The bones exploded as if they’d been hit with dynamite, flying high into the air and then scattering in all directions.
Mom, G-ma, and even Maurice stood staring at me, their breaths coming hard. I didn’t know what I’d expected coming into the darkling lands would mean, but fighting dragon-riding skeletons hadn’t been on the list of possibilities. I certainly hadn’t expected to discover my powers extended to blowing up my enemies.
A fearsome roar cut through the air and was joined by another and then another. My heartbeat sped. We were exhausted from fighting the skeletons. We didn’t have the strength left to take on the dragons. I didn’t, at least. I barely had the strength to wonder if they would fry us with fire, stomp us to death with their massive feet, or simply have us as a tasty snack.
Poor Maurice. He’d be nothing more than a morsel. I wished he hadn’t come with us.
The largest of the dragons roared again.
Maurice’s nose and whiskers twitched. “They’re trying to tell us something.”
I looked at Mom and G-ma. “Either of you speak dragon?”
Because, having seen them fight, it now seemed perfectly plausible that one or both of them might also have the gift of animal speech. Or maybe G-ma wasn’t blocked, as I was, from understanding the thoughts of other species. She’d conversed with the Watchers, after all.
Mom and G-ma shook their heads.
Chapter 11
“For all the gods’ sakes,” Maurice said. “Humans can be fucking useless at times. I’ll talk to them.”
He scampered up close to the largest dragon and squeaked in his high-pitched rat voice. The dragon didn’t roast him or roar back. Instead, it dropped onto its knees and laid its head on the ground near the rat. The dragon’s roar changed to soft rumbles and low growls. They chatted; I assumed they were chatting back and forth. Minutes passed. I tried to trust that Maurice knew what he was doing while I planned what I’d do if the dragons attacked: bullets first, and if that failed, knife to the soft neck flesh. A slash, not a plunge, since I need to be fast and couldn’t risk the knife getting stuck.
When they’d evidently finished, Maurice trotted back to us useless humans. The dragons stayed where they were. I squatted down to hear what Maurice had to say.
“The dragons thank you for freeing them from their unwanted overlords,” Maurice said. “Seems they’ve been cursed into serving them. The dragons hated having those bony little skeleton asses on their backs. I told them we’re looking for the chalice. Turns out, they know where it is and will be happy to fly us there.”
Apprehension radiated from Mom and G-ma. Apprehension bubbled in me as well. The dragons knew where the chalice was and would take us there. It seemed too easy.
“You trust them?” I said. “We’re not going to wind up as roasted dinner or bucked from their backs during the flight?”
Maurice’s tail flicked in that way that meant he was annoyed. “Have I ever given you bad advice?”
“No. But I’ve never before asked you if we should trust dragons.”
“Fair enough,” he said, his tail calming. “You can trust me on this. As it happens, I helped out some relatives of the lead dragon once. They are more than pleased to repay the favor.”
I laughed once under my breath. “You are a true treasure, Maurice.”
The rat shook head to tail, a tiny shiver wriggling down his spine. “You only just realized that? Now, put me deep down in your pocket. Flying is not one of my favorite things.”
I picked up Maurice and settled him back into the same pocket he’d ridden in before. By the time I’d done that, G-ma had already climbed onto the second largest dragon’s back and Mom was mounting another, smaller dragon as if she’d been doing it all her life. I stepped over to a third dragon that kneeled to make climbing onto its back easier. I glanced at my mom and grandmother sitting astride their beasts as calmly as sitting at home in their favorite chair.
I had some seriously bad-ass women in my family.
The dragons wore bridles and reins made from what looked like black and white vines braided together. They knew where they were going, but I held the reins loosely in one hand anyway. A series of sharp, horn-like spikes spaced every seven inches or so protruded from the dragon’s neck from just below its head to a foot or so above its back. The last spike bent into a C shape with a blunted end. I clutched it in my hands, gripped my legs tightly against the beast’s sides, and drew in a steadying breath. In a motion so fluid it was more like floating upwards than a takeoff, we rose into the air.
