Dragonworld

by Byron Preiss

  Lathan realized he would be seen by the Windrider if he remained where he was. Accordingly, he crawled through the copse where he hid, and down a hill several yards, to take shelter in a large bluewort bush. The heavy, cloying scent of the flowers made his head spin, but at least he was sure he would not be seen.

  The windship landed. Its rider threw a rope with a grappling hook into the fork of a tree as the almost-weightless ship rebounded from the ground with dreamlike slowness. Then, when it had stabilized, the Windrider stepped forward, and the campfire highlighted his features.

  Lathan, now secure in the bush, gasped. It was Prince Kiorte himself! First the Princess, then the Prince! Did this fellow Willen hold the key to a Sindril mine? He strained to hear what was being said, but to his frustration realized that he was a bit too far away—the voices were a meaningless mumble.

  Willen had also been amazed to see Kiorte, but he and Tweel were too drunk to be impressed. He leaned against a tree as Tweel waved his turkey leg mockingly at the Prince.

  “A bite to eat, Prince?” Tweel inquired with exaggerated politeness. “No doubt you’ve had a long and difficult journey.”

  “I have,” Kiorte replied flatly, “but food has not been on my mind. I have searched long and questioned many bands of your fellows to learn your location, Willen. I wish to know what words you had with my wife, Princess Evirae.”

  Willen cocked his head and feigned a deep sadness. “Ah, I’m deeply distressed to deny you, Prince, you being a Prince and all. But I’ve promised the Princess that what we discussed would go no further. I’m a man of my word.”

  Kiorte held his temper with an obvious effort and spoke evenly. “I am a Prince of Simbala and Evirae’s husband. What she says is my affair. Her interests are my interests.”

  “That’s all well and good, but she made no exceptions, you see. Until she tells me otherwise . . .” Willen spread his hands.

  “You are a simpleton,” Kiorte said in a tight, low voice, “and you are drunk. What about you?” He turned to Tweel. “Are you also going to defy an order of the Prince of Simbala?”

  Tweel hesitated, looking at Willen. Then he shook his head. “Willen has told me nothing,” he said to Kiorte. “Therefore, there is nothing to tell you.”

  For another considerable time there was silence, save for the crackling of the fire and the creaking and rustling of the windship. Kiorte studied the two impassive forms before him. He could not force them to talk. Such actions were distasteful to him, and also, at the moment, impossible to implement.

  Evirae was up to something—that he knew. He had been married to her too long not to recognize that air of preoccupation. This time, however, was different from her usual schemes—he knew that, too. She was approaching it with the same naive attitude, but she was playing with something larger—larger and more dangerous. She was involving innocents this time. Of that Kiorte was sure. He had to learn all the details, but he would not learn them from these two drunken fellows. That was also obvious.

  Lathan watched as the head of the Windriders disengaged the windship, which drifted slowly into the night sky. Then he stood cautiously and stretched, feeling his joints creak and pop. He had hoped to get some rest before starting back, but he knew there would be no rest tonight. He would have to inform Monarch Hawkwind of this meeting immediately.

  With a sigh he limped off toward the woods, where his horse was tethered. There were times, he told himself, when it just did not pay to be conscientious.

  XV

  It was always midnight in the mines, thought Hawkwind. Though the noon sun had been bright when he entered the tunnel, the first turn had changed the daylight to darkness. As he descended the broad steps, his torch of firemoss in one hand, he felt as if he was returning to a reality abandoned for a long time.

  He thought: It is good that I’ve come. I will have a chance to settle my thoughts.

  The tunnel had been closed for over four years. It was in disrepair, the wooden arches and walls were mossy; the torch niches were empty, and there were creeping vapors of deterioration in the air.

  This tunnel had been the site of the attack, the place where many thought Hawkwind had taken his first steps toward the palace.

  Since becoming Monarch, he had had little time alone. There were always matters of state, merchants and Ministers waiting to see him. Even the time he spent with Ceria, much as he loved her, did not have the solitude he had known in his days at the mines.

