“You humans are the first creatures to set foot in our caverns for years. Some of the young ones didn’t even believe humans existed—they thought you were just tales told by the elders to scare them into being good. If anything, we should thank you for giving us something to pass the time here in the darkness.”
“Well, thanks, anyway,” Sarah said, her ears still ringing from the noise of the great dragon’s speech. “We do appreciate it very much. The hospitality of the dragons will definitely be something my people hear about. I guess I’ll go inside and speak with Dax now.”
“Feel free to come and go as you please,” Azal said. “Keeley here will be watching over you, as will a few of our younger ones, just to keep any of the creepy crawlies in the mountain at bay. As for myself, I’d best track down old Grimjaw. Last I knew, he snuck up above to hunt down those trolls. I don’t know why he would, though. Mountain trolls are always so greasy. They’ll only give him indigestion, and no one wants that…” Still muttering to himself, Azal left, leaving Keeley and a couple of horse-sized dragons behind as protectors.
“Don’t worry, Sarah,” said a voice in her ear, “Keeley is a good watcher.” The dragon perched on Sarah’s shoulder.
Sarah gave her familiar friend a pat on the head. “I know,” she said. “Why would I worry when I have you around?”
With a nod to the other dragons, Sarah went inside the makeshift cottage with Keeley. Dax had sat down on a stone stool the dragons had made and begun sharpening his sword.
“Dax… can I ask you a question?” Sarah asked.
“You can ask many questions,” the old man replied. “I doubt I’ll be able to answer anything for you, though. Maybe in my younger days, before the years scattered my wits around in my empty skull. But now…” He let out a long melancholy sigh and went back to his work.
Sarah sat down on a moss-covered seat. It was much softer than she had expected and almost felt like the comfortable cushions of her chair back home.
Keeley hopped off her shoulder. The dragon had spotted a worm crawling across the cottage floor and became determined to shoo the thing out the door, as if she didn’t want her guests feeling uncomfortable.
After watching Keeley bark and snarl at the worm for a while, Sarah turned her attention back to Dax. “When I was talking to Adlin, she mentioned something about you that has me curious. She said you and I both come from outside Greystone Valley, as compared to Kay and the dragons, who were born here.”
“I admit that’s true,” Dax said. He seemed to have trouble keeping his attention on Sarah and working on his sword at the same time. He slipped with the rock he was using to sharpen the blade and hit it against his fingertips.
With a yelp, he dropped the sword and stuck his finger in his mouth. “That was to be expected, I guess. I never was very good at keeping weapons fresh.”
“Well, then, if you don’t mind me asking, where did you come from?”
Dax shrugged and didn’t look at Sarah.
“Was it anything like the place I came from?”
Dax put the blade away and folded his hands in his lap. “How would I know? I’ve never seen your world.”
“But what was your world like?”
Dax shrugged his shoulders. “Oh, it was lovely. Sunshine, rainbows, and beautiful elfin maidens. I had quite the life before I wound up trapped here.”
“That’s not what I meant. You see…”
Before Sarah could ask another question, the door opened. Kay stepped in, carrying a new walking stick but looking almost as glum as Dax.
“I see Adlin gave you a gift, too,” Sarah said.
Kay nodded but didn’t answer. He leaned against one of the hastily crafted wooden walls of the hut and crossed his arms, leaving his new staff propped next to him.
“What’s wrong with you?” Sarah asked.
“My spellbook,” the boy answered, tugging at his newly grown beard. “I’m going to have to give it up. And it’s all your fault.”
Twenty
“My fault? How’s it my fault? Why do you have to give up your spellbook, anyway? What did you and Adlin talk about?” The questions poured out of Sarah’s mouth before she even had a chance to think them through. The last thing she needed was to have her first friend in Greystone Valley carrying a grudge against her.
Kay gritted his teeth and shook his head. “It’s not worth talking about. It’s not really your fault. It’s just… something I have to deal with, I guess.”
