In their private room in Sitnalta, Vailret and Paenar discussed everything Verne had showed them. All afternoon the professor had bombarded them with instructions, filling the Nautilus's control room with his accented voice.
Paenar remained rigid on the edge of his cot, staring at the blank wall. They sat listening to the steam-engine vehicles chugging into storage bays to let their boilers cool until morning. The manufactories had closed down for the night. Vailret waited for the gas streetlights to be lit and for the Sitnaltans to go to sleep.
"Our plan has one big flaw," Vailret said, disturbing Paenar from his daydreaming. "We have even less to fight with than Del and Bryl did. At least they had the Water Stone."
"We'll manage," Paenar said, but the bulky goggles masked his real expression. Lenses floated in their oils, hypnotic in the shadowy light.
Vailret shook his head.
"Against a dragon? How? Neither of us can even fight with a sword or shoot an arrow. Not that it would be terribly effective against Tryos, anyway."
Paenar spoke slowly in the new silence. "Sitnalta has a weapon that's effective against the dragon."
They stole down the steps of the Sitnaltan ziggurat in the darkness, lugging the heavy Dragon Siren between them. Vailret sneaked a glance at the streetlights of the jagged cobblestone streets below them. The sleeping city remained silent, but Vailret felt eyes watching them from the blind windows.
"I'll go first," Paenar said, "my eyes can adjust to the dark."
Vailret obliged, following behind and watching where he put his feet.
"It seems like we're betraying Professor Verne by stealing the Siren."
"Heroic decisions are always questionable ... until you win." Paenar shifted his hold on the Siren. "You'll never be remembered if you don't take chances."
"I'd rather be alive than be remembered, if it comes down to a choice between the two."
After reaching the base of the ziggurat, they hurried through the deserted streets, dodging puddles of yellow lamplight. They stood on the bank of the seawall, listening to the crash of restive waves below them. They stumbled down the worn steps to the docks below. The metallic dish of the Siren dragged at them, but they gritted their teeth. Out of breath and sweating in the chill air, they reached the swaying hulk of the Nautilus on the docks.
Then Mayer stepped out of the shadows. She had wrapped herself in a thin cloak, and looked cold and blown, as if she had been there waiting a long time. She pressed her lips into a thin line and tried to look haughty.
"First my father turns down your request for a boat, then Professor Verne spends the afternoon showing you the Nautilus. Did you honestly think I could not extrapolate what you intended to do?"
Vailret regained his composure and answered her coolly. "We are trying to help our friends, since you Sitnaltans seem quite willing to ignore the rest of Gamearth. Professor Verne graciously offered us the use of his Nautilus after your father refused to help. We're not trying to hide."
Mayer laughed sharply. "Who could suspect you of trying to hide, when you creep to the docks in the dead of night?"
"The tide is at its best point now." Paenar sounded smug. "Professor Verne told us so."
"No doubt he 'graciously offered' to give you our Dragon Siren as well?" She flashed an angry glare at Paenar. "Or perhaps you barbarians have no moral restrictions against stealing."
Vailret and Paenar said nothing.
Mayer's short dark hair whipped about in the wind like the barely seen waves, but the tone of her voice changed. Vailret suspected she was addressing something different entirely. "What is it you know? I can see it in you. Any idiot can recognize that Sitnaltan ways are superior to your primitive life in the outside world ¯ yet you don't admire our city. It's almost as if you ... flaunt our technology. What do you know that we do not?"
She seemed honestly curious. Paenar fidgeted. Vailret pondered on the silent dark dock. "I can see and accept some of the advantages your way of life has ¯ especially since I have no Sorcerer blood. In Sitnalta all humans can use the magic of your technology. But you haven't even made an effort to see if perhaps we 'barbarians' do some things better than you.
"You tinker with your calculating machines and your street-cleaning engines, but when faced with a problem your technology may not be able to solve ¯ Scartaris ¯ you dismiss it as something not to be considered."
Paenar cleared his throat and placed a large hand on Vailret's shoulder. "We are going to fight against Tryos, and then against Scartaris -it is not likely we will win. But we are trying anyway. Your science has made you blind to the fact that sometimes you can win the impossible fight. Many dice rolls are not likely, but they are possible."
