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of that blood was dried on gave rise to an even
worse thought, however.
He had no idea how long he’d been lying
there, and this thought frightened him more than
any other. The longer he’d been here, the more
time that dragon had to damage his captive.
Would Felicity be all right? Was she still
in one piece? If so, he could imagine how
frightened she must be.
How was he going to find her within the
labyrinthine caves of this mountain? And even
if he did discover her whereabouts, would he
like what he found?
Felicity could be dead right this very
moment, he thought as horror seeped into his
very soul. She could be that horrid little red
dragon’s lunch by now.
Yet he knew the beast could not possibly
have been the dragoness they sought. He
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expected a great dragon-mage would be
somewhat larger than the smallish serpent he’d
seen. Perhaps it had been a mere messenger,
then, sent to retrieve them?
Or perhaps to remove them, he added
with a scowl. After all, had the little red dragon
not taken the weaker of the two intruders?
Yet, at the same time, he knew that if he
were Amaranth, he would take the weaker of a
team captive to question them, expecting to get
more answers that way.
It was much easier to interrogate
someone who could be subdued with minimal
effort, than one who would refuse to divulge the
required information. He chuckled as he
considered the idea that they’d chosen the wrong
person, if that was their aim. Felicity was not
likely to tell them anything.
But Lancelot knew he would find no
answers of his own by just sitting here in the
cave, lost in contemplation. He needed to find
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the center of the maze, as it were. To reclaim that
which the dragon had taken, or claim the dragon
itself instead if it had harmed one hair on
Felicity’s head.
When Lance managed to get to his feet,
he was overcome by a wave of nauseating
dizziness and fell to the floor of the cave again.
He would not have known he was unconscious
again, but for the dream.
“Jones?” came Laenos’ voice. “Lancelot
Jones, you can’t just lay there like this. You’ve
got to get up now, and see to the matter at hand.
Your entire destiny lies ahead.”
“My head will not let me do so, elf,”
Lancelot muttered grumpily, barely able to
move as he opened his eyes. A bright light
moved toward him as quickly as a shooting star,
and then he saw Laenos standing at his feet.
“Is this real, or is it a dream?” he asked
with great uncertainty. After all, the elf never
glowed like this in the light of day.
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“It is both, in a way,” he explained with
an enigmatic smile. “Lie still now, and I will try
to heal you, Jones. At least enough to get you up
and moving again. You cannot stay as you are.”
“Why do you keep helping me anyway,
Laenos? It’s not as though you and I are friends,
is it?” Lancelot wanted to know.
His eyes were crossed, so that Laenos
appeared to be two elves instead of one. The
persistent elf leaned down and ran his glowing
hands over Lancelot’s aching head. As he
worked diligently at his task, he tried to explain.
“Long have I suffered at the thought that
you think I played a part in your loss, even
though your wife’s choice to leave had little to
do with me,” he admitted. “I always knew that
you would need my help someday. It is the way
of things, at least in the world of the elves. All
things are intertwined, and I owe you a debt for
what I gained.”
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“A life for a wife, perhaps?” Lancelot
scoffed, smirking at his choice of words.
“At least you are finally able to laugh
again, now that your little hellcat has come into
your life,” he said as he wiped blood from
Lancelot’s brow. “In a way, perhaps it is a wife
for a wife?”
“Hellcat, is it?” Lance chuckled. “I
wonder at your choice of words.”
Laenos chuckled, too. “That is no great
secret. You know that women can be such fiery
creatures when their convictions are strong. And
your Felicity seems like she has strong
convictions about a great many things. Be well,
my friend, for I do not believe I will see you
again.”
“Thank you, Laenos,” Lancelot replied.
“I really mean that. If not for you, I could never
be as happy as this.”
“Then go rescue your love, Jones,” he
said, and turned to walk away.
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When the elf disappeared from view,
Lancelot sat up and rubbed at his head. Even the
blood was gone now, and he was able to get to
his feet with remarkable ease.
