The Dragon's Egg

by Pauline M. Ross

  But when we pointed their noses down the hill, Drusinaar wouldn’t move.

  “We have to go back,” I said. “Xando doesn’t know which way to go from here.”

  “It’s that way.” She pointed towards a forbidding ridge to the north.

  “I do not think so—” Xando began.

  “Wait,” I said. “Drusinaar, what exactly is that way?”

  “A place…” She frowned, struggling to describe it. “Like the Sraeh.”

  “The what?”

  “The Sraeh is the homeland,” Xando put in. “How is it like the homeland?”

  Drusinaar shrugged helplessly.

  The homeland – the strange island that was there, but couldn’t quite be seen. “A hidden place?” I suggested. “Somewhere with magic?”

  “Magic…” she rolled the word around, as if hearing it for the first time.

  “Oh!” Xando’s face lit up. “Are you feeling the pull of magic, Drusinaar? The power of magic? It might be a ghae ssharh. A refuge.”

  My head was spinning. “What refuge? Like the mine workers’ shelter we passed earlier?”

  “No, no. The mines – they are all located in old refuges, places created by the mages to protect the inhabitants from the effects of the Catastrophe. They are steeped in magic. That may be what Drusinaar is feeling. We will go that way.”

  It took us the whole morning to climb that ridge safely. Once, just when we were precariously balanced, the earth shook, a deep rumbling somewhere far beneath us, that set pebbles rattling and bouncing away down the slope.

  “There are earthquakes all the time in these mountains,” Xando said cheerfully.

  We went on more cautiously after that. Then when we got to the top there was no sign of a refuge or any kind of building. Gods, but it was a bleak place! But Drusinaar led us confidently onwards, across a broad valley so swampy I’d have lost my boots if I’d been on foot, and then up the shoulder of a peak wrapped in cloud. It was raining in earnest by now, and we were all thoroughly miserable. The guards were grim-faced, Hanni was grumbling steadily and even Xando was beginning to question the wisdom of following Drusinaar’s whims.

  But there was a light in her eyes and a determination in her expression, and she never wavered over the direction for a heartbeat. There was much she didn’t understand, but when she did know something, she was very sure of it.

  And as we reached the top of the final ridge, through a haze of cloud we could dimly see a glowing light below us. As we descended, weaving back and forth as the horses looked for the easiest route, the glow became a long curve of wall, sweeping out from one arm of the mountain to the other. Tucked inside it were roofs and turrets and domes, streets and squares and the shimmering spray of fountains playing, and here and there patches of green suggested gardens. It was a strange sight, here in this barren wilderness, home only to feral goats and eagles, but I could understand why they called it a refuge. It looked a pleasant little place to live, while you sat out the continent-shifting Catastrophe and waited for better days.

  Before long, we dropped down below the level of the glowing wall. There was a great mound of stony rubble heaped up all round it, so we had to walk the horses carefully, but beside the wall itself was a gap several paces wide which was free of obstruction, and the ground was level. We gathered there, between the high, featureless wall with its soft golden light and the piles of rubble. It was like being in a tunnel, except for the rain still drifting down.

  “This is not quite what I expected,” Xando murmured, and Hanni sighed with exaggerated heaviness.

  “Isn’t it a refuge, then?” I said.

  “Oh, yes. But it is not a working mine. There are no people here, and no crane to lift us over the wall.”

  “So it’s no use to us?” I said. “No eggs here?”

  “All these refuges lead to an egg chamber,” Xando said. “Probably, anyway. All the mines are the same, so it is a reasonable conclusion. This one would do as well as any other, if only we could get in.”

  “Well, let us look for the entrance, then,” Hanni said impatiently.

  “There is no entrance,” Xando said. “No gate or door, no way through the wall or over the mountain, either.”

  “What about the sewers?” I said. “There will be sewers underground. That was how the mages got into the Imperial City in Bennamore. It had a wall just like this, with no visible doors.”

