Chapter Eighteen:
Thea Harman looked about the First House of Dragons.
She was here, actually standing inside the walls that had been home to the
Legendary Prince. Thousands of years ago he had roamed these halls, several
guards and guardians at his every beck and call.
It was enough to make Thea a bit dizzy.
Mother Cybele stood off to the side speaking with
Thierry in soft tones. The plump woman seemed worried. Perhaps anxious. Thea narrowed
her eyes a bit before looking around some more.
Blaise was staring at pillars, roaming along, almost
floating, long black hair falling thickly down her back. She paused before a
pillar, and ran slender fingers over the etchings and archaic writing.
The First House had a large dome of witch magic
surrounding it, wards of protection. And they all stood inside of them now.
Herself, the Mother, Thierry, her cousin Blaise, Winnie, Nissa and five witches
the Mother had asked to accompany them. Also, two witch guards were at each
entrance and the First House had two, the main in the front and a large stone
staircase on the side. The marble and the porcelain used by the dragons long
ago had been replaced with stone and from Chime's stolen memories Thea knew
once the humans had renovated the First House had lost much of its beauty.
She still saw the rose bushes and cherry blossoms.
And she understood a bit of the layout as it had once
been. This hall led to another long hall and then on to what could have been
the prince's throne room, the direct center of the First House. And there were
several large rooms surrounding that center room and hallway, all linked up
around their core. It all seemed to be only a floor in height.
"Thea." Mother Cybele called.
She looked up from her lost thoughts and drifted over
to the Mother and the Night Lord. Thierry's eyes were dark, hooded, and he
himself seemed thoughtful. Quietly so.
Mother Cybele took Thea by the hand as she came up
before her and led her down the hall toward the door. In Thea's mind she knew
that coming hallway was where Chime had first met the Prince.
Thierry pushed open the wide doors.
The hallway here was even larger than the one before it.
And there was a door at the other end, a very familiar door. Pillars all around
stood magnificently, lovely stones with beautiful carvings, bordering the
central pathway. And between the pillars, in the shadows, were several stone
cases standing vertically against the walls.
They hadn't been there in Chime's memories.
Mother Cybele took her down the pathway slowly,
clutching her hand. She paused halfway down the hall, looking toward the door
but she instead veered toward the left. Thea followed reluctantly. She would
have stopped if it hadn't meant having Thierry run into her from behind.
"You want to see where he lies, don't you?" Mother
Cybele murmured, taking a few steps and hesitating once more.
Thea looked at the back of her head, stricken. "You
mean…Rayne?" she asked hoarsely.
Mother Cybele motioned to the case before her. "Rayne
Endymion." She said, motioning to spidery writing etched into the stone. "I can
not open the coffin. There are too many wards surrounding it, it would take me
hours. And even then I do not have the strength to move the lid."
Thea tore her eyes from the Mother and looked at the
dusty stone coffin standing before her. It was large, the case, perhaps a good
seven feet tall. Elegant etchings in its rounded face. And it looked old, an
artifact from another world, another time. A time she was vaguely familiar
with.
She found herself calling out, reaching to the coffin
with her thoughts.
Are you there, Rayne? Can you hear me? Can you understand me?
Mother Cybele watched her as she gazed at the coffin,
feeling the urge to cry. He was here, before her, the person Chime had spent so
much time looking for. She wanted to do something but what could she really do?
All she could do was hope that Chime didn't come here. It spelled disaster for
her.
Do you even realize how much Chime has missed you?
"The coffins had been buried underground at first but
through the years there has been much digging because of archeology." Mother
Cybele said from beside her. "We made this house into a museum and then we
brought the dragons back here. To the world the coffins are said to house the
remains of the great Persian kings, Darius and Xerxes, but to us…these are our
history, our link to the time when we were unequal."
Thea continued to stare at the coffins, hearing the
sadness in the Mother's voice. It almost made her regret her anger. But then
she closed her eyes and she realized she could imagine how Rayne looked in the
coffin. Bathed in darkness, lean body resting against cushions, his head bowed
and his features peaceful. Did he still wear his First House uniform?
"And the Prince?" Thea asked faintly. Her eyes left
the cryptic writing on Rayne's tomb and focused on the Mother of Witches.
"Where is he?"
Mother Cybele's hands clasped before her plump frame.
"Down below."
Thea turned her body to face the Mother slowly. "Down
below?" she questioned, eyes widening.
