She did not stay to marvel at the fountain. A frigid wind blowing off the glacier seemed likely to freeze her face. Seeing draconians coming and going from one of the outbuildings, Kit assumed this was their headquarters. Winding herself in the furs, she made a dash across the courtyard. She slipped and slithered on the icy pavement and envied the draconians their clawed feet.
A wooden door stood barred against the cold. Kit was unwilling to release her hold on her fur coverings in order to knock. She kicked at the door with her boot and mumbled curses through cold-stiffened lips until someone came to open it.
Warmth from two oil burners enveloped her. Several kapaks were inside; one of them was issuing orders while the others rounded up gear. Apparently, the commander and his troops were preparing to go on a hunting expedition. The kapaks wore thick fur hides over their scales, the fur turned to the inside. With fur and hide and scales, the draconians looked like some sort of freakish crossbreeds.
The kapaks glanced at her as they worked, but did not appear particularly interested in her. Kit thought about Feal-Thas’s remark that he planned to destroy the kapaks, and she wondered if she should warn the kapak commander that he could not trust his master. She decided the warning would not be necessary. Draconians never trusted anyone.
She asked the commander if she could speak to him. He sent his men on their way, then turned to her. His copper-colored scales shone in the fire light. He was quite willing to talk with her, seemed glad of the company.
Life here must be boring as the Abyss, Kit thought. They first discussed the dragon orb.
The commander knew about the orb, though he’d never seen it or had anything to do with it. “Where is it?” Kitiara asked.
“In the ice tunnels below,” the kapak answered. He gestured with his claws at the floor to indicate the level beneath their feet. “Near the dragon’s lair.”
“I hear the orb has a guardian,” said Kit. “Can you tell me what it is?”
“Damned if I know,” said the kapak.
“You’ve never seen it?”
“No reason to. The elf told me about the dragon orb and ordered me and my troops to keep away from that part of the castle. I obey orders.”
“My! What a good little draco you are,” said Kitiara, annoyed.
The kapak grinned, showing all his teeth. “Oh, I went to see for myself, just to make certain Her Dark Majesty’s interests were being looked after, of course.”
“Of course,” said Kitiara dryly. “Were they?”
“From what I saw they are,” said the commander.
“So you did see the guardian?”
“No, but I saw what it had done to those who had seen it—a group of thanoi, or what was left of them, which wasn’t much. Blood and bones, hair and blubber smeared all over the ice.”
“Were these thanoi after the orb?”
“I doubt it. Thanoi aren’t bright enough. They probably blundered into the orb’s chamber by accident on their way to the food pantry.”
“Just because you saw some bones doesn’t mean there’s a guardian,” Kitiara stated. “Feal-Thas could have killed them himself, then made it look like some horrible monster slaughtered them.”
The kapak made a hooting sound. “Have you ever seen a thanoi leg bone?”
“I’ve never seen a thanoi,” said Kit impatiently, “much less its leg bone. What are they?”
“Walrus-people, the Ice Folk call them. They’re huge, blubbery beasts that walk upright like men, and they have tusks and a hide like a walrus. They’re big and they’re strong. A thanoi could tuck me—tail and wings, armor and all—under one arm and never notice the weight. They have leg bones that are as thick as tree stumps. Maybe thicker.” The kapak’s tail twitched and thumped the floor. “Those tree stumps had been snapped into two and scattered like twigs. Feal-Thas didn’t do that. Not with those delicate hands of his.”
Kitiara was still not convinced. “Sounds like the work of the dragon,” she suggested.
“The thanoi were attacked long before Sleet arrived. What’s left of them is well preserved in the ice, and if you ask me, even the dragon’s afraid of the guardian. Sleet won’t go near the chamber where the orb’s hidden.”
Kitiara shook her head. She stomped her feet on the floor to warm them and began to pace the room, not so much out of anxiety as the need to keep from freezing.
“Why all the questions about the guardian?” the commander asked.
“Because I have to fight it,” said Kit glumly.
