by Aaron Pogue
I saw a flicker of irritation cross Archus's face, but he paid me no more attention than that. I struggled against my bonds, but they had no give. "Wind and rain, Archus, let me go! I can help you!" Or I could run. Either way, I needed to be free.
But this time he didn't even frown. He focused all his attention on the storm above, and threw his arms high above his head. A second bolt flashed, searing across my vision, but I heard what I could not see as the dragon's spike-tipped tail lashed forward and drove clear through Archus's body. By the dragon's scream I knew that this bolt too struck true. But the soft, wet sound of the apprentice's body falling against the stone told me the fight was over. And then my bonds were gone, and I was falling.
I twisted in the air and hit the ground hard on my right shoulder. I pulled myself into a roll as I landed, tumbled several paces, and threw myself up off the ground. Still blind from the lightning strike I lurched into a sprint across the rocky ledge.
Fear clawed at my spine, at the back of my mind, and it settled cold and empty into my muscles. I tripped, stumbled three steps and barely kept my feet. My breath burned hot in the back of my throat, short and sharp, and I could feel death all around me. Distraction turned my ankle and sent me sprawling on the stones of the hillside, bloodying my face and my left hand, and I scrambled and slipped three times before I got to my feet.
And then I thought not of Archus, facing down a dragon, but of an old friend and enemy named Cooper. I remembered with a perfect clarity sneering at him and telling him he would die the first time he fought a true enemy. He would panic, and he would die. Some desperate shred of pride deep inside me refused to do the same.
I took one long breath and forced it evenly out. Discipline returned to me slowly. It was not one of the exercises Antinus had taught me, but one I'd learned myself from a battered old fencing text. I drew the fine, expensive sword from its sheath upon my hip and the cold weight of it in my hand did more than all the clever exercises to ground me in reality. In the space of three heartbeats I was on my feet again. By the fourth, I was moving at a sprint.
More of my training served me, then. Still half-blind, as much from fear as from the aftereffects of the lightning, I drew up my memory of the environment around me. I'd seen enough of it, hanging helpless in the air, and I skipped past a spill of loose stones and bounded over a fallen limb even as I heard the dragon suddenly stirring behind me.
Archus's second bolt must have done more damage than the first, and the dragon's own injuries had slowed it more than my frenzied shock had slowed me. It moved behind me now with the rustle of its great wings spreading and settling and the grinding clatter of its tail sweeping slowly across the broad rocky ledge.
I could not escape it in a rush down the hill, not as fast as that thing flew, and I had no hope of climbing higher. Instead I sprinted straight at the cliff face, trusting to a fragile memory and a desperate hope. Off to the left, near the end of the ledge, creeping vines grew up onto the cliff face and pooled against the ground, but in one spot, low against the ground, a shadow stood behind them.
I dove, even as I heard the dragon begin to pace behind me, and I prayed. My right shoulder and hip slammed against the ground, parallel to the cliff, and I twisted as I slid, stabbing my legs toward the cliff face. I braced myself against a jarring impact, but my feet tangled in the climbing vines and tore them free and then stabbed on down into the cliff.
There was a cave, almost a tunnel, little more than a pace tall and half that wide at its mouth. It was a chimney that might have reached deep into the dark heart of the mountain, but it narrowed quickly and I slammed to a stop, hips and shoulders scraping against the rough walls, ten or fifteen feet down into the tunnel.
For a moment I lay on my back in the darkness, staring up at a stone ceiling I could touch without sitting up. I gulped desperate breaths, from fear more than exertion, and I forced myself back through calming exercises until I could reason. My right arm stretched out behind me, above me, dragging the fine sword against the earth. I tried to roll that way, but a stabbing pain in my shoulder and arm told me it was useless.
I clenched my teeth against a nauseating wave of pain, took three slow breaths, then rolled the other way. I pushed myself up with my left hand, then reached out and took the sword up in that one. I pressed forward two short steps, back toward the dim light at the mouth of the cave. I settled into an awkward crouch, inched forward more, still ten feet back, and tried to see what waited for me without.