“What are you talking about? Did you accidentally cast some spell that made you crazy or something?”
Kay didn’t answer Sarah right away. He muttered something to himself as though he were reviewing a difficult question on a test. “I’m sorry,” he said finally, shaking his head and, Sarah hoped, shaking all the nonsense out of his skull. “My talk with Adlin left me with a lot on my mind. I don’t think I’ve thought it all through quite yet.” He cleared his throat. “I think she wants to speak with you next, Dax.”
The old warrior stood up and sighed. “I don’t know why she would. I’m not likely to have anything useful to tell her. Of course, she probably just wants to eat me. I guess dragons don’t mind the tasteless old meat that’s on my body.” Still grumbling quite loudly, the old man walked through the door of the makeshift cottage and went to speak with the silver dragon.
Sarah reached up to her shoulder and scratched Keeley under the chin. “Keeley, could you go check on Azal and the others? I need a chance to talk to Kay alone.”
Keeley shifted her weight uncomfortably before taking off. “OK,” she said, “but be nice to each other. Friends fighting upsets Keeley’s stomach. She might accidentally start spitting fireballs if she gets too upset, and no one wants that, right?”
“Don’t worry,” Sarah said. “Neither of us wants to get you upset.”
As the cottage’s windows didn’t actually have any glass in them, it was an easy matter for the small white dragon to dart out through one of them. It was also easy for her to stay fairly close, so she could still hear what was going on if she tried. Still, it was the best privacy Sarah could get for the time being.
Without looking at Sarah, Kay passed a hand over the top of his staff and said a magical word. The staff made an unusual buzzing sound, and Kay held it close to his face. As he passed it by either cheek, his new beard disappeared, vanishing as though it had never been there in the first place. In less than a minute, Kay was a fresh-faced boy again, with no trace of his messy beard remaining.
“What did you do that for?” Sarah asked. “I thought you liked that thing.”
“It makes me look like I’m pretending to be a wizard. I need to give that stupid fantasy up.”
“What fantasy? Don’t you realize what you just did? You cast a spell without it backfiring on you!”
Kay blinked in confusion, not sure what to make of this new development.
“What’s the problem, exactly?” Sarah asked, crossing her arms and taking a stern tone of voice with Kay. “You come marching in here, saying you have to give up your spellbook because of me. It’s not like I’m going to take it from you. I have a book of my own now, in case you didn’t notice.”
“Look, I said I’m sorry, OK? I just got some bad news from Adlin, and I didn’t think before I spoke.” Kay gripped the top of his new staff so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“Well, I want to know why you have to give up your spellbook. You shouldn’t have to, and if someone’s going to take it from you, I’ll help you fight to keep it.”
Kay looked at the floor. “No one’s going to take it from me. But I’m still going to lose it.”
“Why?”
“Castle Greystone. We have to go to it eventually, if you ever want to make it home.”
“What does the castle have to do with your book?”
“Adlin told me some of the secrets behind my spellbook. She taught me how to read some of the spells properly, without getting the words mixed up like
I’ve been doing. But she also told me where the book came from. It’s older than my father—older than almost everything in the valley. But it’s not older than Castle Greystone. It was written by the creator of Greystone Valley, and he never meant for it to be used in the castle. So I can use it only once inside those walls, to cast the spell that will take you home. After that, the book will crumble into dust, just like the wizard meant it to.”
Both of them stayed quiet for a long time. The only sounds were the echoes of the caves outside and the occasional grumble of a dragon.
“Maybe we don’t have to go through the castle at all. Adlin showed me an underground ocean that leads out of the valley. Maybe there are other places like that. We could find one of those, and then we could have the best of both worlds. I’d get to go home, and you’d get to keep your spellbook.”
Kay shook his head. “We’d end up spending the rest of our lives trying to find the right exit. We’d both be old and gray by the time we found one, if we found one at all. But I was thinking… well… I mean…”
“What is it?”