It was quite obvious Mother Cybele did not want to
tell Thea. But she motioned to the side after a moment. "One of the side rooms
has a staircase leading to a lower level, to what might have been a treasury.
He lies there. With his brother and sister."
Thea took a step. "I want to see it."
Mother Cybele was in her way a moment later. "There
is no reason for you to see it. I don't want anyone down there." She said
firmly, and she meant business. Thea understood her fears. All that was needed
was the Prince to awaken and then it would be the World of Dragons once more.
Thea stared at her, eyebrow arching a bit. Then her
eyes flew toward Thierry but he remained wordless, face blank. There was no
help there and she knew it.
Instead she whirled back to Rayne's coffin.
She'll find you and I will help her set you
free. I promise it, she swore to the dragon
lying inside.
Morgead looked at Chime cautiously, recoiled a bit in
surprise at her new appearance. Beside him Kestrel turned just as slowly.
"You're still going?" the woman asked her, hawk eyes
narrowing. "For what purpose? You can't wake him. You won't be able to see him.
And you won't even be able to get in, the place has wards-"
"Just the kind of situation I thrive in." Chime said
with a smile and she struck a pose. "How do I look?"
Morgead looked like he was coming close to
sputtering. "Wards!" he said, echoing Kestrel. "You can't get in! It's a
freaking suicide mission-"
Chime however was off in her own world. "The pants
are still good, so are the boots. A black shirt is better than a bloodied blue
one although if you drenched the blue one in blood it would also look black." She
paused, looking at the blue shirt on the bed thoughtfully. "Maybe if I-"
"They're already there, just waiting! Mother Cybele
and Thierry! If you go they'll get you for sure-" Morgead was saying.
"No, that's just disgusting. What was I thinking?" Chime
laughed to herself. "Imagine soaking it in pigeon's blood! Can you just picture
me at the window with my Sigs, shooting every bird in sight?" and with that she
dissolved into louder peals of laughter.
Kestrel tried as well. "Are you crazy? Are you even
listening?! You'll be killed! Don't you care what happens to you in there?"
"The leather jacket is messed up but I really like
it, still." Chime continued on. "It fits quite nicely-" and she picked at a
bullet hole in the leather along her shoulder, frowning delicately at it.
"Thierry sent us to convince you not to go-" Morgead
said evenly, propping his hands on his hips.
"And boy, did you fail there." Chime shrugged,
checking her Sigs and then running a hand through her cap of shiny black hair.
"Where did that bandanna go?"
"Don't you care?!" Kestrel shouted, fuming. She threw
her hands up in the air. "God, it's like talking to Jade! Not a damn word gets
heard!" she snarled and her eyes gleamed as Chime merely looked at her
innocently. "Thierry is putting everything on the line to help you win this!
And the only way to win would be to survive! Don't you care about sacrifices
made for you-"
"Only one was ever made." Chime said and her voice
and face were suddenly very, very dark, morphing in the blink of an eye. Her
eyes gleamed. "Only one sacrifice was ever made for me and it damned me to this
existence without him. Don't you dare give me your crap on sacrifices because I
make too many of them."
Morgead shook his head as Kestrel fell silent beside
him. "And Thierry? He's helped you for so long. You would screw him over?" he
asked her with an arched eyebrow.
Chime looked at him, stared at him searchingly. And
then she looked down, bowing her head. "No." she answered softly. "No, I
wouldn't." She smirked, chuckled humorlessly. "I'd just screw myself over."
Kestrel and Morgead gazed at her.
"Thank you." She whispered. She lifted her head to
look at them both. "Thanks for helping me. For caring for me. But I can't stay.
And I can't back down. Not now. And not anymore." She bent down and checked her
boots for the pocket knives. "I need a way to get to Persepolis. A road goes
there, right?"
Morgead glanced at Kestrel quickly. She stared back,
eyes throwing him a meaning. Somebody had to stop her. But instead he sighed.
Then
he was reaching into his pocket, pulling out a set of keys and holding them out
to her. "My bike is outside. There's a general route that leads between cities
here in Iran. Take the bike about five miles out of Shiraz and the first dirt
path that veers off will lead to Persepolis."
Chime stared at the keys dangling before her then
raised her eyes back to him. With a shallow swallow she moved forward, taking
the keys into her hands and staring at him when he let her.
Kestrel sighed wearily as well. Obviously defeated.
"Thierry is not going to like this," she murmured, plopping down on the bed.