There was some small sunset light still, and it began to filter through as the sky cleared—the storm energies Archus had harnessed falling back into their natural patterns. But as I crept closer to the cave mouth, something moved across it and total darkness washed over me. Then I heard a snuffling sound, and a cruel red light appeared straight before me.
Firelight danced above and behind a long, forked tongue as slick and black as bitter blood. Around the tongue shone a double-row of teeth, razor sharp and stained with smoke and soot. Then it shifted and the beast withdrew half a pace, firelight still spilling dimly into the tunnel but far enough back that it could cast its gaze down in. The dragon stared at me. I saw myself reflected in its cauldron eye, saw it measuring, weighing, remembering its fight with Archus before.
And then the eye blinked closed. It took a little breath, and a puff of cold air washed up out of the mountain around me, sucked into the dragon's maw, and the flame went out.
Darkness fell.
I could still sense the dragon in the space above me. I could feel its massive presence, hear the clatter sounds of the great body's small motions against the graveled ground. I could not see it, though. I could not guess what it had in mind. It did not simply blast me with its flame, perhaps suspecting I could shield myself as Archus had done. I was too far back for it to reach with claws or teeth, but I thought of the spike-tipped tail that had ended Archus's life. Perhaps it would be awkward, but if the animal could position itself to sling that thing at me, I would have nowhere to go.
I raised the sword before me, steady in my fingers, and I did my best to imitate a dueling stance within the low and narrow cave. I made myself a tiny target, sideways to the dragon's position, and held the blade protecting me from hip to eye. It was remarkable how much of a swordsman's body could be protected with that narrow blade if he knew how to hold it.
But that required knowledge of his enemy's stance as well, and I was blind. I squeezed my eyes tight shut in the darkness, fighting to hold my self-control, and took deep breaths to steady anxious nerves. The darkness pressed in on me, a physical weight, and I wanted to scream my frustration.
I didn't. Instead I bit my lip and reached into my swordsman's calm to grasp at the exercises a wizard had taught me. I forced my mind to relax as my muscles were relaxed, forced my thoughts into discipline as I had trained my body. And halfway through the patterns Antinus had taught me I felt myself fall into a state of quiet self-awareness that I had never quite achieved before. I sensed a bitter weight pressing down on me, immobilizing me, and recognized it as my own fear. I reached out with my will toward that weight, cracked it, and it fell away. The thing that broke and fell was an imaginary thing, no more than a mental construct...but then, so was my real fear.
And as I broke the black weight in my mind, I felt my breath come easier. I felt my arms grow lighter. I reached out again, sensing with my new intuition, and felt the cold, inky darkness that washed around me like water. But when I reached out with my mind I found I could sense through it, feel the stone beyond, feel even the great beast looking down on me. Inside my head, I could see it.
And in that moment, for the first time, I understood. In that instant I could truly see. Just as Claighan had said I someday would, in that instant I saw the lines of forces and powers that were at work all around me. I saw the immensity of the mountain above, the durability and weight of each individual stone and the great ageless mountain in one seamless piece.
I could see the
cold power of death in my light sword, and the bright, hot flare of blood where I had scraped my hand. I saw dancing threads of air outside the cave, a gentle breeze, and felt even the distant angry magic of the storm Archus had conjured. My body was trapped in that tiny tunnel, in total darkness, but my senses reached for miles. I had always paid attention to my surroundings—more than most—but for the first time in my life I was truly aware. I felt like I was seeing the world for the first time. Everything before had been a dream, soft, ephemeral, unreliable. But this was real. I had no doubts.
In the midst of all this revelation, though, there was a puzzle. I could see the threads of air dancing around the dragon at the cave's mouth, but I could not see the dragon itself. The dragon was not simply invisible to that second sight, but a terrible well of emptiness. Where the beast's head should have been, drawn in perfect clarity before my second sight, I saw instead a deep abyss into which the light of human power had never shone, a darkness magic could not touch. I understood then what Claighan had seen, what he had known. Perhaps some edges of human workings could injure or irritate this beast, but true magic would melt within that darkness like a snowflake in a blacksmith's blaze.
