by Alison Baird
Damion peered at the pool’s surface with an intent expression. “In there—I saw something move!” he shouted.
“What did I tell you?” Jomar sauntered over to the poolside. “Where? I don’t see any—”
Damion gave him a heave and in he went, with a tremendous splash. “You, you—” he spluttered, surfacing, and then the rest was lost as his mouth filled with water.
“That’s for kicking me on the ankle,” Damion explained. “Well, how’s the water?”
“Full of leeches. Hop in.”
“Now, Jo. No hard feelings, I hope?” said Damion.
Jomar swam toward the pool’s edge and gripped it with one hand, holding up the other. “No. Here, give me a hand.”
“Oh no you don’t. I’m not falling for that old trick.”
Jomar gave him a broad white grin. “I seem to recall that priests are supposed to help anyone who asks them. Give me a hand now, Reverend.”
Damion sighed and did, and joined Jomar in the pool.
“Children, children!” clucked Ana.
The water was cool and silver-smooth against the skin. Damion began to swim in long, slow strokes, the blue cloud- reflecting surface rippling around him. It was like drifting through the sky itself. An inexplicable calm came over him—more a kind of glad, embracing euphoria. He felt at once soothed and sanctified.
“Come on in, girls,” he shouted happily. “Last one in’s a rotten egg.”
Laughing, both girls plunged in simultaneously. They splashed the men, who retaliated, and in a moment a fine water-fight was in progress. There were no sides: they all splashed one another indiscriminately, laughing and shrieking.
Ana did not join in their play, but merely stooped to bathe her hands and face, and then went and sat on a stone block in the ruined temple, resting her aching feet.
“How you have changed.”
The voice came from behind her. She continued to sit still, showing no surprise, and did not turn her head as a tall cloaked figure emerged from behind the dragon statue and stood beside her. Mandrake gazed down at her, his golden eyes intent in his dead-white face. The young people played on in the pool, oblivious.
“So have you,” she remarked quietly.
“Not like you. Look at you! Old, feeble—withered like a leaf! How can you endure it? When I think of what you once were!” There was a touch of sadness in his voice.
“When one gets to a certain age,” said Ana, “one comes to realize that a body is only an encumbrance. I would just as soon pass on and leave the business of living to others.”
“I have no desire to live forever,” replied Mandrake. “I was not speaking of death but of old age: life’s last jest at our expense.”
“I cannot believe you have come all this way just to discuss such matters,” said Ana.
The golden eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Perhaps, after all, you haven’t changed so much. But it is no longer as it once was between us, Ana. You were right when you said I have changed.”
How well she knew it. His aura blazed in her mind’s vision, yet there was a shadow in it, like a spot upon the sun: a blighted brightness. A shiver of foreknowledge passed through her, a chill wind from the future.
“I want you to know what to expect from me,” Mandrake continued. “You must not suppose that I am on the side of your enemies. I have no more love for the Zimbourans—or, for that matter, any followers of Valdur—than you. The Modrian cult in Maurainia was a temporary convenience for me, nothing more: I was never a part of it. But neither am I on your side. When I assist one party, it’s to thwart the other. I don’t want either of you to succeed in this quest. How like you, to make use of those Zimbouran fools!” A touch of amusement entered his voice, but it soon passed, was replaced by harshness. “The sea-storms were intended as a warning, and the thunderstorm too. I can conjure far worse, as you well know. And your powers are waning, Ana. You can’t keep this up for much longer.”
He paused again, but Ana still said nothing. From the direction of the pool came a glorious noise: the young people had discovered that they were admirably equipped to sing in four-part harmony, and Ailia’s soft soprano, Lorelyn’s husky contralto, Damion’s clear tenor, and Jomar’s magnificent baritone were now raised in a spirited rendition of a popular folk song.
“It’s true you saved my life,” Mandrake said. “Well, I intend to pay that debt by sparing yours, and the lives of your young friends. Yes, even Lorelyn’s. But expect no more from me. I will continue to do all that I can to hinder you.” He stepped back, into the shadows of the trees, and was gone.
