“Great,” Hugo said nervously, inching down the first couple of steps. The air tasted stale in his mouth. He didn’t like the idea of them closing the door behind him.
“Good luck, Hugo,” Animus said. “Trust in yourself.” And he shut the door. Just before he did, Hugo felt a rush of air move past him. Then someone was beside him, coughing loudly.
“Phew!” Cannon’s voice said, and then he started to laugh jubilantly. “Come on, Hugo,” Cannon bellowed. “Let’s get away before they catch me!”
A hand reached out in the darkness and pulled Hugo down the stairs. He tumbled down three steps and then found his footing, struggling to move fast enough to keep the arm from pulling him over. “Cannon?”
“Yes!” Cannon said. “Can you believe it?”
“No,” Hugo said, swatting Cannon’s hand away. “How did you do that? Did you turn into air?”
Cannon laughed. “Impressive, isn’t it? Animus doesn’t even know I can do it. I’ve been trying for years, of course, but I only figured it out last week. I’ve been saving it for a surprise.”
Hugo couldn’t help grinning. “Well, I bet he’s pretty surprised right about now.”
Cannon laughed. “Couldn’t let you go by yourself, of course. Not after what happened the other day.” Cannon grunted. “Be careful, the stairs end right there. Better slow down a bit, I’d hate to find the next staircase too abruptly.”
“Right,” Hugo said, slowing down. “Admit it, though, you just came to see the dragon.”
“Well,” Cannon admitted, “I can’t let you have all the fun, can I?”
Truth be told, Hugo was more than glad to have some company in the darkness. He didn’t know how much help Cannon would be with the dragon, but it would have been a long, lonely journey in the dark by himself. Not that he cared to tell Cannon that, of course.
“Agh!” Cannon yelped. “There’s another staircase. Better keep your hands up in case it turns. Don’t want to locate the wall with your face. How long did the king say it was to the bottom?”
“A couple of hours.”
Cannon muttered something under his breath that Hugo didn’t catch.
Hugo could guess at his thoughts. Two hours in a place like this would be a very long time. He searched for something to take his mind off the darkness around them and his mind settled on an amusing memory from the castle. Life had been simpler back then, when all he had to worry about was how to get out of his schoolwork. “Did you ever hear the story of Den and the pot of beans?” he said.
“Who?”
“Den. He’s a squire in Cornith, in service to Sir Getwist.”
“No,” Cannon said.
Hugo cleared his throat. “Well, we were having a bit of a party—the squires and me, and a few of the serving girls—after we beat Sir Mallory’s men in the knight’s tournament. It was an unauthorized party, to be honest, so it was in the middle of the night. Anyway, Den was in charge of bringing the food, but all he could find in the kitchen was a big pot full of beans, and he couldn’t figure out how he was going to smuggle them out. In the end he had the bright idea to dump them in a bag and hide them under his tunic.”
“He didn’t,” Cannon said, and Hugo could tell by his voice that he was smiling.
“He did! He was halfway down the hall when the cook caught him. Totally lost his head then. Ran down three flights of stairs trying to get away from her and ended up tripping down the last one. He fell flat on his face and that bag of beans exploded right inside his tunic. Beans everywhere! Oozing out his sleeves, down his pants. A whole line of it shot out the neck of his shirt and covered his face. The cook thought it was him that exploded. She was dancing around, screaming her head off when, to her horror, Den got up and tried to comfort her. That’s when she passed out.”
Cannon roared with laughter, filling the black tunnel with echoes.
“Best part was when the king’s physician got there. He thought Den had soiled himself. Wanted to pump him full of fluids and give him something to stop up the flow, so Den had to run for it. By the time he got to us, we didn’t care that there wasn’t any food, story like that…”
Cannon was wiping his eyes, sputtering now and then with little bursts of laughter. “You know, Hugo,” he said, “you’re all right. Sorry I’m such a prat sometimes.”
Hugo smiled. Maybe having Cannon around wouldn’t be terrible, as long as he could refrain from being so…Cannon.
Cannon clapped him on the back. “Hugo, your story has inspired me. I have thought of the perfect name for your nemesis. This darkness of yours. We shall call him…‘Mr. Poopy Pants.’”
