by ML Spencer
He heard footsteps behind him and turned just as Markus sat down at his side, staring at him hard with a look of grave concern.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked. “Everyone is worried.”
Aram shrugged his shoulders, not taking his eyes off the chasm. “Better. But useless. Without a dragon, I can’t defend anyone.”
Only a dragon would give him the advantage he needed to do any good. And not just any dragon. He needed one of the Great Ones, a dragon powerful enough to share his mind.
His eyes slipped to the abyss.
“Are you just going to give up?” Markus asked. “Or figure out another way to fight?”
At first, Aram wondered if Markus was trying to appeal to his sense of duty, but then he saw the sincere concern in his friend’s eyes.
“No. I won’t give up.” He nodded down at the crevasse below them. “The void dragon is down there somewhere. It’s my fault it’s there.”
A silent moment fell between them as Markus’s gaze followed his stare. “It’s not your fault.”
“It is,” Aram whispered. “I’m sorry, Markus. I’d like to be alone.”
Markus stared at him for a long, searching moment, at last rising reluctantly. “I’ll be in the Southern Eyrie. Come get me if you need anything.”
Aram listened to his footsteps moving away, to the sound of the eyrie door opening and then closing. Only when he was sure he was alone did he rise and wander over to where Siroth was resting on the far side of the terrace. As he approached, the black dragon raised his head and peered at him with golden eyes that expressed the same concern his rider had. Aram reached up and placed a hand on the dragon’s face, caressing his cool scales.
“I need you to do me a favor,” he said. “I need you to call Zandril here.”
He felt rather than heard the dragon’s question in his mind.
“I … can’t tell you. I just need you to trust me.”
Siroth glared at him a long moment, emitting a low, stomach-rumbling growl. At last, he inclined his head and stepped aside.
Lowering his hands, Aram let out a grateful sigh. “Thank you.”
As he waited for Siroth to relay his request to Zandril, Aram wandered over to the edge of the terrace, the dragon watching him with wary golden eyes. There, he stood and looked down into the abyss. The walls of the fissure plunged downward until they were lost in shadow and steam. When he had first come to Skyhome, he had mistakenly thought there was a river down there, somewhere way down deep. He didn’t believe that anymore. The images that came to him in his nightmares were steeped in darkness and overwhelming heat.
Whatever was down there, he feared it greatly.
He closed his eyes and tried to reach out with his mind to the dragon who had touched him in his dreams. But there was nothing there. Perhaps it was sleeping or had died in the night, or perhaps it had never been there to begin with, and the Trials had driven him insane without him realizing it. The last thought made him shiver, for he knew that was a real possibility.
The sound of rushing air prompted him to step back from the cliff’s edge just as a golden dragon swooped in for a landing. Zandril alighted perfectly on the edge of the terrace, gracefully folding her wings. She froze and simply stared at Aram for a long moment, at last lowering her head in a kind of reverence. Not knowing how to respond, Aram bowed to her, and if a dragon could ever appear shy, Zandril somehow managed it.
Walking toward her, Aram stopped at her side and ran his hand over the cool scales of her sleek neck. Closing his eyes, he opened himself to her, trying to convey what he wanted, along with the urgency of his need. Understanding his intent, Zandril flinched back with a hiss, the ridges of her spine springing erect. It took minutes of coaxing before she at last yielded and nodded her acquiescence, albeit grudgingly.
That was all Aram could hope for. She lowered herself for him to climb onto her back.
“Thank you,” he told her as he buckled himself into the straps of her harness. “All I’m expecting is for you to take me as low as you can. I’ll find my own way from there.”
A vibration quivered her skin, a feeling somewhat like a cat’s purr, though he knew it had nothing to do with contentment. It was Zandril’s way of politely disagreeing with him.
“If I don’t think I can do it, I won’t,” he assured her. “Please trust me.”