The young people came out of the pool, still singing and laughing, playfully cuffing Jomar, who had substituted his own ribald lyrics for the song’s traditional ones. The pool had performed its age-old work of ablution—of absolution. They emerged from it reborn, the stresses and strains that hindered their relationships washed away. There was no magic in it, and never had been; it held nothing but the pleasure of water, of being made clean. The young people came up to Ana in a noisy cheerful group, wringing out their sodden garments.
“Well, we’ve bathed and done our washing, all at once.”
“That should do me for another month.”
“Jomar! That’s disgusting!”
Ana sat composed and still. The temple lay empty behind her.
THEY COMMENCED THE ASCENT of the mountain in high spirits, having changed their clothes and dried the drenched ones over the fire. All of this, Ailia thought, is going to make a wonderful story, someday. I can hardly wait to tell it. And the best part of it all—the climax, in fact—still lay ahead of her, on the mountain’s summit.
Much of Ailia’s good humor stemmed from the fact that she was riding with Damion. Ana had suggested the change, and Ailia, sitting high on the back of the white palfrey and clasping Damion’s lean waist, welcomed it wholeheartedly.
It was a pleasant journey at first, the slope gentle, the ancient road that wound up the mountain’s side still in remarkably good condition. Presently they spied the two gigantic stone lions, one lying on each side of the road, that formed the gate to the mystical Level of Beasts. So weathered and worn were they that they resembled not so much lions as rocks with a leonine shape: there was only a hint of their heavy maned heads, the powerful flanks and folded limbs, now daubed with many-colored lichens. How incredibly old they must be, Ailia thought as the group rode past them. Older than anything we can imagine. Beyond the statues lay a region of dense forest, but Ailia had no thought for danger just then. This was a sacred place, this Holymount, exalted in scripture and faerie-lore alike. No Anthropophagus, she was certain, would ever dare to come here.
After riding for an hour or so they paused to rest in a sheltered place, a stand of trees near an igneous outcrop with a mountain torrent coursing nearby, a white veil of water suspended from a shelf of stone. The horses drank deep, while Ana refilled the water bottles. A wind blew off the ice fields of some higher peaks to their right. Jomar shivered and grumbled about the cold, pulling his cloak closer about him, but the rest were glad of the fresh and bracing air and drew it deep into their lungs. While they rested, the Mohara man went and stood on the outcrop, his bow and arrows at the ready, scanning the hillside for any signs of pursuit. He looked, in his dark garb, like a statue carved out of onyx. Seeing him standing there, so strong and confident, Ailia was grateful that he had joined them. Jomar might be alarming at times, but he was exactly the sort of person one wanted to have along in times of danger.
For now, though, there was no danger, and she walked a little farther up the slanting alp, among the wildflowers that thrust their bright heads through the grass: slim yellow glacier lilies, mountain anemones with bluish-purple blooms like crocuses. In her lightened mood she no longer worried about being a burden to the group. Perhaps, just perhaps, she was the fated chronicler of these extraordinary events. In a burst of excitement she realized what that meant. She would be an author: like Welessan the Wanderer or El
onius or the Bard of Blyssion himself, an author with published volumes, her name listed in catalogs, her works studied by scholars. “My Journey to Trynisia, by Ailia Shipwright,” “The Faerie Isle: A Legend Come True,” “A Trynisian Bestiary: Flora and Fauna of a Forgotten Land,” “Voyage to the End of the Earth: My Role in the Greatest Adventure of Our Time.” She ran the titles over in her mind, savoring them, like a miser fingering jewels.
She no longer felt any envy of Lorelyn either. She sensed a return of the compassion she had once felt for the odd, waifish woman-child. Lorelyn was only a girl, not a goddess, whatever the Nemerei or the Zimbourans might think. Ailia remembered, with a little shiver, what the Zimbourans would do to Lorelyn if they should recapture her.
Damion too was concerned. He walked over to Jomar’s rock. “I’m worried about the women, Jo,” he said quietly.
Jomar looked at them too and shrugged. “Women are tougher than you’d think.”