I’ve ridden horses and flown in planes, but riding a flying dragon was quite a different experience. The ground dropped away steadily beneath us. I squeezed my hands tight around the neck spike, pressed my legs tighter against the dragon’s sides, and made myself look straight ahead or up, not down. The air grew colder as we climbed. The ride was smooth, the dragon steady—as stable as standing on ice skates—it was all about balance. I relaxed the littlest bit and looked down.
The ground beneath was all hoodoos now, white, black, and brown rock spires reaching into the air like stiff fingers, a dot of green or yellow here and there where trees had found purchase, and the occasional small spread of reddish-brown flatland.
We’d flown for maybe an hour when the edge of a blue ribbon came into view. The ribbon grew wider and wider as we flew toward it, spreading out into a great river.
The River of Sighs, grandmother’s voice said in my head.
I gripped the dragon’s C-shaped spike tighter, though why I thought falling from this height into water would be worse than falling onto land was a mystery.
A small, hilly island appeared in the middle of the river. The riderless lead dragon banked and began to descend. I couldn’t see at first where we might find open space enough to land, but then a tiny flat patch appeared. The dragons headed for it and set down one after the other, close together since the area was small. The three dragons with passengers kneeled so we could dismount. I was ridiculously happy to have solid ground under my feet again.
The dragon that had led us here roared low and growled.
Maurice wriggled in my pocket, slowly moved the flap aside, and poked his head out. If a rat could look seasick, that would describe Maurice.
The rat grunted low and then cocked his head, listening. “She says the chalice is in the cave.”
I looked around but didn’t see a cave entrance. All around us were hoodoos and hills. The hill nearest us showed the remnants of a landslide.
The dragon roared low again.
“The cave is behind those rocks,” Maurice said and pointed toward the landslide.
I didn’t know the fae lands—or many of the fae—but this place seemed pretty out of the way to also need a rock barrier to the cave with the chalice in it. But rocks there were. Big, freaking rocks that none of us could move without a tank and a length of strong chain.
G-ma looked at Maurice. “Ask the dragons if they can help us move the rocks.”
Maurice chattered. The lead dragon huffed and snorted.
The rat shrugged. “She says they’ve done their bit and are going home. They do wish us good luck, though.”
Great.
Chapter 12
The lead dragon bellowed and all six rose into the air. They circled above us once, their great wings spread to glide on the winds, blocking the sun and throwing long shadows over us. They turned east and in moments were gone from our sight.
Mom set her hand on my shoulder. “Can you move the rocks with magic?”
I swung my head and looked at her. My mother was asking me to do magic?
I probably would know how to do that if you hadn’t kept me away from magic practically all my life. “Not magic. I don’t know a spell or anything for that. But I can try with telekinesis.”
Maurice wriggled in my pocket. “Make ‘em fly.”
Yeah, easy for you to say, Maurice.
I focused on a stone about the size of a volleyball
that lay close to us. I was worn out and my head ached, but I focused on moving the stone away from the mouth of the cave. I didn’t need to make it fly, only roll, or even scoot over the dirt, which I thought would be easier.
I focused my will on the rock and visualized it pulling away from its neighbors.
Nothing. No movement. Not even a creak of rocks rubbing together.
I refocused and tried again, seeing what I wanted to happen in my mind’s eye and tugging with all my mental strength.
Maurice sighed loudly at my second failure.
Something caught my eye. I stepped up close to the rocks, bent down, and checked to see if I was right.
“Crap,” I said. “These rocks are mortared together.”
G-ma hunkered down next to me and examined the rocks. “They sure are.”
Which meant I’d have to summon up enough focus to move the entire thing as one. I didn’t think I had it in me right now to pull that off. I wasn’t sure I ever had it in me to move something that size and weight.
Mom touched my arm. “Hold on. Let me take a look.”
