My knapsack was under my head like a pillow. When I checked inside it, another biscuit had gone missing.
“Curse it!” I shouted. I was going to run out of food before I found my locus magicalicus. My pencil and paper were gone, too.
I got out the canteen and the tin cup and, carrying the knapsack, went outside to collect some snow for water.
I stood on the cave doorstep and looked out. The sun was just coming up, and the snowfield and steps before the cave mouth were deep in the shadow of the mountain. I crouched at the edge of the doorstep and scooped up some snow in the tin cup. Thirsty, I ate some mouthfuls of snow, then set the cup down. When the sun came ’round the mountain, the doorstep would get warm and the snow would melt and I’d have water to drink.
As I was standing up, a swoop-whoosh shadow passed overhead. I crouched down, covering my head, my heart pounding. Then I got to my feet and looked in the direction the wind had gone.
Clinging to the spire of rock over the cave mouth with all four claw-feet, its tail wrapped around the spire for balance, wings outspread, was the flame dragon, with the sun dazzle-bright behind it.
“Hello, dragon,” I said, shading the sun out of my eyes to see it better.
It shook out and folded its wings like a man shaking rain off an umbrella and stared down at me.
“Can you understand what I’m saying?” I asked it.
It kept staring.
Like a guard. It had brought me here. “Dragon,” I shouted. “Why’d you bring me here?” Did it want me to find my locus magicalicus? And why should it care if I did? What if it wanted me for something else, and I just didn’t know what, yet. Would it let me leave again, once I’d found my locus stone?
It had to let me leave.
Testing, keeping an eye on the dragon, I moved slowly to the edge of the doorstep and lay on my stomach, ready to slither down to the first step.
On the spire, the dragon half-opened its wings and clenched its claws, ready to pounce on me.
Right. I eased myself back onto the doorstep. I couldn’t leave yet, anyway. Not until I found my locus stone.
I spent the entire day digging through the piles of stones. Lothfalas, lothfalas. No light, no luck.
Just before sunset I checked my knapsack for something to eat.
All of the biscuits were gone.
I’d been wearing the knapsack all day; how had the rats gotten into it? Cursed thieves!
Kicking stones out of the way, I went out to the doorstep. The flame dragon was gone from the spire above the cave mouth. I sat down on the edge of the step. The snow in the tin cup had melted down to water, which had a skin of ice on it now that the sun was setting and the air getting colder. The half-biscuit was still in my coat pocket, but I’d save it for later. I ate the last of the cheese and drank the water and stared out at the sky, burning flame-red behind the mountains where the sun was going down.
A bundle of black rags fell out of the sky and landed on the step next to me. No, not rags, a black bird.
“Hello, bird,” I said. It hopped onto my knee, cocking its head to look me over with its yellow eye. Its feathers were ruffled; it’d come all the way from Wellmet. A quill was tied to its leg. A note from Nevery written on thin paper.
* * *
Boy, when you receive this letter you must return at once to Wellmet. Respond to inform me that you have received this and are coming.
In haste,
—N
* * *
Return at once to Wellmet? But I hadn’t found my locus magicalicus yet. And the flame dragon wouldn’t let me leave.
As I was rereading the letter, another black bird flapped down to land on my knee; the first bird hopped off with a squawk. The second bird had a letter-quill, too.
* * *
Conn, if you have sent a letter I have not received it. The situation in Wellmet has changed; you are needed here as soon as possible. You will need at least ten days to travel back down the finding spell, and even that may be too long. Hurry. Wait outside the city, send a bird with message that you have arrived. Write to say you have received this.
—Nevery
* * *
Drats. I couldn’t go back to Wellmet without my locus magicalicus.
I rummaged inside my knapsack until I found a few biscuit crumbs, all the thieving rats had left.
“Here, birds,” I said, giving them the crumbs.
I couldn’t write to Nevery to tell him I wasn’t coming yet, because the rats had stolen my pencils and paper.
Leaving the black birds to peck at the crumbs, I read Nevery’s note again, squinting to see the letters in the gray light. The situation in Wellmet has changed, he’d written. What did that mean, exactly? It couldn’t mean Arhionvar had arrived in Wellmet, because sure as sure he would’ve said if it had.
I thought about it while the sky darkened to black and the stars lit up like werelight lanterns. In a while, the moon would come up from behind the mountain.
Out of the darkness came a rustle of wings and a darker shadow. Another bird. It landed on the step and hopped over to me. I untied the quill it carried and pulled out the third note. The paper felt smooth and cool under my fingers.
I sat with the birds perched next to me on the step, waiting for the moon to come up so I could see to read. A breeze blew across the cave mouth, making a hollow, moaning sound, hooo, hoooo.
Finally the moon peeked up over the edge of the mountain, shining down over my shoulder. I held up the note. The black letters stood out on the bright-white page.
* * *
Curse it, boy, where are you? I have received a letter from Lady Rowan, who says you have been taken away by a dragon. Think she must be mistaken, as dragons have been extinct for hundreds of years.
