click!
She slid to one side and, using the pick, cautiously raised the hasp and waited. Satisfied, she edged the lid up an inch or so and again waited. Finally she opened it steadily until it lay all the way back.
Aiko gasped. “My tiger. The peril.”
Again Burel said, “The Dragonstone?”
“Perhaps.” Aiko looked about, sighting no one or nothing standing near, nought, that is, but enshadowed boulders and Alos beginning to stir and the open chest at hand.
Ferret looked inside, then drew out a leather bag. She set it down and untied the thong wound tightly ’round its neck. Then carefully, cautiously, she reached in and withdrew a large, egg-shaped, melon-sized, translucent, pale green stone, lustrous and faintly glowing with an inner light, and she held it up for all to see.
“Just as in my vision,” breathed Arin, reaching out to take it. The Dylvana cradled the jadelike ovoid in two hands and looked at the others. “This, my friends, is the Dragonstone.”
Through the bloodred sunlight hurtled a tumbling glitter, and glass shattered at their feet, and a yellow-green gas billowed upward, as from behind there came a sharp command—“Akoúsete me! Peísesthe moi! And move not!” Egil tried to turn but found he could not move, his body unable to respond.
“I thank you for recovering my prize,” hissed a voice—followed by soft laughter.
And then stepping ’round Arin and taking the stone came stalking the Wizard Ordrune.
CHAPTER 79
Ordrune held the pale jade ovoid to the sky and laughed as the crimson sunset bathed the translucent orb, casting glints to the eye like luminous drops of blood. “At last you are mine once more,” cried the Mage, then he whirled ’round in a gleeful dance.
Of a sudden he paused and looked at the ensorcelled band behind, entranced by his arcane words of binding, their resistance lowered by his vaporous concoction. Rage boiled behind their eyes, yet they could not move, for he had so commanded. “Ah, my fools, I thank you for obtaining that which was beyond my grasp. —What’s that, you ask? If I hid it in the first place, could I not retrieve it? I suppose since you redeemed it for me, I owe you an explanation before you perish.
“Walk with me and I’ll tell you the tale as we stride toward your doom.”
Ordrune passed among the six of them, strolling slowly for the lip of the precipice. Completely enslaved and unable to help themselves, woodenly they followed, though their features were filled with fury.
“Heed: long past when Black Kalgalath and Daagor and lowly Quirm stood before me at the portals of Black Mountain, then did I know that I had to possess this most puissant token of power.
“But I knew if I took it then, I would be hounded by the fools cowering inside, hounded by the Mages who ultimately swore the oath.
“And Quirm, ineffectual Quirm, the weakest of the lot, it was he I subverted there before the very gates when the Dragonstone was revealed. It was deep in his mind that I discovered a perfect hiding place for the stone—the place from which you so neatly extracted it.”
Ordrune paused in his steps and gazed into the stone, his ensorcelled captives pausing with him.
“Unlike those who were expelled from Black Mountain, I but pretended to swear to the oath of binding, and I bided my time. Then I went on a long sabbatical—to study the world, I claimed. But in truth it was to prepare my strongholt, the one you so foolishly assaulted.”
Ordrune took up his stroll once again, and unable to do otherwise, the six trod after, for so their enslavement demanded, and even Aiko, with her red tiger ward, could not break the spell, though low in her chest was a rumble.
“I waited until Quirm stood sentinel here on Dragons’ Roost, and I stole back into Black Mountain and took the green stone from the deep vaults within. I knew that when they ultimately discovered it was gone, the fools in that Mageholt would comb the world, and I didn’t wish for them to find a trace of the stone within my tower, though the chances of any of those dolts doing so were virtually nonexistent. And for such a token, well, who can blame me?
“I brought it here in its chest of Dwarven silver and passed by Quirm to chain it in the cavern below, and I summoned Krakens as wards—binding two of the creatures so that at least one would always be on guard. It took much astral
Again Ordrune paused and held the spheroid up in the crimson rays of the bloodred sun.
