Wind blasted through the gaps between the claws, making my eyes stream with tears, and it took a considerable while before I convinced myself to move enough to shield them so I could see. But in the instant I did so, I understood why my flesh was intact. Thick pads of tough gray tissue were extended from the dragon’s foot and curved along the inside and around the inner tip of each claw. I scarcely dared breathe. Perhaps it didn’t know I was there. Perhaps it thought I was ... I couldn’t imagine. I couldn’t think at all.
A monumental cry blared from just above me, ripping into me like the claws I expected, so dreadfully loud, so awesomely immense, I thought I must go mad from it. Yet strangely ... incredibly ... hidden in the rise and fall of the dragon’s wail and in the timbre of its voice was a combination of tones that was eerily familiar.
How could it be so? I covered my head with my arm, slowed my breathing, and told myself that if I worked at it hard enough I would surely wake up on the floor of my hovel. But I lived on unharmed, the passing moments and the whipping gray clouds cooling my fevered terror, so I was able to listen with all of myself when the dragon cried out again.
No Rider flew on that dragon. My bones resonated with that truth. The beast was uncontrolled, free, and when I again heard the music in its cry of exultation, I began to tremble with something far beyond fear.
My stomach, which had not weathered events at all well, gave a fearsome lurch when the beast began its circling descent. Gingerly I leaned on one of the padded claws, grasping hold of it and peering out as we dropped below the clouds into gray daylight. We were approaching a sweeping, grassy hill, gently sloping on all sides, embraced on the south by a broad, glassy river. Once, twice, three times we circled, each time lower, until five dark blotches I’d thought were trees were revealed as two men and three horses. I dared not even think for the hope that welled up inside me, not even when we swooped low, the talon cage opened, and I tumbled gently onto the thick grass.
For a moment I lay crumpled in a ball, my face pressed against damp—oh, Jodar—such sweet-smelling grass. If I am to die, then let it be while the soft earth holds me. But the brimstone-laden wind of dragon wings drew my eyes to the sky. Though dizzy and half-sick, I stood and watched the dragon soar heavenward until it disappeared into the clouds. “Thank you,” I yelled, as if it could understand words. Then I turned toward the brow of the hill where the men and horses were silhouetted against the sky. In my deepest heart—for no explainable reason—I believed I would walk up the hill to meet Aidan MacAllister, but in truth it was an exceptionally broad-shouldered Elhim and my weeping father.
AIDAN
Chapter 33
As prisons go, the bondage of Narim’s poison was not terrible. Other than the initial nausea when he administered it every morning, little discomfort was involved. I was tired enough that a few days of immobility didn’t seem cruel. The Elhim fed me and made sure all normal bodily needs were taken care of. The only thing they didn’t know and I couldn’t tell them—since I was quite incapable of speech—was how wickedly I itched all over once my hair started growing in again. Nothing much to do about that, even if I’d had control of my own muscles. I probably would have scratched myself to ribbons.
My mind was limp as well. I slept most of the days as we traveled. Only when the poison started to wear off could I apply any logical thought to this latest detour in my life’s peculiar journey. What was Narim planning? Was it truly to speak to the dragons? To get reassurance he could not accept from me? I couldn’t believe it. Nien’hak ... that was the key. According to Davyn, Narim had been poking around in it, and according to the journal map, it was somewhere in the mountains of the Carag Huim. But I couldn’t remember what it was. I tried picturing the journal entry, the lists of names and numbers, and I tried remembering where I’d heard the name before. On the third night of our journey, as I lay paralyzed and staring into the dying coals, my thoughts drifted to Cor Talaith, the Elhim’s green valley left in cinders by the Ridemark. That led me to Iskendar and his dying words ... and there was Nien’hak again. “Ask him what he found in Nien’hak,” he’d said. “Ask him why there is an Elhim named for every dragon.”
It was so hard to think. A spark snapped and flew up from a crumbling log, shooting across my vision like a miniature dragon. The names in the journal lists were Elhim names. No dragons, though. Narim didn’t know the dragons’ names except for the Seven. The second list was tools—unhelpful. The third list was place names. My thoughts flitted away with the swirling ashes of the fire, and for a while the focus of my being was how dearly I would love to rub the grit from my eyes and take a hay fork to my itching legs.
What did barrows and picks have to do with dragons? And what were the place names in the journal list, and what did the numbers attached to each place mean? Vallior—32, Camarthan—12, Aberthain—3 ...
The truth struck me like a tower toppling on my head. In the span of a heartbeat all of it was clear: why it was so important that the dragons come to the lake, how Narim planned to rescue Lara, why he had to kill me. I thought I would burst with the horrifying certainty, and indeed I must have groaned aloud, for Narim was soon standing over me as I struggled to move and speak.
The place names were the locations of dragon lairs. The numbers signified how many dragons were in each lair. “An Elhim named for every dragon,” and Narim knew exactly how many dragons there were. And the shovels and barrows were to use in Nien’hak—Nien’hak, the “pit of blood,” the mine near Cor Talaith where the Elhim had dug out the bloodstones. What had Narim found in the pit of blood?
Narim called for Kells to hold me still as I writhed and croaked, “You can’t—” That was all I managed to get out before they poured more poison down my throat.
“I was trying to keep the doses small enough so you could have some control of yourself,” said Narim, “but I can’t have you gathering any semblance of your wits. Certainly not enough to speak to Roelan.”
I gagged and heaved, but the oily liquid slid down, burning in my stomach, leaving me limp and scarcely breathing, all sense sagging into a puddle of despair. Narim was planning to enslave the dragons again—only this time to the Elhim. And once an Elhim and his bloodstone had been bound to a dragon, only one human would know how to set them free. And I would be dead.
Narim must have judged his poisons well, for I continued in this semimindless state, drowned in panic and horror, yet unable to call on Roelan. I could not concentrate, could not draw my will together. Most of the time I could not even remember why my flesh quivered with the need to warn the dragons away from the lake. Once I felt Roelan reaching for me, his call a distant, lonely peal of thunder. I cried out after it, as will a drought-stricken farmer when the storm veers away from his sere crop-land. My effort resulted in little more than a wordless moan, and all I got for it was an extra dose of Narim’s poison. The Elhim had to replace the ropes around my wrists that morning, for they charred through and I almost fell under the hooves of my horse.
I could not say how many more days it took us to get to the lake after that. I was lost in terrifying dreams: of being trapped in unending dragon fire, of being dreadfully sick when my horse foundered in a river crossing, leaving me to drift on choppy water, of thrashing in mindless panic as I was returned to the chains and damp stone of Mazadine. ...