But I did not need my second sight to see the dragon. Not now. Bathed in understanding, I did what I could never do at Seriphenes's command. I saw the world as it was. The mountain was real. The sky was real. But light and darkness were flimsy, oft-changing things. I could see the darkness that lay around me, but I could see too the memory of the light the dragon's flame had spilled, the traces of sunlight that came and went. I fixed in my mind the image of the cave as it could be. As I wished it to be. I extended my arm before me, the blade held high, and commanded, "Light!"
And it was. A light flared to fill the cave and I saw in perfect clarity. There above me was the dragon, still staring down, watching me with the patience of ages. It hissed in fury at the sudden flare of light, and I remembered what Archus had done before. I felt a great thrill of accomplishment as the beast's head pulled back, open wide in an angry growl—
And then I had a plan. Still in that awkward crouch, still with my sword in the wrong hand, I braced my foot against the cave floor, tightened my grip on the hilt of that perfect weapon. I pressed up, sliding my forward foot along the stone floor an inch at a time, then dragging my right foot after. The dragon came close again, and I saw the fire kindle once more in the back of its maw. I made another little advance, sweating in a sudden heat, and forced myself to hold a fighting calm. I took one slow, measured breath. I forced it out. And with a final prayer, I lunged.
It should have been perfect. I came so close. The dragon never expected any physical threat from me, pinned and puny as I was. I fixed my eyes on the soft, blue palate at the top of its open mouth and shoved my heavy blade forward and up. But my back foot planted for the lunge and then, just as I threw my weight, my boot slipped against a smear of my own blood that I had left upon the stone.
And there was no room in the narrow tunnel for even that much error. My right foot lost its grip and my left foot extended too far. Even as the tip of Othin's blade struck true—I felt the shock as it parted tender flesh—even then I knew it was not the deathblow I had hoped for.
Before I had time for disappointment, my knee buckled and I crashed to the stone floor. I landed hard against the thick, scaled jaw of the beast. My extended arm was in its mouth, and as I came down my own weight ripped my arm open against the beast's double-row of teeth. My flesh tore open from shoulder to wrist. Blood gushed into the beast's open mouth, and I screamed in pain and terror.
In a moment of strange clarity, I watched a single, immense drop of the dragon's black blood pool on the pommel of my sword, and then it fell against my open wound.
In that instant my world exploded in fire, overwhelming every pain I'd ever known. Scrambling, frantic, I pushed away with my good arm, trying to get free, but already I felt the sulfurous poison of its blood coursing through my veins. I don't know when I stopped screaming, or if I stopped screaming, because the fires raging in my soul drowned out any earthly noise. I know I managed to shove myself some distance from the beast, but surely it wasn't far enough to put me beyond the reach of its wrath. In the instants before my world went black I wondered why it hadn't killed me yet. Or if it had.
* * *
When I woke an eerie silver moonlight hung in the low fog all around me. At first I thought I hadn't moved, for I was stretched out on a rock floor strewn with gravel, but after a moment I realized the soft shape beside me was the cooling form of Archus. That recognition should have brought some response, but my body was too weak and my mind too numb. I reached again for the calm I had found in two different disciplines, but both eluded me. There was nothing to push against, nothing to push away. I was adrift.
Far above me, I saw the perfect circle of the full moon riding high. I stared at it and struggled to remember. I thought of my injuries, my left arm torn to ribbons. I turned my head, and my awareness washed slowly around as though I were drunk or dreaming. I saw a scar seared into the flesh the length of my arm, a single jagged, sinuous shape from shoulder to wrist.
I remembered the sword that I had left in the dragon's mouth and felt a pang of regret. It had been a terribly fine blade. The thought skittered away, though.
