They ran as fast as they could into the forest.
Above them, the sky looked bruised and clotted, choked with the smoke and steam and fragments of Tareah's storm. Bryl left the weather to repair itself and focused on the ground around them. Taking back the Water Stone, Bryl drew a deep breath and rolled again. "This is my last spell for another full day."
"Luck, Bryl," Delrael said.
Thick fog swirled up from the forest floor, seeping out of the earth and blanketing them from view. The vapors rose upward, dank and foul. "Now he can't see us, or follow our scent."
Tareah no longer needed to lean on Delrael's side, but she remained close to him anyway. Her face was ruddy from excitement, fear, and exertion.
"The illusion of Rognoth won't fool him for long. He'll see through it once he starts to think."
Above them they could hear the dragon as he returned for the kill. "Not real Rognos!" Tryos said. "Another trick! Tricksss! Kill you for tricksss!"
Delrael could not see the dragon overhead through the fog. Tryos would be looking down on a cottony bank of mist, a real mist created by the Water Stone, not an illusion.
But the dragon would find them again before long. Tryos jetted flame on the mist, leaving a burning and blasted landscape behind him. He methodically swept over sections of the fog, spewing fire on the mist, searching for them.
Exhausted, scraped, and bruised, Vailret and Paenar pulled themselves to the towering lip of the volcanic cone. Paenar slipped the knotted rope from his shoulders, and they balanced the battered Dragon Siren on the rough ground.
The top of the volcano commanded an incredible view of the entire island. Starlight reflected off the hexes of seawater that hid the wreckage of the Nautilus. Volcanic debris lay all around them where lava had oozed out centuries ago, hardening and crumbling into hexagons of desolate terrain.
Tendrils of smoke curled up from the simmering lake of fire; splashes of orange light danced around the interior of the cone, illuminating the opposite rim.
Paenar stood up, scanning the distance. A brisk wind blew the smoke away from his face. "I see a disturbance over there." He pointed toward the central forests of the island, and then sighed in annoyance. "My sight is gone again. Please look and see. Maybe it was only a mirage through the oils." His voice was flat and clipped, but quivering with anticipation.
Vailret withdrew the small optick-tube he had taken from the Nautilus's equipment bunker and turned the magnifying lens to sight on the distant flashes of fire. The telescope still baffled him, but he quelled his dizzy sensations and lined up his field of view. Tryos sprang in front of his eyes, blasting flames.
He cried out in surprise. "Tryos is attacking someone ¯ I think it's Del and Bryl! I can't make out the details."
Vailret turned the dish of the Siren toward the distant dragon. Moving desperately, he reached for the toggle switch that would allow him to call on Tryos in a thunderous voice.
Paenar placed his thin hand on Vailret's arm, stopping him. The blind mans' sinews stood out on his wrist, and his bony knuckles were white. "We need to settle this first. You know I must be the one. It makes the most sense. I want to do it."
"You'll be killed."
"So would you, if you took my place. That's no excuse." The businesslike, rigid voice melted to a more personal tone. Paenar clasped his hands together, as if to stop himself from begging.
"You must allow me to atone for what I have not done, for allowing the bad things to grow unhindered. It's the only way my conscience can survive, even if I do not."
Vailret did not know how to counter the other man's defense. Normally, he would have argued, stalled for time, but Tryos was attacking his friends.
"I won't let you sacrifice yourself just to show off. Think of how much more you could do in the fight against the Outsiders."
"Think of how much more I could do? Oh? Even my mechanical eyes have failed. Going blind may be cruel, but less cruel than having sight dangled in front of me, tantalizing, and then snatched away. Twice! The only way I could regain my vision now would be to remain in Sitnalta for the rest of my life.
That would help no one. I'd rather die here, fighting. You taught me how to do it. It is my right." He crossed his arms over his chest.
"Can you think of any other way? No ¯ I have been trying ever since we left the Nautilus. There is no other way." He stamped his foot with finality.
"Now summon the dragon, before he destroys your friends as well."
Feeling sick and defeated, Vailret bent to the switch and flicked it.
