by Wayland Drew
At the same moment they both realized that while they had been talking the air had grown cooler, the sun less bright. The edge of a dark full moon had begun to blot out the sun, and an unnatural twilight descended upon the hills and downs. The birds cried out in soft alarm.
“Do you know what that means?” she asked, taking his hand and turning back with him toward the Blight.
“What?”
She replied matter-of-factly, drying her eyes on the back of her free hand. “It means,” she said, “that someone is going to die.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
The birds followed them. The heron rose with a sweep of its great wings and passed low above them, its head extended, its gaze fixed on a distance they could not see. For a time the falcon also circled overhead, its shrill and lonely calls falling like splinters of a shattered benediction. Then both passed on, and only Gringe was left to keep them company; Gringe, drifting softly amidst the trees, chuckling irritably while he waited for them to catch up.
The eclipse deepened.
They were breathless when they reached the crest of the hill, but they began to run down the eastern slope. The Blight became visible, a dark presence, behind the bushes on their left, and very soon they were in it. They left the tree line and began to climb the dark slope toward the dragon’s lair. The last of the pale sunlight transformed the hillside. Always before Galen had viewed the Blight on overcast days, when the slopes had been dull with diffused light. But now, the weird sun threw individual boulders and crevasses into relief and brought their colors to baleful life. They were dark—browns and grays—and nothing lived among them except the occasional furtive lizard, flicking his tongue at the approach of the humans and vanishing instantly. The rock itself was earthen brown on the flanks, covered with a velvet coating which could be mistaken for fine moss, except that it was dragonslime, laid down over the years, gleaming now like pale film. Galen shuddered to feel his shoes slip on it. Still gripping Valerian’s hand, he pulled her stumbling along over the uneven surface. Alternatively, he was convulsed with horror at the prospects of what lay ahead and exhilarated at what he knew might be, if only . . .
The mouth of the cave gaped above. They clambered up the last incline, slipping in scree that rolled into little avalanches beneath their feet, grimacing as they passed the charred and fly-blown thing that had been Jacopus. Then they were on the ledge, peering into the gloom of the lair. This time Galen wasted no time calling the name of Vermithrax. The last thing he wanted was to let the dragon know of his approach if it were lurking below, and he raised a warning finger to his lips as Valerian started to speak to him. Quickly he dropped his pack, opened it, and pulled out the pouch of ashes. Then he went forward. He did not pause, not even long enough for his eyes to grow accustomed to the gloom, but hurried down into the foulness of the passage.
In fact, there was no need for silence and caution. Vermithrax was not below. Restive, nagged by its neck wound, lured out by the false twilight, the dragon had taken flight over the scorched land. It had met no opposition, encountered no challenge; yet it felt a deep unease, a threat that caused it to sweep in a broad circle as far west as Heronsford and to pass searching three times directly over the Blight itself, before lifting away toward the southeast. The first of these circling passes occurred moments after Galen and Valerian had entered the cave; indeed, had Galen hesitated instead of hurrying Valerian inside, the thin shadow of the dragon would have drifted over them. Even so, they were close enough for the dragon to sense them, to veer slightly, to resolve to make only a very short reconnaissance . . .
Inside, his eyes still unaccustomed to the gloom, Galen almost stumbled upon the bodies of Elspeth and the dragonets. He had forgotten to warn Valerian about this horror, and she barely suppressed a scream when she saw it. Fists pressed into her mouth, wide-eyed, she shrank away.
“Sorry,” Galen whispered. “Yes, it’s Elspeth. I meant to tell you.” The walls amplified his whisper. I meant to tell you. “Come around this way.” He beckoned to her and then hurried on, down toward the Lake of Fire. By the time Valerian had recovered and edged past the corpses, he was out of sight.
“Galen! . . . Galen!” But there came no answer except the echoes, Galen . . . from both the passageways that forked, right and left, ahead of her. The walls glimmered. Something soft and wet scurried across her instep. She thought, unable to rid her nostrils of the stench of the place, that she would be violently sick. She had determined to go with Galen wherever this strange, last compulsion might lead him, into the very teeth of Vermithrax if necessary; but now her resolution faltered. She saw those teeth moving in the shadows of the walls. Ahead, around the corner, she heard the sibilance of leather wings. When something else covered her foot, something heavy and cold and pulsing, she cried out and fled back toward light and air, toward the reassuring green of nature that lay beyond the Blight. She arrived on the ledge sobbing with relief.