She came close and peered closely at the stones and boulders, up and down, side to side, and pushed at a few of them.
“I think this is set up as some sort of lock,” she said. “Hopefully one that easily can be opened by someone knowing the key. Let me look a little more.”
She climbed over the rocks to look at the slide from another side.
G-ma leaned near to me and said low, “I hope you appreciate how clever your mother is.”
“I do,” I said. “The two of you have impressed the hell out of me.”
G-ma smiled. “We’ve been rather impressed with you as well. You’re definitely a Goodlight.”
I blinked. “Was there some question?”
G-ma shook her head. “None. Ever.”
I started to ask G-ma about the real reason Mom and Dad had worked so hard to keep magic out of my life—I didn’t believe that Mom’s experiences growing up were the only reason—when Mom stopped examining the rocks and faced us.
She swiped a stray strand of hair away from her face. “I think I’ve figured it out. At least I hope so. Oona, come here.”
I picked my way across the slide of stones to where she was.
Mom leaned to touch a specific stone. The rock, which looked like all the other black or white rocks to me, sat maybe a foot up from the ground. A layer of some sort of mortar so thin it was hard to see stuck that rock to the stones and boulders around it—just like all the rocks in the slide were fixed to their neighbors.
“The rocks aren’t magically bound.” Mom sounded very sure of herself. “I don’t think they’re warded, either. Whoever set this up probably thought the location was so remote that it didn’t need magic to protect it. The perception that the rocks were mortared together and impossible to move was enough.”
I looked down at the pocket where Maurice was. “Magic, or no?”
The rat’s nose twitched. “Your mother’s right. No magic on the stones. But there’s magic inside the cave. Wards, probably. Maybe other things.”
“So we can move the rocks without unleashing some terror?”
The rat nodded. “Perfectly safe. Outside, at least.”
“This one, Oona,” Mom said, touching again the rock she’d indicated before. Pull it out and everything will go with it.”
I stared at the target rock a moment, sizing it up, and—honestly—sort of talking to it in my mind; telling it I was going to free it and I’d appreciate if it helped. I knew that was sort of crazy, but it seemed the right thing to do.
Drawing in a breath, I focused on the rock, tugging it with my mind. It didn’t budge. I cleared my mind and tried again. The rock moved a little. Not much, but some. At least I thought it had.
I clenched my hands into loose fists and tried a third time, seeing in my mind’s eye the rock coming free. A small creaking sound gave me confidence. I focused as hard as I could. The rock popped free and rolled away.
And lay there. None of the other rocks moved.
“Well, shit,” I muttered.
Maurice wriggled in my pocket. “Put me on the ground.”
I lifted him out and set him down, wondering what the rat was thinking.
Maurice wriggled his nose, sniffing for something, and flicked his ears. “Yep. Wards inside. And traps. I’ll go disarm them.”
He ran off before I could say, “Is that a good idea?” or “Be careful.”
The rat scrambled up the stones to where the one rock had been dislodged, leaving a hole, and disappeared inside the cave. Mom, G-ma, and I looked at each other. There was nothing to do but wait.
Streaks of dark purple were beginning to appear in the sky. The sun was moving slowly west and would soon disappear behind the tallest hoodoos. I pulled three bags of trail mix from my pocket and handed one to my mom and one to my grandmother.
G-ma sat cross-legged on the ground and opened her bag. Mom and I joined her.
“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” I glanced from Mom to G-ma.
“My father taught me,” G-ma said.
“The selkie?”
“My father,” G-ma said, emphasizing the word to make the point that his being a selkie was far down the line in important things, as far as she was concerned, “was a student and a teacher of many arts, stick fighting among them.”
“He taught me, too,” Mom said.
So Mom’s magical upbringing wasn’t all practical jokes and embarrassments.
I nodded, impressed. “I’d like to have known him.”
