“I’ll take care of myself,” Gerald promised her, trying in vain to cut off the flow of instructions, warnings, and recriminations.
“And if he doesn’t, we will,” Omar called from his perch on the dragon’s back. “Come on, now, or we’re going to have to wait ages before we have an empty bit of sky to take off into.”
Calin crossed her arms but let him go and he crossed the cave as quickly as he could while minimizing his limp. He scrambled up the dragon’s side and Omar reached down to haul him up the last few feet. Within moments, he was strapped in and the dragon took flight, beating the first dragon off the amphitheater floor by a scant few wingbeats.
As if all the dragons were harnessed together the same way the royals were harnessed to them, the other twelve all launched themselves in rapid succession and the air was suddenly full of multicolored scales and wings. Gerald’s hands tightened on the harness as he remembered what had happened the last time he had been in the center of multiple dragons in the air.
Omar reached over and pried Gerald’s fingers open before slipping his own hand into Gerald’s grip. “It’s all right,” he said gently.
“I know,” Gerald said. “I know, but…” He trailed off, but Omar squeezed his hand like he knew what Gerald was thinking—what he was feeling. The dragon gained altitude with a few powerful beats of its wings and Gerald relaxed once they were above the crowd and then relaxed further as they all began to scatter in different directions. But he didn’t let go of Omar’s hand.
Chapter Eighteen
“THERE IT IS,” the dragon announced with satisfaction.
Gerald peered vainly out toward the horizon. “I don’t see it.”
“You will soon,” the dragon said. “Watch the cliffs.”
“I don’t even know what I’m watching for,” Gerald protested. “Are the towers on the cliff?”
“They’re in it.”
“They’re what?” Gerald said.
“Oh,” Omar said. “That’s why there are two so close together. Of course. I’ve heard of this—it’s the labyrinth.”
Gerald was still staring out and as the dragon rapidly closed the distance, he realized the massive rock formations they were approaching weren’t cliffs so much as canyons. He whistled softly. “How did they make that? It can’t be natural.”
“The canyons are, I think,” Omar said. “Or were. I mean, there were canyons here before. This wasn’t always a desert; I don’t know what happened, but when the water here dried up, it carved canyons and tunnels as it went. But it was magic that turned the natural canyons into a labyrinth.”
“And now there are two towers in the center.”
“More like, there are two centers, each with a tower,” Omar said. “You never heard of the labyrinth?”
“No. I don’t think so. I didn’t pay attention to any of this stuff, the towers, the questing.” He shrugged. “I didn’t think I’d be participating. But we don’t have to go through the labyrinth, right? I mean, the dragon can fly us over it to the towers.”
“Well…” the dragon said. “Not exactly. The canyons get quite narrow. I won’t fit.”
It sounded a little sheepish about it.
“You mean we’re actually going to have to solve the maze, then?”
“Well, not exactly,” the dragon said. “I can direct you. It’s not so narrow I can’t see into it. But it is too narrow for me to get in. I’ll have to land at the entrance to let you in, and then direct you from the air.”
Gerald rubbed at his knee, frowning. “I don’t know. Maybe I’d better stay with you,” he said to the dragon. “I’ll only slow Omar down.”
“It might take us longer to get to the towers but freeing the guardians will go a lot faster with you there,” Omar argued.
“The Council, though… We shouldn’t be here for any longer than we have to be.”
“I haven’t felt any spells,” the dragon assured them. “Their attention will be divided, anyway, with all of us out at once.”
“Divided attention is still attention,” Gerald said.
“All the more reason for you to come, then,” Omar said. “We can split up and each take one tower. You might take longer to get to yours, but you’ll free your guardian before I free mine, I bet. We’ll each take about the same amount of time.”
Gerald hesitated but then nodded. “All right. Fine.”
The dragon banked and spiraled to the ground. A cloud of dust puffed up under its feet as it landed. Omar and Gerald kicked up smaller clouds of dust when they slid to the dry ground.
