A dragon.
The beast's neck stretched up and away, connecting to a body that loomed high above the girl, indistinct in the swirling haze of snow. Lynaelle could barely make out two broad, leathery wings, bent and ribbed like the bat's, fanning out to either side of the huge monster. Even at five paces away, they were nothing more than a slightly darker shade of gray in the overwhelming white of the snow storm. And still they blotted out all light. They could have easily reached and engulfed the girl where she cowered, still trembling. A dragon!
"You will serve," the beast said, it's voice deep and hard-edged, like the sound the glaciers made when they scraped together.
Just hearing the dragon's voice made Lynaelle's heart flutter wildly in her chest, and she cringed at the sound of the words, not understanding them but wanting to flee their harshness. She tried to make herself very small, sinking into the waist-deep snow, thinking only of escape. She thought to hide, to cast a spell to take her away from the dragon.
Terror prevented her from remembering any magic at that moment.
Before Lynaelle could even turn away, a great talon-tipped claw raised up and reached for her, digits extended wide. The girl screamed and flailed, trying to roll over in the drift and scramble away. But the cumbersomeness of her heavy clothes and fur-lined cloak, along with the weight of her pack and the depth of the snowdrift, impeded her efforts. The huge claw shot forward, enveloping her.
As the claw closed tightly around her, Lynaelle expected to be crushed. But the dragon's death grip did not squeeze her unduly, nor did the talons gouge into her flesh. Nonetheless, the power of the dragon's grasp was undeniable, and the girl knew she was trapped as surely as if she were bound in iron. She found her arms pinned tightly to her sides, her cloak bunched up awkwardly, half covering her head. She felt the book, the damnable book covered in oilcloth in her pack, poking painfully against her spine. Snow pressed in and packed all around her, also trapped in the dragon's grasp.
Lynaelle sobbed, her wail muffled in the fur of the cloak, and she felt herself lifted from the ground, hoisted into the air easily. She struggled between the desire to peer out and see where the beast was taking her and the terror-filled urge to bury her face and clench her eyes closed, as if that could shut the world out, make the dragon go away.
She felt a sudden lurch, and the air was whistling fiercely against her head, whipping the hood of her cloak off and causing her long, straw-colored hair to lash about. Snow pelted her exposed skin, stinging her face. Curiosity won out for a moment, and she opened her eyes a fraction to see, but there was nothing but an endless swirl of white. She could sense that she was aloft, that the dragon was flying, for there was a rhythmic rolling motion that she equated with the beating of the beast's wings. With the blizzard raging all around her, though, the girl couldn't make out her surroundings, and the wind and ice simply hurt too much.
Lynaelle closed her eyes again in pain and despair as the white dragon carried her away from Silverymoon Pass.
She would not reach Silverymoon, would never enroll at the Lady's College. She would never deliver the book. A gift from her teacher for an old friend in the city, it would instead wind up in some lost place in the mountains, its pages rotting away alongside her bones.
That thought made Lynaelle sob and struggle desperately for a moment, but the effort was futile, and eventually she gave up, sagging in the dragon's grip.
For what seemed like forever, they flew, Lynaelle's fear dulled somewhat by the rhythmic pumping of the dragon's motion. As the initial shock of her capture faded, she began to consider her predicament, as well as the cryptic words the creature had uttered upon claiming her.
If it meant to eat me, the girl thought hopefully, it would simply have done so.
Unless it intends to save me for later, she added. But what did it mean by "serve?"
The thought that perhaps the dragon intended to keep her as a prisoner crossed the girl's mind, and hope actually rose within her. Whatever awful circumstances would be thrust upon her as a dragon's slave, they were better than dying, and it meant Lynaelle might find a way of escaping. Perhaps she would even be able to put her magic to use.
The notion of inflicting any sort of harm on the wyrm with her limited ability was laughable to Lynaelle, but tricking it was not out of the question. If she got the chance.
