Dragon's Eye
Page 16
“Let’s just try to get some sleep, shall we?”
“Yes, let’s,” he agreed.
Lancelot lay beside Felicity with a
thudding heart as he willed himself to be still.
He thought he would never drift off to sleep, but
when he suddenly found himself immersed in a
dream, he realized that he had.
He and Felicity were high atop a craggy
mountain, shaking their fists at a stormy sky. A
huge and terribly beautiful dragon soared above
them, periodically swooping down to taunt
them.
Lancelot kept Felicity close to him, not
willing to let her go. He was sworn to protect
her, but more than that, his heart was hers as
well. He’d be damned if anyone or anything
would take her from him.
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Another larger dragon appeared beside
the first, and the two of them swooped down
together. Each dragon took one of the humans,
and then they flew in opposite directions.
“Felicity!” Lancelot screamed in a rage,
but there was nothing he could do to stop the
beasts from having their way. “Please, please
don’t take her from me! I cannot lose her!”
The dragon who had been carrying him
suddenly let go, and Lancelot fell slowly back to
the ground. He sat cross-legged in the dirt and
held his head in his hands, gnashing his teeth in
frustration.
“It’s all right, Lance,” said an elf who
suddenly stood by his side. “You must calm
yourself. Felicity is all right.”
Lance turned and looked at the figure
beside him, and he realized with a start of
surprise that this particular elf was known to
him. He was Laenos, the elf who had taken away
his former wife.
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“What are you doing in my dream?” he
growled as he looked at him. “I’ve got nothing
to say to you.”
“I’m here to tell you something
important, Jones,” he insisted. “I know that you
are frightened, but you must believe my words.
Felicity isn’t going anywhere, you know.
Everything is going to be fine.”
“How do I know your words are true?”
he asked in an accusing tone. “How do I know
she will not become unfaithful someday as
well?”
“One never knows anything for certain,
even the greatest of the seers,” Laenos reminded
him. “The future is always in motion, and thus
cannot be known.”
“I don’t want her to go,” Lance wailed.
“I don’t want to lose her, too.”
“I do not believe this would be your fate,
Jones, yet I must remind you that fate is all a
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matter of the choices we make. If you make the
right ones, all will turn out as you desire.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking
about,” Lance grumbled. “Was it my choice
when Meryl left me and went to you? Did I
suddenly decide I no longer wanted her?”
“In a way you did, yes,” he said. “Meryl
once told me that she could no longer stand to be
held back because of you. She said that you
clung too tightly to allow her to breathe. If you
truly want this girl, you must remember my
words, and try not to do the same thing to her.”
“She told you that I was holding too
tight?” asked Lance in confusion. “But why
would she tell you that? I never stopped her from
getting a job, or told her she could not go
somewhere if she wished. How was I holding
too tight?”
“Because you expected her to live as
your shadow instead of as your partner,” said the
elf sagely. “If you heed my words and give your
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Felicity the room she needs to become the witch
that she is meant to be, she will always return to
you.”
“What do you know about it?” Lancelot
growled. “You once stole what was mine. I do
not want you in my head, elf. I do not wish to be
reminded of a past that cannot be changed.”
“I will trouble you no more,” he said,
“But I hope you will heed my words.”
“I will try,” he answered, and watched as
the elf became a ray of blue light and floated
away.
Lance awakened with a start. Felicity
was asleep beside him, and without any
hesitation he pulled her into his arms. He smiled
as the sorrow he had once known dissolved into
nothingness in the dark.
This little witch must be something
special, he thought as he drifted off to sleep
again. Why else would an elf bother himself to
come to his dreams? Laenos may owe him a debt
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because he’d taken Meryl, but it was not the way
of elves to enter dreams for nothing.
He truly wanted to believe that all would
be well with them. But he knew that first they
must contend with a very real dragon, and
survive to tell the tale.
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TWENTY-FOUR
“Wake up, my dear,” said Lance as he
stirred a few hours later. “We’ve got to discuss
the next leg of this journey as we prepare to get
out of the train in Geneva.”
