No, it would not make for a joyful report to his brother, the leader of the dragons. He could only hope that Windrush had fared better tonight than had his own patrol.
Chapter 2
Windrush
THE WIND sighed through the mountain pass like a restless spirit. The tall, silver dragon Windrush felt like such a spirit himself, just now. He smelled the wind and squinted into the fading sun. It was cold on the outcropping where he was perched, but it wasn't the cold that troubled the dragon. It was what he smelled, and didn't smell.
Windrush was probing not just the outer air, but also the air of the underrealm—the insubstantial world that lay beneath the one that his eyes beheld. He was searching for clues to an invisible path, a path lost now for many seasons. He was searching for the Dream Mountain, where the female dragons lived. He grunted throatily to himself. There was no sign, no hint at all. The Dream Mountain, once a day's flight away, was now simply gone as though it had never existed. The air blew cold and empty in his nostrils, except for the faint but ubiquitous smell of the Enemy, Tar-skel. It was the same all through the realm—here in the south borderlands, as well as in the north where the male dragons lived.
Windrush would not admit discouragement. He could not explain how the Dream Mountain could have vanished, or where it might have gone. It all seemed so impossible. But he had already flown far in search of it, and he would fly as far as he had to, to find the place where the draconae lived. The draconae. How he wished he had valued them properly when they'd still graced the realm with their singing and teaching! But who could have guessed that they would vanish without a trace?
The sparks from Windrush's breath glowed briefly in the air. Gazing out over the tumbled landscape, he felt a deep sorrow. This was a changed place, even from a season ago. The land here was called the Forest Mountains; but the forests, once green and dark and vibrant, were now brittle and lifeless. The trees were stunted, the wild lumenis virtually nonexistent. He sensed no small animals. It was a part of the desolation that afflicted the whole realm. Even near the dragon strongholds, the long-woven spells of protection were weakening, as if the land itself were being bled of life. Bled by the sorcery of Tar-skel.
It had not always been so. While Tar-skel's influence had been growing in the realm far longer than any of them liked to believe, Windrush remembered well the victory of just a few seasons ago, when the Enemy had been dealt the most serious defeat in the history of this generation of dragons. It had been a magical moment: Jael, the outsider from another world, with her friends, riding on Windrush's back to the aid of his father Highwing. Sentenced to death in the Black Peak, Highwing had been the one dragon to actively resist the rising tide of evil in the land. The one dragon with courage, the one dragon to keep faith with the Words of Prophecy by befriending an outsider. The one dragon . . . until, at Jael's urging, Windrush himself had flown against all hope to challenge the darkness, to free his father.
They had saved Highwing—Jael had, really—in an astonishing rescue, bringing him back from the brink of a fiery death in an alien realm. They had not been able to save him from death itself, but they had allowed him to die with a dragon's honor and peace. And with that act, they had broken the power of the Black Peak and freed many of their fellow dragons from the ensnarement of the Enemy. For a time afterward, the realm had enjoyed a renewal of life, a renewal of hope.
But it had not brought back the Dream Mountain. And now, in the face of new losses, that victory seemed long removed.
Windrush blinked, bringing his thoughts back to the present. Southward, toward the Sawtoothed Ridge, which ran east and west dividing the Forest Mountains from the harsher Stone Peaks of the far south, he caught sight of an odd-looking, puckered cloud formation that was moving in a peculiar corkscrew fashion. It was probably nothing; but still . . . if Enemy sorceries were at work there, he probably ought to investigate. He hesitated, because there were many old places of magic in the far south, and he had little knowledge of what he might find. It would be wiser to travel in company. But the nearest companions were far to the north.
Finally he launched himself into the south wind, wondering at his own decision. It had been almost as if he had heard a voice whispering in the back of his mind, urging him on. But if so, whose voice? The spirit of Highwing, whose leadership he had assumed? He didn't think so. Perhaps it was one of those enigmatic ifflings who appeared at the oddest times, bearing news or counsel. He shook his head, scanning the land below.