  This troubled Hawkwind. Alone he felt truly in harmony with himself. With Ceria, he felt in harmony with the world, as if the natural order of two beings together gave his life new meaning. Alone, however, he felt like Hawkwind: he felt like a miner’s son who for five years had worked the mines, face black and dusty, arms hard from swinging a pick into the earth. Here, in the mines, he could understand his life as an extension of his dreams.

  “I have gone beyond my dreams,” he said aloud, as if talking to the younger man in his past, “yet I still have hopes unfulfilled.” He wanted little more for himself, save perhaps marriage and a child. He was happy. His hopes were now for Simbala.

  He walked slowly down the sloping floor of the tunnel. Here and there along its length were the arching entrances of side tunnels, many of which were now closed forever with bricks and mortar. He knew that some of them led to the root tunnels beneath the city proper. Lying on the bare rock before him was the rust-pitted blade of a pick. Hawkwind lifted it, looked at it, and remembered . . .

  He had been the overseer of the tanium shaft, which dropped vertically at the tunnel’s end, deeper than all the others. It was so deep that the air was hot and heavy, and miners sometimes fainted from foul gases that seeped from the earth. They had been mining a rich vein of tanium, a liquid metal. It was risky work—at such depths, the pressure of the earth above was such that an unwary swing by a pick might release an arc of tanium that would strike with the force of a battering ram and flood the mine.

  A miner had swung his pick one day and opened, not a vein of tanium, but what seemed to be a natural cavern adjacent to the shaft. Hawkwind had been called to investigate, and had found a wonderland of stalactites and stalagmites, columns and frozen waterfalls of rock. The men, entranced, had wanted to explore, but Hawkwind had ordered the investigation to wait until the next day, when everyone was fresh.

  It was quiet now as he walked along the deserted tunnel. Hawkwind was suddenly very aware of the hundreds of feet of ground above him, and the fragility of the manmade intrusion into the ancient rock. He walked more quickly—for some reason, he felt impelled to reach the shaft at the end of the tunnel.

  That night, over four years ago, watchmen outside the tunnels had heard strange, shuddersome cries from the depths of the mines—howling, like the shade of a wolf. The next day, not far from one of the root tunnels’ entrances, a small stone house stood open and empty. A young mother, who had lived alone since the death of her miner husband, was missing. On the floor had been found traces of muck and grime, and in one of those patches was imprinted a strange, splay-toed footprint.

  Hawkwind stopped suddenly. He turned and raised the torch, letting its illumination spill back toward the tunnel’s curve. He had thought he heard something—perhaps the trickling of pebbles down one of the walls—or perhaps the scrabbling of claws on the stone floor?

  He hesitated, then continued. The top of the shaft was only around the next bend, and he had a very bad feeling about it now. He had to see if it were still sealed, as he had ordered it to be years before. His boots splashed in puddles of water that had seeped down from the last rain.

  The shaft had been cut at a steep angle into the rock, and niched with hand- and footholds for the miners to use. There had also been a windlass and bucket for hauling up the day’s take. On that day, years ago, Hawkwind and a group of miners had descended into the shaft, where the opening into the caverns had been enlarged. Armed with torches and weapons, they had gone into the caverns.

  Th
ey had not gone far when they discovered the body of the young widow. A miner found it behind a rock—he staggered away from it with a pale face, for it had been mutilated and feasted upon. He had barely gasped out the horrible news to Hawkwind, when seemingly from behind every rock and column and out of every fissure and crevice had poured a horde of loathsome gaunt creatures. Their skins were a mottled dead white; they were short and squat, with barrel-shaped bodies and thickly muscled limbs. Their faces were wide and flat, with broad, thin-lipped mouths filled with fangs. Their eyes were huge, and they seemed to have no ears at all on the sides of their bald heads. They were accompanied by slinking, wolflike creatures, also with bald, corpselike skin and huge eyes.

  They came toward the miners, making chattering sounds. Hawkwind and the others immediately recognized them as a horror tale come true. They were the Kuln, and the animals with them were cave wolves. Stories of them had been used to frighten many a miner’s child into obedience.