  “No visible doors?” Hanni said, suddenly alert. “So the doors are hidden in some way? Magically obscured?”

  “Yes. The really powerful mages could open them, but the regular ones couldn’t. Couldn’t even see where the doors would be.”

  “Drusinaar?” Hanni said. “Can you see any doors?”

  “No.”

  “Use your glass ball,” I said.

  “All right.” She put one hand inside her wrap, where the ball was safely tucked away, her face a picture of concentration. “No doors. But…”

  Slowly she walked along the wall, looking up at a point on it somewhat above her head.

  “What can you see?” Hanni said eagerly.

  “Marks. They get bigger this way, and smaller that way. Oh.”

  She stopped, gazing intently at the wall. It was a strange sensation, knowing that she could see something that was quite invisible to the rest of us. She reached up with her free hand and placed it flat against the wall, at an angle from the vertical, staring at it with her head tilted to one side.

  A sudden noise, like a heavy sigh, that echoed against the rubble piled up nearby. Hanni exclaimed, Drusinaar jumped away from the wall and my right hand, as always, reached for a sword. Then part of the wall slid aside.

  We had found the door.

  “At last!” Hanni said, and marched straight through the opening.

  “Wait!” I yelled, and Xando cried out at the same time.

  But it was too late. The door shushed again, and the gap disappeared.

  Hanni’s scream was faint, but quite distinct.

  “Drusinaar,” I said. “The door, if you please.”

  She repeated the manoeuvre and the door slid open again. Hanni emerged at a run.

  “Why did you do that, you stupid girl?”

  “We could quibble about who is stupid here,” I murmured, and one of the guards sniggered.

  Xando waved his hands placatingly. “No quarrels, if you please. Drusinaar has found us a way in, but we cannot enter unless we are certain we can get out again when necessary.”

  “Then Drusinaar has to go inside and look for… well, whatever it is she can see.”

  “A hand,” she said. “There’s a hand painted on the wall. I put my hand on top of the painted one and the door opened.”

  “Good,” I said. “Then you will open the door again, Drusinaar, and you and I will go inside and you can look for a painted hand on the other side. And if we do not return, the rest of you can take yourselves off home safe and sound.”

  Xando chewed his lip. “I do not like it, but I see no alternative. If you are willing, Garrett…”

  Well, I never minded taking a risk, but in the end it was a very unexciting event. Drusinaar opened the door, we went through, she spotted a hand-mark on the inner wall instantly. In and out in no more than a few heartbeats.

  “So… shall we?” I said, gesturing at the open door.

  Another earthquake rumbled, and the ground beneath our feet shifted. Stones from the heaps clattered and slid and settled round us. It only lasted a few moments, but it was disconcerting, all the same.

  “Well, if the mountain has quite finished shivering, shall we go in?” I said.

  Xando looked at me sorrowfully.

  “Oh, I get it,” I said. “You’re going to bugger off and leave us here, is that it?”

  “You cannot abandon us here,” Hanni said.

  “I have done what I promised to do,” Xando said. “I have brought you to the mine entrance. You have only to enter the cavern, and follow any of the tunnel
s to find the egg chamber. We will leave you enough supplies for a month, with care, but you may well find food within the refuge itself, preserved by magic.”

  “This is outrageous—” Hanni began.

  I placed a hand on her arm, and shook my head. “Xando has to get back to Mesanthia. He has other duties more important than us. For myself, I’m grateful to him, because we’d never have found this place in a thousand years without him – even if he did get lost.”

  Xando smiled at me. “I am more sorry than you know to leave you here like this, but you do not need me any more. The guards will escort me back to the barge, and then, if you wish, they can come back here to help you.”

  Hanni brightened at the prospect, but the guards exchanged nervous glances. A magically preserved refuge in a constantly moving mountain wasn’t their idea of a fun assignment, and I couldn’t blame them for that.

  “I think we can manage without them,” I said. “Besides, we’ll be deep inside the mine. We won’t want to keep coming back to see if they’ve turned up.”