Well, that didn’t last very long, Hugo thought.
“It’s perfect!” Cannon went on proudly. “You can’t go calling him Molad. You’ll end up taking him too seriously. This is demeaning, disrespectful, but not too serious. A little reminder not to be afraid of him, see? Also, I’m sure he’s going to be a very stinky sort of person, so this fits.”
“Cannon,” Hugo said sternly. “You can’t call it that.”
“It’s perfect.” Cannon said, dismissively. He stopped short. “Look! The darkness looks different there. Maybe we’ve reached the bottom.”
“Maybe,” Hugo said, squinting. It was impossible to tell. Then, abruptly, the stairs ended and they had their answer. There was some kind of chamber ahead. Hugo could almost sense it in the darkness, like a foreboding, something sleeping that did not want to be disturbed. Cannon must have sensed it too, for he grabbed Hugo’s arm.
“Hugo, we’re sure that his fire’s gone?”
“Afraid we’re going to be burnt to a crisp?”
“I’m afraid I will,” Cannon said. “You’ll be much less flammable without your hair.” He patted Hugo’s bald head and pushed him into the chamber, where Hugo found himself in a darkness more absolute than anything he had ever before experienced. It was like being in a cave, or in the heart of a mountain (which they were, of course), except blacker. This darkness was thicker, older, eternally cut off from light and fresh air. It had been unsettling enough to make the descent in darkness, but it was far less scary to be in the darkness when the space around him was relatively small. Now he could sense that he was in an immense cavern, and it was unsettling. Anything might be out there.
“Sure would be nice to have some light right about now, Mr. Mage of Light and Darkness,” Cannon said. His voice echoed into the space around them, convincing them of its size.
Hugo thought about it. If he let Molad out again, would he know how to make light out of nothing? If not for the leering possibility of a dragon in the shadows around him, he would have smiled at the irony of the Mage of Light being stuck in the darkness.
They heard a whisper from somewhere ahead of him.
“Hello?” Hugo called softly. He swallowed, found his voice, and called again, more loudly this time.
The whisper answered him again.
“I…”
Hugo squinted into the darkness. It seemed to be lifting, brightening by degrees somewhere ahead of him.
“Oh, boy,” Cannon said. “Here we go.”
“I…”
The brightness had condensed now, a small orb in the blackness right in front of him. It unfolded, stretched, lengthened, until it was the height of a man. Arms emerged from its sides as if an artist were painting them right before his eyes.
In the space of a heartbeat, the image sharpened and a man stood before Hugo, their faces mere inches apart. He was taller than Hugo and his hair was the color of fire. It didn’t just look like fire, it burned. His body shone like amber.
“I am Kuzo,” the dragon said. “Who are you?”
“I am Hugo,” Hugo said, swallowing hard. And in the same instant Molad said, I am Molad.
“Uh,” Cannon said, stepping back slightly, “I’m just here to watch.”
Kuzo smiled. His arm lashed out and caught Cannon in the center of his chest.
The apprentice tumbled to the floor.
He did not get up.
Kuzo’s eyes snapped back to Hugo, holding his gaze with a pair of vibrant, fiery eyes and driving all concern for Cannon out of his mind. His voice was as deep as the darkness around them. “Hugo. Molad. You do not yet know yourself. Is that why you have come? I cannot give you that. Your journey was in vain.” The dragon lifted his hand, reaching for Hugo’s throat.
Molad moved faster than Hugo could, bending away into the dance. Hugo nearly stopped him, surprised, and then caught himself, allowing it to happen.
They bent and twisted, dancing around the dragon, and Hugo felt a feeling of liberation, of power, pure and unquestioned. He drew his sword and it blazed like a miniature sun. The sword spun through the air, now shrouded in darkness, now revealed, painting clean light across the dragon’s pit. He brought the blade down swiftly toward the dragon’s heart, and a blade of fire and diamond sent it glancing away, showering the void with violet sparks where the two swords met. The dancer twisted, spreading himself around the room, refracting the light from his sword until there were five swords, ten, a hundred. They dipped and scooped, collecting the violet sparks before they could fade.
