Cayce stared at the ring suspiciously. “Thank you, Master.”
“Not at all. It is a sacrifice I am willing to make for you, my apprentice.” Rus’s eyes grew stern. “Put on the ring.”
“Yes, Master Rus.” Cayce nodded grimly. She slid the ring on to her thickest finger, where it spun freely. “Master?”
“Mmm?”
“Afterward? If I survive biting the ring, when does the toxic effect wear off?”
“Afterward?” Rus shrugged. “At that point ‘afterward’ is not really a practical concern, believe you me.”
“Now. Duty calls, and you do not have time to waste.” Rus pointed at Cayce’s burden. “Empty your pack and leave the gear here with me. Go into yonder cave and scoop up as many scales as you can. I expect at least one full load before I’ll be ready to leave.”
“Yes, Master Rus.”
“As for the claws and teeth, I don’t expect you to find any this far out. If you survive long enough to collect and deliver a full pack of scales, we’ll know it’s safe to venture in deeper. I’d say one… no, two hundred yards. Two hundred yards, or two claws, or one tooth. Achieve one of these milestones and you can return.” Rus smiled. “I won’t make you delve any deeper to see if there are eggs. Dragons are notoriously defensive of their progeny. We could live off the proceeds of a dragon egg for ten lifetimes, but I’d rather have a small fortune and a long life than a huge fortune and no life.” Rus pondered a moment. “Though if you see any eggshells, by all means pick them up.”
Cayce leaned closer to her master, staring over Rus’s shoulder at the long stretch of flattened ground between them and the cave entrance. She felt her heart pounding, not faster but louder with each booming beat.
How bad things gotten worse? Now, instead of backing up an armed attack on a dragon, Cayce was charged with sneaking into one’s lair—alone—and pilfering its dustbin. She was no warrior and had no experience with thieving. All she had was a pair of lethally toxic baubles that were as likely to kill her as any dragon was.
“It’s not danger you face,” Rus said quietly. “It is an opportunity.”
Cayce nodded to herself, her eyes locked on the tunnel entrance. “And I will seize it, Master Rus. But first… could you build another fire, downwind from the cave? And could you put some more of the herbs and things you haven’t taught me about in it? I’d like to fan the smoke into the tunnel before I venture in.”
Rus beamed. “I’d be happy to, my apprentice. I assume you’ll want a pinch of clovermint to sniff as well?”
“A generous pinch, Master, if you please.”
“Done.” Rus clapped her lightly on the back. “I approve of this newfound boldness of yours, Tania Cayce. Great poisoners must be bold.”
Cayce nodded but said nothing, staring expectantly at her master.
Rus blinked, then bowed with an exaggerated flourish. “Great poisoners must also be alive, I’m told.” The stout man straightened up, dipped a hand into the pocket of his waist-coat, and dropped a clump of green clover into Cayce’s hand.
Rus tipped his hat. “I’ll get started on that fire.”
Twenty minutes later, Cayce stepped into the dark recesses of the dragon’s cave. She held a cluster of clovermint tight against her nose and lips. A clear gem in the center of her headdress glowed softly, casting enough light for her to see while leaving her hands free for the task at hand.
There was a faint stale breeze flowing out of the tunnel, so the waft from Rus’s fire was not penetrating far past the entrance. Cayce waved her empty pack in front of her as she walked to help make sure that anything inside the cave would meet Rus’s sleeping agent before it met her.
Not that she needed to go very far to collect the first part of her payload. Rus was correct, there were plenty of old scales here. The floor was littered with them and the outward flow of air had heaped them into piles along the lower lip of the cave entrance. Cayce forced herself to ignore the steady pounding of her pulse and crouched down on one knee. She placed the open pack on the cave floor with one hand while the other kept the clovermint filter over her face. Her eyes grew more and more accustomed to the dank interior as she carefully swept old dragon scales into her pack.
Many of the dried, brittle scales cracked and shattered as she touched them, crumbling to a fine powder that glinted in the low light. They seemed as if they could have been from the vivid blue-white dragon she had seen earlier, but only if they had been sloughed decades ago. There was a palpable sense of age about them, the kind of heady sensation she sometimes got from examining one of Master Rus’s most ancient scrolls.
She wondered exactly how old this monster was. It had begun marauding in Hask’s and Kula’s territories roughly one year ago, but it was clearly a full-grown adult. Why had it suddenly decided to expand its hunting ground? It had been happy to sit in its mountain and torment Vaan’s people for decades, according to the pixie’s story. It struck Cayce once more how dangerous it was that their client-guide would not or could not tell them everything he knew.
Something stirred deep within the mountain. Cayce felt it in the walls of the cave, in the gust of fetid air that blew past her, and in the cold terror-sweat that broke out along her spine. She quickly shoveled one more armload of scales into the pack, hoisted it onto her shoulder, went back to the entrance, and crawled out.
The sun had fully risen, and the rocky bowl was blindingly bright to Cayce. Squinting, she held the pack out straight in one hand and took several clumsy steps forward.
Someone grabbed her by the arm and hauled her down. Cayce struggled for a moment under the heavy weight of an unfamiliar body until Rus’s voice hissed, “Lie still, girl. I’ve come to relieve you of your burden.”
Cayce’s eyes adjusted to the light and she let go of the pack. As her vision cleared she saw Rus on his knees, rummaging through the mass of dried-up scales.
“Not the halest or healthiest specimens I’ve seen,” Rus said. “But perfectly adequate for my needs.” He looked up as if noticing Cayce for the first time. “Ready to go back in?”
“Something’s in there,” Cayce said. “I heard it moving, coming toward the entrance just before I came out.”
Rus tilted his hat back. “Well, it’s a good thing I gave you the ring and the skull, isn’t it? Back to work, my dear. You can’t quit with the job half-done.”
“Except when you’re working for pixies,” Cayce muttered.
“A-ha. Very funny and very true. Now…” Rus emptied the pack into a collapsible lock box he had retrieved from the gear Cayce had lugged up the mountain. “Go collect some of those oh-so-valuable teeth and claws.”
Rus withdrew from the mouth of the cave as Cayce prepared to go back in. She bit down on the clump of clovermint, freeing both hands, and cinched the pack around her waist. She reasoned she would be beyond the sleeping draft’s effect within ten or twenty paces of the entrance, but she still wanted to keep the antidote handy. She also wanted both hands empty to find and collect her treasure as quickly as possible.
Cayce slid back into the darkened cave and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light from her headdress. She breathed in clovermint through clenched teeth and felt her way past the drowsy scent of camphor until she could see rough outlines of rock formations and stalagmites. Then Cayce crouched and went on, trying to remain as silent and unnoticed as one of the discarded scales.
Fifty paces in she saw the last glimmer of sunlight disappear around a gentle bend to the right. Cayce reached out once more to the damp wall and used it to guide her forward. The darkness was somehow thicker here, heavier and more impenetrable. The light from the gem in her headdress seemed diminished, less bright and squeezed closer in around her.