The kapak’s tongue flickered out of his mouth in astonishment. “You’re going to steal the orb from Feal-Thas?”
“No, I’m not going to steal it,” Kitiara said testily. “What would I want with a dragon orb? I wish I’d never heard of the damn thing. It’s cost me nothing but trouble.”
She halted in her pacing, turned to face the kapak. “If I had soldiers with me—”
The commander shook his head. “Not on your life, lady.”
“I’m a Dragon Highlord,” Kit said, scowling. “I could order you to assist me.”
“I take my orders from Highlord Feal-Thas,” said the commander, grinning again, “and I don’t think he’s going to order me to help you steal his dragon orb.”
“I’m not stealing it!” Kitiara protested. “I’m going to give it to the dragon for safekeeping.”
“Trust me, it’s being safely kept now,” the kapak said.
“I’m under orders,” said Kitiara. “Just tell me how to get there.”
The kapak shrugged. “It’s your funeral.”
He gave her instructions on how to find her way through the maze of tunnels, which he likened to the labyrinthine sewers of Palanthas, then he set out after his men. Kit saw him and his troops, armed with bows and arrows, trekking off.
Kitiara resumed her pacing and her thinking.
All right, so there was a guardian. How bad could it be? She didn’t for one minute believe the kapak’s nonsense about the dragon being afraid of it. Dragons are at the top of the food chain. They aren’t afraid of anything. The commander was just trying to scare her. That wild tale about snapped leg bones! He was probably out with his men having a good laugh over her gullibility.
Trying to guess what the guardian could be, so she could determine what weapons to use to fight it, Kit called to mind all the stories she’d ever heard of guardians set to watch over valuable treasure. Was it undead? A ghoul or a ghost? Certainly it was magical. Maybe a golem. It could be a frost giant, even though Feal-Thas had said it wasn’t. But the castle’s inhabitants would certainly know if there was a giant chained up in the basement. Kit thought of this monster and she thought of that, and suddenly she came to the realization that thinking wasn’t accomplishing anything except giving her a throbbing pain in her temples.
“Bugger it!” she said to herself wrathfully.
Clutching the furs around her, she went to rummage through the kapak’s weapon stash. She had her own sword, but she wanted a kapak weapon and she found one that suited her—a small, curve-bladed weapon that would fit into her belt—a couple of daggers and a spear. She was careful to keep from touching the blades of the draconian weapons, for kapaks licked the blades with their tongues to coat them with their poisoned saliva, which was the reason Kit wanted to use them. She picked up a shield on her way out.
Kit crossed the courtyard again to return to her room, first stopping in the library to have a few choice words with Feal-Thas. The elf was not there, however. The wolf was, and Kitiara did not linger. She found someone had brought food to her room in her absence. She ate a good meal and washed it down with a couple of swigs of dwarf spirits from her flask to warm her blood, then dumped the rest of the spirits onto the floor.
She put on her armor, cinched on her own sword belt holding her short sword in its sheath. She shoved the extra sword into the belt, along with the empty flask. She wrapped herself in the furs and went back out to the courtyard and filled up the flask with the pre
sumably-holy waters of the fountain.
Feeling ready for anything from giants to zombies, Kitiara headed for the lower levels of the castle.
Kitiara had no fear of this guardian. She knew she would defeat it. She found it annoying she had to waste her time and energy on it. It was all stupidly ironic. She should be back in Solamnia slaughtering knights, and here she was, fighting a monster in order to keep some fool knight alive.
According to the kapak, glacial springs had carved out the first tunnels in the ice below the ruins of the castle. Feal-Thas had further enhanced the natural tunnels with his magic to carve out the chamber of the dragon orb. Upon her arrival, Sleet had established residence in a lair dug magically by some white dragon eons ago. Sleet had expanded the lair to her own liking, adding new entrances and exits and digging even more tunnels.
Kit would have no trouble finding her way down, according to the kapak. Portions of the glacier routinely broke off, exposing the tunnels to the open air.