“Isn’t it delicious? The Dragons themselves along with their mates were unknowingly guarding that which they feared so.” Ordrune turned to the six. “Who else would have been as clever as I? Those idiots in Black Mountain, or those on Rwn? Ha!”
Again he strolled toward the brim of the great ledge, his thralls in a ragged line across, plodding a pace or two behind.
“But then Quirm disappeared—slain by a rival or drowned by a mate, who knows? And with him gone, my access to the stone was eliminated. My own trap kept me from reaching that which I had so cleverly obtained, that which I had so cleverly concealed.
“Though I knew full well where it was, I had almost given up hope that I would ever see it again, that I would hold it in my hands once more…until you fools came along and I discovered that you were driven by a rede, a rede so well explained by that drool lying back there. Because of the rede, there was a chance—albeit a slim one—that you would actually succeed, and so I bound that drunkard to your cause and allowed you to escape, sent my fell beast to track you from above to make certain you didn’t take the news of the scroll to my illustrious doltish brethren, those imbeciles at Rwn and Black Mountain.”
Ordrune came to the lip of the precipice and stopped, as did the six. He looked out at the Great Maelstrom turning in the distance.
“Pah, the mindless power of that hole in the ocean is as nothing compared to that which I will control, for I will take the stone and unravel the secrets it contains, learn how to command the Drakes, learn…but why am I telling you all of this when you are about to plunge to your deaths? Besides, my Hèlsteed chariot awaits below in Gron and I must hasten ere Modru begins to wonder at my business here in his realm.”
Ordrune stepped back from the lip, and holding the Dragonstone on high, he said, “Farewell, my unwitting allies. I thank you for retrieving my treasure, and now I believe it is time for all of you to march to your—”
“Yaaaahhhh!” From the shadows nearby, Alos charged at the Mage, the old man shrieking, “Unlike before! Unlike before!” And then Alos slammed into Ordrune, knocking the Dragonstone loose to fall to the ledge as the oldster’s charge carried him and the Mage over the rim.
Their eyes wide with horror, the six enspelled companions stood as would statues, unable to move, listening to Ordrune’s shrieks interleaved with Alos’s screams of “Shipmates…shipmates!”
…t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp… frantically beat Egil’s racing heart…
…as if marking the passage of frozen time…
And slowly, slowly, the green stone rolled toward the lip of the precipice, toward a thousand-foot fall…
…t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp…
…down through the air they tumbled, cloaks fluttering about them, the old man yowling and clawing…
…t-thmp, t-thmp…
…Ordrune tried to sketch an arcane rune and speak words in the tongue of the Black Mages…
…t-thmp…
…but Alos’s claws raked down the Wizard’s face, upsetting the casting….
…t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp…
…and the green stone rolled…
…t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp, t-thmp…
…and still the comrades could not move…
…t-thmp, t-thmp…
…in the frantic span of but eighteen racing heartbeats, Alos and Ordrune plummeted from the verge of the precipice to the sea below, spinning and tumbling down through the air, bloodred with the setting sun, the old man clutching and clawing and shouting of sh
ipmates, Ordrune shrieking and trying frantically to cast a spell…
…t-thmp, t-thmp…
…and then they struck the water…
…and the companions could move…
…and the green stone rolled to the edge…
Ferret shrieked and dove forward and slid on her stomach across the stone of the great ledge and managed to grab the jadelike ovoid just as it fell beyond the lip, but then, screaming in terror, she, too, slipped over the brim of the thousand foot fall—
—only to be caught by an ankle in the grip of mighty Burel, the big man grunting with the strain.
Now Delon grabbed on, and Egil, too, and they hauled shrieking Ferret back up over the lip and onto the ledge above, the Dragonstone yet held in her white-knuckled, two-handed grip.
CHAPTER 80
Shaking with terror, Ferret wept in Delon’s arms, the bard stroking her hair, gently rocking, softly humming. Ann and Egil stood at the rear of the ledge, the Dylvana replacing the Dragonstone in its leather bag, preparing to put it once more in the silver chest. Aiko and Burel stood on the lip of the ledge looking down at the Boreal Sea. There was no sign of Alos, nor of Ordrune, nor of the Dragon Raudhrskal, for that matter. Of a sudden, Aiko turned and clutched Burel and began to weep softly.