He switched it on and off three times before the probabilities finally made it work. Vailret spoke, sending his voice out in thundering waves across the island.
Tareah could run no farther. Bryl's eyes brimmed with tears of fear, despair, and shreds of leftover defiance. Delrael stood beside Sardun's daughter, trying to look brave and strong. He ran a fingertip along his silver belt. "Maybe someone will remember our adventures."
They huddled together like captured rats, listening to the dragon's torch sweep nearer, then drift away, then come back closer still. Bryl handed her both the Water Stone and the Air Stone. "You've got four spells left.
That's all we have now."
Tareah looked as if she had no more strength to give. But she pressed her lips together and took the gems.
For lack of anything else that offered hope, Delrael withdrew his bow.
He wondered if he might be able to injure the soft inside of Tryos's mouth ... but then he realized that if it could withstand furnace fire pouring out, the mouth would certainly be tough enough to deflect an arrow.
He thought of Vailret and blind Paenar back in Sitnalta, sorry that he could not have a chance to say good-bye.
It would be only a matter of time before Tryos stumbled upon them in his methodical search. Bryl could not maintain the fog much longer. Tryos would be able to see them soon.
See them! Delrael clenched his knuckles on his bow. The memory of Paenar had sparked an idea in his head. Maybe the dragon's eyes would be vulnerable to arrows. He hesitated. The idea made him uneasy.
But they had no other chance.
Just as Delrael nocked an arrow against the bowstring, Tryos burned away the sheltering fog. Bryl's spell dissipated, leaving them exposed.
Tryos backflapped his wings and leered down at them. His fangs glistened in the reflected light of scattered fires in the brush. He curled his serpentine neck and drew a deep breath, stoking his internal fires.
Delrael let loose an arrow. He closed his eyes, but the lightheaded feeling told him he had found his mark. Tryos reared back, seeing the shaft approach. His yellow green eyes widened in surprise ¯ and the arrow sank all the way to the feather into his wet pupil. Steaming black blood poured out.
The wooden shaft burst into flames.
Shrieking in agony, Tryos vomited fire down at the ground. But Delrael's success had galvanized Tareah into finding her own strength. She rolled the sapphire die, and the shielding wall of water leaped up around them. Steam boiled away, and the air became thick under the cramped dome.
The dragon's attack seemed to last forever. Tryos choked on his pain.
Tareah let the water wall splash back to the smoking earth. Delrael took his bow again, firing once, then a second time as the dragon filled his lungs.
Tryos gave a moaning cry even before the arrows struck. The first arrow glanced off his horny lower eye lid, falling to the burning ground. But the second struck home in the other eye.
The dragon wailed in pain and dismay, blasting fire aimlessly, flying in circles as if uncertain whether to flee or to continue his attack.
Tareah looked distraught and could not watch the dragon's flight. "We tricked Tryos. He had a perfect right to be angry with us."
"We have to get out of here before he can find us again." Delrael forced himself not to think about what Tareah had said.
But the dragon took less time to recover than they needed. Before t
hey could cover much distance, Tryos swooped down, craning his neck and trying to locate them by their sound, by their scent. His flames were tinted blue, hot enough to melt rock on first contact.
"How much fire can he have, Bryl?" Delrael said, panting. "Don't the Rules put limits on that?"
"I don't know ¯ ask Vailret! But you can bet he's got more than we can withstand." The half-Sorcerer clamped his mouth shut to absorb a cry of exhausted despair. Tareah whimpered as she tossed the Water Stone to the ground again.
A "1". Her spell failed.
"Roll it again!" Delrael said.
She grabbed the sapphire and rolled it for the fourth time. The dome of water bloomed around them at the same moment Tryos struck. Bryl cried out.
Tareah shuddered, concentrating on the Water Stone, flushed and sweating.
Under the constant barrage of fire, the ground turned a baking red, beginning to bubble. Inside the shelter the air was hot and depleted, filled with steam and empty of oxygen. Delrael had to suck in great mouthfuls of air just to keep his lungs from collapsing. His face felt raw. He clenched his bow in despair.
The ground under their feet grew unbearably hot. Tareah looked as if she would collapse in another moment.