Felicity groggily looked at him, and
blushed to realize she must have rolled over and
curled her leg over his as she’d slept. She said,
“What do you mean, discuss? We’re getting out
and heading for the mountains, aren’t we?
What’s to discuss?”
“Yes, of course we’re heading for the
mountains, love,” he said with a cheeky grin.
“But there’s the small matter of precisely where
we ought to go from there.”
“Well, one might imagine we’d head
south,” she pointed out, sitting up beside him
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and taking the blanket with her. Lance shivered
slightly, but he did not try to retrieve it.
“Well, certainly, but we know only that
we are seeking one of the mountains in this
region,” he explained. “I’ve no clue specifically
where the bloody temple once stood, nor the
exact appearance of anything that might mark
the site in any way.”
“What, do you mean like a symbol or
something?” asked Felicity with interest as she
jumped out of bed and pulled her book out of her
pack. “Why didn’t you say so? Perhaps if you
can tell me more about the Grimoire Draconis I
could figure it out.”
“I only know that during one of the
Crusades, the Templars were hiding the
existence of the shrine and all of its knowledge
of dragons from the Pope,” he said as he
stretched. “You know well enou
gh how the
Church felt about the use of magic and
witchcraft back then, what with it being the main
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reason the Magi went into hiding completely.
So, it will likely be a hidden symbol of some
kind, to be sure no one who would be considered
unworthy could find it.”
“Hmm, you mean nobody who did not
possess the gift, don’t you? It sounds so much
nicer to say it that way,” Felicity pondered.
“However, there may be even more to it than
that. Maybe we should consider what sort of a
symbol might be used by the dragons
themselves, rather than just what sort of symbol
the Mundanes might think was bad. Good thing
we’ve brought some climbing gear, in case we
need to make use of it.”
Lance’s faced soured at this, and Felicity
laughed. “What did I say, Lance? You look as
though you just tasted your first pickle.”
“You’re not really going to make me use
the ropes to climb, are you?” he complained. “I
think I’d far rather have the pickle than that.”
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“Sure I am,” she chuckled as she pat his
shoulder. “We’re supposed to be acting like
Mundanes, are we not? What better way than to
pull ourselves up some mountain or other?”
“But it would be so much easier to fly,
my dear,” he pointed out. “And much less messy
as well.”
“That’s true,” she agreed, “but where is
the adventure in that?”
“We’ll have to discuss it later, I
suppose,” Lance said. “For now, we must make
certain that all of our belongings are packed up.”
“Ugh, that sounds like too much work.
Can’t we sleep a bit longer first?” she grumbled
as she fell back onto the bed beside him.
Lance rolled over and slid a hand across
her belly as he kissed the side of her head, and
then said into her ear, “Well, little miss
adventurer, we don’t have much time before we
arrive at the Geneva station. You’re not going to
have much of an adventure just lying there as we
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pass the place by—at least, not the kind of
adventure we were planning on.”
“Lance!” she gasped, and then she
gasped a second time when he bit the ear he’d
been speaking into. Felicity sprang back up to
get away from him.
“I rather thought that might do the trick,”
he chuckled with a wicked grin, then got to his
own feet as well. “I’m going to make certain we
remember everything, if you don’t mind,” he
announced.
He pulled out his wand and gave it a
swish. A couple of stray items returned to their
backpacks, and then they magically slung
themselves onto the Mages, one on Lance’s
shoulder and the other on Felicity’s.
“Cheating,” Felicity admonished him
sweetly.
“Felicity Lake, what kind of wizard do
you take me for? I never cheat,” he retorted as
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he bent to kiss her on the forehead. “You’re just
imagining things.”
“If I was going to imagine something, I
could think of far better things than that,” she
told him.
“Of that, my dear, I have no doubt,” he
replied. He drew her into his arms and kissed her
forehead again, and then trailed a path of
feather-light kisses down to her chin, stopping
only briefly when he’d reached her upturned
lips, and then returning to them when he’d
completed the journey.