“What is it, my love?” asked the big man, holding her close.
She looked up at him, tears streaming down her face. “Alos—he was like the man my father became in the year after I was revealed, in the year I awaited banishment. And in that year when he lost all honor, my father became yadonashi, yopparai.”
Burel looked down. “Yadonashi? Yopparai?”
“Outcast. A drunkard,” replied Aiko. “I loathed what he had become. Even so, I loved him still.”
“I am sorry, my love. —Oh, not sorry you loved him, but sorry he came to be someone you did not know.”
Aiko wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands and looked again down into the sea. “Alos was someone like that…someone I did not know. And I think I loved him too, at least a little. He died an honorable death.”
They both fell silent and stood gazing out on the moonlit waters, but at last Aiko turned and looked toward Arin and Egil kneeling at the silver chest. “My tiger now does not whisper of peril, though she is uneasy in the presence of the Ryuishi, of the Dragonstone, as if she doesn’t…trust it.”
“The stone holds a peril?”
“It is difficult to tell, but obvious peril…no.”
“Then the peril the tiger sensed earlier must have been Ordrune coming upon us at the very same time Ferret dragged the chest out from the cavern, eh?”
Aiko looked at Burel, her eyes wide in revelation.
“Indeed, my love, you are right.”
* * *
As twilight fell, they reassembled their packs and prepared to descend that very night. Finally they stood on the precipice one last time, a waning half-moon shining, and they looked out upon the Great Maelstrom rumbling afar.
Ferret peered over the brim at the sheer fall below and said, “I can’t believe I nearly lost my life just to save a chunk of jade.”
Delon squeezed her hand. “This is no ordinary chunk, luv, but a long-lost token of power. Perhaps now the horrors of Dara Arin’s vision will not come to pass.”
“Nevertheless…” replied Ferret.
“Thou wert a heroine, Ferai, and none shall forget,” said Arin.
Egil looked long at the Great Maelstrom, then said, “Alos is the one-eye in the dark water, love, the one of your prophecy.”
“Nay, chier,” replied the Dylvana. “He was but one of the one-eyes in dark water. Thou wert the other.”
Ferret laughed. “Don’t forget the honeyed Ogru eye and the peacock feather. Without them, Raudhrskal may not have been won over.”
“Speaking of Raudhrskal,” said Delon, “I suggest we get gone from here ere he returns.”
Burel grunted and hefted the silver chest now strapped to the frame of his pack, and they turned to the north and strode across the ledge toward the way down into Jord. And as she reached the end of the shelf, Aiko turned and whispered, “Dochu heian no inori, Alos, sonkei subeki ningen toshi totta.”
And so, down from Dragons’ Roost they went, down by the route they had come, the way eased by lack of having to bear an old man along the difficult path, the way made harder by not having to bear that very same old man.
* * *
Just before midnight, they reached the narrow boxed canyon where the cattle and horses and mules were penned, the animals, especially the horses, glad to see them.
They set no camp, but instead turned the cattle loose to fend on their own on the wide-open lush plains. And they laded one of the balky mules with the silver chest, and saddled the horses, and immediately set off at a goodly pace for the town of Hafen.
* * *
It was sunset when they rode into the seaport, and a great stir went ’round, for the strangers were back, all but the one—the old drunk, you see, was missing.
That night the Sea Horse inn was jammed, but the strangers were close-mouthed when it came to answering questions as to where they had been and what they had done. Even so, they did indicate that they had been to Dragons’ Roost. And they told that the old man had died to save them all. But other than that, there was precious little they revealed. Still, they guarded a canvas-wrapped box they had brought back with them, “…and I shouldn’t wonder if it isn’t full of Dragon jools,” said the barkeep when they’d gone up to their rooms.
Weary with lack of sleep, the six took to their beds. And wonder of wonders, as the morning approached, Egil slept soundly straight through.
“No ill dreams, chier?” asked Arin, clasping her love.
“None whatsoever,” replied Egil.
