Dragon's Tongue: Book One of the Demon-Bound

by Laura J Underwood

  “Well,” Etienne said. “Perhaps we should concentrate on using our energy towards getting out first?”

  “Yeah, well in order to use a gate spell, one of us will have to give essence to the other,” Fenelon said and rubbed his hand. “Which means one of us will be too exhausted to defend if those ugly spawn of Annwn are still hot for our blood. Shall we draw straws?”

  Etienne rolled her eyes. “I had something more mundane in mind,” she said. “Or can it be you haven’t noticed the draft for all your own wind?”

  He frowned at her. “Well, actually, I had,” he said and pulled his cloak tight.

  “And where there is a draft in a cave, there is usually an outside opening,” she reminded him.

  “True,” he said and pointed to the crevice beyond her light. “But the path would appear to lead down, my love.”

  “Up or down, the first order would be to get out,” she said.

  He nodded, looking perturbed at her desire to remind him of the order of importance events should take. “So what are we waiting for?” he asked.

  “I was waiting for you,” she said.

  “Me?” he said and slipped past her to start down the trail.

  “Yes, you,” she said. “I know perfectly well when to crush your ego, and when it is wiser to let you take out your aggressions on mere rocks.”

  “Nothing mere about these rock,” Fenelon said and touched the surface nearest him. “Have you tried to scry through them?”

  “As a matter of fact, I have,” Etienne said. “It is as if the stones themselves have the power to block our senses.”

  “Exactly,” Fenelon said as he picked his way along the narrow path. For the most part, it appeared smooth, almost glass-like to Etienne’s eyes, but here and there, chunks of rubble had sloughed off like old skin and littered the way. “My father once noticed it was impossible to scry into some part of the Ranges,” he continued. “That is one of the reason my father chose to explore them. He found a number of places that literally caused spells to bounce back or fail.”

  “Voids?” she suggested.

  Fenelon shook his head. “You can’t use any sort of magic in a void. Not even your own. These mountains have places that allow us to draw power from ourselves and each other, but not from the mountains themselves.”

  “Hmmm,” Etienne said. “I am suddenly reminded of one of the old Haxon stories I heard as a young girl. It told that even the gods could not know what happened within the realms of the Hidden Folk, for the mountains in which they dwelt were made of magic stone.”

  Fenelon rapped the stone nearest him as he walked along. “Weren’t the Hidden Folk supposed to be like our Old Ones?” he said.

  “With one exception. They had no love of mortalkind, and despised the Stone Folk for showing mortals the secrets of the deepest earth.”

  “Not the friendliest sort, then,” Fenelon said. “Hey, I think I see daylight.”

  “Daylight?” Etienne said hopefully.

  Indeed, she was pleased to note their path did seem to open out, and around a turn, it rose towards a growing brightness. Fenelon still had the lead, and he suddenly stopped with a curse. Etienne came up beside him and frowned.

  Well, she darkly noted to herself, it would be a way out if I had the wings of a bird. The opening revealed a deep circular valley, a sheer face of rock, and the river below. By the Silver Wheel, it looked like the mouth of a volcano. She had seen enough sketches and read enough stories of them in old Haxon Chronicles to know she was right. In fact, some of the ancient Haxon tale had told of a fire mountain in the Ranges known as the Forges of Thunor.

  This was a volcanic crater with black glass and pumice on its sheer cliffs. It must have been dormant for a long time, she speculated as she took in the breathtaking view of a forest, a river and stretches of lush open pasture. Why, there even appeared to be deer…real deer wandering the forest edge and birds.

  And then, she saw what looked like a giant wyvern with tiny figures clutched close to its chest as it flew into the heart of the valley below.

  “Oh, dear,” she said and pointed.

  “Damn!” Fenelon said. “They’re going on without us!”

  Etienne fixed him with a sharp glance. “At least, they are alive,” she said.

  “Well, yeah, but…”

  “Oh, I know what you mean,” she said and sighed. “Why are they going on without us?”

  “I bet they think we’re dead,” Fenelon said. “And—and this is just a hunch—but I am willing to bet it was Ronan’s idea.”

