Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon)

by Appleton, Scott

  “Please! Release me from this curse!” Auron screamed and rolled on the ice.

  Cromlin warbled a laugh. “This ice shield will render you perfectly invisible on your journey. And it will continue to burn as long as you remain in Subterran.” The creature straightened its course, slid to the pinnacle. Two of the sentinels descended from their perches and shoved Auron toward their king. “There is a secret I wish to share with you, fallen one. For I was in this world long before you, and I remember the war of the prophets and the wizards. When it ended, the prophet’s great city lay buried, yet, as you said, Valorian sleeps there still. Go now to the ancient portal through which Letrias sent his minion. Until you pass through the portal, the ice shield will burn your skin.”

  The traitor screamed as Cromlin scooped him in one fin and shoved him toward the ice pinnacle. Water streamed from the skeel’s nostrils. The water struck the pinnacle, and a tunnel opening appeared at the pinnacle’s base.

  Specter slid down to the ice floor. His heart pounded as he raced across the vast floor and drew near the mighty creature. Cromlin had said that Valorian slept in the Hidden Realm. Was it true? If so, he prayed that age had conquered the ancient dragon wizard. Over a thousand years ago, Specter had fought against Valorian, and the dragon had beaten him. It now appeared that Auron wished to take on the mantle of the Grim Reaper. Specter shuddered at the thought, for he knew it had long ago been rumored that Valorian had created the Grim Reaper. But why was Cromlin helping Auron in his quest?

  Specter stayed out of the path of the water skeel’s green eyes, skirted behind it, and grasped the edge of the tunnel with his ice fingers. Too small for a full-grown water skeel, the tunnel dropped like a drain into darkness.

  “Here is your exit, little wizard.” Cromlin tossed Auron into the tunnel.

  Without a moment to ponder, Specter slipped into the tunnel. He plunged into darkness feetfirst, landed on more ice, and slid without any sense of direction. The terrified, angry screams of the traitor rang back to him, and behind him the ice tunnel entrance iced over.

  Specter shot out of the ice tunnel into blinding daylight. But as his eyes adjusted, a green lake spread before him surrounded by hills laden with trees. A butterfly danced on a warm breath of air, and from a nearby bush a bird twittered. A frog croaked.

  Dropping to his knees in the soft earth, he smiled up at the blue sky. Normalcy at last! He raised his arms, but his ice hand melted, forming a puddle on the ground, and his scythe drooped, then cracked apart. It fell into a hundred ice fragments, and his merry spirits fell.

  A short distance away from him stood Auron, crying. The traitor could not see Specter, for he was still invisible. Auron shivered inside his ice armor, which glistened in the daylight.

  Striding to the lake’s edge, Specter knelt and cupped his hand under the water. He blinked and submerged his stub of an arm and looked down. Out of the water he raised a new hand of ice. Closing his eyes, he envisioned the scythe and submerged his ice hand. His fingers closed over something firm, and he opened his eyes, raising a transparent green scythe from the lake. Drops of water fell from it as it solidified. He stretched out his new fingers, flexed his new fist. It worked and felt strangely warm.

  Auron cried out, and Specter shifted his attention to the man. The traitor’s body shimmered and blurred. As the traitor gazed in the opposite direction, Specter willed his cloak to render him visible. As he shifted into the visible spectrum, Auron vanished.

  So, the water skeel’s gift will truly hide thee, my fallen apprentice—hide you from all eyes except mine and God’s.

  Perhaps Specter should have reached out, closed the short distance between them, and slain him. But if he followed Auron, the traitor would lead him to Valorian. Specter gritted his teeth, then smiled. “I will be the angel of death to you, my fallen apprentice,” he whispered. “And to Valorian you will lead me, so that I may exact justice upon his head as well.”

  17

  SWAMP GUIDE

  As the viper slipped around her arm and slithered to her neck, Oganna accepted Whimly’s invitation to eat breakfast. “Please, if you will, have a seat, Oganna. I will call your companions.” He disappeared into the other room and returned with Caritha and a sleepy-eyed Ombre.