  Hawkwind had ordered the miners back into the shaft, but they did not retreat quickly enough to avoid a battle. The miners were armed, but vastly outnumbered, and the Kuln and their foul pets attacked even at the expense of losing limbs of incurring wounds that would have killed a man.

  Hawkwind wielded a sword that day as few men have ever wielded one; fifteen of the Kuln he defeated, and eight cave wolves as well, but they lost five miners before they reached the opening into the shaft. Even then, the miners were not out of danger, but at least they were not attacked on all sides.

  “Climb up the shaft!” Hawkwind had ordered them. “A single man can hold them for a time!”

  “But how will you escape?” one of the miners cried. “We will not leave you!”

  “Hurry!” Hawkwind shouted again. “I order you!” The miners climbed, one man at a time, and the men remaining battled the subterranean horde, until at last Hawkwind stood before the Kuln alone. With a sword in one hand and an ax in the other, he fought until the bodies of Kuln and cave wolves all but filled the bottom of the shaft. At length the creatures blocked the opening to such an extent that they had to drag some through into the cavern before they could come at him again. Hawkwind, aching with weariness, hurled his ax and sword at them, and seizing a pick, swung it at the wall, tearing away a huge piece of rock. Nothing came of that swing, and so he did it again, embedding the point of the pick deeply into the side of the shaft. He wrenched it out; again, nothing. A scrambling behind him told him that the Kuln were coming through. Hawkwind swung the pick once more. This time he struck true: a red stream of liquid tanium, like the blood of the world, gushed forth six inches wide, faster than a crossbow quarrel. Hawkwind barely got out of the way in time—the fluid shaft tore the pick from his hands. Then it struck the first Kuln to come through the opening, picked him up and crushed him against the wall. The wall groaned and trembled as tons of the liquid metal poured out, washing the screaming Kuln and the cave wolves back into their underground lair. Already it was filling the shaft. The roar of its passage was deafening. Hawkwind reached the inclined wall with difficulty, wading through the heavy flood, and began to pull himself up. His boots were heavy with tanium; he kicked them off and climbed on, feeling the cold metallic tide lapping at his heels. Above him, he could hear the miners shouting encouragement. The level of the tanium rose higher—it covered his legs, slowing him. In a moment, Hawkwind knew, it would cover him completely; and then, slowly, viscously, it began to subside. It had reached its level, and would rise no higher. Hawkwind pulled himself free of it and climbed out of the shaft.

  He had ordered that shaft covered with a rock that had taken twenty men to move. It was impossible for the Kuln to have moved it from below, even if they had survived the flood of tanium. Why, then, did he now hurry his steps; why was he so determined suddenly to learn if the shaft were still sealed?

  He turned the last corner and faced the chamber of the shaft. There was the moldering remnant of the windlass, its rope long since disintegrated, its wooden wheel and crank collapsed. Beside it was the rock that had capped the shaft. It capped it no longer. The shaft was open.

  Neglect and seepage from the rains had caused part of the chamber to collapse in a mudslide, and the earth had pushed the heavy rock aside as if it had been a child’s toy. The mud had dried and shrunk, and a gaping crescent, like a new moon of darkness, lay between the rock and the mud. The shaft was open. There were tracks in the mud.

  Hawkwind forced himself to step forward. He raised the torch and peered into the shaft. He saw nothing—not even the wavering reflection of the light on the wall of tanium. Evidently it had slowly drained into the cavern over the years.

  He examined the tracks, and exhaled slightly. It was unlikely anything could have come from the shaft without leaving tracks, and the only tracks there were those of a single cave wolf. There was no sign that a Kuln had also left the shaft. He looked behind him. The tunnel was empty. Hawkwind started back the way he had come. Somewhere in the myriad tunnels and mines, a single cave wolf was loose. It was not good—but it could have been worse. He shuddered to think how much worse it could have been. This was not the answer to the mystery of the murdered child, but he would, of course, order the shaft resealed.

  The discovery of the cave wolf posed new danger, but in a way he almost welcomed it. Unlike Evirae, the animal was everything it appeared to be—there were no questions about its true motive, no complex plans to unravel. He missed the simplicity of the mines.