Her quivering ceased. She spread her wings and leapt off the edge, gliding gracefully over the chasm. As they flew, Aram surveyed the crack beneath them, looking for a good place to begin their descent. The fissure wound for miles through the mountains, jagged as a saw blade. In some places, he could see farther down into the rent than others, but even then, the view was lost eventually to shadow. In other places, steam rose in convoluted clouds that collected in the air above the fissure. After minutes, he located a place where the crack was wide enough that Zandril would have plenty of wing-room to maneuver for a good distance. He pointed it out to her as they passed over, and with only a slight hesitation, she wheeled in the air then dove toward it, plunging almost straight down the walls of the canyon. His stomach dropped, and he squinted his eyes against the cold air rushing past his face.
As they sped downward past the lower eyries, Aram saw a good number of people lining the ledges, and he was certain that many noticed their descent. He sent a panicked thought toward Zandril, urging her to hurry, in case anyone realized what they were about and decided to give chase.
At Aram’s prompting, Zandril tucked her wings in closer, speeding their descent. The shadows around them thickened quickly to darkness. When it became impossible to see, Aram wove a light ahead of them. The air was becoming thicker and hotter, reeking of brimstone, and deep down below, a red glow appeared in the distance.
Scorching wind and shadows flew by, and yet Zandril plunged ever lower down into the darkest reaches the chasm. Sweat streamed from Aram’s brow as the heat condensed around them. In his mind, he could feel Zandril’s determination and her discomfort. She couldn’t take much more of the heat. Neither could he. The dark red glow of some type of hell seemed still so far below.
The shadows around them darkened, the close walls of the rift speeding by. Searing heat gusted past them, scorching his skin. Zandril couldn’t go any further, Aram realized. He couldn’t ask her to. If something happened to her, Calise would also perish, and that wasn’t something he could endure.
“Stop,” Aram croaked, his throat too dry and aching to form proper words. Zandril heeded, splaying her wings and arresting their descent. As they hovered in the air, he could feel the relief pouring out of her. Reaching down, Aram caressed her back.
“That’s far enough. You go back.”
A questioning thought probed his mind, edged with concern.
“No, I’m not coming.”
His dragon was down there, so close. He could feel him, though weakly. Somehow, Agaroth had fallen down into the bowels of the chasm and had managed to remain alive all this time. If a dragon could survive the extremes down there, so could he. At least for a little while.
He felt Zandril’s alarm when she realized what he was intending to do.
“He had faith in me,” Aram explained in a wheeze. “I have to have faith in him.”
With that, he unbuckled himself from the riding harness and let go.
Markus angled across the eyrie toward the soaking pond. The pond contained fresh water brought up from the springs beneath Skyhome by pipes that lifted water up the cliffs using helical shafts that twisted like cork screws. The pipes provided water for not just the eyrie’s dragons, but also for its human inhabitants and all the industry of Hearth Home. The soaking pond was a popular place, for it was also a gathering area where the men and women of the eyrie met to socialize while their dragons bathed.
Jeran and Iver were there with their hatchlings. Jeran’s was a small gray dragon named Gananth. Of all the hatchlings, Gananth was the smallest and friendliest, and, just like its rider, the little drago
n was inquisitive and intelligent. Iver’s hatchling was much bigger, a beautiful dark blue male named Tandriel. Even though he was still young, Tandriel carried himself with an air of dignified nobility and had a way of looking down his angular nose at any human except his rider.
Seeing Markus approach, Jeran raised his hand in greeting and elbowed Iver. “Look what the wind blew in!”
Markus grinned, coming up to stand in front of them. Iver was shirtless and stood mopping water off his muscular body with his tunic. Seeing Markus, he tossed his wet hair back with a shake of his head, spraying water everywhere. Apparently, he’d been bathing in the soaking pool alongside his dragon, a common practice.
“I can’t believe how they’ve grown,” Markus said, shocked at the size of the two young dragons. “If they keep this up, they’ll be as big as Siroth in another month or two.”