“Damned elf,” he grumbled as he looked
around. “Right when the blighter would have
been useful as a lamp, he says he’ll not see me
again. Well, at least if he’s talking about Felicity
in such a way, she can’t have been eaten yet in
any case.”
When Lancelot turned to seek a path, he
found that now a faint trail of light weaved in a
meandering path in the direction he needed to
go. Chuckling because he knew Laenos must
have heard him, he began to follow it without
another word.
It felt as though many hours passed
before he approached a cavern with dimly lit
torches to either side of the entrance. Bones had
littered the cave all along the way, but here a
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veritable pile of them lay just to the side of the
path.
Wondering at this, Lance took a deep
breath and put his wand away. Torches now lit
the pathway, spaced evenly along the wall of the
cave. To the other side of the narrow path was a
wide chasm, and far across the great divide, the
other wall appeared to have torches as well.
Wherever it might lead, Lancelot set his
feet upon the path and began to walk.
Somewhere in the background he could hear the
sounds of many guttural voices as they clicked
and growled, their sounds not unlike those he’d
once heard in a nest full of baby snakes.
Glancing again at the bones that lined the
sides of the cave, he took a heavy, shuddering
breath. Whatever he was about to find, there was
definitely more than one of them to face. Lips in
a grim line, Lance’s steps became more cautious
and he moved
onward into the light.
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THIRTY
Wherever torches lined the wall over the
next half hour or so, Lance followed them in that
direction rather than taking any of the unlit side
paths. He no longer believed with complete
certainty that Felicity would remain unharmed
after such a long time, but his heart refused to let
go of the hope Laenos had given him.
All he could think about was Felicity’s
beautiful doe eyes, and how her smile usually
tended to quirk off to one side. He thought of her
sweet laugh, and the throaty way she’d moaned
as he’d dined upon her nipples. Gods, how he
longed to do that again, and more!
The further he walked, the more
convinced he became that a larger number of
dragons had to be present. The bones of far too
many animals lined the walls of the caves, and
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the sounds of hisses and guttural noises echoed
far too frequently off the walls.
He was close to tears when he finally
spotted a tall mound of rocks up ahead. The
serpent-like sounds that had been getting
steadily louder seemed to be coming from
within, but it was too far above his head to
simply look inside.
Lancelot had to think about what he
should do next. He knew that the fastest way to
reach the top would be to simply use his wand,
but would it not be foolhardy to suddenly appear
above a nest full of dragons who may very well
want you for their dinner?
Thinking better of that idea, he charmed
a rope to go to the top, and used it to climb up
instead, carefully peeking over the ledge. The
sight that met his eyes was in no way
comforting, for at least a dozen dragons slept
there.
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Then, peeping from beneath the wings of
one of them, he saw Felicity’s legs. He grabbed
a small stone off the edge of the nest’s wall and
expertly threw, and it nicked her in the foot.
Felicity startled awake and sat up
abruptly, wondering what had hit her foot. She
spotted wand-light briefly as Lance flashed it to
get her attention. He held a finger to his lips as
he beckoned her over.
Silently, Felicity crept around the sea of
dragons that barred the way, and finally reached
the wall, looking up at Lance with joy bubbling
throughout her entire being. His own face
mirrored the sentiment.
Lancelot tossed down a rope, and
Felicity used it to climb to the top. As soon as
they were out of the dragons’ possible view, he
used his wand to set them on the ground again,
then shrank the ropes back down and returned
them to his pack.
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“You’re alive!” she whispered then,
clinging to him so tightly he almost couldn’t
draw in a breath. Smiling at this, Lance kissed
the top of her head.
Lance buried his face into her hair as he
whispered, “I was so afraid they might have
eaten you by now, love, but we have no time for
this. We must get well away from here first.
Come on—quietly.”
Felicity nodded her agreement, but she
clung to his hand all the more as they started to
walk. Lancelot gave her hand a squeeze to let her
know how glad he was that it was there.