“Not these women,” Damion corrected. “Ailia isn’t strong, and Lorelyn is a little too bold for her own good. I don’t believe she really knows what danger means. Ana’s looking poorly, too: that’s not to be wondered at, considering her age. We must look after them.”
“We can’t pamper them either,” returned Jomar, “if we want to get to the summit before the Zims. If I know them they’ll already be on our trail, with reinforcements. When they want something they don’t give up easily.”
Ana overheard this. “Neither do I,” she said, giving them a sudden impish smile.
“Oh? What are you planning to do, beat the Zims off with your cane?” Jomar inquired. “Or will you sic your attack-cat on them?”
“No dear, Malkin doesn’t like fighting,” she replied, grave-faced.
“Forget it,” he growled. “Let’s get on up this mountain. We’re wasting time.”
They labored on uphill, leading the tired horses by their reins as the slope grew ever steeper. Softwood trees began to give way to hardwoods. Once they saw a wild mountain-antelope with long, straight, backward-slanting horns, perching on a pedestal of rock. As they drew closer, they saw the animal’s horns move, swinging around like the mobile “horns” of a snail to slant forward, the sharp tips facing them defensively.
“It’s a yale,” declared Ailia in delight. “They were supposed to be fabulous too. Bendulus wrote about them—he said they point their horns forward if they have to fight, and put them back when they’re at rest.”
“Better give it a wide berth,” advised Jomar. “It might charge us.”
They continued their climb, walking and leading the horses. Only Ana remained on her mount, since she was too weary to walk. Ailia had never been this close to a mountain: she had never had a chance to explore the coastal range in Maurainia. She gazed in wonderment at the cataracts ribboning down steep stone cliff-faces; at the wisps of cloud that webbed the tops of the pine trees like gossamers in grass. It really seemed as though they drew nearer to Heaven, she thought in awe. Earth and sky met here.
Damion was not interested in the scenery; he gazed worriedly at Ana. She looked exhausted, her white head bowed low over her pony’s neck. She no longer tried to carry her cat, who now lay curled up in a saddlebag. Looking at her drawn, lined face, he wondered what they would do if she fell ill. Apart from her small store of healing herbs, they had no medicinal supplies with them.
At this stage of the journey it was Jomar who led them. With his military training, he knew that it is indeed possible to go on even when one’s feet and back ache, and he bullied them uphill relentlessly. Though some of them resented it at the time, they also knew that they might well be grateful to him later on. As they stumbled forward, two huge shapes came into view ahead. A pair of equestrian statues, forming a gateway.
“Riders on horses,” noted Ana, raising her head. “The Elei ideal: man over nature, mind over matter, the intellect curbing and controlling bestial nature. We have reached the Level of Men.” But her voice was faint.
They turned back to look out over the valley. They had concentrated so much on the climb ahead of them that they had not bothered with the view behind. Now they realized how far up they were. The lands below were indigo-hued with the haze of distance, the river reduced to a shimmering strand, and they could see the paler blue of the ocean far beyond. The sky was clear but for a few frayed cotton-tufts of cloud, looking so close that Ailia felt she could reach out and touch them: they were, in fact, almost on the same level as the mountaintop. Their black shadows blotched the land below.
Ana frowned. “Is something wrong?” Ailia asked her, nervous.
“That cloud,” Ana said. “It is moving against the wind.”
They all stared. One fleecy cumulus, gray beneath and snow-white above, was moving in their direction with disconcerting speed, trailing long wispy streamers from its underside. Flashes of blue-white light flickered inside its misty depths, and there was a soft low rumble from within it like an animal’s growl.
“A storm cloud?” queried Damion. “But it’s not a thunderhead—it’s too small. And the rest of the sky’s perfectly clear.”
Ailia recalled the great storm in the valley. This strange, lone, swift-moving cloud gave her the same eerie feeling. It’s alive, she thought. Or something inside of it is . . .
They all turned by sudden unspoken consensus, and began to hasten up the slope once more. The horses too were ill at ease, sensing the storm’s approach. Ailia glanced back over her shoulder, and saw with a prickle of fear the great gray shape bearing down on them, looming now over most of the sky. It was going to collide with the mountain’s summit, enfold it and them in its muffling depths. There was nowhere to run, or to hide.
