Dragons on the Sea of Night by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page A

of Miira’s Mirror?’
    She had him and he knew it. For a moment his brows knit darkly, then he burst out into deep, booming laughter. ‘Perhaps. But I believe the age of magic died when the Dai-San defeated the Dolman. This is the age of mankind.’
    â€˜And what of Sardonyx?’ Aufeya demanded. ‘Was she not the most powerful sorceress?’
    Moichi considered this highly charged topic carefully, as he always did with her. Sardonyx, who had been born Adenese, had been sold into slavery. Eventually, she had killed her master and had been thrown into jail for her crime. Eventually, she managed to escape, bribing her way out with her body. The rest of her history was a mystery – he was not even certain of the veracity of what she had told him. She was a consummate liar; she actually enjoyed spinning tales, changing personalities as readily and effortlessly as others breathed air.
    Sardonyx had become fixated on Aufeya, and when Moichi had prevented her from getting her, she had returned to Daluzia from her castle in the land of the Opal Moon and had murdered Aufeya’s mother Tsuki by somehow using Aufeya’s body, thus wreaking a diabolical revenge on mother and daughter both. One was dead and the other could never forgive herself for what her body had done.
    â€˜As far as Sardonyx is concerned,’ Moichi said, keeping one eye on the wind and the other on Aufeya’s face, ‘it is my considered opinion that she was more prestidigitator than thaumaturgist. To put it in its simplest terms she was a highly accomplished illusionist.’
    â€˜Then everything that happened to us in the land of the Opal Moon was a hallucination?’
    â€˜Ah, no. You know it was not. But the Firemask, the artifact of power, that Sardonyx so desired, was real enough. And it was from the time of magic; its power was awesome.’ Seeing her shudder and make the sign of the Palliate, he put his arm around her and kissed her cheek. ‘I think we’d both do best in forgetting all about Sardonyx. After I took the Firemask from her, her only thought was to avenge herself on your mother. Having, unhappily, accomplished that, she is now, I have no doubt, far away from here, back in her castle in the land of the Opal Moon.’
    Together, they went to the rail, stared out at the rising sun.
    Aufeya turned to Moichi. ‘You miss him, don’t you?’
    â€˜Who?’
    â€˜Your love for the Dai-San runs very deep.’
    â€˜He is my bond-brother.’
    â€˜He’s much more, I warrant.’
    Moichi was silent for some time, as if he were wrestling with a thorny problem. ‘In some unfathomable way we are one. I cannot explain it further. He was created to defeat the Dolman and the forces of Chaos who threatened to claim this world and to put an end to the races of man for all time. My fate was to be at his side. He is the greatest warrior of all time; together we journeyed to the Kai-feng, the last great battle of mankind.’
    â€˜Yet you were not with him in Ama-no-mori for the beginning of his transformation.’
    He sighed. ‘Ah, Aufeya, all journeys have an end. My fate dictated that I return to Sha’angh’sei. I had my own role to play.’ He chuckled. ‘And lucky for me that I did. I never would have met you otherwise.’
    â€˜Or come to grips with Sardonyx.’
    â€˜I am no longer interested in her or the land of the Opal Moon. They belong to our past, nothing more.’
    â€˜Speaking of the moon,’ Aufeya said excitedly as she pointed overhead, ‘it is out here during the day! Look, Moichi! Look!’

THREE
    T HE H OUSE OF A NNAI -N IN
    The pure white buildings of Ala ’ arat glowed in the tropical sunlight. The city was strategically situated on a series of nine clawlike hills which rose around the sweeping crescent of a generous and sheltering bay. In all ways, the city was the direct opposite of