by Dave Duncan
Hundreds and thousands of them . . . faceup or facedown or standing in their huddles like mourners . . . all had been going the same way. As Azak had guessed, they had been fleeing from something, and now the intruders must ride their trembling mules into the warning, accusing glares of a myriad stone faces.
Most were young males, a routed army, but there were many civilians also. Inos saw women of all ages, and one whole heap of old men with their knees up, all traces of their wagon long since vanished. She saw family groups: children grasping adults’ hands, men bearing toddlers on their shoulders, and one stone infant clutched to a stone nipple. She saw men stooped beneath burdens of earthly possessions that had long since disappeared, leaving only the memory of their weight. She saw helmeted soldiers brandishing rusted swords to clear a way through the mob, with plates of bronze tumbled around their feet because the leather had perished.
Some armored men lay on their backs with their legs bent, nested in the shattered bones of their horses. The weeds must hide not only stirrups and bits and buckles, but also coins and jewels, gold plate and works of art. With a bag and a shovel, Inos thought, she could gather a great fortune here in a few days—and lose her wits in the process. Those eyes . . .
She developed a shiver that she could not control. She kept glancing hopefully at Kade, wishing her aunt would insist that they all turn back and find another way over the hills or even flee back to Zark; but Kade said nothing, although her face was pale and drawn with horror. Even Azak looked nauseated. No one spoke as the little caravan wound its way through the grisly mausoleum.
Beyond the last stragglers, the valley was again deserted for a space and then ended abruptly in blue sky framed by spectacular cliffs.
Once a mighty fortress had stood proud on a high spur, guarding the mouth of the pass. Some trace of the eastern salient and tower still remained, bent and grotesquely twisted. But the main buildings and much of the spur itself had melted like butter, flowing down to engulf the little town below. All that was left was a great frozen spill of black glass and a few protruding gables and chimneys, burned red and fractured by the ancient heat, warped and half melted themselves. Here was what the pixies had been fleeing.
Inos did not say so, and neither did the others. They had lost the pavement, and the forest returned. They rode through in single file without a word or a shared glance, all bearing thoughts too somber to profane with speech.
Then daylight showed through the trunks, the land fell away, and the valley had ended. Azak reined in and the others came to a halt at his side, overlooking an open meadow, sloping gently westward. In the far distance silver flashed from a very large river, twisting lazily over the plain. Beyond that the sky and the land went on forever, merging eventually at the limits of human vision in a vague orchid haze. A warm breeze rustled leaves overhead, bringing a faint hint of the sea.
“Thume,” Azak said softly. “The Accursed Place!”
“It doesn’t look accursed to me,” Inos retorted. “It looks peaceful. Welcoming.” But anything might look welcome after that petrified army.
She glanced across at her aunt, and was astonished to see an expression of . . . worry? Concern . . . almost an expression of fear. Kade’s normally plump and contented face seemed haggard and sickly. True, for an elderly lady accustomed to a life of genteel inactivity, she had endured an incredibly wearying journey—but she had survived the rigors of the desert and the hardships of the taiga without looking like that. Her scanty silver hair was tousled and tangled, floating like wisps in the breeze. Her wrinkles were scored like scars; her mouth sagged. Why should the petrified army have done this to her?
“What do you think, Aunt?”
Kade shook her head and gnawed her weathered lip. “I don’t know, dear. I suppose I’m just being a superstitious old woman, but . . . but I don’t like it! ”
“Go back, you mean?”
Stiffly Kade glanced over her shoulder, to where the steep western escarpment loomed above the treetops. She shivered. “Oh, no! Not back!”
“Well, we don’t exactly have many other choices. Big Man?” Azak studied Kade for a moment, narrowing his eyes as he peered over the bristling red yashmak of his beard. Then he flashed his teeth at Inos. “I see no sign of people. What do you think, my precious one?”
He expected courage in royalty. Inos took another look at that serene idyllic landscape.