The half-elfs thoughts were interrupted as she became aware that the brightness of daylight beyond her shut eyelids, weak though it had been, suddenly and sharply diminished. She also noted that, though she still felt the keen rush of icy air, she was no longer being pelted by flakes of snow.
Lynaelle opened her eyes and nearly screamed again.
The dragon was dropping like a stone through a great shaft of ice, a hole in a glacier that was nearly vertical and just large enough for the dragon to unfurl its wings. Overhead, the dim gray of the sky was a receding circle, while below, the shaft plunged into deeper and deeper darkness.
The great white beast fanned its wings out, drawing up sharply and slowing its descent. Lynaelle was jostled roughly as the beast beat its wings three or four times in rapid succession and settled onto a solid surface. As it dropped into a crouch, the dragon released the girl from its grasp, sending her tumbling across a floor of cracked and rent ice, covered by a dusting of snow. She wound up sprawled on her back, staring upward, the book pressing painfully into her from beneath.
Some light shone down through the shaft, and permeated the area with an eerie bluish glow. It was ample illumination for Lynaelle to see that she was in a large domed chamber, a hollow bubble in a great glacier of ice. The shaft through which she and the dragpn had descended opened through the ceiling of the chamber, near one side. The rounded walls of the domed room were slightly uneven, like a drawn curtain, though still smooth and solid like glass. There would be no climbing those surfaces, at least not without tools or magical aid. Only the floor seemed the least bit rough and uneven.
The chamber was an effective prison.
"You will serve me," the dragon said, its harsh, crunching voice reverberating through the chamber.
Lynaelle's attention was drawn instantly back to the beast, which loomed over her, its wings folded in against its body for the moment. Unlike before, out in the weather, she could see the dragon clearly then. It peered down at the girl, its fang-filled jaws open slightly in an unsettling way as it regarded her. Muscles rippled along its chest and flanks, chorded and strong, yet shielded by plates that overlapped all along the surface of the beast. Its body must have stretched a good twenty feet, ending in a tail equally as long and segmented. It reminded Lynaelle of the tail of a beast called a crocodile, pictures of which Ambriel had once shown her.
Lynaelle realized she was shivering from her wind-blasted ride and from lying on the icy floor of the chamber, so she sat up and drew her cloak around herself more tightly, staring fearfully at the dragon.
"Serve you?" she asked, startled by the timidity of her voice.
Unlike the dragon's, which had echoed loudly in the domed room, her own speech was hollow and faint. In a way, the girl was surprised she could speak at all.
"Yes," the dragon replied, settling on its haunches and craning its neck down so that its head hovered closer to its captive.
Lynaelle cringed involuntarily.
"I am Torixileos, Master of the Blizzard, Bringer of Icy Agony, and Lord of the Frozen Mountain," the dragon said, his cold and pungent breath washing over Lynaelle and making her flinch away. "You will help me, or I shall devour you!" he roared, making the floor rattle and causing Lynaelle to quake in terror and curl up into a ball. She brought her hands up over her head as she cowered, as though to placate or fend off the beast. Torixileos darted forward, bringing his head down close to Lynaelle and sniffing at her. "You would make a sorry meal," he said, his icicle-teeth mere inches from the girl's face, "but perhaps you will cure nicely if I froze you."
"No!" Lynaelle pleaded, flinching away and wrapping
her arms more tightly around her head. "Please don't! I will serve you!"
She could feel tears running down her face as she lost all composure.
I don't want to die, she thought desperately, miserably. Please, she silently begged. Ambriel, come find me.
The dragon laughed, a great, thundering roar that shook the whole icy cavern and made the floor beneath
Lynaelle rumble. She screamed and tried to scramble away. But in her panic she could get very little traction on the slippery surface and only succeeded in slipping and sliding a couple of feet.
"Very wise, little morsel," Torixileos said, quieting. "You may serve me well. And if you do, then I might free you."
At such an offer of hope, Lynaelle stopped frantically trying to escape and turned back to face the dragon, abasing herself before it.
"Yes," she said, ashamed of her own cowardice but unable to find any courage under the gaze of the terrible beast. "I will do whatever you say. Tell me."