Then the hundred blades coalesced into a single one again, twirling in the hands of the dancer, a single violet spark glimmering on its tip like a jewel. Kuzo lunged for it. Their swords gleamed, red on white as they met in the air, with violet dancing from blade to blade. Kuzo leapt into the air and Hugo rolled to the side as the red blade cleaved the air where his head had been moments before. Their blades met again and Kuzo stole the spark from Hugo’s blade. Hugo wove around him and retrieved it. The sound of diamond and steel and flame echoed through the vast darkness as they traded the spark back and forth, back and forth.
Molad worked to keep them alive. Hugo worked to keep possession of the spark, and together they danced with the dragon. Finally their blades met for the final time—the spark hovered between them as they struggled against each other, then inched toward the tip of Hugo’s blade. The dancer stopped, Hugo and Molad melding again into one, and with the swiftness of silence itself, they threw back their head and blew fire at the tip of the upraised sword.
The violet spark shimmered in the flames and became stone, a flawless gem the size of an egg. It slid down the dancer’s blade and they caught it. Kuzo stared at it hungrily, and then, to the dragon’s surprise, they handed it to him.
The dragon took it, speechless, and bowed. Then there was a sound like the howling of wind through stone, so loud it was overwhelming. Hugo covered his ears and winced, and when he opened his eyes Kuzo was in his true form: a great dragon, red and black, with eyes of pure gold and wings like iron sails. It regarded him wordlessly for a moment and then settled down, its golden eyes coming to rest on the purple jewel that was pinched delicately between two claws.
Hugo stumbled slightly as the dancer died again, went back to wherever he had come from. He eyed the purple stone in the dragon’s hands and tried to remember where it had come from. They had made it, he thought, Molad and himself. How, he did not know.
“You have brought me battle,” the dragon whispered in a voice like the east wind. “And treasure. What do you desire?”
Hugo fumbled for an answer, reaching for Molad, but encountered only his own thoughts. He thought of asking the dragon about Chantra, and then didn’t. It was probably a good idea to ease into things.
“You are magnificent,” he said. “How is it possible that the king can keep you a prisoner here?”
Kuzo flicked the tip of his tail restlessly. “That is a long, sad tale. I do not wish to tell it again so soon.”
“Again?” Hugo asked. “Who did you tell the first time?”
“Someone who thought they could help me,” the dragon said. “A mage…She was young, new to her powers. I did not wish to tell her, but I could not resist. She was the Mage of Fire, after all, and I am a dragon.”
“Chantra,” Hugo said. He felt a bubble of excitement from Molad.
The dragon nodded wearily. “I lost my fire,” he said. “She hoped to restore it to me one day.”
“Where is she now?” Hugo asked, and the dragon closed his eyes.
“Beyond my reach,” he said, and there was something in his tone that said the subject was closed. Hugo was about to press him anyway, but Molad interrupted him.
“How did you lose your fire?”
Kuzo beat the ground with his clawed foreleg and growled viciously. “The Betrayer,” he spat. “Gadjihalt. He stole my fire.”
“How?” Molad urged, taking a step back as Kuzo’s tail twitched again.
“He mocked our laws,” the dragon said. “He desecrated the body of my Anorre.”
“What do you mean? What laws?”
The dragon growled impatiently “Dragons live by laws of their own—deep magic from the dawn of time. We mate for life; our fire is bound to the life force of our mate. If one dies, its body must be burned or the mated dragon’s fire will wither until there is nothing left.” Kuzo gave him a hard look. “Do you know of Anorre?”
Hugo shook his head.
“Anorre was my mate. Shael slaughtered her for some dark purpose, and then Gadjihalt burned her body, all of it, except for her heart, and one spike from the crown of her head. The heart, Shael used to work his magic, and with the spike, Gadjihalt fashioned the hilt of a great sword.”
The dragon paused, and Hugo looked up at him, but his face was hidden.
“I came seeking my revenge,” Kuzo said, “but my flame was already waning. Gadjihalt killed me with the sword that he made from the body of my mate.”
Hugo waited, listening for the rest of the story, but none came. “But you’re not dead,” he said.
