harsh voice screeched out the call to night prayer. Gerder expected Basrahip to make his excuses and hurry out to lead the priests in their rituals. Instead, he paused in the doorway, candles casting shadows over his eyes.

"Tell me, Lord Geder. What was it you most hoped to find here?"

"Well, I wanted to see if I could find the Sinir mountains and some source material about the Righteous Servant for a speculative essay I'm drafting up."

"This is what you most hoped to find?"

"Yes," Geder said. "It is."

"And now that you have found it, it will be enough?"

"Of course," Geder said.

The big man's gaze locked on him, and Geder felt a blush rising in his neck and cheeks. Basrahip waited for what seemed half a day, then shook his head.

"No," he said gently. "No, there is something else."

The days since Geder's arrival at the temple had been astounding and rich and unnerving as a dream. For two full days from morning until nightfall, he had stood in the great court between the temple itself and the gated wall. A dozen pale-robed priests with long hair and full beards sat around him as he drew maps and tried to summarize centuries of history. Often when they asked questions of him, he had to admit his ignorance. How had the borders of Asterilhold and Northcoast been set? Who claimed the islands south of Birancour and west of Lyoneia? Why were the Firstblood centered in Antea, the Cinnae in Princip C'Annalde, and the Timzinae in Elassae when Tralgu and Dartinae had no particular homeland? Why were the Timzinae called bugs, the Kurtadam clickers, and the Jasuru pennies? What names were the Firstblood known by, and by whom were they hated?

They seemed particularly intrigued by the Timzinae. Geder prided himself on knowing a great deal. Having his limits exposed was humbling, but the thirst the olive-skinned men had for every scrap of information made it bearable. Every story and anecdote he gave them, they were fascinated by.

He found himself telling them his own past. His life as a boy in Rivenhalm. His father and the court in Camnipol. The Vanai campaign and how it ended and the mercenary attack on Camnipol, traveling the Keshet.

When the sun grew too hot to bear, the priests brought out a huge half-tent of stretched leather and wide wooden beams that shaded Geder and rose behind him like a gigantic hand. They hauled out wide-mouthed ceramic pots of damp sand that kept the buried gourds of water cool. Geder chewed lengths of dried goat meat spiced with salt and cinnamon, talking until his throat was hoarse. They stopped as the sun slid behind the peaks, answering the harsh, barking call. Geder's servants made camp for him there and slept on the ground beside him. And then, on the third day when he was certain his voice would fail him, Basrahip - the Basrahip - came to him and motioned that he should follow. The huge man led him up stone stairways worked smooth as glass by generations of leather-shod feet, through the wide passage as much cave mouth as corridor.

He had expected carved stone, but Geder didn't see any sign that the halls had been touched by hammer and chisel. They might have grown this way, as if the mountains had known they would be home to these men. Lanterns of paper and parchment sat in alcoves and spilled their light over the floors and across the curved ceilings. The air smelled rich with something Geder couldn't quite identify, part manure and part spice. The air was so hot it stifled. He trotted through the twists and turns until the passage widened and the high priest stepped aside.

The great chamber was taller than twenty men standing one atop the other. The ceiling was lost in darkness more profound than night. And towering above them, the carved statue of a huge spider covered in beaten gold and lit by a hundred torches. Fifty men at least knelt at its base, all of them turned toward Geder, their hands folded on their shoulders. Geder stood, his mouth slack. No king in the world could boast a grander spectacle.

"The goddess," Basrahip had said, and his voice had echoed through the space, filling it. "Mistress of truth and unbroken ruler of the world. We are blessed by her presence."

Geder barely noticed when the huge man's hand touched his shoulder and began to press him gently but implacably down. When he knelt, it seemed like the obvious thing to do.

