by Terry Spear
Eloria removed the calming spell from the dragonlings, but before she could rush off after her winged elf companions, the dragonlings surrounded her as if they had imprinted on her and she was now their mother. She was going to be cinders if she didn’t get out of here now!
“Eloria!” Viator called from deeper in the tunnel.
She figured he had hurried further down into the tunnel to ensure that the dragon’s flame wouldn’t reach them, even if the dragon couldn’t follow them. But she couldn’t move, afraid she’d step on one of the little dragons that came up to her knees. They were flapping their little leathery wings, bouncing around on their toes, thrilled to be with her, as if they knew she had saved them, even if Viator had done the actual saving.
Then a couple of the little more aggressive dragonlings investigated the opinicus and began shooting tiny flames at it. She smiled and figured this was like training on how to take down a predator.
She kept trying to get around the dragonlings when she saw the mother dragon headed for the entrance of the cave. Viator suddenly popped his head out of the tunnel entrance, saw that Eloria was having trouble joining them, and he flew out of the tunnel to grab her.
Lifting her, he carried her into the tunnel, and ran her down to where he’d left Balen. Apparently, he was still too groggy to move. She cast her light down the tunnel as they heard the dragon mother and another dragon enter the cave above, all the little dragonlings excitedly squeaking at the adult dragons.
Before Viator helped Balen back up, he spread his wings and smiled. “They are a full credit more transparent.”
“You must have gotten all the credit for killing the opinicus and saving the dragonlings,” Eloria said, proud of him.
“But you and Balen helped.”
“Right, but you actually accomplished the mission.”
They continued down the passageway, hearing the sounds of the dragons for some time, then the noise all faded away.
“I hope we won’t be in trouble for invading their lair,” Viator said.
“How could we be?” Balen asked, still sounding like he was hurting and had to lean on Viator to get him down the tunnel. “We saved the little ones.”
“I was afraid they had imprinted on me,” Eloria said.
Both men stopped in their tracks and turned back to look at her.
She shrugged. “They were excited to greet me and I don’t know, they seemed to think I was their mother. Or guardian, or something.”
Continuing to walk, Viator shook his head. “Dragon keeper. Here I want to ask your hand in marriage and I’ve got to live with you in a cave to protect the dragons? I’m a prince, you know.”
This time she stopped walking and stared at Viator.
He turned to smile at her. “What? You don’t think I’d give you up after all you’ve put me through? You are mine to keep.” He chuckled and walked off again.
The notion came to mind that she couldn’t marry any man because he wouldn’t like it if she could protect his back, if he were a warrior class, and if he was not, he could feel intimidated by her. With Viator, there was no problem in that. She was there to watch his back and vice versa. He didn’t seem to have any difficulty with the roles she played.
“Your parents won’t be happy,” Balen said.
“They knew about the prophecy long before I did. Who’s to say we can go against such a powerful mandate? It is written in our ancient scrolls.” Viator shrugged. “So be it.”
“Besides, he loves me dearly,” Eloria said, because she didn’t care one-star galaxy if their prophecy stated that some girl would upend their kingdom. If he didn’t love her, the whole deal was off.
“Because I love her dearly,” Viator said.
“I will never hear the end of it from Sendal,” Balen said.
“Did she know about the prophecy?” Viator asked
“Aye. Why do you think she’s been trying to get you to marry her before another human from another world ended up in our lands?”
When they finally reached the circle of doors, they found the green wizard’s door could be opened. “It appears that once we opened the door, we can return without activating it again with the amulet.” Eloria helped Balen into the living area and Viator had him sit on the couch.
“We’re going to check the next door. You sit here and recuperate. Are you going to be okay?” Viator asked his friend.
“Aye. Holler if you need me to help out.”
“I will.” Viator and Eloria left him then and headed back out to the circle of doors. A coiled-rope symbol glowed on the next door, and Eloria held her breath as she and Viator left Balen behind to check out the next passage.
23
Viator knew he should leave Eloria behind on these ventures, worried he was going to truly lose her one of these times. This time, they were walking through a tunnel that was level, no elevation whatsoever.
“You do want to marry me? My parents could be awful to live with,” Viator said, taking Eloria’s hand as they shone their lights into the tunnel.
“I have nowhere else to go. And yes, you would make the perfect lifemate for me.”
Viator pulled her into a hug and kissed her. “Good, because I’m a prince and I wasn’t taking no for an answer.”
She laughed. “You’re just lucky I fell in love with the elf who took me hostage.”
“Look what happened when Zorak got ahold of you again. I’m still angry with him for locking you into the dungeon.”
“But see what happened? We learned that I have some value. The dragons rallied around me.”
“Yeah.” He frowned at her. “That stun gun is powerful.”
“But it only has enough power for a while. Then once it runs out, it will be useless.”
“That’s a shame. Then again, that’s what makes our more primitive weapons so important. They are as good as we maintain them and can stay alive.”
“You did great back there,” Eloria said. “That was one hard beast to kill.”