She found one such entrance leading into what looked like a mole-run bored through solid ice. She started to make her cautious way down, walking gingerly, but almost immediately her feet slid out from underneath her. She dropped her shield and spear trying to break her fall, and ended up sliding halfway down the tunnel on her backside. The shield went clear to the bottom and crashed up against a wall with a clatter and bang that could have been heard in Flotsam.
Cursing all wizards everywhere, Kitiara crawled the rest of the way down the icy tunnel on her hands and knees. She retrieved her shield at the bottom and managed to regain her feet. The bright sun shone through the ice, illuminating the tunnels with an eerie green light. She stared at the walls.
Tired of losing his men in the maze, the kapak commander had told her he’d come up with a system for marking the tunnels so that anyone venturing down there stood a reasonable chance of finding his way back to the surface. The marks were carved into the ice and could be found at every intersection. Crude arrows showed the way back. A drawing with wings and a tail indicated the dragon’s lair. Tunnels leading to the orb’s chamber were marked with an ominous X.
Kitiara headed off in the direction of the dragon. Despite what the kapak had told her about the dragon fearing the guardian, Kit considered it would be worth her while to try to enlist the dragon’s aid. Kit had devised a lie about why she needed to destroy the guardian of the dragon orb. The lie was lame, not very convincing, but white dragons were not all that intelligent. Skie referred to whites as the gully dwarves of dragons. Kit figured that if the lie failed, she could bully the white into helping her.
As it turned out, she’d gone to the trouble for nothing.
Kit found Sleet’s lair, but no Sleet. The dragon had been here quite recently, to judge by a half-eaten caribou carcass. She was gone now, however. Disappointed, Kitiara turned to leave and bumped into Feal-Thas, who was standing right behind her.
“Quick reflexes,” remarked Feal-Thas, eyeing the dagger that seemed to leap into Kit’s hand.
“You’re lucky I didn’t slit your fool throat!” Kit snarled, angry that she’d let him sneak up on her like that. She wouldn’t have said it was possible for someone to break out in a sweat in these freezing temperatures, but she was proof it could be done.
“Were you looking for the dragon?” Feal-Thas asked mildly. “She’s not here. I sent her off with a message to our fellow Highlord in Khur. Sleet will be gone some time, I should think.” Feal-Thas smiled, tight-lipped. “I’m not convinced she knows where Khur is.”
He turned to leave, then turned back.
“Don’t be too disappointed. The dragon wouldn’t have been any use against the guardian, as you will soon find out. Good luck, Highlord.”
He walked off, moving with soundless ease over the slick floor. Kit’s hand clenched on the dagger’s hilt. She had to fight to resist the urge to bury it between the Highlord’s shoulder blades. She thrust the dagger back in her boot.
She left the dragon’s lair and made her way cautiously through the tunnels, following the X’s that were meant to warn people away. She wondered how she would know the chamber when she found it, but as it turned out, she had no trouble.
She came to an intersection where a narrow tunnel slanted off from the main one. There was no X here. No need. A rivulet of blood frozen in the ice ran from the small tunnel into the main one. Kit followed the grisly trail and found the scene of violent death that was just as the kapak commander had described it.
Kit swiftly drew her sword and raised her shield. She had seen many horrible sights in her lifetime. She’d killed her share of both men and monsters and was not one to flinch at the sight of smoking entrails or severed limbs. This was not the worst she had ever seen, but it was certainly the most bizarre—a massacre frozen in ice.
Blood was smeared over the icy walls and made a gruesome carpet on the floor. It had dripped from the ceiling, freezing to form strange pinkish icicles. Globs of frozen flesh with fur attached and hunks of blubber were scattered about in hideous piles throughout the corridor. She found a broken tusk and several cracked bones.
What truly gave her pause and made her draw her sword was the sight of bloody claw marks scratched in the ice. She had found a severed paw on the floor, which she assumed belonged to a thanoi, and she could tell that whatever claw had made these marks were not the short and stubby claws of the thanoi. The bloody tracks were far apart, yet evenly spaced, which meant that the clawed hand or foot that had made them was extremely large.