“No reason why you can’t,” G-ma said, shaking out a portion of mixed nuts, raisins, M&Ms, and bits of date onto her hand. “He and my mother live on the Isle of Skye.”
I did the math in my head. Cassie, I knew, had been born in 1905, which made her well over a hundred years old.
G-ma peered at me. I felt the tickle inside my skull that meant she was reading my thoughts, though honestly, anyone paying attention could have seen what I was thinking written on my face.
“Did you not know that, barring fatal accidents, the magical live long lives?” she said.
“I knew.”
I just had never considered that my great grandparents might still be alive.
Maurice’s high-pitched rat laugh sounded from inside the cave. A moment later the rocks split more or less down the middle and the wall parted.
Maurice stood just inside the cave entrance, a rattish grin on his face. “Whoever put this up liked puzzles.” He glanced at Mom. “You were right about the key to fit the lock, but probably wouldn’t have guessed that the second part of the key lay inside the cave.” He shifted his gaze back to me. “Lucky for us, properly opening the wall seems to have disarmed the wards. There’s no feel of magic around the entrance now. Come on in.”
I was nearest to the cave entrance and went in first, followed closely by G-ma and then Mom. The opening was maybe ten feet high, but I ducked my head anyway. What was it about dark caves that makes us feel we have to duck to enter?
The light inside was faint, only what filtered in from outside, and faded to pitch deeper back. Stalactites hung above our heads from a rough-hewn ceiling that was at least thirty feet high. I didn’t see any stalagmites, but we might as we went deeper inside. The bones of small animals lay here and there on the soft dirt just inside the cave mouth. Funny how the cave’s walls and ceiling were rough and rocky while the floor was as smooth as carpet.
“Did you find the chalice?” I asked Maurice.
“Not yet. I checked to the back to make sure all the wards were down and there weren’t any other magical traps, but didn’t see any chalice.”
I gazed into the darkness. “So maybe it isn’t here? Maybe the dragons weren’t so grateful after all. Maybe they were part of a plot to bring us to the middle of nowhere and leave us here.”
The rat shook his shoulders. “That’s a hell of a lot of maybes. Maybe the chalice is here and I
couldn’t see it from the ground. I’m not as tall as you.”
“We need light,” G-ma said.
Dee knew how to conjure light. I didn’t.
“I’ll do it,” Mom said.
I turned to her, surprised. She stood just inside the entrance, backlit by the sun outside. I watched her mouth move as she muttered a spell and her hands move in an intricate pattern. A tiny spec of light formed between her moving hands, growing larger and brighter as she chanted. When the light ball was the size of a large orange floating between her hands, she stopped chanting. She flipped her right hand over palm up. The orb floated a few inches above her palm and cast a strong white light extending maybe eight or ten feet around us.
G-ma had watched her daughter do magic with a tiny smile of pride on her face. In all, those two were getting along and cooperating better than I’d expected.
“I’ll go first,” Mom said and walked deeper into the cave with strong, sure steps.
We fell in behind her. Maurice scampered along by our feet.
The air inside wasn’t too bad; I thought there must be vents to the outside, which was lucky for us. The only sounds were our steps and, after walking twenty minutes or so, G-ma’s breath started to come hard.
“Do you need a short rest?” I asked her.
“Don’t be cheeky, Oona.”
She sped her step.
I scooped up Maurice and set him in my pocket, then hustled to match her pace.
Another five or so minutes later, Maurice poked one tiny, clawed finger into my thigh to get my attention.
“Do you hear that?” he asked.
I’d thought I was imagining the slithering sound twisting around us—first in front, then above, then behind, then in front again.
“What do you think it is?”
“Don’t know, but I don’t like it. I feel a new magic around us. One I didn’t feel before.”
I nodded. “Me, too.”
G-ma was near enough to hear our conversation. “I feel it, too. There’s something crooked about that magic. Something not right.”
I strained to see beyond the bubble of light Mom’s orb provided, but there was nothing but inky darkness.
Chalice and Blade Page 9
