A hiss like escaping steam came from Albathor, but there were words imbedded in the sound, words to which Malcolm’s ears were not deaf.
“A foolish human trick to gage our power…let us force the issue here!”
“Silence,” Mraxdavar answered in the common speech, a short soft word that acted like a slap to the younger dragon. So Mraxdavar at least suspects I may understand the true tongue of dragons, thought Malcolm. In some ways, that was more alarming than the suggestion the dragons had an issue to be forced.
The eldest dragon turned his head, opened his huge jaws, and breathed upon the door. Not with the blazing inferno unleashed from the depths of his belly that would incinerate any and all living matter in its path, but a series of gentle puffs that looked almost like smoke rings floating rapidly towards the mountainside in which the door stood. Malcolm exerted the slightest will upon his staff, and he instantly was able to detect a powerful magic emanating from those series of rings.
Then, without warning, the entire side of the mountain seemed to open.
Malcolm actually took a half-step back, staggered by the sheer size of the doors being revealed. He had known of their existence for years; indeed, he had placed his own portal here to take advantage of the halls to which they led. But knowing and seeing were two completely different matters, and he could not keep the amazement from his face as doors that would accommodate titans opened before them.
“Easier than chewing a mouse-hole through the rock,” said Mraxdavar who had not missed the Wizard’s reaction.
“Only dead men question the power of dragons,” Malcolm replied. “And only fools question the weakness of rock.”
There was the slightest flicker in the eyes of the eldest wyrm, and Malcolm almost smiled. Powerful as the rings of smoke appeared to be, he had rightly surmised they were not strong enough to force open the doors simply by the energy they contained. They had been directed by a sure knowledge, a sign that Mraxdavar already had an intimate acquaintance with the stone of Llan Praetor. Malcolm had long suspected the dragons knew a great deal more about the castle than they had ever suggested, and the use of such a skillful key had just confirmed that suspicion.
“Shall I act as guide?” asked Malcolm. “Or do you already know the way?”
*
The dragons were in conference, a quiet discussion before entering into the castle, gathered downwind of Malcolm to make it harder for him to overhear. But he knew at least a portion of what was passing between them.
Albathor and Bramaclese were not along at their Father’s insistence, but rather at Malcolm’s. If the matter should finally come down to killing, Malcolm was not completely sure he could do serious and lasting harm to the eldest wyrm; far worse, he suspected Mraxdavar believed the same thing. But should treachery occur, Malcolm’s last blow would be against the two lesser dragons, and he had absolutely no doubt that he could do them both a very serious injury indeed, whatever action the father might take. Malcolm felt quite sure that Mraxdavar would not sacrifice his two eldest children merely to kill one mortal wizard whose days were nothing in the long history of a dragon’s life, and so the younger monsters kept pace, unknowing hostages to their Father’s honor.
The short conference between the dragons was ending, perhaps no more than a discussion about the order in which they were to enter, though Malcolm felt he detected a hesitation on their part, a reluctance to proceed now that the door actually lay open before them. Finally, Mraxdavar turned to him and said, “Hear now the first of the questions you have committed to answer. When you created the miniature door, what response did you perceive from the stone of the Castle?”
Malcolm pondered the question for a long moment, for while a structural question seemed perfectly natural, it was significant in light of Mraxdavar’s knowledge of how to open the true portal into Llan Praetor. It suggested that while the dragons might know much about the functions of the Castle, they did not know the details of how it was created.
“I made several unsuccessful attempts to open a passage before stumbling upon the right formulation,” he answered. “Each attempt at drilling a passage or doing damage to the rock itself failed, and the stone actually seemed to replace itself regardless of the amount of power employed.”
He paused and glanced again at the side of the castle, struck by a sudden thought. He had forged this door almost twenty years ago when he had known little about the true nature of Llan Praetor, and remembering those early days now with the advantage of twenty years’ experience gave him a completely different perspective. The castle was aware of me and shut me out when I was doing damage to it, he realized.
“Your answer is incomplete and unacceptable,” the dragon hissed softly, recalling Malcolm from his own thoughts.
“I finally tried employing a spatial spell,” Malcolm continued, still somewhat distracted. “To create space rather than destroying rock. My first few attempts also failed. But when I focused on the minute space existing already within the body of the rock, it expanded, rapidly at first and then more slowly, until it reached its present dimension. It was as if…as if the Castle were relenting and giving only me access.”
He looked from the stone back to the dragons, but he could tell nothing from their postures; he caught a glance exchanged between Albathor and Bramaclese, but he had not enough experience to read it.
It was Mraxdavar who took the lead, unwinding his endless coils with a smooth and sinister grace to extend himself through the portal and enter the hallway beyond. As the Eldest Dragon set claw upon the stone of Llan Praetor, Malcolm actually stopped and stared. The stars carved into the stone floor gleamed forth with a cold light in response to the dragon’s passing, and they held the gleam for long seconds after the monster had moved on, as if reluctant to surrender the power they had gained. Never in his years of studying the fortress had the Wizard seen anything resembling this reaction from the stone, and it gave him serious pause. All his research and intuition told him Llan Praetor held a power the dragons feared, may even have been the home of some deadly enemy whose name was now lost in time, so he now could hardly credit the sight of the stone of the fortress gleaming in acknowledgment of their passing…almost as a sign of tribute.
