Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon) by Scott Appleton Page B

passersby. Women knitted outside their homes, basking in the sunlight. Children played ball on the highway. A tall soldier marched down the cobblestones, jostling Ilfedo. “Beg your pardon, stranger.” The soldier smiled sidelong at him and passed, then spread his arms as a young woman with dark hair dropped her knitting and ran to his embrace. For that moment Ilfedo hesitated. The warrior swung his lady around and passionately kissed her lips. They laughed, and she pulled his helmet from his head and ran her fingers through his blond hair.
    The lord warrior smiled to himself. Peace at last. It had cost them blood, sweat, and tears. Around him laughter filled the streets. Women washed their house windows as men scrubbed the white and gray building exteriors. He leaned forward and continued walking away from the heart of civilization. A blue marble statue of a horse stood in the highway’s midst, and he walked beyond it, beneath a stone arch, and gazed at the open fields stretching to the lush green forest. It was quite the contrast, and he almost glanced back at Gwensin’s hewn magnificence once more. Yet he kept his face forward and strode into nature’s privacy.
    The Creator’s good trees welcomed him into their shadows and a profound silence. He slipped the hood off his head, striding with purpose westward—homeward.
    Later that day, twilight fell upon the forest. Still, the woodland remained silent save for an occasional breeze. A twig snapped under his foot and he halted. The familiar path home, almost as wide as a road, wended through the forest ahead. Why such silence? He felt the cool pommel of his sword, ran his fingers along its smooth crystalline surface.
    Suddenly a flame grew on the path ahead of him. A single thread of red and yellow flickered into existence and curled toward his feet. He stepped back and drew his sword. But an invisible force ripped it from his hand, and it hovered several feet off the ground, blade pointed to the sky. The Living Fire knifed out of the blade, roiling around its reflective surface. Flames whirled around the blade and shot toward the treetops. Flames cascaded from its guard, flooding the ground about him. The leaves crackled, catching fire. The trees’ trunks blackened, and the fire formed a tornado around his body. He could reach out and touch it with his fingertips, but he did not.
    A splash of white mixed with the fire, and he was pulled off the ground. The white swam through the fire, and the enormous, glowing face of the albino dragon gazed upon him from behind the flames. He looked into those pink orbs—its eyes—and tried to bow. But the whirlwind caught Ilfedo away in its flames and white. Strands of black snaked through the tornado, across the magnificent creature’s veiled face—and the dragon vanished.
    The flames stroked his face with thin fingers, yet they gave off no heat. He could see nothing beyond the flames, the white, and the black. Only the sword of the dragon remained within sight. It spun in gradual orbit around his head, spilling flames that whipped about.
    A beam of light pierced the flames above his head and spotlighted the sword. The weapon ceased its orbit, held its place before him, and the hands of an old man reached from the flames. The wrinkled fingers grasped the sword’s handle with unwavering strength while one hand grasped his shoulder. And the old prophet shepherd who had wed him with Dantress stepped through the fire, blue eyes blazing at Ilfedo.
    Gone was the gentle patriarch. This man gazed up at him with positional authority and experience. Ilfedo knew that look—the look of a fellow warrior. The sword of the dragon blazed in the prophet’s hands as he swept its blade in a slow, wide loop. Lightning crackled from the blade’s double edge, sewing a ring of electricity through the flames.
    The prophet’s fist clamped on Ilfedo’s shoulder and pulled him close to the ring. “Hear me, Lord Ilfedo. Hear my warning. A war broods