  “A good point,” Xando said. “And unless they are better at wilderness tracking than I am, there is a very good prospect that they will get lost on the journey back here.”

  I laughed at that. “Everyone’s better at wilderness tracking than you, I suspect. But I wouldn’t like to think of them wandering about trying to find this place again. Going down is easier. When we’re done here, we just have to roll downhill and follow the streams.”

  “What about horses?” Xando said.

  “No, they’ll just be a nuisance inside the refuge, and we can manage the walk downhill without them. So off you go.”

  “Very well. May the Spirit smile upon your enterprise, Garrett, Hanni, Drusinaar. Send word to me of your findings.”

  “I will.” I bowed to him. “Thank you, and I hope this cycle business goes well for you.”

  The guards unloaded the gear we would need, and mounted their horses. There was no point in prolonging things, and I could see their desire to get moving. They would need to find somewhere decent to camp before it was dark. With only a few words of farewell, they were gone, the sound of the horses’ hooves echoing off the wall and then gradually dying away.

  “Well,” I said. “Shall we go in?”

  Drusinaar opened the door for us, and we stepped into the refuge.

  30: The Pool Cavern (Garrett)

  Within moments we were inside the walls, gazing around at a large plaza lined with fine stone-built houses, and one or two larger buildings that looked like administrative offices.

  It was warm, that was the first thing I noticed. The rain still fell, but the chill in the air had vanished. Beyond a wall between two houses peeked a tree in full blossom, despite the time of year. Even odder, it seemed to be laden with fruit, as well. A strange place.

  Drusinaar was looking all around, eyes wide.

  “Like it here?” I asked her.

  “Yes! It feels… nice. Like a warm bath.”

  “It is warmer here, isn’t it?” But she frowned. “You mean something more than warmth?”

  “Yes.” A hesitation, then she wrapped her arms around herself, rocking gently, as if cuddling.

  “Oh… like being held tight? You’re feeling magic all around you?”

  “Yes. It feels nice. I like it.”

  “Well, I do not,” Hanni said. “It is unnerving, a place like this, all these buildings, and no one here at all. At least there are no rats on the streets.” She was trembling with indignation. “I shall never forgive Xando for this, never. It is unacceptable. How are we supposed to survive? And where is this mine, anyway?”

  “Let’s choose a house as a base, first,” I said. “We can stow the gear we don’t need for the moment, like the tents, and we can get out of this accursed rain.”

  “Well… all right.”

  It took us longer than expected to settle on a house, mainly because Hanni refused to go inside anywhere until I’d been in and checked it from top to bottom for rats. I didn’t mind Drusinaar nervously shrinking to my side and clasping my hand as we went inside a building, but I’d hoped that Hanni could pull her weight for once.

  “You are the one with the sword,” she sniffed. “You can make sure these places are safe.”

  “Look, you didn’t have to come along on this trip,” I said in exasperation. “You didn’t even have to stay with us. One word, and you could have gone back with Xando, and been treated like a queen all the way. Why did you come, anyway?”

  “The eggs!” she said, her face alight. “Just imagine taking one back to the homeland! A queen? Yes, I would be a queen, for bringing mage power back to the Tre’annatha.”

  “Gods, Hanni, you talk as if these eggs are just things – magical toys. They contain people.”

  She huffed disparagingly, with a glance at Drusinaar.

  “Ack, let’s worry about that if and when we find them,” I said quickly. “In the meantime, there’s work to be done, and since you are here, you can do something useful.”

  But that just made her crosser than ever.

  In the end, I settled for a small house that looked as if it had once had a workshop on the ground floor, with living quarters upstairs. It was still fully furnished, with linen on the beds, towels in the bathing room and a cellar promisingly arrayed with barrels, jars and bottles, and even hams hung from the rafters. Despite the lack of rats, or any sign of rodents at all, I still preferred to be on an upper floor, with only one set of stairs to protect. Good defensive strategy.

  By the time we’d got the gear inside, the sleeping quarters arranged and eaten a cold meal, it was dark.