After that, he was taken to new quarters within the temple walls. Many of the doors and windows he'd seen when he first came went no deeper than a single room, or at most two, the priests' cells clinging to the side of the mountain. Geder's squire brought him a basin to bathe in, his books, and the small traveling desk, and lit his lantern. He lay in the darkness that night, a thin wool blanket around him, and sleep a day's ride away. He was too excited to sleep. His only disappointment was that the temple had no library.

On the fourth morning, Basrahip came again, and their conversation began, and it had continued every day since.

I don't understand why you stay hidden."

"Don't you?" Basrahip said.

They were walking down the thin brick-paved path that led to the temple's well.

"The Righteous Servant," Geder said. "It's something that you all have. If you were in the world, you could tell whenever a merchant was lying about his costs. Or when your men were unfaithful. And life in court. God, what you could do there."

"And that is why we stay hidden," Basrahip said. "When we have involved ourselves in the affairs of the world, we have seen the rewards of it. Blades and fire. Those who have not been touched by the goddess live lives of deceit. For them, to hear our voices is to die as the people they were. Her enemies are many, and ruthless."

Geder kicked at a pebble, sending it skittering down ahead of them. The sunlight pressed down on his face and shoulders.

"But you are going to go back out," Geder said. "You said that you were waiting for the time to go back out."

"We will," the high priest said. They reached the edge of the well, a stone-lined hole in the earth with a rope tied to the stake sunk deep beside it. "When we are forgotten."

"That could be any time in the last century," Geder said, but the high priest went on as if he hadn't spoken.

"When the wounds of the old war are healed and we can walk the world without fear, She will send us a sign. She will sort clean from unclean, and end the age of lies."

Basrahip squatted, taking the rope in his hands and hauling, hand over hand, until it came up wet. The bucket had been copper once, given over now to verdigris. Basrahip tipped it up to his lips and drank, rivulets falling from the corner of his mouth. Geder shifted uncomfortably beside him. The high priest put the bucket down and wiped the back of his hand across his lips.

"Are you troubled, Lord?"

"I'm... It's nothing."

The wide smile was cool. The dark eyes considered him.

"Listen to me, Lord Palliako. Listen to my voice. You can trust me."

"I'm only... Could I have a drink of that water too?"

Basrahip lifted the bucket up to him. Geder took it in both hands, drinking slowly. The water was cool and tasted of stone and metal. He handed it back, and Basrahip held it out over the blackness for a moment before he let it drop. The rope slithered as it sped back down. The splash was louder than Geder had expected.

"You can trust me," the high priest said again.

"I know," Geder said.

"You can tell me. Nothing bad will come of it."

"Tell you what? I mean, I'm not sure what you're saying."

"Yes you are," the man said, and started back toward the temple. Geder trotted to keep up. "Why did you come looking for the Sinir Kushku? What was it that drew you here?"

"You mean..."

"Through the ages, other men have found us here. Stumbled upon us. You came seeking. What was it that led you here?"

Two of the younger priests passed them, heading toward the well. Geder cracked his knuckles and frowned. He tried to remember what had started him. When was the first time he'd heard the legend? But perhaps that in itself didn't matter.

"Everywhere I turn," he said, the words coming slowly, "it seems like things are lies. I don't know who my friends are, not really. I don't know who gave me Vanai. Or who in Camnipol would want me killed. Everything in court seems like a game, and I'm the only one who doesn't know the rules."

"You are not a man of deceit."

"No. I am. I have been. I've lied and hidden things. I know how easy it is."

Basrahip stopped, leaning against a boulder. The wide face was impassive. Almost serene. Geder crossed his arms. A stirring of anger warmed his chest.

"I've been a token in everyone else's game," Geder said. "My whole life, I've been the one they tricked into sitting on sawn boards over the shit hole. I've been the one they laughed at. They burned my book. Alan Klin burned my book."

"Did that bring you here?"

"Yes. No. I mean, when I was a boy, I used to tell myself stories like the old histories. Where I led an army into a doomed battle and won. Or saved the queen. Or went to the underworld and pulled my mother back from the dead. And every time I've gone into the world, it's disappointed me. Do you know what that's like?"