“You did too. If it wasn’t for you shooting him over and over again, and then getting closer to distract him, I wouldn’t have managed to eliminate him. What did you do to the dragonlings? They were making such a racket and so was the opinicus, it was hard to think straight.”
“I calmed them with a spell. I couldn’t think either while we were trying to terminate the opinicus and keep him from injuring or killing us. I wonder what the dragons will think when they see we’d killed the opinicus and then run off into the green wizard’s tunnel.”
Viator brought her to a stop at a railing around a pit. “They will know who was there. They’ll smell our scents. Hopefully, they’ll forgive us for trespassing in their den.” He stared down into the abyss.
Eloria shone her longer ray of light into the darkness and took a sharp breath. “It looks like the pit where I fall in my dreams. Though I have actually been shoved into a pit before, which has fed my nightmares."
“And pushed off a cliff.” Viator was frowning at her. “You need a protector.”
She smiled, then shined her light on the walls of the cave. "Crystals! Green crystals."
"Why wouldn't this be the room featuring the symbol of the amulet?" Viator asked, wondering out loud.
"I think we need to get a crystal."
"What?" Viator didn't know why she thought she had to have another. She already had one. He glanced at her glowing amulet, then looked out at the walls of green crystals below. "Why would you need another?"
"In my dreams, I'm the age I am now. If it was like my dad had said—that the amulet I wear was a gift from my mother, then maybe I’m supposed to obtain one that is my own."
"In the dreams, the wizard guided you to locate the green crystal."
"Right. I really believe I need to get a crystal."
"But I wasn't in the dream, was I?"
"No. But what if this is just a dream to guide me to what I have to do. You could be there, but not essential to the quest."
/> Viator raised a brow, his mouth curving up slightly.
She smiled at him. "You know what I mean. The wizard needed me to do this, but it didn't mean you weren't there. Maybe he didn't want to clutter the scene for me."
He chuckled. "I am now just clutter."
She laughed, her laughter echoing off the walls of the cavern. In the center of the cavern of crystals, it appeared there was a pit filled with water.
"Does it matter which crystal we take?"
She shined her light down into the cavern, the crystals all sparkling in the glow of her light source. But then her amulet again came to life and Viator saw a crystal glowing even in the darkness.
"There." He figured it had to be the one that seemed to call to the other, if his guess had any merit.
She moved her light over the crystal and it continued to glow brighter than any of the others touched by her light. "I have to get down there to get it."
"You stay here. I'll get it for you. I don't want you falling down there and making your nightmare come true."
"I don't die. I just scream and wake myself up."
"In the nightmare. But in real life? That could be another story." Viator went around the whole railing that encircled the opening to the cavern. He suddenly spied a rope dangling next to the wall near where he was standing, maybe reaching about thirty feet. "There's a rope down there. It's knotted all along its length as if used for climbing. But I can fly over to the crystal. If you can shine your light on the crystal, I can have both hands free to try and pull it loose. Hopefully, I won't need a tool to pry it loose."
"Do you have one?"
"My dagger, but I'd rather not chip away at the crystal and ruin it or, who knows, cause it to react in some magical way if it doesn't like my treatment of it."
"Okay, true. I'm ready."
He pulled her into his arms and kissed her before he left. He realized that he was wanting to do that an awful lot. As if any misstep on his part, or hers, could spell their doom and he didn't want to leave her without showing her how much he cared about her. She seemed to appreciate it and kissed him back just as greedily.
He sighed. "I'm off." He flew toward the crystal across the chasm when he saw something dark moving against the walls in the darkness. He cast his light on one of the massive figures. "Trolls. Blasted." At least here, he had the advantage because he could fly and stay away from the trolls, except when he was trying to tug at the crystal. He thought about the similarity between this situation and the one with the mermaid where he had to land on the rock to tug at the fishing net. Only this time the trolls would be reaching for him while he tugged at the crystal.
He saw an opening in the cavern way down below that let in some light and he wondered where that led to. As soon as the trolls knew where he was heading to, they also scurried across the walls to reach his destination. He was certain they didn't care anything about the glowing crystal. Though he wondered why it wouldn't deter them when Eloria's had the last time. Wait, Eloria's crystal!
Trolls might look like hairy, dumb beasts, but they were clever enough to work in packs and they could calculate what an elf was up to before the elf could accomplish his quest. Viator knew he couldn't grab for the crystal without them grabbing for him. And he was certain he couldn't wear Eloria's amulet so that she could stay safely where she was.
What if he could carry her here, and she could ward off the trolls while he tried to remove the amulet? He turned to go back for her, but she was climbing down the rope into the cavern, and the trolls were scattering all over the walls, trying to stay as far away from her as they could.
No wonder her light hadn't been focused on the crystal, only his. He flew to her and wrapped his arms around her from behind, so she could still shine her light and show off the glow of the amulet. "I forgot how your amulet scared them away the last time. But why wouldn't the glowing crystal also?"
"I forgot how it scattered them too, until I saw they were staying well away from me. Maybe the crystal embedded in the wall with the rest of them can’t scare them off. Maybe it has to do with me wearing the amulet. By itself, it doesn't have the power to keep them away. Of course, I’m just guessing here," she said.