She hardened her expression. "If you take the Dragon Siren and lose, then Sitnalta will be defenseless."
"Or," Paenar countered, "if we take it and win, you need never fear the dragon again. Then your greatest inventors can start to work on the problem of Scartaris."
"After we're gone," Vailret said, "go and talk to Professor Verne. Let him show you his data and his extrapolations. Be objective. Ask yourself if there isn't a remote possibility that the threat truly exists. Then scrap your frivolous gadgets and invent something to stop this thing! If we fail, all of Gamearth could be depending on you."
As if that settled the discussion, Paenar slipped past her and clambered on board the Nautilus, lugging the Dragon Siren down into the control room. Vailret stared at Mayer for a moment in silence, then surprised himself by shaking her hand. He jumped onto the deck of the submarine boat and slipped down the hatch without another word. He closed the hatch above him.
Mayer remained on the dock looking flustered and confused, as if puzzled that the confrontation had not turned out as she had planned.
The Nautilus slipped away from the moorings, churning water into foam behind its propellers. The ship poised for a moment on the surface, nosed out into deeper water, then sank beneath the waves like a giant predatory fish.
* * * *
The next morning Tryos smashed his tail on the packed dirt, let out a yowling yawn, and demanded that Bryl and Delrael "Wake up!"
Delrael had slept in his own creaking bed for the first time in a month, but it seemed as if he hadn't dozed for more than a few minutes. When Bryl came out into the morning sunshine, red eyed and wrapped in his blue cloak, he seemed too tired even to be afraid of Tryos.
He and Delrael sat on the great dragon's back and watched the ground drop away with each thundering beat of Tryos's wings. Tarne stood watching them with a defeated expression on his face.
The journey back to Rokanun took two days. The dragon followed a drunken course, losing and then recovering his path. The island and its tall volcano reared up at them from the mosaic of clear blue hexes of ocean. Tryos made a beeline for the wide crater opening. Heat and fumes from the boiling lake of lava hissed up at them as the dragon swooped into his treasure grotto.
Tryos scraped the hardened lava floor with his claws and moved his head from side to side, loosening up. He folded his wings and stood tall in the grotto, admiring the gleaming hoard. Bryl and Delrael climbed off, stretching and looking around. The dragon strutted among the jewels and gold, crunching treasure under his feet.
"Ahh Good thing I not leave thissss!"
Bryl acted eager for another look at the old Sorcerer objects, but did not want to make Tryos suspicious. Dekael found Tareah in a corner by the shadow of the treasure, trying to remain unobtrusive. She looked frightened, determined, but very weak. She had been feeding herself with supplies from a trivial Sorcerer maintenance spell, like Bryl's, but she needed more.
"You came back," she said with a sort of wonder. "Now we can go back home." Delrael clasped her shoulder and gave her a reassuring hug. He found himself feeling deeply sorry for her ¯ Tareah had been isolated for all three decades of her life, with only Sardun for company. He had no doubt she would be inept in dealing with other people, unpracticed, and not accustomed
to being totally alone either. No one came to visit the memories in the Ice Palace anymore. Delrael could imagine her loneliness.
Tryos had blasted his way into her sheltered world, taking her and leaving her with no one on whom to depend. No one on the entire island.
Delrael smiled and felt warm inside, wondering if she would see him as a brave prince come to her aid? Just like in the old days of the Game.
But when he hugged her, Delrael noticed how much Tareah had grown, more than an inch in five days. Delrael blinked and stared at her, doubting that he could be mistaken. He was usually quite good with spatial relationships.
Tareah had filled out, adding a year to her apparent age. Perhaps because she had been far enough away from Sardun's sorcery for so long, her body was making up for lost time.
Delrael interrupted the dragon's silent inventory. "You will need to work a long time to move all your treasure, Tryos."
The dragon bobbed his head. "Many trips!"
"You'll get done sooner if you start sooner. You'd better take a load and go right away."
Before Tryos could sputter anything else, Delrael continued. "I know.