During the past few days, Wellmet has become infested with white predator-cats, like the ones you said accompanied the sorcerer-king everywhere. You know as well as I do the meaning of this: The cats are agents of the dread magic, which means Arhionvar is approaching the city. I have visited the pit where Dusk House once stood; the magic there is behaving erratically. Have tried communicating with it, as you say is possible, but magic does not respond. The duchess’s health is failing. The magisters are in disarray. The only defense is the pyrotechnic traps we’ve been working on. I have contacted the pyrotechnists, Embre and Sparks, and we have made some progress in assembling explosive traps at various points in the city. But you, Conn, are our connection with the magic. You must return at once, with or without your locus magicalicus.
—N.
* * *
I dropped Nevery’s third letter to the stone doorstep and stood up. Arhionvar was almost in Wellmet. I had to go home.
Grabbing up my knapsack, I headed for the stone steps. Down one, skinning the palm of my hand on the rock; down the next, and the next.
I glanced back over my shoulder. The mountain peak loomed like a black shard across the rising full moon. Clinging to the spire above the cave mouth was a darker shadow and two points of flame—the eyes of the dragon, watching me. I heard the umbrella whoosh of its wings opening.
“No!” I shouted. The flaming eyes swooped down toward me. I flung myself down onto the rock, then scurry-climbed down to the next step. It wasn’t going to catch me.
Another swoop of wind, and the flame dragon dropped down right onto my step, knocked me over, and grabbed me up in its claw. A great thunderstorm of wings, and we hurtled back toward the cave mouth. The dragon banked and flung me away. I went tumbling into the cave, sliding into a pile; rocks and stones went rattling across the floor.
Ow. Right. I wasn’t leaving yet.
CHAPTER 20
“Lothfalas,” I said for the thousandth time, my voice hoarse.
Half the night was gone; I hadn’t seen even a spark of lothfalas light. The cave darkness pressed around me like when I pulled my black wool sweater over my head. By feel, shuffling my feet along the floor, I made my way across the cave until I bumped
into the next pile of stones. “Lothfalas.”
I sifted through the pile.
Drats! I didn’t have time for this.
The sweater-black cave lightened to gray; the sun was coming up on the other side of the mountain.
“Lothfalas!” I shouted.
From the corner of my eye I caught a quick glimpse of light. I whirled around and said the light spell again. From high up on the wall of the cave, another glimmer. The light brightened, dazzle-bright, and the call of my locus magicalicus washed over me.
I jumped from the pile and slithered to the floor, stones rattling down with me, then scuffed a path through the stones to the wall and looked up. Almost at the ceiling, behind a row of spire-spikes, I saw the glow of my locus stone like the sun behind a cloud.
I looked for a way up. Now that I could see them up close, I realized that the cave walls were strange. They weren’t curved like the inside of a bowl the way a cave was supposed to be. They bulged. A rough path was cut into the wall, starting down low, halfway around the cave from me and sloping up toward my locus magicalicus. With one hand on the wall to guide me, I started to follow the wall around to find the place where the path got close enough to the ground so I could climb up.
Now that I was right next to it, with the cave mouth turning pink with the morning, I saw that the wall wasn’t wet with dripping water, as I’d thought. It shone in patches, but was covered with moldy black, like tarnish on silver. I stopped and scratched at the tarnish with my fingernail.
Yes, it was shiny underneath. I lay my hand flat on the wall. It felt smooth and warm. Was it vibrating, just a little?
I peered closer at the wall. A long time ago I’d gone snooping in an abandoned workroom in Heartsease, and I’d found a jar full of slowsilver that had gotten so slow that it’d been frozen, like a mirror. This was just like that.
Was the wall made of slowsilver?
I shook my head. Locus stone.
I went on until I got to the place where the rut-path came closest to the cave floor. Leaving my knapsack, I climbed up. The black tarnish was thicker here, like the mildew I’d seen in cellar corners in the Twilight.
My locus stone was up there; I could feel its call as a string pulling at my chest. I started climbing. The path grew wider and, as it led upward, rougher, not stairs but a long row of pointed teeth.
Higher and higher I climbed, scrambling over the path-teeth, the call of my locus magicalicus getting stronger. My breath came in short gasps and my hands started to tingle where they touched the path, as if they were being pricked all over with needles. My feet tingled even through my boots.
The path took me to the very top of the cave. I stopped to catch my breath. The air felt thinner up here; it went into my lungs and popped, like bubbles. On either side of the path a line of spire-spikes grew up like a row of tree trunks, each spike twice as tall as I was, brushing against the rock ceiling. The air was dark. From ahead, down the path between the spikes, came a glow.
I gulped down a bubble of excitement and started toward it.
The path grew brighter. There—my locus magicalicus, glowing softly, resting beside one of the spires.
The light went out.
“Lothfalas,” I said.
The stone started to glow again. I stepped closer. It wasn’t like my first locus magicalicus, not a jewel stone, but a chunk of rough, greenish rock the size of a baby’s fist.
From out of the darkness behind the spire, something crept out and crouched next to the stone. I stopped and bent down to see better. A little animal. Was it a rat?