Windrush?
Startled, he glanced to his left and glimpsed a shimmer of light in the air. A reflection off a distant peak, a trick of sunlight? Now it was gone. But he had heard a voice. A moment later he caught another sparkle of light in the corner of his eye, and he looked again.
Flying alongside him was an airy being of light. It seemed to have no substance; it expanded and contracted as it flew, like a slow-moving flame. "Iffling!" Windrush murmured.
The iffling made no response. Windrush was accustomed to this behavior from ifflings, though he sometimes found it irritating. He flew on, letting the iffling follow in formation.
When it finally spoke, he almost missed its whisper. Where you are bound, dragon, you might well find one who can help.
Windrush rolled slightly toward the iffling, peering at its intangible form. "Did you speak?" he rumbled.
With a chime of laughter, the iffling transformed itself into a dragon-shaped flame. Am I so difficult to hear? You must listen to me, dragon-leader!
Windrush flicked his gaze ahead to his course. "I am listening."
Very well. Do you fly in search of the Dream Mountain?
"Of course! What do you imagine?"
Then perhaps I can help.
"Indeed!" Windrush whispered, with more frustration than relief. "How often have I called out to you, asking the way? But your kind would not come to tell me."
The iffling flickered as it glided alongside him. It answered, sadly it seemed, It is not that we would not, dragon, but that we could not. Do we know the way? Not any way that we could tell you.
Windrush let his anger erupt in spite of himself. "You always act as if you know such things!"
Dragon! Do we travel on the winds? Do you travel as the ifflings do? What good to spin images of airs and currents that you could never know—that we cannot even travel ourselves?
Windrush flew in silence, absorbing the iffling's words. "Perhaps," he muttered. "But couldn't you have just said so? Why must you always speak in riddles?" He already regretted his outburst. He had no quarrel with the iffling. "Still," he sighed, beating his wings, "I suppose I would rather hear your riddles than nothing at all."
If the iffling had taken offense, it gave no sign. You must search for a cavern, it murmured.
"A cavern?"
In the ridge ahead, in a place of forgotten magic.
Windrush cleared his great throat.
There you may find one like a demon, a changeling spirit.
The dragon coughed a small flame into the wind. A demon? A changeling spirit? That sounded more like a drahl than a friend. Still, his friend Jael had once been likened to a demon, and he would have given almost anything to see her again. But his friend Jael was a human.
The iffling seemed to recognize his thought. I doubt that it is anyone you know—or who will welcome you. Nevertheless, if you speak to it with care, you may gain useful knowledge.
"Knowledge?" Windrush asked. "What sort of knowledge?"
The iffling did not answer. Windrush beat his wings, scanning the peaks ahead. That odd storm cloud had risen and dissipated. Perhaps, he thought, it had merely been a coincidence of nature; or perhaps a perfectly ordinary cloud had passed close to a place of power. When he glanced sideways again, his companion seemed to have disappeared. "Iffling?"
Then he saw its twinkle in the air, a little behind him. It was dropping away, and its words sounded tired, as though it were having trouble maintaining its presence here. You must
pass into the range. Look for a cavern within. Use all your senses to locate the entrance. But beware of treachery! And with that, the iffling vanished.
Windrush clenched and unclenched his talons, exhaling slowly as he soared onward. Beware of treachery? It seemed to him that advice from an iffling always carried some warning of danger. But their advice also generally turned out to be perceptive and true, and he had never regretted following it. And given his present need, what choice did he have?
* * *
He flew high over the range. The sharp summits of the mountains passed beneath him, icy grey claws reaching toward the sky. The wind currents felt hostile and unpredictable, lifting and buffeting him. He felt a brooding presence in the air. Beneath him were rock formations cracked and broken from some age-old convulsion of the land. He searched, riding the treacherous air currents, feeling the fires of impatience in the back of his throat. What had the iffling said? You must pass into the range. "Into," not "over." Was there some passage hidden in the spine of the mountains?