“Mayhap they are gone, now that Ordrune is dead.”
“Perhaps. But ill dreams or no, the memories remain.”
* * *
Three mornings later, after provisioning their ship, they set sail in their sloop. Many villagers came down to the docks to see them off, for after all, they had been to Dragons’ Roost and had survived.
It was the twentieth day of May when the Brise left at the turn of the tide, heading west, but where bound was anyone’s guess.
* * *
Westerly through the Boreal they fared, and into the Northern Sea, and finally into the Weston Ocean where lay their goal, the weather fair and foul by turns as onward they sailed.
At last, on June the twenty-second, the day of the summer solstice, at the mid of day they arrived at Kairn, the City of Bells in the west on the Isle of Rwn.
Water thundered down into the sea from the Kairn River flowing through the heart of the city and over the hundred-foot precipice above, but the sloop did not reach this flow, for they came to the docks from the north.
And as the six made their way up the cliff and to the city atop, the air was filled with the sounds of bells marking high noon.
Shortly thereafter they were ferried across to the small river isle upon which sat the Academy of Mages, five towers arranged in a pentagram, with a sixth tower in the center.
An apprentice led them to the central tower for their audience with the regent—Mage Doriane, recently returned from Vadaria, or so the apprentice said. He led them to the chamber on the first floor, and after a short pause, they were admitted in.
Black-haired Doriane stood to greet them, her pale blue eyes widening slightly at the sight of the Ryodoan and the Dylvana.
Burel set the burden he bore down on a table nearby, and after the introductions, when Doriane asked what brought them here, he unwrapped the canvas to reveal the untarnishable silver chest.
Although she didn’t know it at the time, Doriane would receive no other visitors for the rest of the day.
* * *
“Oh, my, but what a tale,” said Doriane. She looked at the Dragonstone, the pale green ovoid sitting on her desk. “We thought it gone forever, but this is indeed th
e genuine stone.”
“How can you tell?” asked Ferret.
“Why, Dara Arin could have verified that it was the true Dragonstone.”
Arin glanced up at the regent. “How so?”
Doriane smiled. “Simply look at it, my dear, and attempt to
Arin turned her gaze toward the stone, then gasped, “It’s gone! I
Doriane laughed. “Exactly so, Dara, for it is the mysterious Dragonstone: it defies all scrying and seems to have a hold over the Drakes themselves. That you were able to have a vision of the stone defies all we know of it. I can only attribute it to the ‘wild magic’ you hold.”
Arin turned to the Mage. “Wild magic or no, it is the stone of my vision. But what I want to know is, now that the stone is back in the safety of Magekind, will the vision come true?”
Doriane frowned. “That, my dear, I cannot say. All I can promise is that the stone will be safely locked in the vaults below, and this time none shall steal it, for we will set deadly wards all ’round.”
* * *
At the late meal, Doriane said in response to Delon’s question, “As to the fate of the Drake Raudhrskal, I think he did not survive, for two Krakens are too many for any Dragon—even Black Kalgalath, even Daagor.”
Delon grinned and turned to Ferret. “See, luv, this is why a man should never have more than one lusty mate, for one is more than enough to kill us dead.”
Aiko looked at Burel, her face turning red.
* * *
That eve in the City of Bells, as mid of night came, peals rang across the town. Only four times in a given year did the midnight bells sound: on the equinoxes and on the solstices. This night they signified that the summer solstice had come again.
And in a grove on the Isle of Rwn, Arin and her comrades celebrated the event. The dark of the moon fell on this day as well, yet whether this signified something ominous or instead a new beginning, Arin did not know.
But dark of the moon or no, she and the others glided through the rite, females and males stepping in point and counterpoint—Arin and Aiko and Ferai, Egil and Burel and Delon…Arin singing, Delon singing, the others joining in roundelay, harmonies rising on harmonies…step…pause…step…shif…pause…turn…step. Slowly, slowly, move and pause. Voices rising. Voices falling. Step…pause…step. Ladies passing. Lords pausing. Step…pause…step…
The Dragonstone Page 54