The eclipse was almost total.
Above the dim land, three miles to the south, Vermithrax turned toward home.
Deep inside the tunnel, Galen was oblivious to her absence. The pouch of ashes he bore like a grail in both hands at chest level. Down he went, entranced, past the niche from which he had lunged with Simon’s lance, past damp walls and the alert eyes of newts and salamanders, down, down, toward the Lake of Fire where pale shapes moved beneath the surface. Soon, reflected flames summoned him. He rounded a corner, then another, and there it lay. Groups of flames danced on the surface, now blending, now separating. Under the vaults, other arms of the lake stretched away to unknown and sepulchral regions. Ahead, the stepping stones beckoned him. Under and around them moved abysmal shapes. To do what must be done, he would have to walk out on those stones and be as vulnerable again as he was when Vermithrax had come before. Where was Vermithrax? Galen peered into the gloom, squinting against the vapors rising from the lake and, although he saw nothing of the dragon, he could not rid himself of the feeling that he was being watched. The skin moved on the insides of his thighs and on his buttocks; but there was no turning back. He stepped from the muck at the water’s edge—his shoe making a small reluctant sound as he did so—to the first of the stones.
Something trembled; he could not be sure whether it was merely the flat stone, or whether it was the ground beneath the stone, but something had definitely moved. He took the step to the next stone, and then to the next. Still no Vermithrax. He had, he thought, been standing at exactly this spot when the dragon had risen before. Could it be . . . was it possible that the lance had in fact struck deep, inflicting a mortal wound? Could it be that Vermithrax was sinking into death even now, curled in some remote crevasse? As if in mockery of this thought, the ground trembled again, and concentric ripples shimmered on the lake’s surface.
Hands shuddering, forcing himself to move deliberately, Galen untied the thongs on the packet containing Ulrich’s ashes. He extended the pouch arm’s length, holding it while he searched for the precise Latin, and then flung the contents in a wide arc. “Nunc magister reverti iubeo! Ulrich appropinqua!”
The ashes drifted in a falling band, reflecting the flames; as the first of them touched the water, the earth quivered again, nor did the trembhng cease till they had dispersed amidst the circles of flame.
Holding his breath, Galen had watched their descent. But aside from the tremor and the fact that the shapes in the dark water suddenly congregated and then, just as suddenly, sank from sight, there was no change. For a moment his arm remained extended; then it fell to his side. Nothing. So he had been wrong again, and the vision that he had had was simply a whim, the delusion of a romantic child.
Then suddenly a small whirlwind appeared on the surface. Drawing all adjacent flame into its vortex, it spun ever faster, soon rising into an undulating pillar four feet high. Then, broadening funnel-like, the top grew denser and more stable, slowing while the bottom of the little tornado gathered speed. Even as Galen watched in astonishment and growing excitement, the thi
ckening at the top took on a distinct shape. A man was reclining on this spiraling column of fire, reposing in complete tranquility even as he had on his funeral pyre.
Ulrich!
Galen could now see that it was definitely the old sorcerer—the white beard, the familiar stern brow, the disheveled purple gown. “Ulrich!” he cried, clapping his hands. “You did it! You did it!” His cries echoed in the cavern, Ulrich, Ulrich.
The figure on the column moved. His hands lifted and lightly massaged his temples in the manner of a man with a ferocious headache, and then he touched a finger to his lips and moved a slow, quieting hand in Galen’s direction. “Shh,” he said. “Don’t shout.” Very slowly he turned and tipped upright until he was standing on a flagstone only a few feet from Galen. His eyes opened. He lifted a finger. “That Latin you just used, Galen . . .”
“Yes, Magister?”
“Appropinqua. Rather pretentious, wasn’t it? Why not a simple veni? You were always erratic, Galen. Always.”
“Yes, Magister.” Galen was weeping with disbelief and joy.
“Galen, did you bring food?”
“I . . . I’m sorry, Magister.”