He banked back toward the north side of the ridge and skimmed low over the slopes. Soon he felt a faint tingle in his undersense. Dropping close to the withered scrub, he spotted a thin line of shadow, a vertical crevice in the face of the slope. He flared to a landing and peered into the opening. It was too small for him to enter; but his undersense continued to tingle, and he thought he sensed a magic woven into the stone. Possibly the crevice was open to anyone, of any size, who wished to enter. Possibly it was also a trap.
Sniffing, he looked around. The wind sighed, filling his nostrils with a tang of dust and barren stone. Nothing else moved. Muttering to himself, Windrush drew back and breathed a short tongue of flame along one side of the crevice. The flame didn't touch the stone, but passed straight into it, undeflected. With a rumble of satisfaction, he thrust his head in and stepped through the stone wall.
Blinking his eyes as the entry spell quivered over him, he half expected to find himself standing in a cavern. Instead he stood in a long passageway that looked exactly like the same crevice, but vastly enlarged. It looked deep, but wide and high enough for him to fly in.
Spreading his wings, he glided cautiously down the passageway, slow-flying between its twisting walls. There was a certain comfort in being surrounded by stone, even unfamiliar stone. As deeply as he loved the wind and sky, he also loved the feeling of solid mountain around him. It reminded him of his own cavern, with its weavings of protection. But here, he knew, he must keep his senses sharp for danger.
The walls gradually closed inward and at last forced him to land. Ahead, the dark passage constricted sharply and crooked to the left. Windrush drew a slow breath, smelling for treachery. There was a dank mustiness here, and a cobwebbing of old magic, but nothing he could identify as a danger. The thought of squeezing through a tight passage did not much appeal to him, but if this was the passage the iffling had referred to, he saw little choice.
Still, he was vulnerable here; he could no longer fly away. He sank his thoughts into the underweb of the world, probing to see if he could craft an escape spell if he had to. What he found was an astonishing murkiness in the underrealm; he could not probe far at all. But he felt a distinct tingle; he was approaching a change in the passage spell. It felt like an old-magic spell, not specifically familiar to him. But he suspected that it might lead him, through a twist of the underrealm, into a cavern deep within the mountain—and thus, perhaps, to the one he was looking for, a demon who possessed knowledge of the Dream Mountain.
He crept forward into the constriction, his nails rasping on the stone. As he craned his neck around the bend, he felt the new spell wrinkling open. "Someone inviting me in?" he rumble aloud. There was no answer.
He squeezed past the bend, and felt a shiver from head to tail as he pulled his massive body out of the constriction. He blinked in confusion, gazing suddenly into a dazzling, unnatural-seeming yellow light. With a hiss, he stepped forward.
"WELL, DRAGON," boomed a voice that seemed to reverberate from an enormous space. "HAVE YOU COME BACK TO CHALLENGE AGAIN THE ONE YOU ABANDONED?"
Chapter 3
Demon in a Cave
BLINKING SLOWLY, Windrush tried to focus through the hazy glow. Gradually he became able to discern the outlines of a large cavern. He still could not identify the source of the light, or of the voice. But the smell of magic was strong, ancient, and unmistakable. "To whom," he rumbled, "might I be speaking? Do I know you?" What had the voice meant by, ". . . challenge the one you abandoned"?
He was answered by harsh, reverberating laughter, then a sound like a claw being drawn across stone. Windrush squinted and saw movement. Something was dancing, just out of focus. Something enormous. Some great enemy warrior? Or perhaps merely a shadow.
He shrugged. He had not come here to be intimidated, and he didn't care if the thing outsized him. He probed again in the underrealm and, to his surprise, found a recognizable tangle of a simple spell of obscuration. He tugged the threads apart with his thoughts.
The haze of light abruptly shrank; and a small, glowing, crystal-faceted thing became visible, floating in the air directly in front of him. It looked alive; it pulsed and changed shape with a fluid movement, growing tall and slender with only a few glowing facets, then collapsing and billowing out to the sides with a great many facets. Inside it, a much smaller thing moved—a thing of dark, dancing fire. Windrush thought he recognized that shadow-fire. It looked exactly like the moving shape that, just moments ago, had appeared so huge and menacing.
