It was only an hour’s wet and dreary walk to the bulge in the earth where Keldar lay. I tried to give some thought to our coming endeavor, but the immediate misery of wet boots and the visible enigma of Lara made such absurdities as conversations with dragons retreat into fantasy. Even when we descended a rocky stair into a broad, barren valley littered with scorched rock and skeletal trees, then dropped our gear beside a jagged, gaping maw in the face of a sheer cliff—even then I had trouble believing what we were about to attempt.
I tried again with my question of two days before. “Are we ready for this?”
Lara, clearly feeling no need for further discussion on any matter, pointed at the bag of my unfinished leather armor and began to don her own.
I dragged out the breeches and pulled them on, clumsily knotting the laces. “What’s this stuff that makes it smell so vile?”
“Vigar helps fireproof the leather. The secret of its making belongs to the Twelve.”
“As long as it works.”
I had no helm or mask. They’d not been finished when we took flight. Lara pulled hers from her bag, glanced at me, and then threw them on the ground and walked into the cave. Her back dared me to say anything. As she couldn’t see me do it, I smiled after her and wished fervently for more time. The soft rain pattered on her discarded gear and into my face as I looked upward and imagined the sun and blue sky that were hiding behind the heavy clouds. Though the peaks and high valleys still wore their smooth mantles of white, spring was lurking in the Carag Huim. I could feel it in the soft edge of the air, and hear it in the trickle of water beneath the skim of ice at my feet, and smell it in the scent of the rain as it stirred the damp earth to life. The world sat poised, waiting, and with all of my being I embraced it. Then I followed Lara into the darkness.
Chapter 19
“Be ready.” Her quiet command from above my head was clear and steady. She might have saved herself the trouble of saying anything so useless. How could one prepare for what was to come? The last time I’d visited that vast, stinking cavern, I’d come a gnat’s breath from dying. And on that day I wasn’t even trying to listen.
I pressed my forehead against the cool stone and fought to quiet my sudden panic, to ignore the sighing rumble of dragon breath that came from beyond our rocky niche like the gusting precursors of a thunderstorm.
Put it all away ... lingering regrets, awakened desires, hunger for justice and revelation. You must listen. Everything depends on your listening . . . on hearing what it has been given you to hear, even if it is the sound of your own death.
Beyond the monstrous breathing there was ... what? The bubbling of steaming mud pits, the trickling of the cascade on the cavern wall behind my puny shelter, the faint, harsh cry of a hawk from where the world lay beyond the cave entrance far to my right, the sharp echo of hoof on stone. Across the pitted floor from the pile of red rocks, two of the small, sturdy Carag Huim horses sipped peacefully from a pool of black water not twenty paces from the monster’s head. They paid no heed to the bony jaws that could gape and breathe fire upon them or snatch them up, a tasty tidbit to soothe the hunger of dragon dreams. And of course there was the sound of Lara’s stiff leather, creaking as she moved, the scuff of her boots as she climbed the rocky steps to stand upon the topmost boulder of our pile, the rampart of our little fortress so ominously streaked with black.
Then her clear voice sang out to rouse the monster. “Awaken, child of fire and wind. Wake from the sleep of dying and heed my command.” The hot, humid air moved uneasily. “Wake from winter’s death and take your place among the mighty of the world. I command you drink your fill of the water of fire and life.”
Open your ears, Aidan MacAllister, and listen. It is the gift you have been given. ...
I felt his breathing change from nature’s rhythm to the tempo colored by waking will—a mighty will, pulsing through the cave. An ominous growl vibrated the stone at my head and beneath my feet. The cry would come at any moment like the blast of a thousand hellish trumpets. I had to be ready, but what preparation can mute the scream of a thousand tormented souls, the rolling thunder of a thousand hurricanes? I raised my arms to cover my head just as he bellowed. The sound reverberated through my very bones until I was sure they must be shattered to dust; searing pain tore through my chest like a hot knife used to carve out my heart. My knees gave way as I fought to keep from crying out. Through my closed eyelids, even sheltered as I was by the rocks, I could see the brilliance of fire. A shower of hot droplets fell from the air, but I forced myself still. If Lara was a victim of the dragon’s waking, I could do nothing for her, but if she was not, then she would tell me when to come, and I had to be able to hear it.
The first bellow subsided into a series of horrific growlings and snortings, accompanied by rock-shattering blows that could be nothing but the beast’s mighty tail, slamming into the cave walls. Astonishingly, in the midst of it all, I heard the soft whickering of horses and an unconcerned clopping of hooves.
“MacAllister!” The quiet call pushed its way through the throbbing of my head, and I let out the breath I’d held since her last word. I hauled myself up three boulders until my eyes were on a level with Lara’s boots. Her leather-clad hand held the bloodstone like a pulsing heart. She called down to me softly. “The kai drinks. Come quickly, but stay low.”
I scrambled up to the top of the flat red rock, crouching as low as the bulky leather armor would allow, and looked out over a poet’s vision of the netherworld: steaming mud pits, brimstone-laden smoke obscuring the view of burning rubble heaps, rotting carcasses. And the beast itself, repulsive, horrid, its head not fifty paces from me, the white-filmed eyes of scarlet flame, open and fixed in malevolent, unseeing madness on the bloodstone, even as it poked its snout into the black pool. Bursts of steam shot upward as gouts of flame streamed from its nostrils.
Ludicrous. Lara was right. Intelligence and sentience were far more likely present in the wild horses that shared the pool or in the very rocks of the cave than behind those devil’s eyes.
“I’ll move to the mouth of the cave,” said Lara, keeping her arm stretched high and her eyes fixed on the dragon. “We must put distance between you and the kai’cet. Count fifty; then I’ll say the words that release my command. I can reclaim control if you don’t wait too long to tell me. Do you understand? At the first sign of trouble, call my name.”
“Thank you” was all I managed to say, my wit completely abandoning me as I looked up at the worry on her face and yearned—foolishly—that it was for me. “Fifty, forty-nine ...”
Slowly she eased down from the rock, keeping herself and—more important—the bloodstone exposed to the wakened monster, calling to him, “Hear me, kai! Drink your fill and open the doors of your mind.”
The dragon raised its head from the water to follow the movement of the stone, and it rumbled ominously, rippling the muscles of its towering shoulders and the long copper barrel of its throat, flexing its wings so that I caught glimpses of swirling green and gold gossamer. It could not stretch its wings fully, of course. No cavern in my knowledge was so large it could hold a dragon’s wings unfurled.