“I say we have no choice!” She slammed her heels into her mule’s flanks, and the startled little beast seemed to leap forward with all four feet at once. Then it charged off down the slope, and the others came thumping after.
Battles long ago:
Perhaps the plaintive numbers flow,
For old, unhappy, far-off things,
And battles long ago.
— Wordsworth, The Reaper
FIVE
Man’s worth something
1
“Now I went down to Ilrane My lady-love to see. Most fair the maids of Ilrane, But none more fair than she.”
If you wanted a man to find poison ivy, hornets’ nests, or the wickedest thorn bushes, then Jalon was the obvious choice. If you needed a companion who would slip off a stepping-stone and lose his sandal in fast water, or let a campfire go out when he was supposed to be minding it, or fall asleep five minutes after his watch started . . . Jalon, without hesitation. He could also vanish inexplicably and be discovered an hour later, twenty paces away, lost in rapturous admiration of an orchid.
Jalon, in short, was a gigantic pain in the spinal column. But if you enjoyed unfailing good humor and cheerfulness, an unflagging willingness to apologize, laugh at himself, and promise to do better in future—well, he had those in abundance, although he never actually did manage to do better. And if you appreciated a comrade who could suddenly open his mouth and pour forth a strain of purest melody to banish fatigue, uplift the soul, and melt away the aches and worries of a long march . . . Even Gathmor could not stay mad at Jalon for long.
The three adventurers had seen their first dragons less than an hour after leaving the fisher village, a blaze of four or five, but very far off, mere specks weaving and circling above a distant hill. By then, too, the light had been bright enough to reveal the colors of the robes donated by the villagers—brown for Jalon, green for Gathmor, black for Rap. Even so, Jalon had not associated the casement’s prophecy with the steady march of events. He was far more interested in wildflowers than in dragons. In the next few days the only signs of the worms had been a few faint smudges of smoke on the horizon, and he still had not remembered the prophecy.
Nearing the edge of a small forest around noon, the travelers had found a patch of wild melons and stayed to indulge in their first good meal in two days. Afterward, sated and drowsy in the heat, they had lingered to enjoy the shade, for ahead of them stretched open sand and black rock that made a man uncomfortable just looking.
But Gathmor was a demanding leader, who insisted on a harsh pace. “Time to go!” he announced, as Rap was starting to nod. “Let’s trade sandals,” Rap suggested, seeking to gain time. “You and me, then. Not him.”
Owning no leather, the fisherfolk made their footwear from slabs of wood and loops of rope. These removed the skin from a man’s toes in about ten minutes and thereafter became very irksome. They were better than being barefoot, but not by much. As every sandal was different, the travelers traded them around to distribute the discomfort evenly. Jalon had stumbled into yet another swamp an hour or so before, and the ropes were even more abrasive when wet.
The exchange extended the rest a few minutes. Then, lounging against a moss—soft trunk and perhaps thinking that it was his turn to find a delay, the minstrel launched into a song about the elven maidens of Ilrane. It began as a pleasant romantic ballad, but swiftly deteriorated into the sort of scabrous bawdiness that amused sailors. Gathmor barked with mirth as the tale unfolded, and even Rap found himself chuckling.
One more day should see the expedition s
afely out of Dragon Reach, if Nagg’s estimate had been correct. Without Jalon, the other two would have traveled much faster, and he must know that. In his way, he was apologizing to them yet again.
He stopped suddenly, in midverse. The other two looked up.
“That ridge!” he said. “Look at it!”
Beyond the trees lay hot sand, a small desert valley encircled by gentle hills. The hills were wooded, but the forest cut off as sharply as a horse’s mane and the hollow grew little but scabby tufts of thornweed.
A long, rugged buttress of twisted black rock rose like an island in the middle of the clearing, crested by a few trees rooted in cracks. Loose boulders lay scattered around it. Rap studied the scene and glanced inquiringly at Gathmor, who shrugged.