"So. You are not without powers." The dark fire spoke in a smaller, but not friendlier, voice. "To answer your question—you I might not know, but I know your kind well enough."
"I see," the dragon murmured. He knew now what he was facing. It was a spirit jar. It was a cell containing a consciousness that had been stripped from its original body. Dragons in past times had used them for the capture of demons, or those believed to be demons. Though Windrush had never actually seen a spirit jar before, he recognized its appearance from tales told over the years. It was not a physical vessel of any sort, but rather a powerful confinement spell. He probed briefly, but could not make out the precise weaving in the underrealm; it was a highly complex crafting, far beyond his skills. Probably it was beyond the skills of anyone left in the realm—anyone on the side of the true dragons, anyway.
How did one deal with a spirit in a jar? He had no idea—nor did he know how dangerous it might be. He didn't think he could free it by accident, but then again he wasn't sure. He assumed there was a good reason for its imprisonment.
"Have you come to release me?" the thing asked curtly, as though reading his thoughts.
"I hardly think so," Windrush answered. "I don't know who you are, or why you are here. Perhaps you would like to tell me."
The being hissed and danced violently in its squirming prison. "Why should I tell you, dragon?"
Windrush cocked his head, blinking first one eye, then the other.
"You don't answer," the thing said.
"I won't answer," Windrush said, "until I have an answer to give." The dragon peered again around the enormous cavern, which was lit only dimly now by the glow of the spirit jar. It had the look of a dragon stronghold, but one musty and long abandoned. There were many forgotten holds scattered through the southern parts of the realm, but he had heard of none so large. Windrush felt dwarfed by it, and that made him uneasy.
With a rumble, he asked the spirit, "Have you done some wrong, that you are imprisoned—?"
"I have done nothing wrong!" the being cried, interrupting him. "It is your kind that holds me here! Imprisoning me and then abandoning me!"
Windrush deliberately opened one eye wider than the other. "You have done nothing wrong? You are an innocent captive?"
"That's what I just said! If you wish to challenge me, then first free me!"
The dragon drew a silent breath and studied the demon. "Allow me to pose a question. I have been told t
hat there is a creature living here who is possessed of . . . certain knowledge and wisdom. I was wondering if you might know of this creature."
"Who told you that?"
"A being of my acquaintance. An iffling."
The spirit hissed. "Iffling! If that is supposed to be a recommendation, I hardly think—" It shuddered with rage, then suddenly calmed. "Still. A being of knowledge and wisdom? It may be that I . . . could be described as such a one as you mention. But you have not told me who you are."
"That is true," Windrush said. Nor did he have any intention of giving his name, at least not yet. Sharing one's name was a risky proposition. It could lead to a sharing of enormous trust, as he had learned once, when he'd shared his name with the human Jael. But he had no reason to trust this being. "It appears," Windrush noted, "that you have been alone here for some time. And that you do not often have the benefit of civilized company."
"I have all the company I need," the spirit retorted bitterly. "If your only purpose in coming here is to quote ifflings at me, then you can leave now, thank you very much."
Windrush wondered at the bitterness, and wondered if he didn't detect an air of false bravado in them. "I would guess," he hazarded, "that my departure would leave you quite alone."
The being shivered.
"And I would guess that I could learn what I wish to know in other ways."
"Oh? How is that?"
"By peering into the binding spell that holds you. I would guess that your secrets cannot withstand my gaze."
The being danced nervously in its prison of light.
Windrush stepped closer to the glowing jar. He cocked his head, searching for the best angle. Within the shifting facets of the jar, he thought he might find doorways into the being's mind. The jar's glow flickered as he narrowed his focus into one facet, exactly as if he were searching the gaze of another dragon. The demon hissed with alarm. Windrush searched the layers of the binding spell, and eased them apart just enough to touch the glinting threads of knowledge on the inside.
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