As Trip moved closer to the chimney, the pounding in his head increased. He was definitely going to suggest that the group go somewhere else for Rysha to do her dragon research. Assuming they could pry her away from the dome and the geological oddities of the quarry.
The chimney and the remains of the smokebox were made from the same stone blocks as the rest of the structure, including a hearth in surprisingly good shape. The granite stones locked together like puzzle pieces with little dirt or broken mortar between them. The hearth was raised about a foot off the floor. He rapped his knuckles against one of the stones. It didn’t sound hollow, but the design made him think someone might have created a space below the stones to store valuables. Isolated as they would have been way out here, even Referatu might have worried about thieves or other intruders.
He found himself kneeling and feeling around the area, searching for stones that might move. Even though his magical senses didn’t tell him anything, his intuition twanged like an improperly tuned string on a fiddle. Why would his headache have increased as he approached the hearth if there was nothing here but stone?
One of the blocks in the back shifted slightly under his tugging and prodding. He pulled harder, but it was locked in by two others.
“Sorry, Jaxi,” he said, drawing one of the swords.
He trusted the magic-imbued blade wouldn’t break easily, but he was careful as he slid the point in, trying to find the leverage to pry the block free. Finally, one of the other blocks shifted enough for him to tug out the one he wanted. A dark hollow lay underneath it.
His breath caught. Had he found something that thousands of years of looters hadn’t discovered?
“Probably nothing in there,” he grumbled, but that didn’t keep him from peering into the dark hole.
Something scuttled toward the light, and he jerked back. A scorpion sauntered past, waving its tail, and he scooted farther back. They weren’t native to Iskandia, but he’d heard they were venomous. Trip used Jaxi’s point to prod into the dark hole. More scorpions scuttled out, and he started to doubt that he’d found anything more interesting than an insect nest.
Then the sword clunked against something that created a hollow ring. His breathing quickened, seeming to echo from the back of the firebox. Using the soulblade again, he pried up more blocks. Finally, he revealed a shallow hiding spot about a foot and a half wide and a foot deep. At the center rested a rusty iron box with hinges and a clasp.
A few unmoving—dead?—scorpions littered the bottom of the nook, making him reluctant to reach in and pick up the box. But it seemed to be the source of whatever magic—or anti-magic—was causing his headache, at least inside the structure. His head had hurt to some extent since he entered the quarry.
He gingerly lifted the box out and set it on the ground. The clasp was locked, but it was an old, clumsy and rusted lock, and he didn’t need magic to thwart it. He slid Jaxi’s tip into the hole, searching for a spring. The inside crumbled under the blade’s gentle pressure. He drew it out and started to sheathe the soulblade but rested it in the dust beside him instead. Just in case a squadron of scorpions leaped out.
The lid creaked as he opened it, and one of the hinges broke away.
“This is definitely old,” he whispered, wondering if he should have called Rysha in to make the discovery with him. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave the spot until he knew what he’d found.
A single dull gray iron ingot rested on the bottom. He clasped his chin and gazed at it thoughtfully. Had it been gold or silver, he could imagine someone squirreling it away, but iron? It was about enough to mold into a single sword.
He touched it, thinking to flip it up to see if anything else was in the box, but a shock of pain ran up his arm and seemed to zap his heart. Gasping, he stumbled back and grabbed his arm. For a bewildered second, he thought a scorpion he hadn’t seen had stung him. Then he realized that he’d felt this exact same pain before when he’d touched one of the chapaharii blades.
Rubbing numb fingers, he stared at the dull gray bar.
“Trip?” Rysha asked from the doorway. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.” He waved her over. She would be able to touch the ingot.
“I heard you cry out in pain.”
“I believe that was a gasp of surprise.” Realizing he was still rubbing his numb fingers, he shook out his arm and lowered it.
“No, it was a cry. Maybe a squeal.”