It will be hard work, but well worth the effort."
Bryl stood by the fighter. "Delrael and I will stay here to guard your treasure. We promise. Don't worry."
Tareah looked at him in disappointed alarm.
Tryos narrowed his eyes and glared at the half-Sorcerer, assessing him with a piercing reptilian stare. "How do I know you not take treasure for yourssselfsss? No tricksss!"
Bryl turned his eyes from the dragon's horrible stare, cringing, but he looked down at the jewels and gold and reasserted his outward calm. "Did we steal any treasure the first time you caught us? And didn't we find Rognoth for you so you could punish him? And didn't we take care of Gairoth, too? And didn't we find you a big new land to live in?"
Tryos hung his head and fidgeted under Bryl's high pitched outburst.
"Yesss."
"Trust us." The half-Sorcerer smiled broadly.
"I come back sssoon ¯ not long! Wait here!"
"Of course."
Like a monstrous reptilian shovel, Tryos opened his huge mouth and scooped up an indiscriminate mouthful of his hoard. He lifted his head with some effort, straining his muscles against the great weight of treasure. The rippling scales in his serpentine neck glittered rainbows from the reflected gold and jewels. A few scattered gems and odd coins jingled back to the ground through cracks in the dragon's mouth. Tryos shook his head, letting the last few loose items fall free back to the grotto floor. A pearl necklace snagged on one of his fangs, swaying back and forth in the weird orange light from the lava.
"Don't hurry back now, Tryos ¯ it'll be all right." Bryl waved at the dragon. "We promise."
Delrael nodded. "You could tire yourself out by flying too fast."
The dragon tried to say something but could not spit the words past the wadding of treasure in his mouth. He almost choked. Delrael didn't want to hear the question ¯ he wanted to get rid of Tryos as soon as possible. "Don't talk now, Tryos. You can ask us next time. Have a good trip."
Flustered, the dragon stopped trying to talk and strode over to the edge of the grotto. Bryl and Delrael waved, smiling so much their jaws ached, before Tryos spread his wings and launched himself out over the lake of lava.
The dragon fell like a stone, headfirst, dragged down by the immense load of treasure. Delrael's heart leaped with hope, praying their problem could be ended so simply. Tryos's reptilian eyes widened in alarm, and he beat his wings frantically, flaring his nostrils. The dragon slowed his plunge and labored his way back up to the top of the cinder cone. He puffed with the effort, flew over the rim and into the distance.
"Let's get up the tunnel out of here." Delrael turned and ushered Tareah toward the opening. The hiss and bubbling of the lava added a layer of background noise. "We'll have to run like mad to the balloon. I counted the hexes ¯ we can do it in a day and a half."
Bryl tallied on his fingers. "It'll take Tryos at least four days to get to the Stronghold and back, even without resting. Once we reach the balloon, we'll need time to inflate it and then two more days to fly back to Sitnalta. Once we're up in the air, Tareah and I can summon up a good wind with the Water Stone ¯ but the magic might not work once we pass the technological fringe." He shook his head and sighed. "It's going to be close, very close."
Tareah looked dejected and her voice sounded bereft in the empty, echoing grotto. "You promised to stay here and guard the treasure. Why did you have to do that?"
"We're not honor-bound to keep a promise to an evil dragon," Bryl said.
"Are you crazy?"
Delrael looked at her, puzzled that she needed justification. "Tryos kidnapped you and he nearly killed your father. Look at all the treasure he's stolen. Do you want to stay here?"
"But you promised. I thought you had a better plan than ... than cheating!" Tareah looked confused, torn between two loyalties. "My father made me study the Rules, all of them. He hammered into me the ethics of gaming and sportsmanship." Her eyes glittered with either tears or anger. "When you agree to undertake a quest, the Rules force you to complete it. But isn't a vow to do a quest just an elaborate promise? By the same token, how can you break your promise to Tryos?"
"You're very naive," Bryl said. "The object of the game is winning.
Whether by battle or by trickery."