  He remembered the day Monarch Ephrion had presented him with a medal for his heroism there. It had been a moment of quiet victory, with Ceria at his side. There had been no pretense then, nor any worries. His immediate concerns had been himself and his friends. Now he felt the weight of the Overwood’s affairs, and the responsibility was far more than he had imagined.

  The young Monarch climbed the steps toward daylight. The stone was familiar, its surface gray and wet beneath his feet. It reassured him to know that some things remained the same. He could always return to the mines; there would always be a place for him in Simbala. Evirae and her petty conspiracies did not matter down here; survival was a clear and uncomplicated road. If I can face the Kuln without fear, thought Hawkwind, then I can surely face the problems of the palace.

  Yet he was troubled. The new problem was beyond the politics of the Overwood. The possible murder of the girl was an attack that demanded immediate retaliation—if it had, indeed, been an attack. But the only evidence was a child’s bloodied dress. As he returned to daylight, Hawkwind reviewed any possible answers. None made sense. There was no beast known to the Northweald which would attack a young child alone on the beach. Nor was there any reason for the Fandorans to commit such a terrible crime. Although he had not met any Fandorans, they had always been known as peaceful people. He remembered the days of his travels, of the lands he had seen and their inhabitants. He had never spoken of those days, not even to Ceria. They had been among the most exciting days of his life. The things he had learned had changed his dreams for the future of Overwood. Nothing that he had learned there, however, suggested a solution to the murder of the Northwealdsman’s daughter.

  Sunlight flooded his face as he emerged from the mines. He untied his horse from a nearby tree, and was surprised to note that lately in thinking about the palace, he felt more and more as if it was his home.

  XVI

  Far to the north of Fandora and Simbala, beyond the Northern Sea, was a land of spires and monoliths, of lunar plains, and mountains so steep and icy that few living things dared them. Here creatures lived; gigantic creatures, suited to the vast scale of this land—and here they perished.

  It was the end of the Age of Dragons.

  The length of that age was such that the stars themselves might have marked it. Continents had risen and sunk during the course of it, and lesser species had been born and vanished. Yet the end these creatures shared in common with others was slowly approaching, and they were afraid.

  Deep in this l
and a spire of stone rose above the white glaciers and black basalt. Within it, a labyrinth of tunnels and caves had been gnawed from the rock. These were the lairs of the coldrakes. They had lived here far beyond the memory of man. The centuries’ passage of great scaled bellies over stone had worn vermicular grooves in the bare rock. The mist and steam that rose from the hot springs and geysers at the spire’s base shrouded a bleached forest of bones. It had been their home for centuries, long past the time the others had left—but it would not be their home much longer.

  Above the spire circled a single coldrake. He was larger than the others, and his scales were gleaming black rather than mottled gray. His vast ribbed wings lowered, and he felt the cold wind strike them, slowing his descent. The chill brought a hiss of pain and helpless anger from him. The struggle against the bitter wind, against the biting snow, was a part of him now—a pain that would not go away. He was tortured by rage, and its darker sister, fear.

  The night was approaching—the long, cold night. The sunset tinted crimson the ivory-and-ebony landscape. The coldrake, a darkling silhouette, settled on the spire’s tip, wings spread for balance. From this vantage point he could see in all directions. It was a view befitting his stature among the coldrakes. He was respected by the others willingly, by the dim realization of their brute minds that his intelligence was superior to their own. He was stronger and swifter, this coldrake, and he was different in other ways as well, ways that they did not know.

  The wind rose, buffeting him, and he stretched his long neck into it, hissing his fury. Below, in their darksome caverns, the rest of the coldrakes shivered. The storm of his rage—the hissing, like the strike of lightning, and the thunderous booming of his wings—frightened them. They did not understand his anger. They did not know of the tale the Guardian had brought to him, many nights ago, from her appointed task in the south. They did not know what the humans had done, what a menace they now represented. They only knew that the Darkling, the strongest among them, was afraid—and so the danger must be large indeed.