The sunlight was cut off, as if a lamp had been blown out; the huge shadow swept over them, swift as a racing horse, and then the cloud’s first grasping tendrils reached down. Soon it flowed all around them, dense as a fog bank and clammy on their skin. They were lost in a smoke-dark, vaporous void.
Ana slipped off her pony’s back, looking grim. “Be very still and quiet, all of you!”
They dismounted, the men holding the heads of the horses, which were snorting and rolling their eyes. A branching thunderbolt struck one of the mountain’s peaks, silhouetting it for a fraction of a second. Then all was gray darkness and noise as the thunder rolled through the stony spaces high above. The horses neighed shrilly, and Greymalkin gave a long yowl.
It’s more than the thunder, thought Damion, seeing the horse’s flared nostrils. The animals sense something we don’t . . . There was a rushing noise followed by a tremendous gust, a moving wall of wind like the wake of displaced air from some huge, hurtling object. He clung to Artagon’s bridle, but the white horse reared, hooves beating at the air as the lightning flashed again. The mountainside sprang into view: trees, statues, a jutting rock pinnacle beyond them that had a peculiar shape . . . Damion stared. No, that shape was not all rock.
Crouching atop the pinnacle was a demon.
In the lightning-glow he saw it, with perfect clarity: a monstrous shape with two great shadowy wings half-furled at its sides—a huge horned head—eyes that burned like fire. It glared down at them from its stony perch. The Fiend . . . It’s the Fiend himself . . . Darkness descended, and the apparition was gone.
“Jo—Ana—did you see? Did you see it?” he shouted, pointing. Once again a searing flash lit up the mountainside, and this time they all glimpsed the thing on the pinnacle. It had shifted its position, so that Damion could now see it stood upon four clawed legs, and the great horned head, turned sideways, showed the elongated muzzle of a beast.
No demon this; he was looking at—
“A dragon!” Lorelyn yelled.
15
Here Be Dragons
“ALL OF YOU!” Ana called through the dark. “Gather round me quickly!”
They complied at once, Jomar included—something in her strained, urgent voice demanded obedience. A series of flashes showed them one another’s anxious
faces and lit up the mountainside. The two equestrian statues leaped at them out of the mist. The belly of the cloud that had engulfed them was alternately gray-black and filled with a brilliant, blue-white luminosity. The horses screamed and bolted in all directions.
The dragon was gone from its rock.
“Do not move!” cried Ana as darkness descended again. “Stay close to me!”
Thunder rolled about the heights and hollows above them. As it dwindled to silence again they heard another sound, like the cracking of canvas in a gale, directly overhead. They peered up in terror as the dragon passed over them, invisible in the gray cloud, the trees thrashing in the wind from its wings. Then it was gone, and they heard only the hissing patter of rain beginning to fall.
“To the guesthouse—there, do you see it?” As lightning flickered again Ana pointed to an oblong shape about thirty paces beyond the statues. “Run!”
They fled toward the ruin as the rain poured down around them. When they arrived at its doorway they found that it was roofless and missing two walls, but there was a set of steps leading down into a cellarlike subterranean room. They tore down the steps, then turned and looked back up at the entrance.
Ailia gasped. “Where are Ana and Damion?”
Jomar cursed, and started up the steps again. But then there was a noise, a scraping slithering sound: the square of dull gray that marked the cellar’s entrance was replaced by a solid darkness. A low rumbling came from it, and a snuffling sound. The dragon was there, lurking, like a cat at a mousehole.
The door is too small—it can’t get in, a terrified Ailia tried to reassure herself as she backed toward the far wall. It can’t get in—
The dark thing shifted, letting in a little light and showing its glistening armor of rain-wet scales. Then an eye looked in at them. It was huge, the pupil black as pitch and circled by a thin yellow ring of iris. Jomar backed away and snatched his bow off his shoulder with unsteady hands. The eye withdrew, and in its place a wet, scaly snout was thrust into the hole. Black slits of nostrils at its tip snuffed and flared wide, drawing in their scent.