Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [65]
Dragons could move about the Realm of Stone in their spirit form or in their physical shape. In the spirit form, they could not interact with the world. They could not eat or drink or pick up a ruby in their claws or fight an enemy. In their physical form, they could do all those things, but there were drawbacks. Dragons in the physical form were heavy. They had wings and they could fly, but not very far or very fast. That made it difficult for them to traverse the world hunting for the gemstones.
Vindrash proposed that dragons give their spiritbones into the hands of her chosen people, the Vindrasi. She would make the Vindrasi into a nation of seafarers, a nation of raiders, who would sail the seas of the known world in search of gold and silver and jewels. The Vindrasi would take the dragons along on their questing. The dragons would imbue the ships with their spirits, guiding the ships, giving them wings, as it were. The dragons could also assist the Vindrasi in battle by taking physical form and attacking their foes.
The beauty of this plan was that the Vindrasi would be ignorant of the fact that they were the unwitting tools of the dragons, transporting them over the seas in the never-ending search for jewels. The Vindrasi would imagine the dragons were serving them, whereas the dragons knew it was the other way around.
The dragons who volunteered to work with the Vindrasi gave a piece of bone to the Bone Priestesses, who could use the bone to summon the dragons should they have need. The dragons were free to answer or not as he or she chose. Generally it was in the dragon’s interest to respond. The Vindrasi became known and feared throughout their portion of the world for the dragonships and the dragons who fought for them.
Then came these new gods, young gods, seeking to rule a world of their own. The Gods of Raj, they called themselves, and a single god, Aelon, Lord of the New Dawn. The old gods had not foreseen their coming. Caught by surprise, they had been defeated, vanquished. One of their number had been slain.
Emboldened by their victory, the worshippers of these gods had attacked the Hall of Vektia. They had come by night—come silently, by stealth, for the giants who were Torval’s servants and kept watch over the Isles claimed they had never seen them.
The Hall of Vektia had been ransacked. Whoever had attacked the Hall was not after treasure, but had been looking for something else. Urns made of pure gold lay overturned on the blood-covered floor beside silver pitchers and jewel-encrusted candleholders, all of which looters would have carted off. The ancient statue of the Dragon Goddess had been ravaged, decapitated.
And then the dragons discovered what was missing—the spiritbones of the dragons who were supposed to have been guarding the temple.
Here was a mystery. Why had the dragons failed in their duty? What had become of the bones? Who had taken them and why? Only the Bone Priestesses could summon the spirits of the dragons, and the Priestesses resided among the Vindrasi. They came to the Hall of Vektia to present the goddess with treasure or on other special occasions.
The dragons searched for clues to the nature of the enemy. Generally soldiers would discard something that gave some indication of where they were from—a torn leather strap, a leaky waterskin, a half-eaten apple. This army had left behind nothing, no trace. They had even taken care to hide their bootprints.
The dragons were baffled until they came across a lone spiritbone lying on the floor below an immense tapestry. The spiritbone was broken in two. The dragon whose spirit it held was dead. The dragons had started to pick it up, to give it a reverent burial, when one of them happened to notice that the two pieces were seemingly pointing at the tapestry.
The dragons studied the tapestry and saw, to their dismay, that it portrayed the story