"Thank you. Again." She nodded, the faint shadow of a
smile beginning to cross her lips. She tossed the keys, catching them expertly
and then began to turn away, heading toward the door.
But
just as she made it to the door she said, "Ash."
Kestrel frowned, looking up from the bed.
"That's who you look like. Kestrel." Chime continued,
facing the door. "Ash." And then she laughed. "And I wouldn't have killed you.
The safeties were on. I'm surprised Morgead didn't notice it."
With that she left.
Kestrel threw Morgead a glare as the door closed
behind her. "Why didn't you notice it?" she demanded.
Thea lifted her head from the writing on the pillar.
She had moved into the throne room, had stared at the single throne at the back
of the large room. And she could see the prince there, even imagined she saw
Rayne at his side, laughing merrily. Had that scene ever existed in the past?
A
sudden shiver raced down her spine and she frowned. It was eerie, the strange
tingling. She normally didn't get such feelings but when she did she knew to
trust them. She looked over her shoulder, staring from her cousin to Winnie,
who was hovering close to Nissa, whispering. She looked at the five witches who
had been asked to come along but they were just as interested in the pillars as
she was, a pair of them laughing to the side. It did nothing to lighten the
mood, however.
Something was about to go very, very wrong.
She looked around again, wishing the feeling would go
away. But it wasn't going anywhere. It was just getting stronger, almost like a
prickling now. The strange presence of something ominous wasn't coming from the
Mother, wasn't coming from Thierry.
She looked toward the five witches as they grouped
together and watched them as they began to move toward the door.
Them. It was coming from them, that strange
sensation. Dark, that thick air. It surrounded them like a cloud. She moved to
follow them, catching Blaise's eyes along the way.
Just as she made it to the door to follow the witches
out the last of the five shoved her back into the room roughly. She stumbled
back with a cry and the door slammed in her face.
"Hey!" she shouted and she sprang forward, throwing
herself against the doors. They didn't budge at all. "Hey!" she cried again and
she banged her fists against the doors angrily, alerting Thierry and Mother
Cybele.
"What is it?" Cybele asked coming up behind her.
But she froze as chanting began from the other side
of the door.
Selena Chimes allowed the motorcycle to fall onto the
sand and dirt. The ride had been torture on her bottom and legs but the
soreness simply lifted away as she stopped to stare at the vision before her.
She was seeing ghosts from her past. Pale ghosts with
hollow circles under blank eyes. Witches. Dragons. Shape-shifters. Everything
that had existed. Everything that had been her past was waking up now as she
stood before the structure, jaw hanging open.
The First House of Dragons. She was here, after all
these years. After hundreds of years of looking for him only to come back to
where it had all begun. She swallowed, staring at the walls. The entrances were
on the other side for she faced a back corner.
White pillars. Not these, these were stone. Ugly. But
she could see strong white pillars in her mind. Vines tangled around fountains
and marble springs. And the trees and bushes. Cherry blossoms. Rose petals
flying through the air to lie at his feet as he came forward.
She could feel him. She came to a dead stop and just
listened to the raspy wind as it flew over the sand, blew it into her hair.
Something pulled at her, enveloping her and pleading with her to come forward.
And it was him. She wasn't sure how she knew or how he did it, because he was
asleep. She knew he was. And yet she felt him, his presence humming through
every part of her being.
She swallowed and looked at the purple sparks that
fizzed as sand flew too close to the First House. Wards. Her face darkened. She
would get through those wards. She was not about to let witch magic keep her
from her soulmate.
It was time to make a third entrance.
She closed her eyes, bowing her head. And she felt
the weakness in her body, like a black cloud suffocating her. She felt the pain
and soreness of her wounds, the tight bandages which inhibited free movement.
It was all the same, all to hold her back. A physical and mental block.
Inside her body she called to her black power. She
called and then summoned it angrily, forcing it to respond. She needed it now
and she didn't care whether her body said it was all right. Mind over body.
Duty over love.
She clenched her eyes hut, feeling a swell of
emotion, anger and sadness. Fury that he would risk her for him. And that fury
gave her strength, made her not only feel her power but make it boil inside.
She could almost hear the low rumble as it surged through her veins with her
blood. She agitated it, suppressing it and compressing it yet working it into a
tight frenzy. Given enough time it would come out in a powerful burst, breaking
through the invisible barriers she had instilled to hold it in. And when it did
it would have all her dragon power behind it, all her mental strength.
