Outside the castle walls, Lingqui led Ashanta and Sharra through a stone archway and into a darkened tunnel. "Be careful of your footing, Highness," he admonished. "The floor of this tunnel was built in the time of the dragon king, and the stones have become loosened over the centuries. Few men even know of this place any more."
"I had never seen nor heard of it," admitted Ashanta.
"Nor I," added Sharra, "and it seems that it should be my responsibility, as priestess, to know such things."
Lingqui's voice came back to them through the darkness. Though each of them carried a small lantern, the light hardly seemed to touch the darkness in the tunnel, "This place was lost to time entirely nearly two centuries ago. For years it had been a place known only to the high priest, and the knowledge of it had been passed from to the next high priest only when the current priest was dying. Then, a high priest was killed suddenly and unexpectedly by a falling branch. He was unable to pass on the knowledge and so it came to an end."
"How then did you find it?" wondered Sharra.
"There was a reference to it in a very old manuscript that I was searching," replied Lingqui. "At one time, the tunnel must have been known to all, for clearly this is not the work of a single priest, but of many, many men over many years." He paused. "We are nearly to the place that I wished to show you. Be careful here, for the path turns sharply."
Ashanta and Sharra followed him another thirty feet or so, and then stopped, abruptly. Lingqui reached into the pack that he was carrying and brought out a large lantern, covered with mirrors, and a dozen or so candles. Placing the lantern down on the floor, he lit the candles inside, and the chamber, for Ashanta now saw that that is what they were in, blazed with light.
Ashanta gasped. Lining the walls of the chamber were plaques and below them were spaces in the stone wall where, she could see, wooden doors had once stood. The air was musty and fetid. Walking over to one of the plaques, she struggled to decipher the words that were written on it.
"The air down here is good for moss," observed Sharra, "have you any way that we can clean some of these off so that we can read what is written there?"
Lingqui bowed slightly, "Certainly Priestess. Though perhaps we had best start with the plaque to the right of the door." They walked over, and Lingqui carefully scraped away the moss that was growing there. They all bent nearer, Lingqui holding his small lantern up so that the light of it fell directly onto the stone.
Carefully tracing the lines of the script, Ashanta read, "Here lies King Shembo, son of the Dragon King, and father of Prince Lhaso." She turned to Lingqui, "So this is the grave of Prince Shembo, from the legend you told me of? The legend is real then?"
Arranging his face carefully, Lingqui replied, "We know that there was a king who was called the Dragon King, and that he had a son who was named Shembo. But there is a king later who is called the Lion, though he was not a lion, and one who is called the Eagle, though he was not an eagle. So he could have been called the Dragon King without that he was a dragon."
"Why is the Dragon King not buried here?" demanded Sharra.
"If the legend is true, it is because he turned into a dragon and flew away," replied Ashanta.
"And even if the legend is not true, exactly, it may be that he went out to battle against the Southerners and that his attack was so fierce that they fled from him as they would have fled from a dragon," pointed out Lingqui. "He may have been killed in that battle, or lost, and his body might never have been recovered. We know not."
Ashanta nodded. "So what do the rest of the plaques say?" She walked to the next stone and began to try to wipe away the moss.
Lingqui stepped over next to her, and using his tool he carefully scraped away the moss. Reading aloud he said, "Here lies King Lhaso, son of King Shembo and grandson of the Dragon King, and father of Prince Cheyn." He put down his tool. "These plaque go nearly all the way around the walls of this chamber. Each marks the burial place of a king, and each links the king who is buried there to his father and his son, and invokes the name of the Dragon King. They continue until 223 years ago, which was shortly before the knowledge of this chamber was lost.
"Our documents go back about 5 centuries, and so we can, by using these stones and the documents of lineage stored in the castle library, trace the ancestry of King Rafe in a direct line back to the Dragon King. Interestingly, for the last five centuries at least, the king has had only one child. Always a son."
Ashanta waited for him to continue, but he did not. Instead, blowing out the candles in the large lantern, he placed it back in his sack and they saw his light begin to bob over toward the entrance. "We should leave now," he said. "This is a bad place to be at night, full of spirits and voices. We can talk more once we are safely back in the castle."
Back in the castle, Ashanta changed back into her robes and called for dinner to be brought up for all of them. I have much to learn, she thought. I wonder whether there is something here that will aid us in our battle against the Kreign.
Lingqui interrupted her thoughts, "I think, Highness, that we should once again discuss your dream. I see two possible interpretations. The first is that you dreamed of your husband, King Rafe. He is the lineal descendant of the Dragon King, and thus it is quite natural that the gods sent you a dream of him in dragon form. In this case, there is no need for further consideration. The child saw, perhaps, the glint of the rising sun on the castle battlements, and the flag atop it streaming in the wind. There is nothing more to think about." He paused. "The second possibility is that the Dragon King is indeed coming back, and that the child saw a dragon, flying high above the battlements. If this is so, I believe that we should post watchmen on the tallest tower that we might know if he returns."
Sharra nodded her agreement, but Ashanta protested, "But how shall we explain this to the people of the castle? It is not normal for us to post a watchman there. Will they not be suspicious?"
"Remember," said Sharra, "that they have all heard the story of the child by now. Many of them will discount it as merely being the result of a child's fertile imagination. Others will not be sure. And still others will believe that it is evidence that the Dragon King is returning. They will find it quite natural for the queen to post a watchman. After all, though it may not be true, then again, it may and it would be natural to wish to know. Not every kingdom has a dragon fighting on their side."
Ashanta nodded. "I will order the watchman," she agreed, "though I do not believe that he will see anything." She yawned, "But perhaps it can wait until the morning."
Sharra and Lingqui smiled at each other and headed for the door. "We can discuss more tomorrow, Highness," murmured Sharra. "Perhaps a night of sleep will shed more light on the matter."
Sleepily, Ashanta reached for the cord to summon Thara to come and help her to undress. How do our subjects do this, she wondered. After all, surely they don't all have servants to help them to undress. Come to think of it, how does Thara, and then she was asleep.
Thara, upon entering, called Firth to lift the queen onto the bed, removed her shoes, and tucked under the blankets. "Sweet dreams Highness," she murmured, and slipped out, snuffing the candle behind her.
Ashanta slept on, tossing and turning in her bedding until it wound tight about her. The dragon flew in through her open window, and gently unwound the blankets from her body. "Shall we fly again," he asked, and the sleeping Ashanta reached toward him. The dream was a lovely one, for she mounted again upon his back and he flew once more out through the window of her apartment. The sun was just cresting over the edge of the forest, and in her dream, Ashanta noticed that the sun glinting off the roofs of the battlements sent sparkles of sunlight through the courtyard, so that the entire castle seemed to be made of gold, and embellished with silver and bronze.
They flew again over the villages and fields of the kingdom, and over the sea coast before landing once more on the mountain peak. Again the dragon laid Ashanta down on the ground and helped her to undress, lifting the dress over her head with gentleness that seemed quite surprising in such a large and fearsome beast. Ashanta knew what was to happen next, and the dreaming Ashanta moaned in her sleep and arched her back expectantly, eager for what was to come. The dragon, with great delicacy, touched her breasts with his tongue and….
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