  Whimly pulled out a chair and gestured for Caritha to take it. The seat had no legs; rather, it was woven like an upside-down basket. Caritha sat, and Oganna could tell that Ombre felt cheated, for he had been a step behind their host. But her uncle put a finger to his lips, signifying he didn’t want the Art’en to know.

  They sat down and ate a most curious porridge made of wild oats and interspersed greens from the swamp. The porridge tasted delectable, and she took three helpings. Ombre, she noticed, took five. On the more cautious side was Caritha, eating slowly and taking a second and smaller helping.

  The gentle wheezing in her ear affirmed her suspicion that the viper had again fallen asleep. Its tail started to slide off her shoulder. She pushed it back into place so that the creature would not fall.

  Whimly Janvel was more than a little taken with Caritha. They conversed about the weather and the food, told one another a bit about themselves, and smiled all the while. “You have four sisters? All almost identical to you?” Whimly crooned, “Perhaps one of them is looking for a husband?” He wagged his head at Ombre. “Lucky you are, sir, to have so—so exquisite a wife.”

  The color ran to Caritha’s cheeks and drained from Ombre’s. They stuttered for a few minutes until the Art’en’s eyes darted between them and a puzzled expression filled his face. Finally Ombre managed to make him understand that he and Caritha were not married, and the creature leaned back, though with a quizzical frown. He shifted his gaze between them, and then turned to Oganna.

  “They are playing games with me,” he said.

  “Oh no, Whimly! They wouldn’t do that. They really aren’t married.”

  He frowned still deeper. “Lovers then?”

  She smiled and peeked sideways at her aunt. The woman kneed her under the table as if to tell her to hold her tongue, yet she couldn’t resist the urge and felt the need to tease them. “Hmm, I’m not sure, Whimly. Sometimes I think not, but at other—”

  “Ah, yet I am sure that my eyes have not deceived me. Either they are, or they will be.” With a broad grin he slapped Ombre hard on the shoulder. “And you are a lucky one—whether admit it you do, or you don’t.” Suddenly he gripped his head in both hands and closed his eyes, cringing as if in pain.

  Oganna rushed to his side, and her companions did so too. “Whimly! Are you all right?” She felt his forehead. It was normal, no temperature.

  Whimly’s gray head tilted back and his eyes opened, though they appeared to stare at nothing, as if he was seeing something that they could not. His hands dropped to the arms of his chair, and he clung to them until the knuckles on his fists showed white. His wings spread to their full span. Speaking in dark tones, he voiced what could have been nothing less than a prophecy.

  “Beware, O daughter of the great dragon, for thy bed will be prepared in the dark places of the world, and you will sleep where you do not wish it. In a day of flame and water, you will be powerless and none will save you. Beware, for—should time be allowed—you will be lost in the tapestry of history. And where you are, only One may follow.”

  As his eyes returned to normal, the Art’en fastened his gaze on Caritha, and though she could not explain why she believed him, Oganna did. “That was for you, dear lady.” Whimly seemed dazed. When they asked him to elaborate on the prophecy, he could not. “The foretelling is not something I am able to recall, nor is it something I can repeat,” he said. “Trust that God means for it to help you. Yet, for your sake I wish that I could elaborate on this, for then you would know what to do when the time has come.”

  Having finished the thing he wished to say, Whimly Janvel stood and showed them back into the other room, which he called his parlor. Oganna offered to clean the table, but he woul
d not allow it. “We do not need the table until noon, so what good would it do to clean it now? Let it be! We will clean it then.”

  Settling into a fur-covered bench, Oganna found it easy to forget Whimly’s dire prophecy and her nightmarish experience of the day before. But Whimly brought up the subject. He pulled a reed out of his pocket and chewed on it, then offered some to his guests. One sniff and they admitted it smelled too swampy for their taste.