Delrael took the question seriously, though. Vailret would have been able to make much more convincing arguments. "Tareah, trickery is accepted Game play. I didn't make up the Rules. A precedent has been set ¯ have you ever played poker? It's a game played with cards, not dice. Bluffing is a vital part of the play. We bluffed Tryos into believing we would stay here."
Tareah frowned at Delrael's reasoning. "Well ... he did steal the treasures in the first place."
"Tryos is our opponent. We should be allowed to use every means we have to beat him. Especially when your life is at stake. You don't feel sorry for a dragon, do you?"
Delrael put his hand on her back and moved forward with her as they entered the dank tunnel and hurried upward. "Come on, your father is waiting for us."
They entered the tunnel, but Bryl stopped as if struck with a spell.
His eyes became glassy and he looked around the piles and piles of gems, gold, treasures. He swallowed hard. "Wait! The Earth Stone! It's here!" He turned to stare at Delrael. "We have to find it!"
"Why?" Delrael asked, showing more impatience. "You said magic won't help out against a dragon anyway."
"It won't," Tareah said.
"It was lost for more than a century in one of the first battles of the Scouring. A ten-sided emerald." Bryl sniffed the air, then looked disappointed. "I lost it now, but I had another vision, like when I found the Air Stone. It's here somewhere." The half-Sorcerer's eyes gleamed with a frightening expression. "We don't have enough time, Bryl," Delrael said.
"We have to find it!" the half-Sorcerer insisted. "It might help us against Scartaris. Remember what Vailret said. The Earth Stone is the most powerful of all four Stones."
Delrael shook his head. "We can't possibly ransack all of his treasure, not if you don't know exactly where to find it. Our time is too short."
Bryl closed his eyes, holding his breath as if trying to squeeze another vision out.
Tareah hardened her expression and took a step away from Delrael. "I won't go with you if you steal any of the treasure ¯ that's worse than breaking your promise to guard it. You're not at all like the heroes in the legends I've read. I'd rather stay here with the dragon. At least he plays by the Rules."
"But he stole the Stone in the first place!" Bryl said.
"He never promised he wouldn't. You did."
That decided it for Delrael. Unhappily, Bryl followed as all three of them ducked into the dark lava tunnel, fleeing the dragon's lair.
Vailret looked out at an underwater wonderland. He pressed his face against th
e thick glass of the eyelike porthole, watching the Nautilus plunge forward. The ship's cyclopean headlight stabbed into the ocean's secrets, signaling that this was more than just a fish. Few of the undersea creatures showed curiosity; most fled into the midnight-blue murk.
Vailret absorbed the strangeness of the darting gleams of color, the fishes, the fronds of pale seaweed drifting like sirens' hair. A colony of winking lights fluttered around the Nautilus, swirling in hypnotic colorful patterns. Before Vailret could wonder at them, the strange lights vanished like extinguished candle flames.
Paenar glanced out the ports only cursorily, impatient to arrive at Rokanun so he could fight Tryos. He turned to the stolen Dragon Siren, inspecting the simple controls and making certain he knew how to work them.
The sub-marine boat flashed through the water, driven by its churning screws.
Three hours after midnight a huge black wall loomed up through the water, cutting across their path like a guillotine blade. Vailret sat drowsy at the controls, wishing he could rest for awhile. He blinked and saw the black wall moving toward them.
For one sick instant he forgot how to bring the Nautilus to a stop.
Professor Verne had shown them, but Vailret had no time to try any of the controls. He let out a cry of despair. Paenar stood up so quickly he hit his head on the low metal ceiling. The other man ignored the pain and lurched toward Vailret. Both saw the black wall and knew they could never stop the boat in time. The Nautilus struck the blackness.
Everything went dark for an instant, and then they were through, traveling as if nothing had happened. Paenar dropped back into his seat; Vailret blinked, dizzy. The air in the Nautilus seemed close and stifling, and he wondered if the air pumps were still working. Perhaps they had passed beyond the technological fringe ¯
"It was just the hex-line!" Vailret cried. "That's all! The line probably goes all the way to the sea bottom" He laughed. Paenar stared at him in shocked realization for a moment, and joined Vailret in relieved laughter.
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