Coming to this world taught Steve to believe in a great many things he once thought the stuff of fairy tales, but until now ghosts had not yet made that list. Of all the things that should have been running through his mind, Steve’s thoughts harkened to Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the scene where Hamlet’s father returned to inform his son of his murderous uncle.
Steve scrambled away crab-like as the pale figure took a step toward him. “Stay where you are!” he warned. Although, what he would do if the apparition chose not to cooperate was still up in the air.
The Emperor’s ghost—or whatever this thing was—did stop, though; and for a moment appeared as confused as the young man he faced. Then with a sure deliberateness, he pointed off into the darkness toward the high summit of the mountain.
“This place gets damn weirder by the minute,” Steve muttered as he climbed warily to his feet. He glanced quickly in the direction the ghostly figure pointed and then back again, not daring to take his eyes off the apparition for more than a second.
The spirit made no move toward him or gave any other indication of hostile intent.
Steve indicated with his chin up the mountain. “What? Up there?”
The Emperor lowered his arm and nodded once slowly.
“Is it really you, Your Majesty?”
Again he nodded.
This is nothing short of incredible, Steve thought to himself. And, indeed, he was putting it mildly. After all, he was talking with a dead man.
“How do I know it’s really you?” he asked. “How do I know you’re not some specter sent by Azinon?”
The Emperor looked pained. He opened his mouth as if to speak but no sound issued forth, his hand gestures mirroring his frustration in his inability. Finally, Steve watched carefully the Emperor’s lips as he mouthed a single word with his countenance bordering on desperation.
Please.
To trust in this meant to trust in the unknown. And Steve hated that.
“All right,” he said reluctantly, and against his better instincts. “Lead the way.”
The Emperor faded from view and reappeared thirty yards up the mountain. Still cautious, Steve followed.
He knew of spirits—at least of them—Steve had just never seen one before. He had heard stories of those that remained behind in the physical world after death, but the reasons for the hypothesis were as many and varied as the spirits themselves. Some believed it was a result of the souls of the departed not understanding they were dead, and they continued to walk the earth, repeating their daily routines under the illusion of life. Still other explanations gave credence to the idea it was a form of punishment, a purgatory from which they cannot escape, bound by an object—like a house—to the physical world and at the same time unable to touch it. A third account speaks to the idea the spirit of the dead left something behind unfinished in life, and they can permit themselves no final rest until the matter becomes resolved.
If one or more were true, right now Steve had to go with option number three.
The Emperor led him to a tunnel in the rock face, well concealed by a partial avalanche and wild scrub. Without his supernatural guide he might easily have searched for a hundred years and still never have found it. Steve drew his sword and channeled his power into the metal, giving the blade a white glow, and then followed the Emperor into the mountain.
The tunnel itself was akin to a tube, perhaps forty feet in diameter, like some massive worm had bored its way out from the center of the mountain centuries ago. It was the walls of the tunnel, however, that put the young man ill at ease, melted, charred, and black. His imagination conjured a frightful picture of molten lava pouring through the tunnel and roasting him alive—the word ‘alive’ being the briefest part of that thought. He forced this away with a shudder. This world had enough horrors lurking in it without his help.
The Emperor walked ahead of the young wizard with all the sound of an eagle’s shadow passing over a field. There were so many questions Steve wanted to ask of the man but somehow, somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew their time together was swiftly passing. Instead he occupied his mind with the matter that troubled him most. Perhaps it was only his imagination, but something about the Emperor seemed different—and it was more than just his lack of a corporeal body. Why had His Majesty come back to guide him in this mission when Haldorum himself had been unwilling to even sanction it? And if there was something the Emperor had come to do, where were the spirits of the tens of thousands of others who had died in the same cause, died before ever seeing whether their efforts had been for naught? What was so important to this one spirit that it could defy the grave?
So caught up was he in his own thoughts Steve nearly walked into it. He came up short, startled somewhat, and glanced about wondering how best to circumvent this obstacle. Like the teeth of some great beast, the stalactites extended down from the ceiling to meet with the stalagmites rising up from the floor, effectively blocking the passage of anything larger than perhaps a small dog. Peering through the gaps in this natural blockade revealed the tunnel beyond curving gently to the right, and from there emanated a warm, radiant light.
Steve looked to the Emperor and shrugged, but the only answer he received to his unspoken question was the Emperor’s extended arm, pointing in the direction of the light.
Hands on hips, Steve looked doubtfully at the thick stone columns barring his path. “Great,” he said on the exhale of a deep breath. “What now?”
The Emperor passed through the obstruction like air and waited expressionless and silent.
“For some of us it’s not that easy,” Steve remarked, puzzling over his next course of action. If he were to try and magic his way through it would more than likely work, but it would also be noisy, effectively announcing to every living thing—and possibly some nonliving ones as well—he had arrived. For a moment he considered the possibility this was actually his test, but just as quickly dismissed it as more wishful thinking. A simple blockade of stone was just too much to hope for. No, to gain audience with the Oracle he was sure he would have to tackle a problem much larger than this.