"I do," the high priest said. "You didn't come here to write an essay, Lord Geder. You came here to find us. To find me."

Geder felt his mouth in a grim, hard scowl.

"I did," he said. "Because I want to know the truth. Because I am sick to death of wondering. All the lies and deceits and games that everyone plays around me? I want to be the one man who can cut it away and find the truth. And so I heard about the end of all doubt."

"Would knowing alone be enough? Would it bring you peace?"

"It would," Geder said.

Basrahip paused, listening. A fly whined around them, landed on the big man's wide head to drink his sweat, and flew away again.

"It wouldn't," Basrahip said, hauling himself back to his feet. "That isn't what you want. But you are coming closer, Lord Geder. Much closer."

I heard them talking," one of his servants whispered. "They're going to kill us all in our sleep."

Geder sat in the darkness of his cell. The whispers were supposed to be quiet enough to escape him. If he'd been back in his cot, they would have. Instead, he'd slipped out and padded across the dark floor on silent feet. His back was to the wall beside the doorway, his servants not seven feet away.

"Stop talking shit," his squire said. "You're just scaring yourself."

"I'm not," the first voice said again, higher and tighter this time. "You think they want people knowing where they are? You think they're at the ass end of the world because they want company?"

A third voice said something, but he couldn't make out the words.

"And let them," the first voice said. "What I heard, he burned down Vanai just because he could, and laughed while he did it."

"Keep talking about his lordship that way and it won't be these sand monkeys in priest robes that kill you," his squire's voice said. "I'll face down a hundred false gods before I cross him."

Geder hugged his knees closer. He expected to feel hurt, but the pain didn't come. Or anger. He rose to his feet, walking without any attempt to be quiet. He heard the silence of the servants outside his door, but he didn't care about them. Not what they thought, not what they were, not if they lived. He found his tunic and a pair of leggings and pulled them on in the darkness. He didn't bother trying to get the stays all tied. Modesty was preserved, and that was enough. Basrahip wouldn't mind.

When he walked out into the starlit dark, his servants were pretending to sleep. He stepped over them, walking the narrow path along the mountainside, the dirt cooling his feet and the stones biting them. In the first cell he reached where a monk slept, he shook the man awake.

"Take me to Basrahip," he said.

The high priest slept deeper in the temple. His rooms were dark, the pallet he slept on hardly big enough to accommodate him. The monk who'd brought Geder set down his candle and backed out of the room bowing. Basrahip tucked one massive leg under himself and sat up. He seemed perfectly alert. Geder cleared his throat.

"I've been thinking. About what you asked. I want to master the court. I want the men who used me to suffer," he said. "I want them to beg my forgiveness. I want them humiliated where the world can point at them and pity them and laugh."

The high priest didn't move, and then, slowly, he grinned. He lifted a massive finger and pointed it at Geder.

"Yes. Yes, that is what you want. And tell me this, my friend. My brother. Would that be enough?"

"It'll do for a start."

The high priest threw his head back and howled with laughter. As he grinned, his teeth shone white as ivory in the candlelight. He stood, wrapping his blanket around him, and Geder found himself grinning too. Saying the words, having them understood, was like taking a stone off his chest.

"I had hoped, Lord Geder," the high priest said. "From the moment I saw you - an honored man from a great kingdom - I hoped that this was the time. That you would be the sign the goddess sent, and you are. Brother Geder, you are. You have found your truth, and if you will honor it, so shall I."

"Honor it?"

"Camnipol. Your great city at the heart of your empire. Pledge her a temple there, a first temple in a new age free from lies and doubt. I will return with you myself, and through me..."

The huge man held out his hands, palms up. With the candle on the floor, it was as if he were offering handfuls of shadow. Geder couldn't stop grinning. He felt light and uncomplicated and alive in a way he hadn't since he'd scooped gems from frozen boxes half a year before.

"Through me," the high priest said, "she will give you what you want."