They had seen many similar places. The countryside was rugged, and although they would have preferred to skirt the coast, they had been forced inland to avoid the rocky gorges by which the many streams plunged down to the sea. Everywhere they had noticed traces of old fires, from ancient charred logs half buried in jungle to much more recent evidence: long, grim stretches of bare poles with grass and weeds just becoming established in the mud between them. As obstacles, neither of those was too serious. Much worse were the intermediate stages, where the trunks had become deadfall entangled with secondary scrub of thorns and creepers.
But some of the fiercest blazes had cauterized the soil all the way to bedrock—melting even that in some cases—and left only patches of desert that resisted the forest’s attempts to return. Whole hills seemed to have been favorite targets of dragons throughout the ages, and those had been reduced to battered carcasses, ripped and melted away in streams of glass as the monsters quarried for veins of metal within the rock. The valley ahead seemed to be nothing other than that, a scar that could be thousands of years old, and might remain unchanged until the end of time.
“What am I supposed to see?” Rap asked sleepily.
“A dragon.”
That brought instant alertness, but of course Jalon meant a dead dragon, and in a moment Rap made out what the eye had detected: head, legs . . . The ridge was indeed of a dragon, long since turned to stone and weathered half buried in the sand.
“Gods!” Gathmor said. “It must be older than the Impire. And I never knew the beggar grew that big!”
“A primal male, likely!” Jalon flushed with excitement like a child. “Isn’t it gorgeous?”
“Gruesome,” Rap said. His flesh crawled at the thought of that hill-size monster alive, an indestructible destroyer as big as Inisso’s castle; but that was the life cycle of dragons. They started as wraiths of pure fire, like the flame he had seen burning on Bright Water’s shoulder. They gained substance as they aged, and they ended as gigantic beings of pure mineral. This one had crawled here to die, and in its death agonies it had burned away the forest and the very soil beneath it.
“How old would it have been, do you suppose?” Gathmor asked, rising and stamping a few times to adjust his footwear. “Centuries,” Jalon said. “Come on! Let’s go and have a closer look. Maybe its eyes are still there!”
Dragons’ eyes were supposedly worth a fortune, but they also bore a reputation for bringing bad luck, and Rap certainly did not fancy the idea of rolling one all the way to Puldarn. Jalon would not have thought of that practical matter.
As the others set off toward the great petrified carcass, Rap rose and stretched to ease his aches, then picked up his stonepointed spear. In theory he carried that to defend himself against leopards, but in practice it was useful only as a staff. He tended to agree with Jalon’s theory that the easiest way to escape an attack by leopards was just to die of fright. He trudged off after the others.
As he emerged from the trees, the noon sun struck brutally. He flipped up the loose corner of his robe that served as a hood. A few steps worked the gritty sand up into his sandal ropes and he was soon limping, but so were the others. He caught up with them about halfway to the petrified dragon.
Gold?
“What?”
“What `what’?” Jalon asked, turning a wide gaze of blue innocence on Rap.
“Did you speak?”
Minstrel and sailor both shook their heads. “Funny. I thought . . . Well, never mind.”
The dragon fossil was farther away than Rap had realized, and therefore even bigger. The sand had drifted deep on one side, half burying it. The exposed flank still showed curves of muscle under the patterned hide, but many scales had fallen off and lay littered on the ground at the base of the cliff, as if a legion had thrown down its shields. Great cracks were being opened by tree roots; half the hind leg had collapsed. It all looked older than anything he had ever imagined.
In one searing flash of recognition, the scenery changed in his mind.
Gods deliver us!
This was it! Why had he not realized sooner?
“Those rocks!” Rap cried. “Jalon! Forget the dragon. We’ve seen this place before.”
The minstrel stopped dead. His face was still burned and blistered and peeling, yet now it turned an impossibly pale color. Gathmor was in the lead. He turned and noticed, and his foggray eyes narrowed dangerously. “Seen what?”
Gold?
Again recognition—an alien, metallic, bitter voice in Rap’s mind. Of course! A thrill ran through him, mingled fear and excitement.
He scanned the sky. It was blue, cloudless, and as deep as forever. “There’s a live one around somewhere.” Of course. “How the Evil do you know?”