She hated how eager she was to please the dragon, but Lynaelle knew she would do anything, anything at all, to convince him not to eat her.
"I am yours to command," she added, shame making her voice waver.
"Then stand up," Torixileos ordered.
When Lynaelle slowly, carefully managed to get to her feet, the dragon swung his head toward one wall of the domed chamber and said, "Go through there."
For the first time, Lynaelle noticed a tunnel set into the icy wall, though she could see why it had escaped her notice before. It was partially shielded from her view because of the way it opened into the room, angled away from her and behind a lip of ice that jutted out on the near side. She began to make her way toward the opening, taking short, tentative steps. Her whole body was weak with terror, and she feared losing her footing on the slick floor as well. As she walked carefully across the open room toward the exit, Torixileos followed her with his head, giving Lynaelle shivers down her spine. Then the dragon began to pad after her, each of his steps a tremendous thump upon the glacial floor.
Lynaelle had to use every ounce of her willpower to fight the urge to run.
The half-elf followed the passage out of the domed cavern. It sloped gently downward and bent around to the right, then back to the left. As a result, she could not see where it was leading, though the dim light filtering through the ice from outside was bright enough for her exceptional eyesight to view everything clearly enough.
Finally, Lynaelle rounded the last bend in the passageway and came upon another large chamber, though it was more irregularly shaped than the previous cavern. It was clear to the half-elf that the room was actually ice-rimed stone, a shallow cave chiseled out of the mountain itself. Only the area surrounding the passage in which she stood, as well as a smaller section opposite and to her right, consisted of massive sheets of ice, more of the great floe that covered the mountain. The condition of the second chamber was more uneven, with numerous small shelves and ledges along the periphery, and jagged stone and rubble strewn across the floor. A handful of other holes and openings pierced the walls and ceiling, varying in size, distance, and angle.
The girl realized after a second glance that the other ice wall seemed different somehow. In addition to letting in more light than could be found anywhere else in the glacier, it had an unusual look to it, as though it wasn't part of the floe.
It's newer, Lynaelle decided. The ice is cleaner, fresher.
Lynaelle didn't realize she'd stopped moving until she felt Torixileos' icy breath on the back of her neck. Suppressing a shudder, she quickly stepped to one side to allow the dragon to enter. It was only then that she realized the white wyrm had been forced to crawl through the passage, snaking along on its belly with his wings furled tightly against his flanks. Once he was through the narrow tunnel and fully into the stone chamber, the dragon rose up again to his full height and peered down at the girl expectantly.
Lynaelle backed away from the creature until she felt the cold hardness of a wall pressing against her, stopping her. She waited there timorously for the beast to give her some indication of what he wanted from her.
"I have sealed the entrance," Torixileos said, nudging his nose in the direction of the fresh ice. "You cannot escape."
Dumbly, Lynaelle nodded, realizing at last why the ice looked so different. The dragon had created a barrier to seal her inside.
"There is now only one way out, and you cannot fly, little morsel. I can keep you here forever."
With those words, Torixileos bent his head back around to stare balefully right at the girl.
Lynaelle slid down the wall she had pressed herself against, feeling panic rising in her gut again. She began to shake her head, and opened her mouth to protest, but the dragon continued on.
"If you help me get my treasure back, I will let you live. Perhaps I will even take you back outside and set you free. But only if you obey. Will you be good, little morsel?"
Lynaelle found herself nodding emphatically, even as she flinched at the nickname the dragon had chosen to bestow upon her.
"Yes, sir," she said without thinking. "I will be good and help you."
"Yes," Torixileos said, bobbing his own head up and down, mimicking Lynaelle's eager nodding. "Help me get my treasure."
"But how?" the girl asked, confused and curious at the same time. "Where is your treasure?"
"Come here!" the dragon said, perhaps more loudly than he'd intended.