Gananth’s spines raised eagerly at the compliment, but Tandriel somehow managed to look offended. That didn’t bother Markus, because he knew that Tandriel took offense to everything, so it wasn’t personal. He hoped the dragon grew out of it. Moodiness was hard enough to take in a human, much less a dragon, although it wouldn’t surprise him if Iver’s dragon turned out to be just as insufferable as he was.
Iver scrubbed his shirt through his hair, toweling it dry. “So, what brings you down here among the rest of us commoners? Got tired of Wardening already?”
Markus shrugged. “There’s not much to Warden right now. I figured I’d come down here and annoy you.”
“Lucky us!” Iver laughed and pulled his shirt on over his head, heedless that it stunk like wet dragon. He motioned at Markus. “I guess a Warden’s clothing allowance is a lot better than a windrider’s. I mean, look at this!” Reaching out, he plucked at Markus’s tabard before he could react. “I bet Esmir makes you wear that so you can walk around next to Aram and make him look important.”
Even Markus found himself laughing, because it wasn’t far off from the way he felt about the uniform. Looking down at himself, he really did feel like a spectacle.
“Hey, now—”
An outburst of shouting toward the cave mouth cut him off midsentence. He glanced back over his shoulder to see people running toward the terrace. Drawn by the commotion, more people poured out of their alcoves, gathering at the entrance to the eyrie.
“What’s going on?” Markus asked.
“I don’t know.” Iver started forward with a look of intense concern.
Jeran hurried after him, and Markus moved to follow, but he halted when he saw Calise dashing toward them. The sight of her face made him draw up short. Her mouth was contorted in a grimace, and her cheeks glistened with tears. Rushing toward her, he caught her by the shoulders.
“What is it?”
“He took Zandril!” she gasped, panic sharpening her voice. “Why would he take Zandril?”
“Who?” Markus asked. “Who took Zandril?”
“Aram!” Calise sobbed, covering her mouth with her hands. “He flew her down into the abyss!”
Markus’s heart stopped. “What? Tell her to turn around! Tell her to come back!”
“I tried!” Calise cried. “She closed herself to me! I can’t feel her anymore! Please—you have to stop him! He’s going to kill them both!”
Someone shouted his name, and Markus turned to see Vandra running toward them.
“What is he doing?” she demanded.
“I don’t know!” Markus knuckled his hair. “He was upset after the Council meeting. He said there wasn’t anything he could do without a dragon.” His eyes went wide, a terrible thought occurring to him. “The void dragon,” he gasped. “The one who brought him here. He said it’s down there somewhere…” His breath hitched. “Oh, gods…”
“Damn the wind!” Vandra snarled.
Markus sprinted for the hallway, taking the stairs up to Esmir’s eyrie. Flinging open the door, he confirmed that the chamber was empty, save for Siroth. He ran to his dragon, climbing onto his back. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
All he got in answer was a burst of scattered images that he didn’t have time to try to understand. He had never heard of a dragon keeping secrets from its rider. His anger flared, though it was overshadowed by panic.
Below them, dragons spilled from the mouths of the eyries, plunging into the gap of the chasm. Markus willed Siroth to follow them, but as soon as Siroth prepared to dive into the crevice, he saw the other dragons who had gone ahead reemerging, returning from the depths to land on an outcrop. Why had they abandoned their pursuit?
He directed Siroth past them, and together, they swept into the fissure.
The moment they entered, Markus saw that the walls were much closer than they looked from above. There was no room to maneuver or ease their descent, so Siroth plunged straight into the dark crack. The air coming up at them was searing hot, and dense shadows encased them quickly. It took only seconds of darkness to convince Markus that it was too dangerous to go deeper. Maybe Aram had protected Zandril with magic, but Markus had no way of protecting Siroth.