The dragon's blue fire kept pounding down.
"Tryos! Dragon! Come back to your mountain at once! I command it!"
The words came rippling across the night. Tryos turned away from the shrinking bubble that protected his enemies against even his most venomous fire. The dragon saw only darkness, felt only spears of pain that stabbed through his ruined eyes.
"Tryos, return to your home! Or I shall destroy your treasure!"
With a squeal of rage Tryos flapped about in anger and confusion, not knowing whose voice cut across the night. He could not leave now. His enemies, the characters who played horrible tricks on him, were trapped. His fire had dwindled, but they would be destroyed in moments. He could picture their blackening skin, their faces; his dragon fire would burn their lungs from the inside out as they drew a final breath to scream. They deserved it. They had tricked him.
But his treasure! The voice would destroy his treasure ¯ unless he destroyed the voice first.
With another cry of outrage, Tryos whirled in the air and shot back toward the volcano, to Vailret.
Vailret licked his lips and swallowed, preparing to talk faster than he ever had before. Delrael was the fast talker. Delrael had the charisma score to convince characters to believe him. Not Vailret. But he would have to learn.
Vailret watched through the optick-tube as Tryos flapped across the island, pistoning his wings. The dragon sniffed and swept back and forth, somehow finding his way. Vailret tucked the tube in his pocket and stood next to Paenar, trying to look brave. His heart pounded, sending blood roaring through his head. He didn't know what he would do if Tryos recognized the Siren from Sitnalta.
The dragon circled around the rim of the volcano, vanishing in the patchy smoke rising from the lava below. Tryos seemed to be searching, sniffing the air, though both men stood unhidden. Then the wind currents changed and Tryos snorted, homing in on their scent.
Seething, the dragon flapped his wings twice and landed on the crater edge. He extended his neck, snuffling. Two charred arrow shafts protruded from his cavernous sockets. Vailret drew back. Black blood smoked as it hardened over the wounds.
"Who are you?" Tryos demanded. "How will you get my treasure?" He breathed with a sound louder than purring Sitnaltan machinery, drowning all other night sounds. "You sssmell like humansss! Bad humansss! Play tricksss on Tryos!"
"Yes, we are humans. Both of us." Vailret shuffled his feet. "But you will be interested in what we have to say."
"No! No more tricksss! Humansss trick Tryos! All men bad!"
Vailret let his mouth roll the words as fast as the gleam came into his eye, trying to imitate Delrael's skill. "Ah, Tryos, all men are not your enemies ¯ we are your friends. Those characters you were attacking? They are our enemies, too! We came here to kill them. My friend Paenar and I want to be your allies."
"But one man can't hate another man!"
"All characters are different, Tryos ¯ and some men are very bad men.
Surely some dragons must be enemies?"
"Yesss! Rognos isss my enemy!" Tryos grumbled with a vehemence that frightened Vailret.
Rognoth?
"We can work together, Tryos. We can help you destroy those bad men.
And we brought a weapon with us, a weapon that will destroy the enemy in a horrible way, much more horrible than simple burning with dragon fire. Those two have no defense against this special weapon ¯ we built it just for this task."
"Where isss thisss weapon?" Tryos said. He leaned forward to sniff the Dragon Siren. "Thisss kill them? They hurt my eyes. I tired now. No more fire left. But you have weapon!"
"You will take it to them, and Paenar can use it to destroy the enemy."
Vailret crossed his fingers, wishing himself luck. "You can trick them yourself. They don't know you have the weapon. That's part of the Game, remember ¯ trick your enemy."
"Yesss! Trick them! Give weapon to me!"
Vailret turned to Paenar, and the blind man nodded. He stood rigid, his mind made up. The two men lugged the Siren over to the dragon. "To work best, Tryos, this weapon has to be mounted just at the back of your head, behind your ears," Paenar said.
"Yesss." Tryos lowered his broad head to the ground. Paenar scrambled up the dragon's plated body, hesitated suddenly as his mechanical eyes ceased to function again, then picked his way at a much more careful pace.
"Paenar, I'm going to toss up the end of the rope. Try to catch it."