“It was definitely not a squeal. Come look at this, will you? I found this box hidden in the hearth there, and when I touched the bar, it was exactly like touching a chapaharii blade.”
She looked sharply at him. “Really? Is that why you squealed?”
“I gasped. And yes.”
“Is Trip all right?” Duck called from outside the smelter. “Leftie and I heard a squeal of pain.”
“I told you,” Rysha said, though her gaze was now locked on the box.
“I’m fine,” Trip called back.
Rysha poked out a finger and touched the ingot with lightning speed, as if she were checking to see if a pan on a cooktop was hot. She didn’t react with pain, but Trip hadn’t expected her to. She returned her finger to the ingot, held it there, then lifted out the bar. A very old maker’s mark was stamped in the bottom, but Trip barely noticed it because his gaze locked on to a folded parchment that had been under the bar.
He wanted to reach in and pull it out, but he was afraid a thousands-of-years-old piece of parchment would crumble under his touch. He also worried it might have absorbed some of the bar’s hatred for dragon blood and that it would also zap him.
Rysha saw it and pulled it out after setting down the bar. She paused before unfolding it, her fingers trembling slightly. In anticipation? “If this was the place where the swords were originally made, or the ingots were smelted before being sent across the ocean to be made into swords, this could have instructions, either for the smelting or for the sword-making itself. Do you know what an incredible find this would be?”
“I’m sure King Angulus would be delighted if he learned more chapaharii blades could be made without him having to send troops to invade museums around the world.”
“I was thinking that it would be a great insight into the process and how it was originally discovered, but I suppose modern-day military applications must be considered too. Wouldn’t it be interesting if it was the metal that made the swords possible, rather than some particular ceremony or type of magic that was forgotten?”
“The ingot hates me, and even the raw ore in the cliff over there was giving me a headache. But I imagine instructions would have to have been stamped into the ore. Maybe the paper talks about how that was done. And maybe I, or we, could figure out how to reprogram your sword then.”
She looked warily at him, perhaps thinking of the night before, and he shifted uncomfortably. He couldn’t regret bringing up the command words, not in light of this new discovery, but he wished he already knew a solution, so he could promise to fix her sword so he’d never have any control over it again.
“Let’s find out,” she finally said, then carefully unfolded the parchment.
Some kind of sealant had been placed over it, so it wasn’t as fragile as Trip had feared it might be. The ink inside wasn’t even faded.
“Brilliant,” Rysha breathed, laying the parchment out on the ground next to the box.
Unfolded, it was about three feet tall by four feet wide. There was some text up in one corner, but it was mostly a map. One of the surrounding area.
Trip knelt and touched the location of quarry and the little village. They were about dead center. The desert stretched away to the west, and the mountains rose to the east, including Jralk Mountain right next to the quarry. A red line had been drawn, forming a circle, the edges almost touching the top and bottom of the map.
“Is that our spring?” Trip tapped a spot in the southwest corner of the map, a tiny grey circle. It was just inside the line.
“That’s what I was thinking. If so, it’s existed for thousands of years, right? Do you think this box is original to the time period of the village?”
Rysha nodded slowly, her finger shifting to the six or seven lines of text in the upper left corner. “This is Old Iskandian. A very early version of it. I don’t recognize a lot of the words, and I can read Old Iskandian.” She pointed to a few symbols that barely looked like letters or anything Trip recognized as an alphabet. “I think those are tribal markings. The old clans had languages of their own before the continent-wide language was adopted, originally for trade.”
“Does that mean you can’t read it?” Trip asked, trying not to feel disappointment. He wanted badly to know if they’d found instructions he could use to alter Dorfindral. Further, this mission might be saved if they could bring back instructions—and ore—that would allow Iskandia to make more chapaharii weapons for defense against unfriendly dragons.