"Okay, that could be. There's a narrow shelf near the crystal. If you can stand on it and hold on to the crystals jutting out from the wall while I try to tug on the one we need, you can scare off the trolls at the same time."
"Let's try that."
He carried her to the shelf and did worry about her falling off it, so he hovered next to her and the crystal. "Just grab ahold of me if you slip off."
"I will. Though I have the ability to slow my fall and cushion it somewhat. But then I would be leaving you without my protection."
"That's how you fell off the cliff without dying." He was tugging as hard as he could at the crystal, but it wouldn't budge. "It's not coming out at all. Maybe I need to use my dagger to help loosen it, but I'm afraid to damage it." He glanced down at Eloria to see what she thought.
Eloria was watching for the trolls but they didn't grow close to their location. "Maybe I need to pull the stone free."
Viator had thought if he could do it, it might be one of his quests, but he guessed she might be right. If the wizard told her that she needed to get it, then she needed to be the one to pull it. He dropped down to lift her and then flew just a couple of feet higher so she could reach the crystal.
Holding her tight, he flapped his wings to hover in place while Eloria reached out to grab the crystal. Both her amulet and the crystal glowed even brighter, nearly blinding them. She pulled with so much force, he nearly lost hold of her, and she did lose her grip on the stone, not expecting it to come free so easily.
It fell. He dove for it, still holding tight to her and his sudden dive made her scream.
"Sorry."
"I never scream."
He smiled.
Her arms were outstretched, but he couldn't fly as fast as the crystal was falling. They heard it splash down below in the pool of dark water and she groaned. "What if it has gone too deep?" she asked.
"Then we're doomed as I cannot swim." He reached the dark water, but they could still see the green glow of the crystal.
"It looks like it's close."
"But water can be deceiving," he warned, hovering over the water.
"Let me go and I'll get it."
"What about the trolls?"
"They can't get you while you're flying, and they won't come near me while I'm wearing the amulet."
As much as it bothered him to release her into the water, worrying something might get her down there, other than trolls, he released her gently into the pool and watched as she disappeared beneath the surface. She was just like the sirens of the sea, able to swim and dive beneath the water, which seemed impossible to him.
Then he saw her finally swimming toward the surface with the crystal in hand. He smiled. She burst forth from the water and shouted, "Pull me out! Now!"
Panicked, he grabbed both her outstretched arms and she wrapped her legs around him and he carried her to the top off the railing as a mermaid broke the surface of the water.
He settled Eloria on the stone floor and they both looked down to see the mermaid floating in the water. She wasn't the same one that he'd pulled the fishnet out of the sea for.
"There must be an outlet to the sea down there. The crystal wasn't too far down, but just far enough to get me into trouble with the mermaid."
"Thank the goddess for that. We need to dry out your clothes and check on Balen," Viator said.
The mermaid talked away to them, but he had no idea what she was saying.
Eloria said something back to the mermaid in her own language.
Viator frowned at Eloria. "You can do what Persephonice can do. Talk to creatures that don't speak the elven language? The blue elves are the only ones who can actually speak with them."
"I can."
"And swim."
"But I can't fly."
He smiled. "I can take you wherever your heart desires. But I suspect you will be able to call any dragon to carry you wherever you want also."
They left the crystal chamber and returned to the living quarters were Balen was sound asleep on the couch. She pulled some clothes out of her pack and headed for the bedroom. "I'll be right back. I guess we can dry my things outside on the memorial in the breeze."
"What do we do—" Viator stopped speaking, mid-speech, when he saw Eloria staring at his wings. He spread them wider and glanced back at them, then smiled. "Well, I'll be. I didn't think I'd earn a whole credit, not even half a one, when you were the one to get the crystal."
"You took me there to retrieve it. I couldn't have done it myself. And then you helped me reach the water and escape the mermaid. If it's anything like what we think, it wasn't that you saved me, but you helped to save the crystal."
"Huh. Okay, so now what do we do with it?"
"Make it into an amulet? I can't imagine what else we could do with it."
"The green wizard never showed you what to do beyond just finding and securing it?"
"Right," Eloria said. "I'll be right back." She headed into the bedroom and he was thinking they needed to eat. But he wasn't sure he wanted to take her back to his castle.
He did consider taking her to see the shadow elves, but what if they were worried that she was going to try and convince Persephonice to leave and they wanted to eliminate her?
She came out of the room, dressed in more of the kind of clothes that she had worn when she first arrived at the cliffs.
"Okay, do you want to check out the next door?"
"I was thinking of eating."
"I don't believe the wizard will mind if we eat here."
Viator wasn't so sure.
"He will want us to continue with our mission." She went into what appeared to be the kitchen and began rummaging around for food. She motioned to the room. "Uh, unless you know how to cook, I'm afraid we'll all just starve."
"We have food in our packs. But I do know how to cook." Viator began boiling potatoes and spinach, then found dried pork and added it to a broth. "Your duties do not require you to cook?"