“What if you stay here, in the valley? I mean, you’re a powerful enchantress now. You could be a hero. There are lots of adventures here waiting for you. Maybe, after a while, you’d get used to it here. Then we wouldn’t have to worry about the castle or anything else, would we?”
“But I’d miss my home and my mom and my friends.”
“Greystone Valley could be your home eventually. It’s been home to me all my life. And you’ve got friends here. Dax, Keeley, me… not to mention a horde of dragons.”
Sarah started to answer but was interrupted by a crash and a roar from outside. Keeley darted through the window and perched on the sill. Her lips curled back in a snarl, although whatever she was growling at probably had other things to worry about. The caverns shook as a number of the larger dragons charged through the caves, led by Azal himself.
“Grimjaw!” the mighty Azal shouted. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The dragons started speaking in their own language then. It was a rumbling, hissing mass of syllables that sounded to Sarah like the shifting of stones, or maybe the crashing sound at the bottom of a waterfall. She looked at Keeley questioningly, hoping her small companion could shed some light on what was going on outside.
Keeley’s eyes grew wide as she listened to the conversation. Then she flew away from the windowsill, landing on Sarah’s shoulder. He tail curled along the back of Sarah’s neck and twitched nervously. “Stay inside,” the white dragon warned, staring hard at Sarah first and then at Kay. “Bad things are happening out there.”
“What sort of bad things?” As always, Sarah was not one to sit around and guess at what was going on. “If there’s something really bad out there, we need to warn Dax. He’s still speaking with Adlin.”
Keeley hesitated, clacking her teeth together as she tried to consider the situation.
Before she responded, Sarah put her hand on the makeshift doorknob and opened the door to the caves outside.
“No, Sarah!” the dragon cried. “Listen to Keeley! There’s danger out there.”
“There’s danger everywhere, Keeley,” Kay said, following Sarah’s lead. “But we can handle it. We’ve handled everything else that’s been thrown our way, haven’t we?”
Despite the warnings of the tiny dragon, Sarah stepped out into the caves, with Kay following right behind her. Keeley, after another moment of hesitation, flew after them. Whatever danger lay outside wasn’t going to be enough to keep her from standing at her companions’ side.
A number of dragons had gathered in the enormous cavern. The roar of their argument carried down the tunnels and bounced off walls. The dragons had taken two sides, with the largest group standing behind Azal’s massive dark shape. The long-snouted Grimjaw stood in front of Azal, with only a couple of smaller dragons siding with him in whatever problem he was causing. Adlin and Dax were nowhere to be seen—they were probably somewhere down one of the long, narrow mountain tunnels.
“I should tear you to shreds for what you’ve done,” Azal shouted. The cavern shook as he pounded the ground with one of his feet for emphasis.
“You have no authority in this matter, and you know it.” Despite being much smaller than the other dragon, Grimjaw stood tall. His lips were curled into a cruel smile. Crooked fangs stuck out from the corners of his mouth. “The word of a dragon is binding, no matter what. You wouldn’t insult our honor, would you?”
“We already have three humans to keep safe, and you knew when you gave that oath that you would be putting them in danger!”
“You’re throwing around technicalities, old wyrm,” came another voice. This one was definitely not the voice of a dragon—it was the voice of a man. Grimjaw swished his tail and stepped aside, allowing Sarah and Kay to see the new visitors for the first time. She recognized both of the figures immediately and felt her arms tremble a little. She and her companions had run far across the valley and hid underneath the mountains themselves, but it seemed as useless as trying to escape a nightmare.
One of the people who had been hidden behind Grimjaw’s massive form was Aries the beast-man. He stood as tall and imposing as ever, although he didn’t seem quite so large when he was in the same room as the largest of dragons. He was now dressed in specially crafted armor that covered his arms, torso, and upper legs in black metal plates. A battle-ax that was almost as big as Sarah herself was slung across his back.
