Lief wet his lips. ‘Jasmine. Barda. Come no further,’ he said, his voice a croak he hardly recognised as his own. ‘The dragon and I will go on alone.’
Neither Barda nor Jasmine replied. But still they followed him.
Step by painful step they struggled on. Every step was an effort. Every breath was pain.
Lief’s sword was in his hand, but he doubted he could lift his arm. It was as if the Sister’s song had penetrated every bone, every muscle of his body, poisoning his blood, spreading an aching weakness.
Then suddenly the end of the cave was in sight.
Lief’s skin crawled. A dim shape hunched there. A dim, pale shape that was the source of the sound, the source of the evil, the source of the poison.
He forced himself forward, bracing himself against what he might see.
Then he felt the dragon shudder. He heard the dragon’s heart begin to thunder in its chest.
And he saw what the pale shape was.
It was a man, sitting on a carved throne of stone—a man so ancient that he seemed almost transparent. A long white beard trailed down his chest. Long white hair fell to his waist. His rough garments were grey with age and dust. Spider web floated about him. Spider web netted his gaunt face, sealed his eyelids and covered the bone-thin hands that rested on the arms of his throne.
But he was alive. Shallow breaths stirred the white threads that spanned his withered lips.
And the Sister of the West was inside him. From the frail chest, pure evil poured.
Lief’s head was roaring. He could not breathe. He heard the sound of Barda’s sword clattering to the ground behind him.
The man’s eyes opened beneath the veil of web.
The hazy grey stare fixed on Lief for a moment. Then it drifted away, to rest on the dragon. Web threads broke and drifted as the pale lips parted. The voice came, like dead leaves rustling.
‘Veritas.’
The dragon was quivering all over.
‘Doran,’ it hissed.
Lief’s heart seemed to leap into his throat. Suddenly his mind was burning with the memory of the Shadow Lord’s evil, gloating voice.
The upstart has the fate he deserves…
With horror such as he had never known, Lief stared at the ancient, tormented being on the throne.
So this had been the fate of the upstart, the one who had dared to try to foil the plan of the Four Sisters. This had been the punishment of Doran the Dragonlover. Enslaved by the Shadow Lord’s sorcery, he had been condemned to centuries of half-life as the guardian of the very evil he had tried to destroy.
The grey eyes moved to meet his. The lips opened. And again came the faint, rasping voice.
‘You—wear the Belt of Deltora. You—are the king.’
‘Yes,’ Lief said. ‘I am Lief, son of Endon and Sharn, heir of Adin.’ It was hard to speak. The power of the Sister of the West was beating him down. But his heart was aching with pity and rage equally as he gazed into those suffering eyes, and he made himself go on. ‘And you are Doran the Dragonlover, beloved by the tribes of the underworld, saviour of the dragons of Deltora. The one whose map led me here.’
Doran’s eyes flickered. A tiny spark seemed to leap within them.
‘The Four Sisters…’ he whispered.
‘Only two remain,’ Lief said. ‘The Sisters of the West and of the South.’
‘The Sister of the West is within me,’ rasped Doran. ‘Kill me and destroy it, as I could not.’
‘No!’ groaned Veritas. ‘No, Dragonfriend!’
The grey eyes warmed. The dry lips curved into a smile.
‘This is not life, but living death, my friend,’ Doran said gently. ‘To me, true death would be the greatest gift. Would you deny me?’
The dragon bowed its head.
‘I will die knowing that my life was not in vain,’ Doran murmured. ‘I will die knowing that the Enemy may be at last defeated. And I will die in happiness knowing that you live, Veritas. You and your kind…’
His voice trailed away. His faded eyes grew puzzled. ‘But… I was forgetting,’ he said. ‘This is the land of the diamond. Where is—?’
‘That dragon is dead,’ Veritas said stolidly.
Shadows of grief crossed Doran’s ancient face. ‘And so, despite all, her tribe has ended,’ he said. ‘I would give much that it was not so.’
Lief could not bear it. He forced his hand to his pocket and lifted out the baby dragon. It seemed to him larger and heavier than it had before.
The baby made a small, complaining sound, but did not wake as Lief held it where Doran could see it.
The amethyst dragon moved uneasily.
But Doran’s face was transformed. Relief and love lit his eyes as he gazed at the small, glittering creature in Lief’s hands.
‘Make haste, Veritas, I beg you,’ he said suddenly. ‘Give me your gift… in this moment…’
The dragon of the amethyst bent forward.
‘Farewell, Doran,’ it said softly. ‘I will see you again, in the place above the clouds. There we will be young, and we will fly together once more.’
‘Veritas, my true friend, we will,’ said the man.
The dragon moved closer, bending its neck till its head masked the figure on the throne. It paused for a moment, then drew a deep, shuddering breath.
And when it moved back, Doran’s face was peaceful, like a face that was sleeping, and the gossamer threads around his mouth no longer stirred.
‘What—?’ Lief heard Jasmine choke.
‘He is gone,’ whispered the dragon. ‘I took his breath, as he wished.’
Freed at last from its bondage, the ancient body on the throne began to crumble. A few coins, a silver flask and a strange, many-coloured stone rolled to the ground as Doran’s garments, hair, flesh and bones fell to dust. But the horror that had been concealed within him remained.
There on the carved rock, revealed at last, was a rippling, jelly-like thing, creamy white and veined with pink and grey.
Malice streamed from its shapeless form, and its song was poison, hatred, doom and despair.
The Sister of the West.
19 – Vows
The dragon roared, and in that thunderous sound was all the rage, grief and hatred of its aching heart. Fire gushed from its snarling jaws, and the soft thing on the rock throne writhed and shrank as violet flame engulfed it.
Pressed hard against the dragon’s leg, the diamond baby sheltered in the crook of his arm, Lief gripped the amethyst. In a daze of heat and fear, he felt the ancient power of the gem flow through him, pouring strength into the beast.
Again Veritas roared, and again, till the throne was a bath of purple fire. The shapeless thing in the fire darkened and smoked. The veins netting its surface swelled. The low ringing sound faltered, and rose to an ear-splitting screech.
Lief screwed his eyes shut and pressed his burning face against the dragon’s scales.
Then abruptly, the screeching stopped. The dragon, too, fell silent. The cavern seemed to echo with a silence that was somehow more terrible than sound.
Lief felt the beast draw a deep breath. Then he heard a long, low hissing and felt a blast of white heat so intense that he fell to his knees.
There was a sharp crack. Lief opened his eyes as the hissing sound dwindled and died.
The throne had split in two. And where the Sister of the West had been there was only a dull grey stain on the rock.
‘So that is done,’ Veritas said soberly. ‘Lief, gather Dragonfriend’s possessions. They must not remain here. And nor must we. Now that the evil has gone, the beast outside will claim its den once more.’
Lief staggered up. The baby dragon in the crook of his arm stretched and yawned.
The flat, purple eyes blinked.
‘You will never know Dragonfriend, small dragon of the diamond,’ Veritas said. ‘But your life made his last breath joyful, and so I will tell you, in times to come.’
In less than a minute, the dragon was bursting from the cave with Lief, Barda and Jasmine clinging to its neck. The baby dragon had been crammed back into Lief’s pocket. Filli was invisible beneath Jasmine’s collar. But Kree flew below the dragon’s wings, his golden eyes fixed to the ground, ready to attack.