With a cry of frustration, he ordered his dragon to turn around. Feeling utterly defeated, he let Siroth carry him back up the cliff, landing on the large terrace of the Southern Eyrie. He didn’t want to be alone, and he didn’t want Calise to be alone either.
Sliding from Siroth’s back, Markus raised a fist, clenching it in frustration. Incensed, he punched out at the air, raging at his dragon:
“Why?”
But he already knew the answer.
The void dragon is down there somewhere. It’s my fault it’s there. That’s what Aram had told him, what he believed.
Markus closed his eyes and bowed his head, fearing those words might have been Aram’s last.
Chapter Eighty
Scorching wind clawed at Aram’s face, rushing past him as he tumbled through the darkness. Below, a terrible red glow awaited him, but now he wondered if he would live to reach it. His skin felt like it was on fire, broiling in the heat upwelling from below, and every breath he took into his lungs seared his throat. As he fell, he groped at the threads of aether around him, failing to catch more than a couple. Those broke quickly, too frail to arrest his hurling descent.
Frantic, he managed to catch hold of a handful of strands. These he wove quickly, tying them into a sheet of aethereal fabric which spread above him and slowed his fall somewhat. Grasping more threads, he formed them into a net of fibers that he wove around himself like a cocoon. The heat around him cooled faster the harder he worked, for the knots he cast were of the kind that sucked heat from the air and locked it away. The shield took precious, painful moments to weave, but at last, he was able to breathe easily. The bonds he had woven would keep the heat at bay, at least for a while. More of a problem was slowing his fall.
The close walls of the fissure grew further apart and then opened up around him. Though he couldn’t see much of anything, he got the impression that he was falling through an immense chamber as tall and wide as a mountain. At the bottom of that chamber was a river of lava, and it was from there that the heat and foul breath of the abyss emanated. It was as wide as the chamber, thick and glowing an incandescent red, its surface fractured by bright streaks of gold that looked like veins. In places, fire erupted from the surface of the magma, breathing sulfurous smoke that rolled upward in dark plumes. It churned sluggishly, like a pot boiling in slow motion. Having witnessed the color of the steel ingots in Onsel’s forge, Aram had some idea of how hot that molten river had to be.
Hot enough to kill him instantly.
Desperate, he wove a rope of aether and tossed it toward the wall of the chamber, but it fell well short of the rock. Working as quickly as he could, he wove another net, this time below him, reinforcing it with knots that he felt sure wouldn’t slip. He tied it off and cast it down just in time. The force of his body colliding with the net stretched the fibers so far, they nearly broke the surface of the lava. But the net rebounded quickly, flinging h
im upward toward the side of the cavern.
Aram wove a lasso, which he flung over an outcropping of rock. The fibers snapped taut but held. He clung desperately to the tendrils of aether, dangling over the surface of the wide river, swaying in a broad, pendulous arc. The half-healed wound in his side shot pain all the way to his spine, and it felt like it would split him all the way in half.
He clinched his jaw, his hands shaking from the strain of holding the tether. It took all of his concentration, and the protective net around his body started to unravel. The heat of the air was once again scorching his skin, threatening to overwhelm him quickly. He had to do something fast.
Desperate, he wove a splice into the tether of glittering aether, lengthening it, and lowered himself almost all the way to the bottom of the cavern. There, he managed to cast a line out at the rock wall, which caught and held.
Aram drew the line taut and kept pulling, hauling himself over the river of lava. He could feel his skin searing in the heat of the flames that leapt off the magma. When at last he had maneuvered his body over the shore, he let go and fell to the scorching ground, unable to hold onto the rope another second. The drop was longer than it looked, and even though he used magic to soften his fall, the impact still jarred him off his feet and nearly knocked him unconscious.
Groaning, Aram opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on the black rock of the shore. His skin felt like it was on fire, his body wet with sweat, and every breath he drew hurt his throat. The only reason he was still alive at all was because of the absorbent shield he had woven around himself, though it had grown thin and frail, riddled with holes.