Seeing no other way around it, Steve hefted his sword saying, “So much for—“
He bit off his words as the stalactites and stalagmites flowed away from each other before his eyes, as though the stone had taken on liquid properties, slowly sinking back into the ceiling and floors until every trace of their existence was gone.
“—subtlety,” Steve finished. He couldn’t shake the feeling this had all the makings of a bad horror flick, where the door to the villain’s lair squeaks open of its own accord, inviting the hero in to his certain doom. A sinking feeling formed in the pit of Steve’s stomach, though he told himself it had to be the Oracle’s doing—for who or what else could have known he was here? Even so, the display was unnerving all the same.
So much for sneaking in.
For some reason unknown to the young wizard, the Emperor’s spirit chose this convenient time to vanish, leaving him alone in the charred corridor. Steve’s palms were sweating, and he took a moment to wipe them on his midnight trousers before continuing toward the yellow-gold radiance that now seemed more threatening than it had a moment before. His grip tightened on the hilt of his sword as he walked. He moved as quietly as humanly possible, keeping his back to the curvature of the wall as he rounded the gentle bend in the tunnel. And like the moon that slowly peeks from behind the cover of the clouds, Steve’s head appeared around the bend and the room at the end of the tunnel came into view. At first Steve thought his eyes must surely be deceiving him, but closer inspection convinced him they were not.
Gold, more than he had ever seen—or ever imagined he would see—in all of his life. Steve stopped at the mouth of the tunnel, which opened into a chamber as vast as Shallows Crag itself. Mounds of gold coins, rings, goblets, daggers, and precious jewels rising twenty feet and more into the air, forming a snaking valley through the vast riches. Steve took an unconscious
step into the massive cavern and heard the sound of gold coins clink and slide beneath his booted feet. The light illuminating the chamber had no apparent source, but reflected and glinted off of the wealth all around him. His thoughts turned momentarily selfish as he thought how a handful of the gems alone would easily send his younger brother and him through college, paying off the house for his parents, and put them into early retirement if they so desired.
Not to mention pay for my Ferrari, he thought with a smirk.
His wistful ruminating then scattered like so many leaves in the wind at the sound of movement somewhere amid the numerous hills of gold beyond the small valley in which he stood. Steve lowered himself a few inches in tense expectation of attack, and then moved ahead, not wishing for the enemy to come to him and possibly surround him. He winced with the sound of his first footfall in on the carpet of gold coins, and regretted every one thereafter, believing surely every step would give him away long before he got close.
That last thought, however, brought him up short. The sound of the coins cut both ways. He listened intently, standing near the end of the golden valley, straining his ears for any sound of movement that might betray the location of anyone approaching.
Long minutes passed, and then he heard it. The sound of an avalanche of treasure spun the young man around in time to see the tunnel exit disappear behind tons of golden metal as one of the towering hills nearest collapsed over the mouth. Steve knew better than to blame chance.
“Where are you?” he shouted, turning defensively this way and that. “Enough with the games. We both know the other is here so show yourself!”
There was a rush of air from his left and Steve darted toward it. The coins sounded like tiny crashing cymbals with every step, rounding first one hill of gold and then another. Once his feet slipped out from underneath him and he fell in a shower of coin, but was back up and moving again almost immediately. By now the rushing of air had fallen into a steady rhythm and Steve closed on it, his sword leading the way. No matter how many of them he faced, no matter how powerful they were, he would pass his test and demand the answer to his question from the Oracle.
At last, he knew he was near for the sound resounded like a rushing wind. Steve raced around the base of a monstrous mound of gold with a glint in his eye, eager to be done with his challenge. Then he came to a long, skidding, sliding halt. He stared in awe into the eyes of the creature looking back at him.
Into the monstrous eyes of a great, golden dragon.
Chapter XXX
A head as large as a three-masted ship rose up from the priceless riches by a long and magnificently scaled neck. One hundred feet above the stunned young wizard, the mouth split wide in a yawn easily large enough to swallow a Sherman tank. Warm air wafted through the chamber at a single exhalation of that yawn and suddenly Steve’s thoughts flooded with visions of the charred tunnel by which he had entered. The dragon returned its gaze to the young man standing, evidently transfixed, before it and regarded him with cool indifference, as one might a curious knickknack on a living room shelf.
“So,” it said at last, its voice a rumble like thunder, “the halfling manchild seeks me out at last.” He looked down at the sword Steve held in a sweating grip. “Is that for me?” it asked sounding slightly amused.