Ahead were the stone gargoyle sentinels who had held guard over the main passage since the birth of the castle, and Malcolm frowned in puzzlement as it seemed there was now only a single sentinel standing guard over some broken stone. His puzzlement turned to amaze when he realized the broken stone was the ruin of the second guardian.
“One of the guardians is overthrown,” Mraxdavar observed. “It would seem a being of considerable power has passed this way.”
Malcolm was even more alarmed as he looked closely at the stone carnage. There was no time to cast a Resonance Spell that would gather the sounds and images from the near past, but the Wizard suspected that speed as well as power had been instrumental in the raiders’ victory. How else could only one be destroyed and no dead bodies left in the hall? That was an uneasy thought, suggesting someone with enough speed and cunning to elude a killing magic, but Malcolm’s reaction was tinted with another emotion, though one he would never admit, even to himself. Never before had he brought a visitor into Llan Praetor, and he was feeling absurdly embarrassed to have this devastation littered in front of the dragons, an anxious host upset by this affront to his guests.
He swallowed, forced down his momentary unease. This matter was far too serious to let minor emotions intercede. He forced himself to stand back, waiting on the dragons and making no effort to open the door, but Mraxdavar stopped and looked down at him.
“I can pass the door easily enough,” the Dragon said softly. “But it may well mean the ruin of your final guardian. Do you wish me to proceed?”
It took only a moment of reflection to answer the question. Although seeing the dragons exerting power on the sentinels of Llan Praetor itself would undoubtedly give some valuable insights into relative power, Malcolm had n
o doubt the confrontation would end with a second shattered statue littering the floor. But the answer was even simpler than that. Despite his thirst to know what the Dragons’ knew, he had no desire to see any harm done to Mraxdavar or his kin.
Accordingly, Malcolm stepped forward, raising his staff as he went, and a beam of light hit the face of the gargoyle, rendering it both blind and deaf. A small gesture of his free hand caused the huge double doors to open, and he stood back to let his guests pass. There was the smallest nod from Mraxdavar, a recognition of both thoughts that had gone through the Wizard’s mind.
“The second question as you have promised,” Mraxdavar said once they were all within the chamber, and even his softest voice was magnified a dozen-fold by the expanse of the room. “What magics did you first employ to gain passage from these guardians?”
Again, a straight forward question on the surface, but Malcolm felt the theme focusing less on Llan Praetor and more on his relationship with the Castle.
“The guardians never attacked me, and I have always attributed that to protection spells I had in place,” Malcolm explained, though he was now reconsidering that assumption as well. “They did block my way at first and refused me access through the doors. I employed a powerful version of a quelling spell, and after that, they paid me no more heed.”
He frowned a little now that his attention was focused on the issue. He had dispensed with protection spells within the castle many years ago as he had learned the means of moving safely through its halls, and he had assumed that the guardians had simply come to accept his right to pass. But there was no time to mull over the issue now. All three of the dragons had turned their attention to the central hall and were moving about with a clear purpose to their movements.
The central hall of Llan Praetor was replete with stars above and below, and Malcolm had discovered many years earlier that the unique pattern of stars actually called out an exact location in the firmament, as if the individual was afloat in space. He had also learned that striking the floor could move a person within Llan Praetor, while flying up to strike the star pattern above teleported them to distant sites outside of the fortress. Still, he had always had a nagging belief that he was missing something of great import in the central hall, some function obvious and fundamental that he had overlooked in his painstaking attention to detail.
Now, as the dragons moved about the chamber, he knew he had been right.
All the stars above and below were gleaming with a warm light as if they had suddenly come to life, and each even showed slight variations in shade and hue that Malcolm instantly recognize as their true coloration. But light and color were by no means the only changes. The entire hemisphere seemed to be in motion, the stars rotating slowly through their normal pattern to suggest hours of the night slipping by in mere seconds, the dominance of time broken by the expanding power of this suddenly limitless chamber. It was as if the real night sky had erupted above them.
As he stared up at the firmament, Malcolm felt his eyes growing suddenly heavy, his legs growing inexplicably weak. He blinked and shook his head, trying to steady himself. It’s exhaustion, his mind warned, three days of endless, agonizing dragon-speech beginning to exact their toll. But…but that was impossible! He had protected himself against that debilitation with the casting of a Sustaining Spell at the very start of the ordeal and followed it earlier this day with an Invigoration Potion, enough to keep him fresh and sharp for at least two more days.
Now there was motion next to him in the darkness, large bodies shifting, dangerously close. The dragons were moving, swirling around him, their huge bodies slipping by with surprising agility, their scales whispering softly against the stone of Llan Praetor, and their speed seemed to increase with each passing rotation. Gold, silver, red, the colors becoming a whirl, a kaleidoscope of power and gentle sound, soothing, seductive, intoxicating.