Starting from where his lips touched,
Felicity felt a slow heat begin to enter her limbs,
making her entire body feel alive with a longing
for more. Then, as the train began to slow, her
body swayed slightly, making her lose her
balance.
Lance’s hand shot out to steady her as
they headed for the exit, closing the cabin door
behind them with a slight snapping sound as the
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lock engaged. Then they proceeded towards the
front of the train.
“Geneva!” called the porter just as they
reached the end of the long, narrow hallway.
“Here,” said Lance as he waved at the
man. He shook his hand and thanked him as they
both stepped off and headed for the small
structure they saw a few feet away. No one else
got out of the train, and soon it whistled and
moved on again, leaving them standing there in
the darkness of the night.
Stepping over to a small cubicle with an
array of pamphlets inside, Felicity picked up a
map and held it under a street lamp to get a better
look at it. She glanced up when she noticed that
Lance was watching her rather intently, and she
blushed slightly under the scrutiny.
“What are you looking at?” she asked.
“You look good under the moonlight,”
he told her appreciatively, making Felicity stare
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at the map even harder to hide her
embarrassment.
“It looks like there’s a campsite about
three kilometers that way,” she told him as she
pointed to a nearby road. “We could trek over
there and sleep till daylight, if you like.”
“Three kilometers that way?” he drawled
with amusement at the casual way she’d said it.
“You sound as if you’ve done this sort of thing
before.”
Felicity cast him a withering glance, and
he gazed innocently back at her. She folded the
map up again.
“Well, my dear, lead the way then,” he
said. “And it might be a good idea to bring that
map along with you. The thing may prove useful
for our search.”
“Yes, that’s probably a good idea,” she
agreed as she tucked it into her pack. “Maybe
you should slip in a little donation for it in that
box, though. It only seems fair.”
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Lancelot glanced over at the small slot in
the wall that allowed enough room to put in both
coins and bills. His expression growing dubious,
he inquired, “How much does one donate for the
use of a map, anyway?”
“I don’t know,” she replied. “Just throw
in a few euros or something.”
Lance dutifully slid in a few bills, and
turned back toward the road, squinting. “So,
how long do you suppose it takes to walk three
kilometers? I don’t believe I’ve ever had the
pleasure.”
Felicity laughed. “I don’t know. I
suppose it would depend on the company you
were walking with—and the mood. Perhaps it
might help to occupy the time if we were to
sing
songs or something.”
“Sing songs?” Lance inquired blandly as
he raised a brow in her direction.
“Oh yes,” she said. “I remember that
when I was little, before my parents were killed
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in that ill-fated battle with a dragon, my father
loved to pass the time by singing.”
“Pray tell, what sort of song does one
sing to walk three kilometers?” he asked, the
smirk on his lips finally escaping his control.
“Well, I don’t know, maybe something
repetitive would do,” she answered, but then she
laughed and grabbed at a stitch in her side.
“What is so funny, Miss Lake?” Lance
insisted, laughing along with her.
“Sea shanties?” she suggested. “My
father used to love them. Do you know any?”
“My darling girl,” he grinned. “I know a
few of those that could make your ears burn right
off.”
“You would,” she scoffed as she started
to head for the road. “But I think we had better
sing the ones that I would know too.”
In a smooth, velvety baritone voice,
Lancelot began to sing, “Let’s go find the camp,
my pretty witch lady, let’s go find the camp and
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bed down on some grass. Let’s go find the camp,
my sweetest witch lady, and if there’s some time
might I get me some—”
“Lancelot Jones, I told you not to sing
the naughty ones!” Felicity gasped, and she
turned and swatted him right on the backside
before she scooted quickly away.
Laughing, Lance tried to swat her back.
Felicity squealed and ran away from him up the
road.
“Oh yes, love, we should get there much
sooner this way,” he chuckled as he stalked after
her. “Much sooner, indeed.”
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