  “We must follow them, then,” she said. “Let them know we are alive.”

  “Fly spells need more essence than either of us can borrow from the other just now,” Fenelon said. “Well have to levitate down and work our way on foot.”

  “Or climb up and look for a trail,” Etienne said. She glanced up and realized that above them, she could see lights shimmering through the icy firmament. The ceiling of ice looker closer from here too. Sunlight sparkling from the surface? Could it be penetrating the persistent fog? Why did the lights twinkle and move.

  “Tell me I’m insane,” Etienne said and touched Fenelon’s shoulder as he knelt and peered downward over the rim.

  “I’ll tell you whatever you like,” Fenelon said, glancing up at her. He frowned when he saw her expression and followed the direction of her gaze.

  “What do you suppose those are?” she asked.

  “Mage light lanterns…” Fenlon said. “Damn them!”

  “What?” Etienne asked.

  “Turlough is up there. I can feel him from here. I would know his essence a hundred leagues away.”

  “But how could they be drawing enough power to keep such bright lights?” she insisted.

  “Lunari stones,” Fenelon said grimly. “Wish I had thought of that. They’ll have enough power to do all sorts of magic with those…Horns!”

  Oh, dear, Etienne thought.

  Turlough was a complication they did not need.

  FIFTY THREE

  “Isn’t it magnificent?” Ronan said softly.

  We’ve been here before, Alaric thought as he huddled against the demon for warmth. Vagner had sensed the need and Alaric’s discomfort, and had shifted the wyvern scales of his chest into a thick ruff of fur. While it helped, it did nothing to keep out the blasts of cold air pummeling them as they flew on. Alaric envied Shona her cloak, and lamented the loss of his own, but did not say so. She looked as cold as he felt, even huddled in the fur-lined depth.

  “Yes, we have,” Ronan said. “I brought you here when I gave you the key…”

  And just how long did you have the key before you gave it to me? Alaric thought, unable to hide his astonishment.

  Ronan chuckled. “I suppose you could say it was given to me at birth,” he said. “It was my purpose…”

  Just how old are you? Alaric wondered.

  Again, he felt the bard’s amusement flicker through him. “Older than you can imagine, Lark,” Ronan said. “My kind are immortal, in a sense…”

  Your kind? Alaric thought. Something flashed through his memory, a fleeting glimpse of Ronan with glowing eyes, and then vanished.

  “Forget those days, Lark. Yes, I am old in years, but never in heart or soul or appearance…” The words trailed of as though the humbling reality of his present situation invaded his musing. “The legacy of a mageborn’s blood—and his curse—is the sustained youth and the slow maturity they must endure. Only the petty bloodmages, who must drain life’s essence in order to stay strong and healthy, know the cruelties of aging more rapidly than ourselves.”

  But aren’t we all the same? Alaric asked in his mind.

  “Depends,” Ronan said. “True bloodmages are not descended from the Old Ones, but from the Dark Ones who were their enemies. Mageborn descended from the Old Ones can turn to blood magic, and by reputation, become known as bloodmages, but the true bloodmages like Tane Doran trace their lines back to the Dark Ones and the
Shadow Lords of ancient times. And they do not age as rapidly. Only mageborn who turn to the ways of blood magic continue to age, but they can use the magic to stave off the infirmities…”

  Alaric sighed. Marda had been full of similar lectures about how bad it was to practice blood magic, and how a mageborn needed to be true to the legacy of their blood. And that some mageborn passed on certain legacies with their bloodlines…

  Why did you give the key to the Dragon’s Tongue to me? Alaric asked.

  “In due time, you will know all, Lark,” Ronan said. “For now…” Ronan’s focus shifted, dragging his own with it. “There, that is where we need to go.”

  Alaric felt his own hand jerk in the direction without his will, and his voice spoke the words. He bit back a curse and squinted off in the distance.

  “As you wish,” Vagner said, though the demon sounded rather dubious.

  “Some say this is the Center of All Things,” Ronan said. “In truth, it is the heart of the key song. The place where the Champion of Light, the Avatar of the White One, met the Shadow Lords and brought down their goddess with the help of the Hammer Maid.”