Glancing around the tunnel, Kit had a pretty good notion of what had happened. The thanoi had entered the tunnel either by accident or design. They’d encountered the guardian, and there had been a desperate battle. The heat of many bodies fighting for their miserable lives had raised the temperature in the corridor, so that the blood and gore had sunk into the melting ice, which had then refrozen after the battle was over. As to what had happened to the rest of the thanoi—the heads were missing—Kit didn’t like to think.
She looked down the length of the tunnel and saw that she had come to the right place. The tunnel opened into a chamber carved out of ice. In the center of the room, beneath the domed ice ceiling was an object, presumably the dragon orb, mounted on a pedestal of ice. The chamber was wide open, no door, no locks to protect the orb. Only the guardian.
Whatever it was. Wherever it was.
From her vantage point in the tunnel, Kit had a view of the entire chamber, and it was empty, save for the dragon orb.
Holding her sword before her, keeping her shield up, Kitiara crept slowly down the corridor. A little fear is good for you, her father always told her. Keeps you alert, on your toes. Just never let fear master you. Kitiara was more determined than fearful. She wanted to see this guardian, this monster. She wanted to slay it and take its dripping head to Feal-Thas and throw it at his delicate feet.
Drawing closer, she noted that the chamber in which the dragon orb stood was unblemished. Not a drop of blood defaced the walls or marred the pristine white of the walls, ceiling, or floor. Either the guardian kept the chamber clean or it took care to do its killing in the tunnel. Mindful of this, Kit put her back to the icy wall and edged along, stepping over bloody remnants of the thanoi, keeping a sharp look out all around her.
She listened as hard as she looked, but she heard nothing and the silence made her nervous. She had never heard such awful quiet. It was as if the world had ended and all life had been swept away except for her. Every tiny sound she made—her foot crunching on the ice, the rattle of her armor, the jingle of her chain mail, her breath whistling inside the helm of the Dragon Highlord—seemed to resound to the heavens. She was continuing to sweat despite the cold, and she wished irritably that the guardian would attack and end the suspense. Kitiara had never been known for her patience.
It suddenly occurred to her that the dragon orb might be its own guardian, and she cast a sharp glance at it. She wished, a little belatedly, that she’d thought to do some
research on dragon orbs, for she had no idea what this thing did or didn’t do or even what it looked like. Maybe this wasn’t really a dragon orb at all. Certainly it was an orb. It was made of crystal and appeared very fragile, as if a loud shout could shatter it. Mist swirled inside it, shifting colors—pale reds and blues, greens, blacks, with streaks of white.
She edged nearer. The colors inside the orb were beautiful, shimmering, swirling. She felt a sudden longing to touch the orb. Its crystal looked so smooth. She lowered her sword and her shield and was about to drop them to the floor when a voice startled her.
I am afraid.
Kitiara whipped around, immediately on guard.
The chamber was empty. No one there. She turned irresistibly back to the orb and realized the voice came from the orb. It was the speaker.
I rest on the golden pedestal and people pass by, never noticing me, for I have been in the Tower so long I am nothing now to them but another artifact collecting dust. I am part of the furniture. They stand near me, talking in low and fearful tones, and I listen to them with the minds of dragons, and I hear what they say. What they say frightens me.
They don’t think I can hear them or understand them. So many years have passed since my creation that they have forgotten my powers.
But I do understand. I hear about the rise of a man known as the Kingpriest. I hear he fears all who practice magic, for he cannot control them. He has threatened their annihilation. He has lately sent an army to attack the sister Tower of High Sorcery at Daltigoth. The wizards destroyed that Tower rather than allow it to fall into the hands of those who have no understanding of the awful power of magic. They fear our Tower at Wayreth is next. His army is on the march, and many wizards who make their homes here have already decided to flee.
Dragons of the Highlord Skies Page 14