“Hm. Oh well, no time anyway. But you were improvident, Galen, weren’t you? Always. Running around laughing and enjoying yourself. Living for the moment. But you were bright. Flashes of insight. You had the Talent. That’s why you’ve brought me, and not Hodge. Correct?”
“Yes, Magister. You see . . .”
Ulrich again waved the quieting hand. “It’s a long story, isn’t it?”
“Yes sir. You see . . .”
“There’s no need to tell it, Galen. I know it all. In fact, there’s no time to tell it.” He stepped onto the farthest of the stepping stones, and behind him the spiraling funnel dissolved back onto the surface of the lake. “Are you sure you have no food?”
“Yes sir, quite sure.”
“Hmm. Pity. I’m very hungry. Famished, in fact.”
He peered around the cavern. It all seemed to be familiar to him—the tunnel ascending from the world above, the faintly flickering lake, the vaults and arches that stretched into interminable recesses. For several seconds, his attention was caught and held by something upward, at the roof of the cavern and beyond. Ulrich stared grimly at this area; as he did so, his shoulders straightened, and his white beard lifted and protruded challengingly. Then he nodded slowly. “Yes.” He spoke so softly that Galen scarcely heard him, and yet his whisper echoed into the farthest recesses of the cave. “Yes. It’s time.” For a moment Galen believed—although it might have been only the effects of the ceaseless echoes, of the susurrations of the lake—that there came a sigh of consent, a shuddering exhalation. Ulrich heard it too, for again he nodded.
“Come,” he said, turning stiffly to Galen. “Come, my boy. It’s very close, now. We must be on the surface. Give me your arm! I forgot my stick.” Leaning on Galen, he turned his back on the lake and started up the sloping corridor. Although he moved slowly, his step was light and ten years younger. Galen kept glancing anxiously at him. He was filled with both anticipation and foreboding. He had seen such light in other eyes, in the faces of young knights, Saxon and Briton, who had passed Cragganmore on their way to distant conflicts, stopping to take a meal and a flagon of mead, to rest awhile and then go on. They had never returned, none of them. The purpose that had moved them contained their own destruction, and the knowledge of that destruction. They knew that they would die, and it made no difference. For a little time they lived intensely, and their radiance had suffused the lives of all around them. So now, with Ulrich. It seemed to Galen that this journey to the mouth of the cave, which even now he could see ahead, was a short life; and yet, if there was anything the old sorcerer had taught him, it was that life and death, the two partners, journeyed always together, and that the one was eternally born from the other.
When they came to the place of slaughter, Ulrich cast a single pitying glance at the body of Elspeth and the corpses of the dragonets. He did not pause. Death, his glance said. Decay and transformation. Good and bad together. In fact, Galen believed for a moment that the master had spoken, although Ulrich said nothing until they were only a few paces from the cave’s mouth. Then he stopped. Beyond, in the almost complete dusk lay green and tranquil hills. Looking at these hills, not at Galen, Ulrich asked, “Do you have the amulet?”
“Yes, Magister.” Galen removed the talisman from his neck and placed it in the old man’s outstretched palm. Still gazing at the pastoral green of the far hills, Ulrich closed his fingers and smiled.
At that precise moment, outside, Vermithrax crossed the southern edge of the Blight and, losing altitude, becoming indistinguishable from the hills behind, it saw Valerian alone on the ledge of its lair. Its spines rose. Hot phlegm gathered in its throat. Its mouth opened fractionally. Its descent was perfect and almost silent, except for the smallest whistling of wind on scaly encrustations and the protruding splinters of the lance haft in its neck. It was a hundred yards away; its mouth opened wider.
At that moment Galen and Ulrich emerged from the cavern and Valerian, her back to the approaching dragon, saw horror on their faces.
Later she would be unable to say what she actually heard first, the whistling descent or the raucous cry of warning. She heard both, and both caused her to whirl and look into the very jaws and glowing eyes of the dragon. She was so close that she could see in those eyes what Melissa had seen and what generations of other Chosen had seen, so close that she saw the gout of flame that would envelop her already forming, a bright spiral, deep in the creature’s throat.
But that flame never reached her. The shrill cry of warning had been uttered by a white bird that, by the time she had spun around, had plummeted to within inches of the dragon’s face, claws extended.