  White One? Alaric thought. Hammer Maid? Who was the White One. In all his lore studies, he had never heard that part of the tale.

  But Ronan seemed in no mood to answer now. The landscape looked rough. It was on a domed bit of greenery in the middle, cut by a river, where the demon set them down, then reverted to true form. Alaric wrapped arms about himself, trying to stave off the cold, and turned slowly to view his surroundings. A frightening sense of familiarity whisked through his, a wind of thoughts brushing dry leaves from his mind to reveal vague memories.

  “I have been here,” Alaric whispered, not sure he trusted his mind.

  “Yes, you have,” Ronan said.

  “What is this place?” Shona asked.

  “This is where it all began, and where it all ended,” Alaric said, though he knew it was Ronan speaking through him again. “And where it will all begin and end again…A cycle that never ends…The wheel of the world and time and all that lives in it…”

  Shona fixed him with a puzzled stare. “What began here?”

  “I…I don’t rightly know,” Alaric said, pushing Ronan’s thoughts away. “But I feel like I should. Like I…”

  He paused as he felt something ancient whisper to him from the ground below. Magic called to his blood, magic more ancient than the world. He could touch it with mage sense. Feel it fluctuating. Power that had kinship to his blood. How?

  “Alaric?” Shona said, but her voice became distant, muffled behind the roar of the power that sang to him. Oh, by the Silver Wheel, he wanted to touch it. To draw it in. To revel in it. As if in response, a magic older than time rose from the soil and surrounded him. Like a living thing, it brushed against him. Teased him. Danced within his soul. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, looking at the steep rock walls and the ceiling of ice and the flow of the river from a waterfall to his left. Behind him, a vent of steam rose warm from the ground. To his right lay a vast, rich forest with the darkest loam. Rocks jutted from the ground in this riverbank, solid stone beneath his feel under the cloak of moss and lichens. And before him the base of twin mountain peaks rose from the ground above the rim to the north of the crater, casting long shadows and disappearing through the ice above. If he listened, he swore he could hear the song of the wind that ripped through those peaks that thrust like a woman’s supple breasts.

  The Paps of Shade, he thought. Those are the Paps of Shade…

  “That’s it,” Ronan said. “Let it come. Sing the song, Alaric. Know the way. Use the key. Find the Dragon’s Tongue and stop Tane from bringing back Na’Sgailean…”

  Alaric wanted to resist, but his limbs became as strangers to him. He closed his eyes, threw back his head and began to sing in the mage tongue.

  “The wind cuts through the Paps of Shade,

  Rising to the open sky.

  Behind me burns the womb of flame,

  The fire that will never cease.

  My right hand lays upon her soft breast

  As black as mother loam beneath the greenwood.

  I place my left hand ‘neath the stream

  That falls ‘ore the edge of mother’s shoulder

  She spreads her wings to blot the sun from my head

  That I may stand beneath her shadow of night

  My feet stand ‘ore the wound that mars mother’s

  Face so hard and cold wherein she waits

  She whispers a song of doom that rumbles

  For in the womb of heats flame, she will be reborn…”

  “Now, tell me what you see,” Ronan said.

  Alaric opened his eyes and looked at the twin mountains, the Paps of Shade. “Air to the north,” he said. “Fire to the south, earth to the east, water to the west, the sky above, the stone below, and I stand at the Center of All Things…”

  “And what do these mean?” Ronan insisted.

  “Who is he talking to?” Shona asked from afar, and Alaric could see she and Vagner had moved off a short ways.

  “I don’t know, but I feel something very old,” the demon replied.

  “The winds blow through the Paps of Shade. Those are the mountains where she first gave birth to the Shadow Lords,” Alaric said. “The wind now blows through the ashes of all that remains.”

  “Go on,” Ronan said.