It would be enough to blow the roof off.
She opened her eyes, irises dark, and silver flashed
in their depths. Then she took a step forward, into the wards, and she was
suddenly dragging an incredible weight with her. She was dragging the wards,
she realized. Her body, emanating the black energy was clashing with the wards,
pulling and trying to break it down, break it apart. And the protective witch
barriers were visible now, smooth walls of clear, purple light. Sunlight threw
rainbows across its surface and it fizzed as her shield of black energy clashed
with it. She pushed, with her body and mind, clenching her jaw and shoving her
way forward. It was like trying to walk down the street when the rain and wind
were pushing you back. And the wards resembled the surfaces of a bubble,
shimmering with a soapy sheen. Something so fragile and yet she was feeling the
immense strain it took to break through. She forced more strength, biting down
on the insides of her cheeks. She had to get through and she had to do it
quickly. Chances were great that there were witch guards and if they caught her
she would be weak from trying to break through. She had to get through now.
And then, miraculously, something cracked and
shattered.
The walls of witch magic burst outward behind her as
her dragon energy exploded from within. Like glass it shattered, pieces
shooting out. And as if time had stopped the pieces hung in the air, frozen in
space, splinters of witch ward.
Selena felt her features shift at her release. Not back
into herself but through all her passed disguises. Through all the people she
had been, dating back to her old life in the World of Dragons. Her hair
lengthened, shortened, brightened and blackened once again. And her irises
raced through every single color of the spectrum, remaining a single color for
no more than a few seconds.
She felt a second release and she pitched forward,
the pull of the wards letting go, allowing her entrance. She stumbled a bit,
legs weakening and she nearly fell to the ground. Her black power exploded from
her once more, a third time, a short burst from her body, cleansing in its
release.
The stone wall of the First House cracked and
crumbled inward before her, leaving behind a large gaping hole as her entrance.
And as she looked behind her she saw the shining slivers of witch ward pull
back and close over, melt to form the impenetrable wall once more.
Mother Cybele raised her head, hands clasped before
her as she leaned toward the door. "It's the Old Language. I barely understand
it." She whispered, straining to hear. "But they do not honor the Goddess."
Thierry had his arms crossed over his chest. "No,
they don't." he agreed. "They're putting up more wards to hold us in here-" he
explained, looking towards the Mother. "Powerful wards."
Thea glanced at him. Of course he would know. Before
he had become a vampire he had been a witch.
A sudden shiver ran down Thea's spine and it seemed
to be transferred through every witch in the room for they all looked about in
confusion. It was a bit like the eerie feeling she had felt moments before the
witches had trapped them in, although this was an entirely ominous tingle.
The
message was plain however. All was not right.
It was Winnie who understood. "The dragon," she said quietly,
looking at the Mother. "The wards…" she swallowed. "She's through."
Thea whirled on her. "Chime?" she demanded. But
before Winnie could answer she turned to the Mother. "Why can't we get out?"
She placed a hand to the door and a sudden electrical charge jolted through
her, forcing her to recoil with a cry.
"Witch magic." Cybele murmured, Thierry gazing at the
door with a quizzical frown.
"They have us trapped." Thea stated, hands on hips.
"Can't we break through? There are only five of them. We have enough between us
to get through-" she said, motioning to the group.
Cybele suddenly looked at the door again, head
snapping. And her eyes widened a split second before the large crack. She
stumbled back a step, dragging Thea, Thierry ducking his head and scooting back
with them. And for a moment they stared at the zigzagging streak in the stone
of the wall.
Then
the wall exploded.
A cry tore from Thea as pure air and stone smashed
into her and she went flying, crashing in a heap on the floor, rolling. Several
shouts and shrieks rang out in the group as pebbles and rocks pelted them,
forcing them back. Then there was silence, nothing but the faint patter of
stone and the gentle swoosh of air and dust.
Thierry coughed, rolling over onto his rear slowly.
He peeked through the dust, a hand lifted to cover his face and where the door
and wall had been was now a wall of pulsing purple witch magic. He rose slowly,
eyes narrowed, and patted the dust from him. Four women were outside the wall
of magic, looking in, heads bowed in intense concentration.
Cybele sat up with a frown, squinting through the
dust.
But Thierry was the first to see and recognize the
fifth witch as she came around the line of dark witches. His eyes widened and
he felt floored as she smiled at him, dark hair and eyes gleaming.
"Cassandra…"