Omar tilted his head back and whistled in appreciation. “It looks even bigger from down here,” he commented, staring at the striped sheets of rock surrounding them.
Gerald nodded, but he wasn’t looking up at the height of the canyon walls. He was looking ahead, at the entrance to the labyrinth.
“Do you have the supplies you need?” the dragon asked, breaking into their reveries. “I don’t sense any magic, but we should not delay too long in any case.”
Gerald patted his knapsack. “I do. Omar? I know you have a spell diagram, but do you have a chisel?”
“Yeah. The piedlings gave everyone a kit.”
The dragon nodded, satisfied. “Get going, then. I’ll take off once you’re clear.”
Gerald adjusted his grip on his canes and made his way toward the entrance to the labyrinth. He felt painfully slow and awkward next to Omar, who had easily caught up with him and was now adjusting his pace to not leave Gerald behind. Whichever tower I end up at, the royal is never going to believe I’m a rescuer.
“You can just walk,” Omar said, and Gerald looked over at him in confusion. “I mean… You go faster when you don’t think about it. You’re walking like you’re trying to hide your limp, and yeah, maybe you are making it less noticeable, but you’re also slowing down. I don’t care if you limp.”
“I didn’t realize,” Gerald said. “That I was doing that, I mean. I know you don’t care about it.” The words But I do were left unspoken, but they still managed to hang in the air.
“I almost wish we weren’t picking the royals up,” Omar said quietly as they approached the first intersection.
“What? Why? I mean, I was kind of thinking the same thing, but you’re much more social than I am.”
“Just that,” Omar said. “You’re going to go all shy and distant like you did in the dragonlands.”
“There won’t be so many strangers,” Gerald said. “It’ll be fine.”
“Go left!” the dragon called from above, and Omar swallowed whatever he had been about to say. They stayed together for two more turns and then the dragon directed them into separate corridors.
“See you soon,” Gerald said.
“Be careful.”
“You too.”
The dragon flitted back and forth in the air above them, carefully monitoring their progress. “How much farther is it?” Gerald called up. Even with no effort to disguise his limp—there was no one there to hide it from—he had been slowing down. Erick’s spells had masked the pain of the burns while they healed, but they did nothing for the cramping soreness in his back and hip as a result of his uneven gait. His walking around in the dragonlands hadn’t built up that much stamina; he had been planning to stay with the dragon on these rescues.
“Not too far,” the dragon said. “Omar is at his tower already.”
Gerald adjusted his grip on his canes and forged ahead, trying not to think about having to make the trip back to the start of the labyrinth. One thing at a time.
Despite the dragon’s assurances, it felt like an awfully long time before Gerald turned a corner and caught sight of the tower. There was no guardian visible, but he had learned from Tska that meant nothing. Whether or not he could see it, something was there, and it was undoubtedly watching him.
Whatever it is, it can’t hurt me while it has the collar on. He took a breath and started moving toward the tower. “Hello!” he called.
“Oh, a rescuer! It’s been a while since the last one.” A dark-haired girl was leaning out of the window and waving. So I got the princess’s tower…Natali. “Did you send a letter?” she asked. “I don’t recall getting a notice…”
“No,” Gerald said. “Um. It’s a long story. Is your guardian around?”
“Of course. But you can’t fight the guardian unless I give you permission to try to rescue me, and I don’t even know who you are.”
“I’m Gerald. But I’m not going to fight it. I’m going to free it.”
“Oh. I see. That makes more sense, I suppose.”
Gerald looked up at the princess, puzzled at her calm acceptance. “It does?”
“Well… It’s not like you could fight it.”
Gerald flushed and turned his attention from the princess to the surrounding area. “Regardless…the guardian doesn’t know if I’m here to fight or not. It should show itself.”
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he heard a soft growl behind him. Slowly, slowly, he turned around and found himself staring into the bared fangs of a mountain lion.