  “Let’s get to bed,” I said. “Then we can be up early tomorrow and start looking for the mine entrance.”

  “I shall not sleep at all, I daresay,” Hanni said, but she was snoring in no time.

  As for Drusinaar, I can’t say that she went to bed at all. Just before I closed my eyes, she was sitting in a corner gazing into her glass ball, and when I woke, she was there still, as if she hadn’t moved an inch.

  After another cold meal, we set off through the still-falling rain to find the mine entrance. It wasn’t difficult. The refuge itself was flat, but beyond the far side of it the mountain loomed over us. We walked through the empty streets, past houses and larger, more decorative, buildings, and whole rows with wide windows on the ground floor, like shops. Some still had displays of goods in them.

  “If we’re here for long, we’ll look for a library for you,” I said to Drusinaar. She smiled at me, and tucked her hand into mine. There was a bounce in her step as she walked. I really think the air in the refuge agreed with her. Gods, but it was a strange place! Flowers bloomed as we passed, or fountains suddenly sprang to life. Once we walked under a broad tree, and I swear the branches leaned down towards us. So much magic, and still working after so many years.

  “How long ago was the Catastrophe?” I asked Drusinaar.

  “Five thousand years.”

  “Hmm. That’s a long time.”

  “Yes.”

  Hanni snorted, but whether at my ignorance or some other insult, I couldn’t tell. I’d long since given up trying to understand her. She was neither useful nor amusing nor ornamental.

  At the furthest point from the entrance plaza was another, similar, space, with a ring of larger-than-life statues of people in robes around the outside.

  “Who would they be – rulers?” I said, to no one in particular. “Kings and queens, maybe?”

  “Mages,” Hanni said. “They all have the mark on their forehead.”

  “Oh. Were they really that tall?”

  “Of course not.” She was still irritable.

  Beyond the plaza was a solid wall of rock, but high up a darker area suggested a tunnel entrance, with a tower and bridge conveniently placed. We climbed the stair that wound round the inside of the tower and crossed the bridge to the gaping hole in the rock.

  As soon as we passed into it,
we entered another world. The regularity of streets and buildings was left behind, for the tunnel was just a cave in the mountainside, dusty, rubble-strewn, full of oddly-shaped rocky projections. But within a few paces, a stone doorway led to a more obviously man-made tunnel, with smooth floor and symmetrical arch. I lit a lamp and we walked on.

  Xando had talked a little about the mines on the journey, but I’d assumed that he would be with us, and anyway we were aiming for an inhabited mine. So I hadn’t really taken much of it in, and I’d formed no expectations of what we might find. Two caves, that was all I remembered – one for the flicker things and one with a pool that sustained the creatures in some way I couldn’t quite grasp. We had to pass through both caves, and find a tunnel leading away from the pool.

  “Stay away from the pool,” Xando had said. “It is very strange, with powerful magic. Do not touch the water, or fall in because – well, it changes things, somehow. And keep well away at brightmoon, and just afterwards. But you will be safe enough at any other time if you just pass through and do not linger.”

  It sounded straightforward enough. And then we came to the flicker cave.

  I’ve travelled a bit and seen a lot of odd things over the years, but I’d never seen anything like that place. It was vast, for one thing, the roof far above us and the other side of it too distant for my feeble lamp to reach. But it wasn’t dark. Everywhere – on the ground, on the walls, way above our heads – tiny lights flickered, wavering back and forth, and changing colour constantly. They were like slugs, that’s the nearest I can describe them, their bodies near-transparent, but filled with the ever-flickering points of light.

  And they were singing. Or humming, maybe, a chorus of little hums, but not reassuring, not in the least. They were sinister, these bizarre creatures, and way beyond my experience. There was hatred in them, aggressive hatred, I could feel it. Xando had said they were harmless, I reminded myself, but I also remembered the palpable fear in the guards.

  Hanni screamed. Poor Hanni, who’d been so excited to see flickers, yet the reality horrified her.