He swallowed hard, actually leaning on his staff to support his tiring legs, but he couldn’t look away from the wonders unfolding around him. He was protected, he assured himself, warded against any attack of power that might be launched against him, his defenses as strong as they had ever been. He was impervious to any assault the dragons might put forth. He was safe. He…he…
No.
This is wrong, his experience warned him, terribly wrong. The dragons had become a cyclone of colors with him in the eye of their storm, a barrier of brilliant hues that played perfectly with his growing fatigue, sapping his ability to resist, destroying his desire to struggle. He was turning with them, caught up in the sickening motion, no longer sure where he was, no longer sure on what he stood. With a sudden exertion of will, he did indeed put forth his power, but now it was to resist the pull of those damned colors, to stop his motion heedless of what the dragons might do. He focused, putting his staff before him, magic and will exerted for a single end, to hold him steady in whatever space he now existed, and he was surprised to discover the energy would not take hold, dissipating even before it could form. Blinking, he suddenly understood that the dragons were not attacking him, but rather immersing him in a field of magical negation. A negation that had eliminated both the Sustaining Spell and the Invigoration Potion with which he had been staving off weariness, leaving him helpless in the throes of utter exhaustion.
A grim and horrible sound emerged from the swirling colors around him, the sound of a dragon’s mirth.
“You have failed even the first test, human,” came the gloating voice of Albathor, though by some strange trick it seemed the source of the words were somewhere behind him. “You are lost in the ether, caught between the eternal stone and the timeless ones, and from here you shall never emerge.”
Eternal stone…timeless ones…never emerge. Even as he strove to master his senses, Malcolm recognized there were valuable clues in the goads of his adversary, a lifeline of bitter hatred but a lifeline nonetheless. Anger suddenly surged upward within him, white hot anger that wanted to strike something, anything simply for the sake of striking, an emotion he had relentlessly trained himself to resist. But now it offered him one last chance, the final card he had held back for just such a situation.
He began to summon the full power of his staff, ignoring the colors, the motion, even his own fate as he drove back his weakness to gather all the power he possessed, an aura of light beginning to shine about him. His vision told him he was isolated and alone, powerless to strike at his enemies, but his mind told him his warped senses were now the only real shield the dragons possessed.
“Do not be rash, Wizard,” came the deep voice of Mraxdavar, and now Malcolm was sure the words were coming from behind him. Behind him, and not so very far away. “You shall have need of that power yet.”
The words gave him a point of reference in this distorted void in which he found himself, and he focused hard as he tried to gage where the dragon was. Behind, below, and only a short distance away…that suggested Malcolm was floating in the central chamber, probably no more than a few feet above the floor.
“Now the third and final question by which you are bound,” the voice continued. “How did you first discover travel through the halls of the castle?”
Malcolm had no time for such riddles, though his mind locked on the words and remembered them.
He found himself facing three choices. He could continue with the retribution and unleash all the power he possessed in a massive explosion which would almost surely kill him but would take at least two of the dragons with him. Or he could launch himself blindly downwards at the source of the voice, using his power as a shield to break out of the trap in which he found himself. Even if successful, that would leave him reeling and blind, exposed to the powers of the dragons until he could regain his bearings, and he rejected it for that reason. The third option was to launch himself at any other known and steady reference point, something that he could be certain was within the range of his power, and he knew immediately what that was: Llan Praetor itself.
W
ithout further reflection, he chose the third option.
Malcolm slammed his mind shut, closing out all the distractions of his senses, even the dreadful sense of being exposed to the fury of his enemies. The dragon’s voice had given him the only reference point he needed, and he sent himself downwards, fighting off the shrill warning in his mind that such a move was suicidal, and for a horrible moment, it seemed as if the warning were right. He was creating a psychic hurricane that would take him somewhere, anywhere, other than here, a storm on which he would be not much more than a piece of litter, but one which not even Mraxdavar could control. The exertion of power spun him around, force collided with force, and he tumbled head over heels out of control. He bounced against something, but whether it was energy, stone, or dragon flesh he did not know. The stars had vanished, the trap now far behind him, and he grasped his staff hard with both hands as he strove to stabilize himself, to break the reeling motion and bring himself back under control. He hit something again, something hard and real, and he grabbed it with his power, anchored himself to this unknown mooring, the only sure and solid thing in the swirling chaos about him.
Then the motion was gone, the storm continued on, leaving him as part of the ruin in its wake. He struggled to stand, to be ready for battle, but with sickening certainty, he knew how exposed and helpless he was in that moment. If he were in the presence of an enemy, he would never regain his feet. He stumbled in his weariness, used his staff as a crutch to keep from falling again, got his legs beneath him, and stood upright at last.
He was in a stone chamber he had never seen before.
The dragons were gone.
He was all alone.
Keep hold, keep hold, he told himself as he resisted the sudden tug of panic. There is no imminent danger, no immediate threat. He got his breathing under control, and that steadied him; and as he forced himself to focus on his surroundings, the panic retreated and he was Malcolm again.
Upon This World of Stone (The Paladin Trilogy Book 2) Page 11