Gerald gulped. It can’t hurt me, he reminded himself. “Hello,” he said. “I’m not here to fight you… No need for the growling.”
The cat flicked its tail back and forth but made no move to either pounce or back away. “You want that collar off, don’t you?” Gerald pressed on. “I can take it off you. I’ve done it before. It won’t take too long… If you lie down, I can take the collar off.”
“Are you a magician?” Natali called down.
“No. You don’t have to be, for this. You just have to alter the symbols on the collar the right way.”
He took the diagram out of his knapsack and showed it to the mountain lion, which made the princess laugh. “It’s an animal!” she said. “It can’t read.”
“I’ve found the guardians have all been a lot smarter than the royals thought they were,” Gerald replied.
The mountain lion sank to the ground with the boneless grace so typical of cats of any size, and Gerald resisted the urge to say, “So there!” to the princess. He lowered himself to the ground with much less grace and set his canes to the side. “I’m going to chisel some new symbols and change some of the ones that are already there,” he told the guardian. “It might be a little loud, but it’s not going to hurt or anything. That’s okay, right?”
The mountain lion stretched its front paws out and rested its chin on them. It flicked its yellow eyes toward Gerald, as if to say, “The collar’s right here. What are you waiting for?”
He pinned the diagram flat and started working. Natali was calling something else from the tower, but Gerald tuned her out to concentrate on the collar. True to his word, it wasn’t long before he made the final alteration. The collar immediately began to rust and weaken, and Gerald gave it a final hard tap with the butt end of the chisel. The metal split and the collar fell to the ground in two pieces, where it crumbled into dust.
The mountain lion immediately began to groom the matted fur around its neck and Gerald backed away carefully, suddenly aware that without the collar’s restrictions, there was no guarantee the big cat wouldn’t decide he was the right size for a meal. He used his canes to lever himself back up to his feet and then looked up to see the mountain lion watching him with those big yellow eyes. Despite what Natali had said, there was clear evidence of intelligence in them. It slowly climbed to its feet and stretched languorously before it turned and disappeared into the canyons.
Gerald let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding and turned his attention back to the tower.
“You can come down now,” he told Natali.
“I don’t want to be rescued by you,” she retorted.
“Good, because I don’t want to rescue you.”
“Oh? Then why do you want me to come down?”
“I said it was a long story, didn’t I? I’ll explain it as we walk, all right? I’m not trying to rescue you or marry you or interfere with you finding a spouse or anything. But you do need to come with me. Omar’s at the other tower, and the dragon is waiting for us—”
“The dragon?”
“Yes, it was my guardian. I freed it and now it’s helping us free the others. Look, just come down, will you? Please. Omar’s better at explaining than I am. And it’s a long walk and—” I’m already tired and I don’t want to keep standing here.
“All right! You don’t need to get so worked up about it.” But she hesitated. “Um. How do you want me to get down, exactly?”
“How do… Oh.” Gerald blinked. The dragon had lifted him out of his tower. They had left Princess Elinore in her tower in the Burning Swamp and Princex Taylor had rescued Thierry. “I think I have some rope…”
“This was a very poorly planned rescue,” she grumbled as she rappelled down the side of the tower. “The rescuer is supposed to come get me, not make me come to them.”
“Yes, well, I told you this isn’t a rescue. It’s more of a…relocation. Come on.”
“Don’t you want your rope back?”
“Who’s going to climb up and untie it? There’s more rope in the supplies.” And this way it might look like you ran away. “Let’s go.”
Despite her grumbles about the unorthodox nature of the not-rescue, Gerald had to admit she was taking everything more or less in stride. If she had balked at climbing down the rope, what would he have done? She was correct in pointing out he couldn’t exactly come up after her. She had also taken his warning that it was a long walk to heart, and she had climbed down wearing sturdy shoes and a split skirt of the sort that noblewomen often wore for riding.