I shook my head. I took a slow breath and pushed it away, but it did little to clear my head. I tried to sit up, but my body did not respond. I was too weak.
I rolled my head and looked around. Not at Archus on my left, but at the other forms that shared this plot with me. Corpses. Victims. All blackened now by the dragon's flame. I shivered at the thought and wondered how I had come to be there.
I brought you here.
The words exploded in my mind, and I screamed. I screamed until my throat protested, until I could not wheeze another breath. And even in the grips of my terror I felt a moment's strange curiosity. Behind that, as my breath ran out, I felt a deep, rolling laugh inside my head. And I felt the emotion of it, too, a giddy amusement. After a moment it subsided, and the dreadful fear flooded back into its place.
And in the silence, the same voice boomed within my mind. Who are you? What have you done? I felt the shape of the question but it was not a matter of discussion. It came like a demand, and I could no more withhold an answer than resist a tidal wave.
I answered without thinking. "I am Daven, son of Carrick, of Chantire and of Terrailles. I have fought a dragon and died." There was only silence, long and pensive, before the voice echoed through my mind again.
You have not died yet, human. First I would know what you have done to me....
I felt the thunder of its wings before the dragon slammed to earth above me. It planted two feet with talons like sickle-blades on either side of me. Its neck arced high, and its head stabbed down at me, teeth flashing. But it did not strike. It stopped far enough away to fix its massive eyes upon me, and it spoke again into my mind.
What is this treachery? How did you get into my head?
I felt the full force of the monster's hatred. It thrummed through my veins, cold and bitter, and I trembled beneath its gaze. I shook my head. "I don't know," I said. "I only wanted to live!"
The monster's laugh echoed in my mind again, and I saw fire dance in the back of its throat. You will not live, it said. And yet...I cannot kill you. There was nothing of mercy behind the words. There was fury, outrage, and it flared up in me as though it were my own. Tell me what you've done!
Again I could not resist the command, but I could not answer it either. I shook beneath the beast like a leaf in a furious gale, and after some time it relented. It pulled its head back, and after a moment withdrew a pace. I lay there panting until I could catch my breath, and then I sat up.
My gaze touched Archus then skittered away. I felt the presence of the other corpses again, and fear boiled deep in my stomach. I closed my eyes. "Why did you bring me here?"
The monster laughed inside my thoughts. I brought
you here to die. For a moment silence settled again, and I felt the weight of the creature's patient, ageless pondering. But you have done something to corrupt my mind, wizard. Something I have never seen, nor has any whose mind I have touched. And I wish to know what it is you did before I kill you.
It should have been too much for me, but somewhere within me I found a new source of strength. I felt the beast's curiosity, too, and it stirred something within my mind in answer. I should have passed out from the pain or gone blank from the shock, but instead I bent my mind to the question. I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet and looked up into the giant face of the dragon. Cautiously, but with surprisingly little fear, I reached out and touched the tip of one of those sharp teeth. I felt the enormous power of the beast crouched before me, and I shook my head in quiet admiration.
"I did not come here to kill you," I said.
It laughed again. You could not touch me.
"And yet I did," I said, musing. "I never meant to. I did not wish to challenge you at all. I only want to leave."
Then you are smarter than those you came with, the dragon said, and against my wishes my head turned and my eyes fixed on the dead form of Archus. A hole as large as my fist pierced him just below the sternum. The earth was sticky with his blood. His face was smooth and still.
"I hated him." The words formed in my mind, distant, almost curious. They held no heat now. "He was a monster." I remembered his plan, and I nodded slowly. "He used me as bait to draw you to him."
He needn't have spent the effort. I would have come hunting after his power from a hundred evenings' flight.
I had no answer for that. I shook myself, though, and pushed the gruesome sight of him away. As I did, I regained enough control to turn my head. It was not enough. I took a long step away, and then another. I walked all the way to the end of the ledge before the dragons' thoughts stopped me in my place.
I will not let you live.