  “This swamp has been my home for a long time,” the Art’en began, “and I know it like the feathers on my wings. These waters are strange and unpredictable, constantly changing in depth and varying greatly in temperature from one pool to the next. Currents run fast, and then slow, and the creatures are unlike any I have found elsewhere in Subterran. Take, as an example, the Aquagiant you faced. Fierce creature, nearly killed all of you; it is accustomed to burying its victims alive in the swamp slime and then eating them later. Its blubbery arms grow as long as its body and can heal themselves rapidly after most any injury. Only one weakness, it has, and that I have learned to take advantage of. Its eyes, having no lids, are vulnerable. Yesterday I poked the Aquagiant’s eyes to free you.”

  Ombre sat on the bench opposite Oganna, stretched his legs, and spoke through a yawn. “How many of those creatures are there?”

  “I have found ten of them. Yet I am certain there must be others, for the swamp is quite large.” Whimly sat beside her, and Caritha sat with Ombre. The Art’en pulled a fur from beside the bench and threw it over their legs. It was a very soft fur, white, and she thought it might have come from a bear. “There is another one of these to your right,” he told Ombre as he pointed to the floor. Ombre thanked him, picked it up, and laid it out for him and Caritha.

  Whimly talked then, for hours, about the “Swamplands.” He told them that unless they wanted to end up getting killed, they should turn around and go back the way they’d come. “The way to the mountain is littered with crocodiles, eels, and poisonous snakes. But worst of all there are two giants, a man and a woman, that waylay anyone daring to pass through the heart of the swamp.”

  “Giants?” Ombre drew his sword and balanced its hilt in his lap while eyeing the blade. “We’ve dealt with their kind before, and, believe me, they are no match for the three of us.”

  Nodding his head, Whimly continued. “Oganna told me a little about what happened in Burloi—and I commend your deeds in that place—however, the giants I am speaking of are not merely twice the height of a tall man. These giants are taller than that Aquagiant.” He lifted his eyebrows for emphasis. “Getting past them is not a simple matter of putting up a good fight.”

  “Whimly, you know the Swamplands better than any of us. Couldn’t you show us the way?” Oganna smiled as he shot a glance at her, and she read his startled face.

  “Would not be wise—it would not be wise,” he said.

  She leaned toward him. “Why?”

  “There are too many risks, particularly for women folk. Look what happened with the Aquagiant. The next time you might not come out alive.”

  She stood and went into the room where she’d woken. Avenger was lying in its sheath with her other things in one corner. “Whimly,” she said as she returned, strapping the weapon to her side, “have you ever seen a sword such as this?” Not waiting for him to respond, she drew the blade.

  The Art’en jumped as the blade glowed crimson and clothed Oganna in the silver garments. His jaw dropped and he stared. “I have not seen something so marvelous in a very, very many years.”

  “I call it Avenger,” she said. “You have no need to fear for me. The Aquagiant caught me unprepared, but that will not happen again. This sword is an extension of the power in my blood—my dragon blood.”

  “Dragon blood?” The Art’en stood with a deep frown and stared down at her. “Is this a work of God, young lady? Or of some sorcerer?”

  “No, you misunderstand,” she said, placing her hand on her chest. “I am the descendant of a dragon. And believe me when I tell you, there is nothing evil in that dragon’s blood.”

  He relaxed his stance and sat again. “Then my mind is at peace. Though you had me confused for a moment. Goodness in your heart I saw, and I thought purity—a rare and valuable combination.” He pressed his hands together, forming his long fingers into a pyramid. “Tomorrow, then, I will guide you,” he said decisively. “Be ready to leave after breakfast.”

  Whimly spread his wings and swooshed through the humid air to the base of the tree. It was a long fall, but he made it appear easy. Oganna stepped through the door and exited the Art’en’s nest. Wood slabs, nailed to the nearest tree’s trunk, permitted safe passage to the swamp below. According to Whimly, he had constructed this makeshift ladder as a precaution, in case he ever hurt himself and could not fly into his home.

  Descending with care, she put one foot below the other until she made her way to the tree’s base and stood beside Whimly. Caritha and Ombre soon joined them. “Come.” Whimly grabbed their backpacks from where he’d piled them and helped them put them on. “We have the day ahead of us and much distance to cover, and you don’t want to be caught out here at night. There are nocturnal beasts that would love to prey on you.”