“I am close enough,” he said. “My fire is gone. Without it, I cannot fly. I cannot even break the small magic of the gnomes that keeps me bound in the heart of this mountain.”
Hugo was silent for a moment, studying the blackness that surrounded them. There was a silence in the darkness, a reverence for the long, sorrowful wait that Kuzo had endured.
“Why did Thieutukar lock you in here?” he asked finally.
“It was his father,” the dragon said. “I was wounded badly when I finally fell from the sky in my retreat. I landed in the gnome city. I was beyond anger then. My judgement was gone. I killed many of his people, even those that tried to help me. He was not wrong to imprison me…”
Hugo stifled his surprise. “You’re not mad?”
The dragon growled. “Few live long enough to find the hatred I have found…But it is not for the gnomes. They did nothing to me. They put a dead dragon in a tomb of his own making.”
“You want to kill Gadjihalt,” Hugo said, feeling relief at discovering they shared the same enemies.
“I did once,” the dragon said. “Now, I wish only for my waiting to be over. I am weary of living in the dark, and I cannot seem to die.”
Hugo felt Molad’s determination, his clear certainty surfacing inside of him. “I will help you,” said Hugo, but the dragon said nothing.
He bent his long neck until his large golden eye was level with Hugo and said, “You are young. You should not make promises lightly to a dragon.”
“I don’t,” Molad said. “I will get you what you need, and you will get me what I need.”
“And what do you need?” Kuzo said, his voice a whisper.
“Chantra.”
The dragon stared at him silently. “Very well,” he said. “I will tell you where to find her when you have brought me what I require.”
“And what is that?” Hugo said, as Molad reveled in self-satisfaction.
“A small thing,” the dragon said. “The last part of my beloved Anorre.” His eyes settled on Hugo, heavy and dim, as if the weight of an ancient world rested inside them. His words were low and quick, as if by speaking them aloud he feared that the hope they held would fade into the darkness. “Bring me the spike-hilt sword of Gadjihalt the Betrayer.”
Hugo nodded
cautiously. “It’s a deal,” he said.
“Good.” The dragon’s tail whipped around in the air like a long, fiery rope, razor sharp spikes glinting on the end of it. “I have something to give you before you go. Something to remember me by. Something to remind you why you must not return empty-handed.” The tail lashed again, flicking out of the darkness and glancing off Hugo’s thigh.
Hugo shouted and stumbled. He scrambled backwards, the pain in his leg threatening to block out the world. He put his hand over the wound and felt hot, wet blood there.
“Why?” Hugo shouted angrily. “Why would you do that?”
But the dragon was gone.
Chapter Sixteen
In which Tabitha boils some water
By the time they arrived back at the Lake of Eyes, Brinley was exhausted. The trip had taken a couple of hours, and it had been so cramped on Tabitha’s back with Archibald and the Swelter Cat riding behind her that she had been unable to sleep. Of course, if she were honest with herself, it wasn’t just cramped quarters that kept her awake. She was afraid of what dreams might come if she drifted off. She had grown wary of letting herself sleep. She didn’t like getting lost in worlds that seemed so real, so terrible, only to wake and wonder what it meant. When she slid off Tabitha’s back and onto the shore of the lake, her legs nearly collapsed beneath her.
Archibald reached out a hand to steady her. “Easy,” he said. “You’ve had a long couple of days.”
Brinley put a hand to her head. “Thank you, Archibald. Yes, I suppose I have.”
“What are we going to write this time?” Tabitha asked, producing a good flat stone from the shore and handing it to Brinley.
“Something about the sea,” Brinley said, taking the stone. After a moment’s thought, she wrote:
Give us the Mage of Water, and we will give you the sea.
She let Tabitha throw it into the water. A moment later, a plain brown stone landed on the shore next to them. Archibald picked it up and handed it to Brinley, who jumped as the chorus of voices shouted in her mind again, NO!
“Agh!” she growled in frustration, and threw the stone back into the lake. “They still say no.” She put a hand to her head to steady herself again. “I think I’m going to lie down. I’m too tired to think what to do next.”
Magemother: The Complete Series (A Fantasy Adventure Book Series for Kids of All Ages) Page 48