  “The womb of flame behind me…” Alaric twisted around and pointed back towards the steaming vent. “There’s heat in the ground there, the heat in which she can be reborn…” He shifted and gestured right at the thick forest. “Earth lays that way and water…” To his left he looked at the waterfall, and then his eyes drew skyward. “She stood here that fated day when the Champion of Light and the Hammer Maid slew her, even though she tried to blot out the sun and steal the White One’s power.” He gestured below. “The Shadow Lord survived, fled into the stones below with all that was left of her. He wanted to take her to the flames, but…The Champion followed and trapped him and threw him into Annwn, before he could put the Dragon’s Tongue into the volcano. But he would not tell the Old Ones where he hid it. So the gods were forced to slay the world as it was and turnthis valley into a place of cold stone…But the magic was too much, and the world’s balance was thrown awry…the Great Cataclysm…”

  “Yes,” Ronan whispered.

  “All Tane has to do is remove her remains from that tomb and carry her to the heart of…the volcano. We’re standing over a volcano?”

  “Volcano?” Shona and Vagner both echoed that cry as they glanced around. The demon added, “Well, it would explain the smell here.”

  Alaric knelt and touched the stones with his hands. “Tane is under ground. “I can feel him. But how? How can I feel him when this place has stopped us all from sensing other things? How can I feel this magic…pull it into my hands?” He could, he knew. Even as his palms lingered on the stone, they gave him their power. He could draw essence as easily as he could outside this place. He lifted it into his hands, and it turned to white flames, brighter than any he had ever seen. Without speaking a word of magic, he manipulated it. “How can I do this?” he whispered.

  “Because, you are now the key.” Ronan said. “You are the Avatar of the White One…”

  “No!” Alaric cried.

  But he could not stop what he felt. Ancient memories melded with his. The last of the wall in Alaric mind melted as snow, sloughing away like old scales to reveal the raw truth of it all. He saw himself in those months before Ronan’s death, standing on this very spot as if in a trance, while Ronan marked the circle about them with runes. Ronan’s hands rested on Alaric’s shoulders and helped him as Alaric pulled the music out of the ground. It filled the air, a song that locked itself in his heart and soul. The thrill of its power laced him with unending joy. So much so, Alaric did not notice the cut Ronan laid across Alaric’s heart hand. Then Ronan cut his own right hand and took hold so his blood
mingled with Alaric’s. And through it all, Alaric sensed some ancient presence that drew kinship to this place from a time before man.

  “Now, your blood is in mine, and mine is in yours. Your essence is in mine, and mine is in yours. To you, I pass the key, the knowledge and the power of the Avatar who was Champion of Light. By blood we are bound, Alaric Braidwine, and by blood I make you mine. Now, remember not.”

  The memory of the walls growing in his mind suddenly made him cry out in terror and despair. Alaric dropped to his knees then, feeling an overwhelming power pull him into the earth then and spread its kinship through his blood. It drew him in the same fashion now so his limbs trembled.

  “Alaric!” Shona cried. This time, her voice came close to his ear, filled with panic. Her hands, chilled with the cold Alaric had ceased to notice as the fire white filled him, touched his face. He blinked, for the sight of her faded in and out, replaced by others. First Marda, then Ronan whose face shifted to one with hair red as copper except for a streak as pale as moonlight that burned his forelock and eyes so blue they could have been ice. Who are you? Alaric wanted to ask, but the eldritch face merely smiled and vanished, leaving a taint of cinnamon on Alaric’s tongue. Alaric closed his eyes and forced himself to focus on the here and now. Pushed away the past until his vision cleared. Shona’s face blossomed, surrounded by the ruff of thick fur lining her hood, as he opened his eyes.

  “Alaric?” she said worridly.

  He touched her cheek and smiled, and took possession of her lips, warming them. She did nothing to resist the passionate kiss. Indeed, when he let go, she smiled rather in the manner of the youth he had seen in his vision.

  “What was that for?” she asked.

  “Luck,” he said. “I think we are going to need it if we are to reach the Dragon’s Tongue before Tane.”

  Shona flushed and nodded. They rose together. “Which way?” she asked.

  Alaric pointed towards where the river cut the rock on which they stood. Close to where they were, the water was actually frozen. “Down there,” Alaric said. “The entrance is just above that patch of ice.”