For a long heartbeats Steve did not move, staring in stupefied incredulity at the sheer size of the creature, before finally finding enough motor skills to stagger back a step, then fall squarely on his backside, all without once looking away. “Y-you can…you can…”
“Speak?” the dragon finished for him, a scaled brow rising at the notion. “Yes, for some time now.”
Steve scrambled clumsily to his feet. “There is no way this is fair!”
“What is not fair, halfling?”
For a moment, Steve desperately glanced about in search of a place to take cover but could find nowhere to hide – unless he felt inclined to burrow into a hill of gold coins. “It can’t expect me to fight you!” he said at last with a desperate hand gesture encompassing all of the scaled monster.
The dragon huffed in amusement and a blast of hot air blew over Steve smelling distinctly of brimstone. “Who said anything of a battle?” the dragon asked, the corners of its mouth upturned in a scaly grin.
Steve held his sword defensively before himself, though more so because he didn’t know what else to do. After all, a simple misplaced cough from this thing and he was a french fry. But still, it was reassurance, infinitesimal though it may have been. “Well…” Steve floundered for words, “the Oracle…sort of.”
“Eighteen years of life must surely have taught you much, halfling, to understand so well the mind of the Oracle.”
“I never said that,” Steve replied defensively, but still mindful of his respect—well mindful, in fact. “I only know that before I can see the Oracle I first have to be tested, to face my challenge. And when I saw you, well…” Feeling less afraid this monstrous creature was going to eat him, he shrugged and let his sword arm fall until the tip of his blade clinked off the coins on the chamber floor.
The dragon’s head turned slowly from side to side in a patient, parental manner. “So much yet to learn, halfling manchild.”
So Haldorum keeps telling me, Steve thought.
Though he had not spoken aloud, Steve noticed the dragon’s eyes curiously reflected amusement.
“Not that I’m disappointed to hear it or anything,” Steve said quite truthfully, “but what am I supposed to fight if not you?”
“You will fight no one.”
There was silence for a time and then Steve said, “I won’t?”
“No, you will not. Not here.”
“Then what am I supposed to do? It’s important that I see the Oracle.”
“And so you have,” the dragon replied, “and continue to do so, for I am the Oracle of the Blue Mountain. Travelers who come here face their challenge in order to gain the answers to the questions they hold. Should I deem them worthy, I grant them enlightenment, but to fail often means death.” The dragon’s head lowered slightly and its eyes narrowed. “Or worse.”
Steve sheathed his sword, as a gesture of confidence as well as to shake off the effects of the dragon’s unsettling tone. When he looked back the dragon’s huge features had resumed a more calm expression akin to serenity. “I don’t understand,” Steve said. “My friend, Lurin, said something about a counsel he held with you, but he failed to mention that conversation was with a dragon. I imagine he wouldn’t have forgotten to mention a detail like that.”
“Your friend did come, and he met his challenge with great courage. In reward I granted him the knowledge of the location of the Third Power of Mithal, though he never saw me as you do now.”
“They found her,” Steve stated.
“Yes.”
“But only after they found me.”
“Again, yes.”
“Then what of me? If I am not meant to fight anyone, then what will be my challenge? I need answers.”
The dragon let out a short burst of laughter that boomed like an explosion, rebounding off the cavern walls and shaking the ground underfoot. “I cannot help you, halfling,” it said at last. “There is no challenge I can place upon you greater than that which you have already chosen for yourself.” Again the dragon laughed and Steve was forced to cover his ears against the thunder of it.
“I still don’t understand,” Steve said, his ears ringing somewhat. “You don’t even know my question. What challenge have I chosen? What are you talking about?”
The dragon lowered its head to within a dozen feet of the ground. “You wish to know the fate of the Imperial Princess; you wish to know the name of the royal house into which the Third Power will marry; and you wish to know your own part in the scheme of the prophecy. How am I doing so far, halfling?”
Steve wrinkled his brow, not understanding the reason for the label.
“You forgot one,” he said. “If you know so mu
ch about the past, present and future then you must know my name as well.”
“True,” the dragon agreed. “A pity you cannot say the same.”
What the hell was that supposed to mean? Steve crossed his arms over his chest. “You talk in riddles.”
“I speak in truths.”
“I have yet to hear it.”
“You have yet to listen.”
Steve dropped his arms exasperated. This was getting him nowhere. “Look, please, there are things I have to know. The Emperor is dead. It was his ghost that led me here. I have to know if his daughter is still alive.”
The dragon’s head rose again as it said, “The Emperor could not accompany you into this place because the spirits of the dead are forbidden to enter here. As for his daughter, you waste your time searching.”
At first the dragon’s reply did not register, not fully, but in a moment those same words bouncing around in his head seemed to hit him like a hammer’s blow. It brought him up short with what he was going to say still lingering on his lips.
“Then she is dead?” he stammered.
The dragon cocked its head slightly and regarded him as one might a petulant child that refuses to listen. “Is that what I said, halfling?”
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