The end of the rope struck the blind man's chest. Paenar scrabbled for the end but missed, and it fell back to the ground. Vailret tossed it two more times before Paenar caught it and secured a heavy knot around the dragon's neck.
Together, they hauled the Dragon Siren up on Tryos's back. The dragon fidgeted. "Hurry up!" he said. "How does weapon work?"
"Paenar will ride on your back and you will fly to our enemies. When it is time, he will switch on the weapon. And then ... then that will be the end."
"Good, good! You sssmell funny ¯ afraid? What will happen?"
Vailret swallowed hard. Paenar leaned over to the dragon's ear. "We're just anxious to see the end of our enemy at last."
Paenar lashed the Siren up against the back of the dragon's skull, knotting the ropes. Vailret watched the blind man tie himself down, secure against a fall. He felt sick inside.
"We go now!" Tryos stomped his foot on the volcano rim.
"Yesss, we go now," Paenar said with an undertone of sarcasm. He cocked his head down, but from his attitude Vailret could tell Paenar's eyes were still not working. A blind man riding a blind dragon in the dark of night.
Paenar held his hand up in a farewell salute. "Remember Scartaris ¯ for me."
"I will. I promise. Luck ¯ I wish you all the luck on Gamearth."
"I am ready, Tryos," Paenar said.
The dragon launched himself off the rim, rising straight up over the wide mouth of the volcanic cone.
To Paenar, it was a cruel joke for his eyesight to return just as they flew over the wide maw of the volcano. He looked down to see the boiling red lava, the corrosive smoke, the sharp and jagged rocks far below.
Inside him, his guilt and anger burned like molten iron. Since he had met Vailret and had seen the incentive the young man carried in himself, Paenar's own guilt had been nearly unbearable. He realized that some parts of Gamearth were worth saving, worth fighting for. Now he had a lifetime of apathy to repay, and not much time to do it.
The dragon beneath him was a target for his anger, a symbol of the bad things about Gamearth. By destroying Tryos he could strike a blow against the Outsiders ¯ he could free the city of Sitnalta to work on the problem of Scartaris; he could allow Tareah to return to her father, where she and Sardun could fight Scartaris.
; But only if he destroyed the dragon.
His hand strayed to the Dragon Siren. He twisted the dish, aiming it at the back of Tryos's head so the spear of sound would pierce directly between the two cavernous reptilian ears. Paenar's mechanical eyes flickered, filled with bursts of random color, then focused again.
So far from Sitnalta and the technological fringe, chances were remote that the device would work the first time ... but the Siren would work, if he tried enough times.
"Here is my weapon, Tryos," Paenar said quietly. "Do you remember it?"
He reached forward and touched the switch, stopped, and drew in one more breath. But the stink of sulfur smoke filled the air. "Give me luck," he said.
His mechanical eyes plunged him into blindness again, so that he could not see the fiery open wound of lava below. Paenar pushed the switch upward.
Nothing happened. He flicked the switch up and down, over and over again. He had to keep trying. By the Rules of Probability, it would work if he tried enough times.
It did.
Sound surrounded him with a hurricane of noise. He jerked backward, but the ropes held him in place. The pulses pounded, penetrating into the dragon's skull.
Tryos shrieked in horror, pain, and deeper betrayal ¯ he went wild in the air, thrashing, plunging, trying to shake off the murderous Siren. But the tight bindings held it fast. Paenar was thrown back and forth like a puppet in a whirlwind. The ropes kept him on the dragon's back, but they cut deeply into his skin and broke two of his ribs.
Tryos writhed in the air, screaming, turning somersaults. The Siren pounded on, unrelenting.
The sound stopped for Paenar as his eardrums burst. The faceplate of his mechanical eyes shattered, and the many-colored oils sprayed out from the cracks, kept under pressure to suspend the floating lenses. The lenses spilled out, flying and glittering in the air.
Blind and deaf, Paenar could still feel himself thrown about in the dragon's fury. Though he could not hear it, the Siren wailed away, pummeling his bones. He felt as if his skull was being crushed within a giant fist.
He lost consciousness when he could endure it no more....
Gamearth Page 28