“I can mostly read it. This talks about the sacredness of the ore, how it’s blessed by the gods, a gift so humans can defend… that may be an old symbol for dragons. Or mages. The Great Storm affected the… uhm, oh, maybe some kind of electrical storm struck the area where this quarry was eventually dug? I can’t imagine lightning altering the basic nature of the iron, but perhaps something more significant? I’d have to check the records, see if there were any huge meteorological or geological events recorded around this time period. Oh, it would be interesting to slice up this ingot for study too. Nobody’s ever considered doing that to one of the ancient chapaharii swords, for obvious reasons, but it would be fascinating to study this iron under a microscope.”
“I’m sure.” Trip rubbed his aching head, the urge to get away from the ingot much stronger than the urge to study it. “Anything about imbuing the ore with command words?”
“Uhm.” Rysha paused, staring at the lines, for such a long moment that Trip believed she would say no.
She bit her lip and looked at him.
“What?” He couldn’t decipher that look, and his senses were useless to him right now. “Is there something?”
“Sort of. I’m not sure I should tell you.”
He frowned at her. “If you don’t, I’ll take it back to Sardelle and ask her. But why won’t you tell me? You want me to be able to reprogram Dorfindral, don’t you? Especially now that…” He frowned and looked away, not finishing the thought that came to mind, that she probably regretted ever telling him the words. He hated that she had a reason to regret that.
“All right,” she said quietly. “The last line says the ingots shall be stored until such time that the Referatu send a mage of sufficient power and willingness to be sacrificed to instill the commands. I think that’s what it says. There are some symbols I’m guessing at, but powerful, mage, and sacrifice are Old Iskandian words that I definitely recognize.”
“Sacrifice?” Trip mouthed.
He hadn’t imagined that reprogramming the blades could be dangerous. Certainly not deadly. He’d thought it would be like sliding in the magical equivalent of a new punch card.
“There’s also not anything about reprogramming the swords,” Rysha said. “Not that Old Iskandian or any of the ancient tribal societies had a word for that. There weren’t many steam looms or cleaning automatons at the time.” She waved at the lines of text. “I get the impression that the commands were imbued in the metal at the same time the swords were crafted, magically hammered in as the smith hammered the metal into shape.”
“They’re not canoodling in there, are they?” came Blazer’s voice from outside.
“Not sure, ma’am,” Leftie said, also still outside. “There was squealing earlier.”
“That was a gasp,” Trip called out.
“Even more reason to be suspicious of canoodling.”
Blazer walked in, a cigar clamped between her teeth.
“What did you find?” she asked, fortunately not bringing up canoodling. Trip didn’t want Rysha to have any more reason to think of the night before than he had already given her.
“I believe the original chapaharii weapons may have been crafted here.” Rysha pointed to the map and the ingot. “Or at least the iron for them could have been mined here. Though this text implies that this is the smithy where it all might have happened. The man who penned it mentioned waiting for a mage to come and imbue the swords.”
“Really?” Some of the gruffness Blazer had kept close all day faded from her tone, and she seemed genuinely curious as she walked over. “Does this mean we might be able to make more of those weapons? Damn, the king should love that.”
“Maybe. But it also sounds like the mage who did the imbuing was expected to sacrifice himself in order to do it. Or that his death came about as a result of working with the metal.”
Trip rubbed his still numb fingers. He could easily imagine someone getting shocked to the point of dying from prolonged contact with the ingots.
“Huh.” Blazer eyed him but did not suggest sacrifices might be a part of his duty as an officer. “The metal seems special to you?”
“Oh yes. I’ve had a headache since we approached the quarry. It was my headache that led me to that box.”
Blazer shifted her gaze to the map, perhaps noticing the red line. “Is this related to the power crystals going out, and you losing your ability to perform magic?”
“It seems plausible,” Trip said, and Rysha nodded.
“So, we should take that and that with us?” Blazer pointed at the map and the ingot.