As the pair of them continued on past the
nest, they noticed many others clustered
together throughout the huge cavern. Lance
counted himself quite lucky that Felicity had
been taken to the first, rather than the fiftieth.
“There must be at least a thousand
dragons here,” Felicity pointed out. “I’m
worried, Lance. I don’t think these creatures are
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true offspring. There was something in my lore
book I’ve got to check on to see if I’m right.”
“Felicity Lake, I could not possibly have
heard you correctly. You want to read your book
right now?” he asked incredulously.
“It’s important, Lance,” she insisted as
she took the book he’d pulled out of his pack
from his hands and rifled through it as he held
his wand up for her to see. She found the page
that she needed, and read it out loud.
“The legend says that if the person who
tried to break the curse was not worthy, he
himself would be turned to a dragon and made
to serve Amaranth for all time,” she said. “All of
these dragons here must have been humans who
tried and failed, Lance. And if we don’t figure
out what we’re supposed to do, we may very
well be turned to dragons next.”
“This place just keeps getting better and
better,” Lance commented. “Come on,
sweetheart, we’ve got to find a way out of this
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massive nesting ground before we can rest. The
risk of being discovered is far too great.”
Felicity and Lance clung to each other’s
arms as they continued to walk. When a slight
breeze kicked up, the two glanced at each other
and wordlessly turned to follow the direction
from whence it came.
Soon they broke free of the cavern full of
nests and found themselves on a ledge
overlooking a deep abyss. It seemed to stretch
on for an infinite distance ahead of them, and
many torches lined the walls to light the gloom
all along the way.
“I’m beginning to think this place is
bewitched somehow,” Lance mentioned after
they had been walking for some time. “Perhaps
it’s not nearly as far as it would seem. Perhaps
we are just meant to think it is.”
“Do you think it’s some kind of an
illusion?” Felicity inquired. “Perhaps the whole
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thing is some sort of a test. Like a maze or a
puzzle of sorts.”
“I had thought the same thing concerning
your recent abduction, my dear,” he mentioned
as he draped an arm about her waist. Felicity
blushed for a moment, and then slipped an arm
around him as well.
“What do you mean?” she inquired as
she rubbed his arm with the side of her face, and
inhaled softly to catch his scent.
“Well, if your theory about all these
dragons rings true, then Amaranth has had
plenty of time to devise a plan on how to deal
with the contenders,” he pointed out. “That
being said, it would make perfect sense for her
to send out a dragon to snatch you. She could
then determine how brave you are, or my
heroism, for that matter, as I was trying to come
after you.”
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��s Eye
“Yes, but what has that to do with this
current fix?” Felicity wanted to know. “There
are no dragons chasing us now.”
“This may be some test of our
intelligence,” he pointed out. “Maybe there is
some sort of hidden passage, or perhaps the way
in is simply to go back to the beginning. Who
knows?”
“But why would the way in be back at
the beginning?” Felicity asked. “That would be
somewhat pointless when there’s an entire
mountain to traverse, and more than one level
could easily come into play. Perhaps it’s much
more likely that the way in is either up or down.
We’re dealing with a race of flying creatures,
remember?”
“Ah, yes, you’re right. So then perhaps
we must stop thinking with a non-flying
mentality,” Lance agreed, giving her a bit of a
squeeze. “An excellent point, my girl.”
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“Maybe we should use our wands to fly
up or down and examine the walls,” Felicity
said. “You could go up while I go down, or the
other way around.”
“No more splitting up, love,” said Lance
firmly. “That’s how we got into this fix to begin
with. We will begin by going up, and if that
doesn’t work, we’ll go down. We can zigzag our
way along till we come across something.”
“Sounds like a lot of work, but it makes
the most sense,” Felicity agreed. Soon the two
put the plan into action, meticulously persisting
until they found what they sought.
“A secret door,” Felicity said, not at all
surprised. “And at the bottom, as I had
expected.”
“Yes,” Lancelot agreed. “But what does
it mean?”
“It means that we should take a rest and
have something to eat,” she said.
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“I think we ought to get some rest, too,”