She was moving a lot easier than Gerald was. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Gerald was the only one who knew where they were going, he had the feeling she would have left him behind without a second thought. As it was, she would stride ahead and leave him limping along behind, only stopping to wait for him at the intersections.
“Which way next?” she called over her shoulder.
“Uh, left, I think,” Gerald said as he navigated around a bit of rockslide rubble.
“You think?”
“I’ll look when I get there.”
“You’re awfully slow, you know.”
Gerald resisted the urge to pick up a bit of rock and chuck it at her head. “I am aware, actually,” he said icily. “Thank you.”
“I’m just saying, if you could tell me the turns, I wouldn’t have to wait for you.”
“You’d still have to wait for me. The dragon’s hardly going to take off without me. Besides, you’ve been waiting around in a tower for how long? I can’t believe you’re this impatient now.”
She sighed and flopped down on a boulder to wait for him to catch up.
A few intersections later, Gerald was ready to send her on ahead, if only to give himself a break. He looked up at the sky again, but the dragon was still absent. I hope Omar didn’t run into trouble.
“All right,” Gerald said. “We’re almost out now. Go straight here, then left twice, right, and straight again. Can you remember that?”
“Straight, left, left, right, straight,” she repeated.
“Go on ahead, then. But don’t go wandering off once you’re out of the labyrinth.”
She was up and darting ahead almost before Gerald had finished speaking. “I’m not that slow,” he grumbled to himself. But the pain in his back and hip had been growing worse and he had to admit he had been slowing down more and more. At least Calin isn’t here to tell me I’m overdoing it, he thought as he gritted his teeth and continued to push ahead.
Straight…left…left again and he had to stop. The exit was so close, but not close enough he could get there without resting.
“Gerald? Where’s your royal?”
Gerald looked up to see Omar coming around the corner with a prince dressed head to toe in black trailing behind him. He must be roasting, Gerald thought absently. “Oh… She went on ahead
. I was too slow for her.”
“Are you okay? You’re kind of pale.”
Gerald grimaced. “My… It’s more walking than I was anticipating. I’m okay. We’re almost out.”
He pushed himself back to his feet and let out a hiss of pain.
“Oh yeah, you’re fine,” Omar said.
“We’re almost out,” Gerald repeated stubbornly. “Let’s just go.”
“If you’re sure,” Omar said doubtfully.
Gerald forced himself to start walking. He made it about a dozen feet before his bad leg buckled and he stumbled to his knees.
“Completely fine,” Omar muttered under his breath as he helped Gerald back to his feet. “Give me that cane. Lean on me instead.” He draped Gerald’s arm over his shoulders and Gerald couldn’t stifle a sigh of relief as Omar took his weight. “Stubborn,” he chided.
Gerald wisely didn’t respond and didn’t mention it wasn’t the first time he’d fallen. His knee felt scraped and bruised.
With Omar’s help, their pace improved, and it was only a few more minutes before they reached the entrance to the labyrinth. The dragon had landed and was trying to persuade Natali to go ahead and climb up to its back, but it cut itself off when it saw Omar and Gerald limping in with the black-clad prince trailing behind them.
“What’s wrong? Are you hurt?” it asked anxiously, lowering its head to peer at them.
“I’m fine,” Gerald said through gritted teeth. “Just…overdid it. Don’t fuss. We need to get going.”
“I haven’t sensed anything,” the dragon started to say, but it subsided when Omar mouthed something at it. “Nevertheless, probably best to leave before I do sense something, I suppose. And I was trying to get the princess ready to leave,” it added.
“I wasn’t expecting a talking dragon!” Natali protested.
“I told you about the dragon,” Gerald said.
“You didn’t say it talked.”
“Just get up there, will you? I am not in the mood for this.”
“You need to sit down,” Omar said to him. “Come on. You get up there too.” Even though the dragon lay as flat as it could, Omar still had to give Gerald a boost. He buckled himself in and tried in vain to get comfortable while Omar chivvied the chattering princess and silent prince up to join him.
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