The whole room vibrated and shook with those words, and Lynaelle cringed again. Fearful that she might anger the beast if she didn't react promptly, Lynaelle scrambled to her feet and followed Torixileos's head as it swiveled around and he began to nuzzle with his nose the opening to a small tunnel on the opposite side of the room. She approached the small egress, which sat about chest-high to her, and waited for the dragon to move aside so she could peer in.
"I caught a thief trying to steal my treasure. I hurt it, but it escaped in there. I am too big to follow. You must bring them back to me."
Lynaelle recoiled from the small opening upon hearing that she and the dragon were not alone.
"A thief?" she exclaimed, afraid. "How did it-?"
She snapped her mouth shut when she realized that Torixileos was glaring at her.
"You will bring the thief and my treasure to me!" the dragon said loudly, bringing his head down level with Lynaelle's and staring at her directly. "You cannot escape, so you must do as I say!"
Again, Lynaelle found herself nodding, desperately trying to appease the fearsome beast before her. Whatever was in the hole, it could not be as dangerous as the angry white wyrm in front of her. She eyed the opening, which was large enough for her to traverse while walking, if she hunched over a bit. It was dark in the passage, and she could not see very far into it at all.
"What kind of thief is it?" she asked, deeming it prudent to learn as much as she could about whatever she was going to have to face before she actually went into the tunnel.
"A nasty orc!" Torixileos roared at her, blasting her off her feet with his chilling breath.
Lynaelle flailed her arms in front of her face, coughing and wheezing as the icy vapors chilled her skin and stung her lungs. She coughed and spit as she rolled over to her knees.
"Please," she begged, waving an arm to ward off further blasts. "I can't breathe!"
"You can see the thief from here," the dragon continued, ignoring Lynaelle's pleas. "It is wounded, not moving. Drag it back here so that I may eat it."
Lynaelle struggled to her feet again and moved to peer once more inside the passage, casting one fearful glance at Torixileos as she did so. The dragon was staring into the tunnel with one eye narrowed to a hateful slit. The girl stared into the darkness, but of course she could see nothing down the tunnel.
"It's very dark," the half-elf said carefully, then quickly added, "I will need some light to see by," before the dragon could misinterpret her words as a refusal.
Torixileos merely stared at Lynaell
e, as though he could not comprehend what she was trying to say.
"I have no light," the dragon said at last. "Perhaps you are not such a good helper at all, and I should just eat you and find another."
"Wait!" Lynaelle said frantically, backing away and waving her hands in front of herself. "I can make light!"
The girl had not wanted to give up her secret, that she had magical ability, for she feared it would make the dragon suspicious and more wary of her, limiting her chance to escape. But she had no choice, she realized, and yanked off a glove to begin digging through an inner pocket.
She pulled out a tiny bit of moss, which glowed softly, giving off a pale green hue. Then, after slipping her glove back on, she placed the moss in the palm of her hand and began to cast a spell with it.
Just as quickly as she had begun, Lynaelle stopped again, realizing that Torixileos was rearing back from her, drawing in a deep breath. The half-elf went stark still, not daring to move, as the white wyrm stood poised over her, watching her intently. The dragon appeared ready to blast Lynaelle with his breath, but he did not.
"I do not like wizards," Torixileos said at last, eyes narrowing. "They are tricky and use their magic to try to hurt me." Then he bent low and cocked his head so that one eye was level with Lynaelle's face. His next words were delivered very slowly and deliberately. "I have eaten many wizards."
Lynaelle swallowed hard and nodded very gently, her heart pounding in her chest.
She eased her hands down to her sides and said, "I was only going to make some magical light. So I can see to get your treasure back for you." When the dragon didn't move, she felt panic rising again. "I want to be a good helper," the girl said, trying desperately to sound enthusiastic, "so you will be pleased with me."
Torixileos drew his head back.
"Yes," the creature said, his voice low. "My treasure. Go and get it now. Make your light, little-morsel, but do not try any tricks, or I will eat you."
Lynaelle nodded vigorously again and moved toward the opening.
Realms of the Dragons vol.1 a-9 Page 17