“Gringe!” Galen’s shout mingled with Valerian’s shriek and with the roar of the dragon as it veered to protect its eye, sending a lash of fire spattering into a thousand globules down the hillside.
“Gringe!”
Carried past by its momentum, the raven turned and looked at them, crying again, a long cry of terror and triumph and farewell. Then the dragon twisted, lithe as an airborne snake, and caught its small tormentor with a lick of flame. There was a puff of smoke and Gringe vanished; what was left, tumbling to the boulders where Jacopus already lay, was a charred lump, trailing a black wisp.
“Here!” Ulrich commanded Galen and Valerian. “Come to me!” As the dragon whirled over the Blight, preparing another assault, he gathered the two young people to him, embracing them with astonishing strength. “Do not be afraid.” His eyes turned upward. He muttered a charm which Galen had never heard before, and they rose.
They rose effortlessly. Airborne, they saw the Blight begin to revolve beneath them faster and faster, until it was spinning in a dizzying whirl. Valerian screamed, but Ulrich’s arm clasped her firmly to his side, and Ulrich’s calm words soothed her. “All is well, my child. Our journey is very brief.”
A moment later the whirling slowed and ceased. They found themselves on the highest crag, overlooking the Blight, overlooking the river and the village. Vermithrax was far below, circling, rising.
The eclipse was complete.
“There is something you must do,” Ulrich said. “A final service.” His arms were still around them. His eyes glittered like crystals.
“Anything, Master.”
“You have borne the stone well and you have kept it safe.”
Galen hung his head, but Ulrich went on, shaking his head slightly.
“But you know that you are not a sorcerer. Not now. Perhaps the fault is mine. You are many other things. You are brave, and kind, and generous, and pure of heart. But you are not a sorcerer. You are not One with this stone, as I am. You have the Talent, and someday, perhaps, in another place, another time . . . But my time is now, mine and the stone’s. You must help, Galen.”
The sun was a circle of beads around the darkene
d moon. Time had stopped. The Blight lay dark and silent. Vermithrax rose inexorably, neck arched in challenge, on its mighty wings.
“How, Magister?”
“Take the stone. Here. There will be a moment when you must destroy it utterly and forever. You must release into me that power which my ancestor placed in it at its creation. You will know the moment. You must act while there is life yet in me.”
“But . . .”
“No! No questioning. No thought! You must! It is my command!”
As he spoke he detached himself from Galen and Valerian and waved them to the safety of a nearby crevasse. Then he strode to the edge of the precipice and his voice rang like a benediction across the Blight and far out to the fear-ridden villages beyond. “Know the time! Peace be with you now, forever!” He poised on the very extremity of the ledge.
The dragon had climbed in wide spirals. Now it turned, not in the convulsion with which it had attacked Gringe, but in an incredibly graceful movement. For an instant it seemed suspended; the head tilted down toward Ulrich, and the body followed. The body stretched to a lean arrow guided by wings almost folded. Clearly, Vermithrax did not intend to kill Ulrich by fire; it meant to seize the sorcerer and lift him triumphantly aloft. Even the twin sickle claws on the edges of its wings stretched eagerly for him and almost sank into him—would have done so, had not the magician flung out his folded arms as if to push the dragon back and away. Galen could not hear what he said; the words were drowned in the rushing of Vermithrax’s wings and Valerian’s screams as she cowered beside him, pressing her face against the rock wall. But Vermithrax uttered a scream of pain and missed almost entirely on this first pass; one talon snagged the shoulder of Ulrich’s gown and tore a strip of it away. It fluttered like a pennant as the dragon rose again, and then drifted free and down, to be lost amidst the boulders of the Blight.
Ulrich remained poised on the brink of the cantilevered ledge, his palms-out gesture changed now to two raised and defiant fists. He had not flinched from the claws. He continued to shout even as the dragon retreated and rose again, and Galen heard in those shouts the exultant defiance of a young man testing his power for the first time. He wanted to scream, Kill it, Ulrich! Kill it! You don’t need the amulet! But he said nothing. He was not sure that he believed that. Ulrich, though staunch, was very frail, while the dragon seemed to have drawn strength from pain; it was darker, leaner, larger.