Trip grimaced at the idea of the ingot traveling back with them. “Just keep it in that iron box, please.” As soon as he said the words, he wondered if that would actually help. He’d been able to touch the box, so presumably it wasn’t made from the same tainted metal as the ingot, but he didn’t know how much insulation it provided. “And in a flier far away from mine.”
“Should we try to mine some more ore while we’re here?” Blazer looked through the open roof to the quarry walls.
“We don’t have the tools for it,” Rysha said. “Better to report back, I should think, and let the king decide if Iskandia should send a team here. This isn’t our country, so I imagine some kind of agreement would have to be signed.”
Blazer snorted. “Or maybe people could just mine here sneakily. It’s not like we’ve seen other human beings around.”
“No, but I’m sure people live out here. The only ones negatively affected are those with dragon blood, and this place is on all the maps.” Rysha waved toward Blazer’s pack where she kept the map that had led their team here. “If Iskandia tried to sneak in and set up a mining operation, someone would notice.”
“Mm.” That single syllable didn’t seem to connote agreement.
Rysha’s nose crinkled in displeasure, but she didn’t object further. Instead, some new thought occurred to her, and she blurted, “Oh, dragons.”
“Yes?” Blazer prompted.
Rysha gazed down at the map. “If Agarrenon Shivar is like Bhrava Saruth, then—”
“Nobody is like Bhrava Saruth,” Blazer grumbled.
Trip agreed—his sire, in particular, did not seem to share the goofy dragon’s attitude about anything, except perhaps believing himself a supreme being.
“In dislikes,” Rysha clarified. “If Agarrenon Shivar and all dragons loathe this dead zone, or headache-inducing zone…”
“Both,” Trip grunted.
“Then it’s unlikely Agarrenon Shivar would have built his lair within its influence.” Rysha swept her hand across the inside of the circle. “But if we’re to believe as Moe said that Agarrenon Shivar lives or lived in Jralk Mountain, then we can narrow down our search area to only the portion of it that’s outside the circle.” She drew her finger along the northe
ast side of the mountain, just visible in the corner of the map.
“That would narrow things down by about seven-eighths,” Trip said.
“Yes,” Rysha said. “We would still have ground to cover, especially considering there are only six of us, and we can’t search with the fliers right now, but maybe the soulblades can be of use once we step out of the dead zone.”
Trip nodded. “I hope so.”
“Your sword and Kaika’s sword too,” Blazer told her. “Once we get close to the dragon, they should sense its presence, right?”
“If he’s there to be sensed, yes.”
Trip wondered about that. Given the range that dragon auras could be sensed across, if Agarrenon Shivar was alive, it seemed someone should have known about it. Other dragons, if nobody else. But perhaps if he was in a stasis chamber, that would dampen his aura significantly.
“We’ll find out soon. I’ll take that.” Blazer dropped the ingot back in the box and folded the map, also sticking it inside. “Good work finding it, Ravenwood,” she said on her way to the exit, the box tucked under her arm.
“Actually, that was Trip, ma’am.”
Blazer flicked a couple of fingers toward him on her way out. “Good work finding it, Trip.”
“Her praise is so heartfelt and enthusiastic,” Rysha said.
“As long as she’s carrying the box instead of me.” Trip rubbed his head. The ache behind his eyes lessened as the ingot left the structure, but very slightly. He couldn’t wait to get out of the circle, even if it meant double-timing it across a mountain.
17
Rysha walked along the mountainside in the middle of their group, which was staggered and stretched out along the slope, searching for caves as the sun dipped toward the western horizon. She licked her chapped lips, wondering why even the copious amounts of water she’d drunk weren’t quenching her thirst. The mountain’s higher altitude had done little to alleviate the heat and had done nothing to make the air less dry. As with the desert below, there weren’t any trees, nothing more than the scrub brush that rose three or four feet high, so shade was scant. She found herself missing the rain and the mud of the capital. She even experienced a few fond thoughts of the obstacle course back at the fort. Nobody had ever died of heat stroke pulling themselves up that wall.
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