No, it had wings, a long tail, a face full of muzzle and teeth—a dragon. A tiny one, not quite as big as Lady, the cat that’d lived with us in Heartsease. It rested its front claw-paws on top of my glowing locus stone.
“Hello, dragon,” I said.
It looked just like the flame dragon but leaf-green, the same color of my first locus magicalicus, shading to gleaming gold on its wings.
I edged a little closer.
The dragon snatched up the stone and hopped backward, twitching its tail.
Oh. “You’re the thief!” I said. It hadn’t been rats. The dragon had been stealing the biscuits and other things out of my knapsack. Well, it wasn’t going to steal my locus stone.
The dragon cocked its head and looked at me with a bright red eye.
I leaned closer and reached for my locus magicalicus.
The dragon opened its mouth like a cat, showing me its needle-sharp teeth.
Oh, no.
It popped my locus magicalicus into its mouth and gulped it down.
“No!” I shouted, and leaped for the dragon. I caught it, grabbing it around the neck. It thrashed its wings and whipped its tail and I held on; it brought its head around and bit me. Ow! I dropped the dragon and it scuttled up the nearest stone spire and jumped from it to the ceiling. It clung there, upside down, like a bat.
Curse it! I stood staring upward; it stared back, twitching its tail like an angry cat. Blood dripped off my hand where it had bit me.
Ah, I knew how to get it down. “Lothfalas!” I shouted.
The dragon blinked, gulped, then burped out a gust of light. Its claws let go of the cave ceiling and it tumbled down.
“Got you!” I said. But just over my head, as I leaped up to grab it, the dragon caught itself with its wings and wobble-flapped away, farther down the path. I started after it.
The path shifted and down I fell. Getting back to my feet, I kept my eye on the dragon. It hopped farther away.
The path shook again, harder this time. I landed hard on my knees, then scrambled after the dragon. It led me all the way down the rough path along the cave wall to the cave floor. It hop-flapped across the floor to one of the piles of stones and perched on it, opening and closing its mouth.
I jumped down from the path and started toward it. “Did you think my locus stone was a biscuit?” I said. Reaching the pile, I leaped, grabbing for it, but the dragon hopped away like a grasshopper, landing on another pile.
Drats. I wasn’t going to catch it like this.
“Lothfalas!” I said.
The dragon coughed out a gob of light. While it shook its head, I crouched down and crept toward the pile of stones it perched on.
“Lothfalas,” I said again. The word left my mouth and hung in the air.
The cave echoed the spellword back to me.
LOTHFALAS
The spell roared around the cave like a wind, swirling along the walls and the ceiling, and every locus magicalicus, every stone in the piles and scattered across the floor, burst into flame. The light arrowed into my eyes.
I flung myself down on the floor with my arms over my head. The ground trembled, making my bones shiver. I heard stones falling from the piles and settling. Then silence. Slowly, carefully, I opened my eyes, blinking away the brights to see.
I looked up—and up. The cave. The walls were shifting, gleaming patchy silver in the dimming light. Dust sifted down from the ceiling. I felt a low humming in my bones.
A rumbling noise started, like huge stones rubbing against each other. Something shifted in the darkness at the other side of the cave. Looming slowly out of the shadows came a dragon’s head as big as the Dawn Palace. Its eye was bigger than the double door leading into the palace. I could’ve walked through the long, narrow slit in its pupil. It was looking at me.
The cave walls weren’t walls at all. They were dragon.
CHAPTER 21
The dragon was so huge, it took up the whole top of the mountain. I’d climbed partway up the dragon’s tail to find my locus magicalicus. It’d said the lothfalas spell, and all the locus magicalicus stones had lit up.
Wait. All of its locus stones. Dragons kept hoards, didn’t they? But why locus stones? What did a dragon have to do with magic?
I crouched beside the glowing pile of stones and gazed up into the dragon’s eye. It was like looking into the night sky, deep black and full of stars.
The dust settled. The last stone rattled to a stop. The lothfalas light dimmed and went out.
Trying not to make a sound, I got to my feet. The cave mouth was almost completely blocked by the dragon’s head; just a sliver of light shone at its edge.
I stood, staring across the cave at the gap between the dragon and the cave wall. It wasn’t very wide. I could squeeze through it if I didn’t mind sneaking right under the dragon’s nose.
Other thoughts nibbled at the corner of my brain. Had the dragon gathered all the locus stones here? Was there magic here? There must be, for the lothfalas spell to work. Why were the dragon’s scales made of slowsilver? It was far too big to fit through the cave mouth, so how had it gotten inside the mountain, and how did it get out? Was the thief dragon the cave dragon’s baby? And the question that had bothered me before—why had the flame dragon brought me here?
I shook my head. I could think about those things later. First I needed to get my locus stone out of the thief dragon, and then escape from the cave and from the flame dragon and get back to Wellmet. My stomach gave a hollow growl. And except for half a biscuit, I didn’t have any food to help me do it, either. The rock floor trembled. I had a feeling that I needed to get out of the cave, and soon.
Off to my left, I heard a tck-tck-tck sound like little claws on rock. The thief dragon. Probably looking for something else to steal. I crouched down behind a pile of locus stones, then crawled around it.
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