He waited for the dragon to respond, and he worried about what response the dragon might have, but there was none.
“I think you can fit down this tunnel, but it is going to be tight,” Jason said.
There might be another way for the ice dragon to reach the iron dragon, but it involved taking a pathway that Jason didn’t fully know, and then he would run the risk of getting lost trying to reconnect with the iron dragon.
“Move back,” the ice dragon said.
He backed down the tunnel, and within a moment, the ice dragon squeezed into the mouth of the cave. As the dragon’s wings folded, he slid in, reminding Jason of how the iron dragon had slithered across the ground. The ice dragon pushed out with cold and the ground began to crackle, forming a slick surface. The dragon slid, forcing Jason in front of him.
They moved with increasing speed, and the dragon glided all the way down through the tunnel. It was an interesting technique, and almost more impressive than the way the fire dragon had slid. At least with the ice dragon, there wouldn’t be any long-term effects for anyone to know that they had been here. The ice would melt, and there would be nothing more than water.
They shot forward, and when they staggered free into the cavernous opening, Jason rolled to his feet, looking all around.
Where was the iron dragon?
He found no sign of it.
10
The ice dragon was near, and cold glowed from him.
Jason held out the dragon pearl, drawing upon the power of the dragon, igniting the pearl so the cavern glowed with a soft white light.
“He was here,” Jason said.
“Could the others have reached him?”
“There were Dragon Souls nearby, but we stayed ahead of them. They wouldn’t have been able to catch him.”
The dragon rumbled and Jason looked around, a growing irritation filling him. Had he made a mistake? It was possible that he could have summoned the ice dragon from in here, and if he had done that, then nothing would have happened to the iron dragon.
Would there be any way of detecting the heat from the iron dragon?
It was possible, but perhaps not without a dragon pearl.
He looked around, staring at the ground, and he found a small nugget of metal.
When he crouched down in front of it, he realized it reminded him of a dragon pearl.
The surface was smooth, still warm, and yet as he held it out, it was almost perfectly round, far more round than it should be for anything natural.
He turned toward the ice dragon. “I think this is a dragon pearl from the iron dragon.”
“Then something happened.”
“That’s the only way a dragon pearl would be left?” Jason honestly didn’t know. When he had come across the ice dragon’s pearl, he had thought it had been intentional, but perhaps it had been left accidentally. If so, then this being left behind indicated that something was wrong.
If that were the case, then Jason would need to focus. It was possible he could use the energy within the dragon pearl, and then maybe they would be able to determine what had happened to the iron dragon.
He held on to the metal and focused on the heat within it, connecting to that heat which was within himself, and he strained.
He might not be a full Dragon Soul, and he might only have a partial ability with that power, but he thought he should be able to reach for that heat. He had done so before, and that was when he wasn’t even that familiar with the dragon paired with this pearl.
No sense of heat responded.
It was emptiness. Nothing.
Jason looked around. There were nearly a dozen different tunnels. The iron dragon could have gone through any of them. The Dragon Souls could have summoned the iron dragon, dragging him free, giving the dragon no choice but to follow. They had been lucky to escape, but perhaps they hadn’t really escaped as well as they had thought.
He breathed out. “Do you have any way of detecting your hatch mates?”
“He is near,” the ice dragon said.
“How can you tell?”
“I can feel him.”
“If you can feel him, then tell him it’s all right to return.”
The ice dragon rumbled.
There was no response.
Jason hadn’t really expected there to be, though he had been hopeful that there might be something. The longer he sat there, feeling the iron dragon pearl in his hand, the more he hoped there might be some way of using that power, and yet, he wasn’t at all surprised that there wasn’t.
He thought about what he knew of the dragons and realized that the connection to the iron dragon would be different. It wasn’t just heat, it was that of molten metal. Jason might have a link to the other type of dragon pearl, but this dragon, and this pearl, was something else.
He frowned to himself. Perhaps that was the point.
He couldn’t connect through the iron dragon’s pearl. At least, not in that form.
He held out the ice dragon pearl. Focusing on the energy within it, he borrowed power from the ice dragon and sent it surging into the pearl. As he did, the power flowed. It went slowly at first and then picked up intensity. It was almost as if the ice dragon had resisted, waiting to see what Jason might do. And all he was doing was sending energy skirting along the various pathways. He wasn’t attempting anything else, and he didn’t have the necessary control to do much else, but he thought that he might be able to hold on to what he could detect. And if he could, then perhaps he could uncover a sense of the dragon.
As he pushed outward, the power was uncontrolled. A circle of cold, and yet, he was aware of how it washed through the various tunnels. It radiated away from him, rolling down the tunnels, and as it did, Jason focused on it, feeling that power.
There was something there.
He turned, focusing on only one of the tunnels now. He continued to draw cold through the ice dragon, letting that power wash through him, toward the tunnel, and then beyond.
In doing so, he thought he still felt something. At first, he wasn’t entirely sure what it was, but the more he pushed, the more certain he was that something resisted him.
He nodded to the tunnel.
The ice dragon nudged him and Jason climbed onto his back. They jumped and glided into the tunnel.
Much like before, the ice dragon pushed out with cold and the ground formed a glaze around it that the dragon slid upon. Surprisingly, the dragon managed to slide upward almost as fast as he had slid down the tunnel. They glided, his wings folded in and wrapped around his body and power propelling them forward. Jason continued to hold on to the connection to the dragon pearl, the energy that flowed through him, and as he did, he was increasingly certain that there was something up here. He just had to reach it, though he wasn’t sure if he would be able to do so.
He focused, sending energy forward, drawing upon the ice dragon.
When it reached the resistance this time, Jason continued to push.
It was a strange resistance, and he had no idea what it was, only that it was unpleasant, grating against him, as if it were unnatural.
He pushed harder, using the power from the ice dragon, and found that wasn’t enough. He had to draw from within himself, and so he focused on some of the heat within him and pushed.
It was always strange to Jason that he could use the ice dragon pearl by drawing on heat, but for whatever reason, he had managed to do so. He did so again now, letting that power flow outward.
When it struck the resistance, he continued to push, recognizing that whatever he was feeling was unnatural, and he had to believe that he could overwhelm it. It would take force and strength, and yet he was convinced that he could do so.