  Jumping from one dry mound to the next, the party made steady though slow progress. Whimly had told the truth about the abundance of creatures in the Swamplands. There were several times when Oganna, Ombre, and Caritha slipped and disturbed the placid water’s surface. Immediately a dozen or more crocodilian creatures would pop up, jaws snapping ferociously. Every time, the Art’en pulled them to safety and warned them to watch their footing more carefully.

  The deeper they journeyed into the Swamplands, the more difficult it became to navigate from one dry spot of ground to the next. The exposed tree roots, covered thickly with moist moss, proved treacherous as well. Overhanging vines became difficult to distinguish from the many varieties of snakes that hung from the trees. They encountered two more Aquagiants, but this time Oganna was prepared. She drew Avenger and stabbed the blade into one of the creature’s eyes. It slid back into the water, and she threw her boomerang at the other giant. The boomerang carved one of the Aquagiant’s eyes, and it, too, sank back into its slimy bed.

  “I am beginning to think there is no way we will be able to move thousands of men, women, and children through this place,” Ombre said. “Perhaps we should turn around. We need to search in another direction.”

  “What direction?” Oganna asked. “North of the Hemmed Land is Burloi, and south is Resgeria, while eastward is the vast uncharted Sea of Serpents. At least if we continue in this direction and find a suitable land for resettlement, we can skirt around to the south through the desert.”

  “Perhaps,” Ombre said, though he sounded doubtful.

  About midday they reached what Whimly referred to as the “heart of the Swamplands.” Here they found more solid ground. Streams of clear water wove into the murky swamp water, surrounding islands lightly populated by large oak trees.

  Lights flashed in the streams—lightning under the water. Oganna held on to the sturdy trunk of an oak and craned her neck to see what caused the flashes. Zipping through the current with blinding speed were countless blue-green eels, their bodies blinking on and off as though plugged into an unseen power source.

  Suddenly she felt a stabbing, paralyzing pain shoot up her legs and looked down to see the tail of one of the eels entwining around her. Knowing that to delay could mean death, she drew her sword. The crimson blade cut through the eel’s body, severing the tail like a hunk of wet cheese.

  “Uncle Ombre, I can’t feel my legs!”

  He came on the run, peeled her trouser legs up to her knees, and inspected her legs. A perfect line, drawn by some kind of teeth, circled her ankles. Greenish goo oozed from the eel’s tooth marks, and the lower half of her leg turned purple.

  “Poisonous eels,” Ombre muttered. “What next?”

  “It looks bad. I warned you to watch
out for the eels.” Whimly’s wings shivered, and he motioned for Ombre to move aside. “Let me take a closer look.” After inspecting the wound, he scratched his chin thoughtfully and roved the island on which they were until he found a small bush, laden with arrowhead-shaped green leaves. He plucked several of the leaves, put them in his mouth, and started to chew.

  A stabbing pain shot into Oganna’s upper leg, and she cringed. Her lower legs were beginning to swell. She closed her eyes against the agony. When she opened them again, she saw Whimly pluck some strange yellow berries from another plant. Still chewing, he approached her and knelt down before spitting a revolting mash into his right palm.

  “This is the only remedy I know of—it hurts like fire!” He smattered the mash on her leg, and stood up with arms crossed, watching her.

  Trillions of needles drove into her leg, and it hurt so badly that she began to cry. Ombre cleaned the bark off a stick and stuck it into her mouth. She bit it, feeling the sweat break out on her forehead as a burning sensation ran the length of her body, ending at her head. When the pain eased and she dared to look at the wound, it was running with greenish goo.

  Caritha took her hand and patted it as the last of the poison left her system. “I think Whimly’s remedy is working, but let me see if I can help.” She smiled and rested the cold metal of her rusted sword against the wound. A few teeth marks closed as the weapon resonated with light and warmth. But Caritha’s face shook. She gritted her teeth and closed her eyes with the effort. Within a few minutes the teeth marks vanished, the swelling in Oganna’s leg went down, and the color returned to her skin.