The man next to Aries drew most of the attention from the dragons around him, though. Sarah had met him only once, just before she had been tossed into his dungeon, but she recognized him immediately from his black hair and long mustache. She and Kay looked at each other and whispered the same name: “Baelan.” He had a crimson cloak draped across his shoulders now, and if he was armed, Sarah couldn’t see the weapon. He had been the one who had spoken before, and his almond-colored eyes were staring calmly at Azal.
“Technicalities?” Azal rumbled. “You dare come here into the depths of the mountains and accuse me of hiding behind words? You, who have stolen away some of our young and turned them into soldiers in your despicable army?”
“Are you saying you’ll turn away a guest? I was offered sanctuary and aid from Grimjaw here.”
“At a fair reward, I might add,” Grimjaw said. The evil dragon clacked his long teeth hungrily. “I told you, Azal, humans bring nothing but trouble.”
Azal didn’t answer, save for a growl.
“We’ve already offered aid to these humans,” came a shout from across the cave. All the dragons turned as Adlin entered the area. Behind her was Dax, wearing a suit of silver chain armor and a new sword in a black scabbard.
The dragons lowered their heads in respect as Adlin approached the scene. Even Baelan and Aries bowed slightly to her.
“I seek no quarrel with these people,” Baelan said, eyeing Kay’s book hungrily even as he spoke his lies. “My traveling companion and I were merely wandering through these mountains when Grimjaw here helpfully offered us sanctuary from the trolls outside.”
“Liar!” Kay shouted. “You’ve been hunting us across the valley. You threw us in your dungeons already, and you’ve tried to kill us more than once—all for this book!”
“I assure you, dear boy, you’re quite mistaken. I admit that I did seek that spellbook of yours at first, but something else has caught my attention recently.” At this point, Baelan stopped and looked right at Sarah. She fidgeted nervously under his stone-like gaze. “I pose no threat to you or your companions.”
“Your words ring false, or at least, mostly so,” Adlin said. All eyes turned toward the silver dragon. “None of us here believe you, and we’ve offered our protection to these three humans first. They’re here on their own merit. You, on the other hand, wouldn’t be anywhere near here if you hadn’t appealed to Grimjaw’s greed.”
Baelan looked unconcerned with Adlin’s declaration. “You’re turning me away, t
hen?”
Adlin remained silent. Sarah hoped that meant “yes.”
“Very well, then,” Baelan continued. “I’ll brave the harsh mountains and hope my sword is sharper than the teeth of the mountain trolls. And when I reach the valley proper again, I’ll be sure to tell the fey that the dragons have broken their word and have ignored the treaty of Greystone Valley in the process. Let’s go, Aries.”
The warlord turned and walked imperiously away. But he and his general didn’t get more than three steps before Adlin yelled, “Wait!”
Baelan turned around again. His mustache twitched as his lips formed into a tight smile. “Yes?”
The silver dragon glowered at the man but then sighed in resignation. “The dragons will honor the treaty of Greystone Valley. What do you want?”
“You’re old and wise, oh great Adlin of the Silver Fire. You should know by now.” Baelan pointed a claw-like finger at Sarah. She suddenly felt like she had been stabbed in the chest. “Her. I want to speak with the one called Sarah.”
Twenty-One
Sarah grabbed her wand the moment Baelan spoke, and she took a threatening step toward him. She wasn’t about to let him push her around—well, not any more than he already had, that is. Aries grinned at her and stepped forward in defense of his master. It looked like a fight was about to break out then and there. Then a roar from Adlin stopped everything.
“You’re hoping to catch us in a loophole, Baelan,” the silver dragon said. “But just as Grimjaw offered you protection here, so did the rest of us offer our aid to Sarah and her companions. Since they regard you as a threat, we have to keep you separate. It’s a big mountain. We’ll find a nice cave for you somewhere.”
Greystone Valley Page 14