“I can hear it . . . and Jalon knows. Don’t you?”
The little minstrel was cowering like a terrified child. His teeth chattered as he nodded, and his staring blue eyes held both terror and accusation. ”You knew!” His voice was shrill. “No! Don’t call Darad!”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t I? You trapped us! You knew, and you didn’t say!” Jalon half raised his spear and Gathmor’s chopped down to strike it from his hand. He did not even seem to notice. He pointed an accusing finger at Rap instead. “You knew the vision was being fulfilled!”
Gold?
The call was stronger now, echoing in Rap’s head. Still he could see nothing in the empty blue sky, not even birds. His farsight detected only trees on the ground—hills were opaque to farsight, though. The dragon might be down behind any one of a dozen hillocks, and yet its voice certainly seemed to be coming closer. He did not think he could summon a dragon unless he could see it.
Bright Water’s tiny fire chick had not spoken in words. Jalon was still screaming at him.
“I knew nothing you didn’t!” Rap shouted. “Dragon Reach, and the gowns? You should have seen, too.”
“Fool! Fool! We could have split up! Traveled separately!” Maybe, although Rap suspected that the magic casement’s prophecy had been too inevitable for that. Besides, he’d lied to Gathmor to stop him stealing a canoe. He’d been helping the prophecy along. He felt a little guilty about that, seeing how upset Jalon was.
Before he could answer, though, Gathmor roared. “Will one of you tell me what’s going on?”
Rap opened his mouth, and then the alien voice boomed in his mind again, louder than ever and filled with strange reverberations and ringing metallic echoes: GOLD? It half stunned him, so that he clutched both hands to his head, dropping his spear.
By the time his wits settled, Jalon was explaining to Gathmor how he and Rap had seen a prophecy in a magic casement. The sailor’s face was pale, too, now, but with fury, not fear.
“There it is!” Rap yelled, pointing. A speck, low in the sky. Far, far, away.
Coming. Still beyond the range of farsight. Only one.
A sudden surge of doubt sent prickles racing over his skin. Oh Gods! If its voice is that strong now . . .
Gathmor grabbed the front of Rap’s robe in one massive fist and brandished the other. “You young bastard! You knew about this and you trapped me?”
“Let him be!” Sagorn snapped.
Gathmor whirled to fin
d the source of the new voice, and staggered when he found himself looking up into the shrewd and angry eyes of the old scholar.
“Who the Evil are you?”
“Never mind now. Do not blame him—magic prophecies cannot readily be evaded or nullified. We must take cover. Sometimes these draconic vestiges are cavernous. Come!” The old man set off, striding across the hot sand with surprising agility.
“Yes. He’s right,” Rap said. And yet . . . how inevitable was the prophecy, how significant its details? It had shown the three of them at the base of the cliff where the dragon’s ribs rose from the sand. If they split up now, could they still balk it?
Gold? trumpeted the fanfare voice. Is gold?
Rap felt as if someone had dropped a metal bucket over his head and thrown a house at it. Deafened, blinded, he sprawled to his knees. Gathmor hauled him up and began hustling him across the sand after Sagorn.
His farsight was picking it up now, coming low over the forest, the blast from its great wings stirring the trees in dancing turmoil. It did not compare in size with the mountainous fossil, it was silvery and not black, but it was still as big as Blood Wave or Stormdancer.
He tried to answer Gathmor’s questions while the sailor hauled him—half carried him—toward the towering pile of black rock ahead, but that last word from the dragon had left him too dazed. This was no tiny fire chick, and its sheer intensity overwhelmed him. He had blundered hopelessly. Miscalculated. Everything was lost, and they were all going to die.
Twice more the gigantic voice rang in Rap’s mind, exulting, gloating, ravening after gold . . . yet curious and querying also, as if a current of doubt ran deep below. The power of that voice was unbearable now, every blast an impact of pain that made him think his head was being crushed, that sickened him, that blanked out everything else except the awareness of failure and stupidity.
