The fellow snatched his grimy cap from his head and began to wring it in his hands, then stared at the ground beneath Vaerana's stirrups. "It was well past high night, ma'am," he began. "I was waked by me dogs howling, an'
I heard a bell ringing, only it was real deep."
The man paused, which prompted Vaerana's gaze to snap toward Pierstar. "I don't see what-"
"Let him finish," Pierstar said. Then, to the man, he ordered, "Go on, and be quick about it. Vaerana Hawk- lyn's not known for her patience."
Looking more frightened than ever, the man blurted,
"It was maybe an hour later. My dogs went mad, an' I
looked up and saw a dragon flying over. I thought I'd lost me herd an' me life too, but it just flew by." He pointed toward the Night Castle. "It landed in there. I'll tell you, ma'am, I rolled me blanket quick and started the herd for these woods, but the dragon was back in the air before I
made a hundred paces-an' he was carryin' something real careful-like in his claws."
"What?" Vaerana demanded. "An oak staff with a big topaz pommel?"
It was Ruha who answered. "No. Cypress would not trust anyone else with that staff. It had to be the ylang blossoms."
"I don't know about your blossoms or your staff," said the man. "All I saw was a real fat cleric holding a big wooden cask, an' he looked about as scared as me."
"Then we've lost the trail." Vaerana did not curse or cry out; her shoulders simply slumped forward. "Even if we knew where the lair was, we can't ride as fast as
Cypress can fly."
"We have lost the trail, but not the battle," said Ruha.
"Minister Hsieh is pressing the real oil for us at the Gin- ger Palace. Perhaps we should go and retrieve it; when
Cypress returns home and discovers that he has been deceived, he will come to us."
Tang hurled the torch against the gray limestone, then sat upon a fallen stalactite to contemplate the back wall of the cavern. He had explored every nook, cranny and fissure without finding Cypress's lair. Not a single pas- sage large enough for a man, much less a dragon, led deeper into the mountain. The prince had even scaled a giant-high dropblock to peer into the ceiling's shadowy recesses, and he had seen nothing. It was as if Cypress vanished when he entered the cavern.
Given that the dragon was more dead than alive, that seemed entirely possible. Still, Tang had not yet searched one place, perhaps because if he found the passage there, he stood every chance of dying in it.
The prince retrieved his guttering torch and climbed down to the pool. On the far bank, the cavern did not end in a true wall. The ceiling simply angled down and disap- peared into the water, which was so fetid and brown with decay it was impossible to see a hand's span beneath the surface. The passage, if the cavern had one, could only be hidden there.
Tang returned to the small pile of equipment he had salvaged from his dugout and prepared for his dive. He folded his tinderbox into its oilcloth and knotted the ends together so they would not leak. He pushed the stopper well down into his oil flask and used a bootlace to fix it to his sword belt. He emptied his waterskin into the pool, then refilled it with several breaths of air and slung it around his neck. Finally, the prince uncoiled his rope, tying one end to his sword belt and the other to a small boulder at the edge of the pond.
Tang waded into the pool until it became chest-deep, then doused his torch and wedged it into his empty sword scabbard. In the dim swamp light filtering in from the cavern mouth, he could barely see the ceiling of the grotto, sloping down like the roof of some huge mouth.
He swam over to it and dove. The water turned instantly as thick and dark as plum wine. The prince rolled onto his back so he could use his hands and feet to push him- self along the roof of the passage.
Tang's heart began to pound in his ears and his throat grew tight, but he gave no thought to turning back. It was not that he felt no fear; on the contrary, he was filled with a cold, queasy dread that made his hands shake and his bowels churn. The thought occurred to him that the passage might have more than one branch. He could eas- ily be swimming into an underwater labyrinth; in such suffocating darkness, he would never know it.
Dragging himself through the passage was hard work, and Tang's breath did not last long. He turned over, then emptied his lungs into the black water. The prince pulled his buoyant waterskin beneath his body and allowed it to press him against the ceiling, then placed his lips over the mouth. Biting the stopper between his teeth, he care- fully opened the skin and allowed a stream of stale air to seep into his chest. Closing the sack was more difficult.
He had to use his fingers to push the stopper back into place, losing several precious bubbles when he slipped the digits into the corner of his mouth.
Tang continued forward, if not growing less afraid, then at least growing more accustomed to fear. Though he had lost all sense of direction, he no longer worried about becoming lost. No matter how complicated the labyrinth, he could always follow the rope back. He filled his lungs from his air sack two more times, each time allowing a few cherished bubbles to slip along his cheek as he pushed the stopper back into place. Even that loss did not trouble him. If he ran out of air, it would be much easier to pull himself back to the pond than to crawl forward as he was doing. Then he would simply find a couple of extra waterskins and resume his explorations.
A flicker of orange-yellow light caught Tang's eye, and he began to hope it would not be necessary to turn around. He dragged himself forward. When the flicker became a diffuse gold-red gleam pushing its way through the murky water, he realized he had to be nearing
Cypress's lair. The glow was the color of flame, and fires do not burn underwater. More importantly, where there was light, Lady Feng was also bound to be. The prince pulled himself forward with renewed vigor-only to come to an abrupt stop as he reached the end of the rope.
Tang did not even consider going back for another length of rope. Instead, he sucked the last dregs of air from his waterskin, then untied himself and swam toward the light. He began to count heartbeats, not because he feared he would drown before he reached the
end of the passage, but to give him some idea of how far it was back to the rope. The golden glow brightened slowly. His count had reached thirty by the time it was ab large as a head. At fifty, his lungs began to ache for air, and the light was no larger than a harvest moon. When the count reached seventy, his limbs grew so heavy and weak that he could hardly move them. Yellow-orange radiance filled the whole passage ahead, and still the ceiling held Tang beneath the water.
The prince blew out the last of his breath and swam another dozen strokes. His count reached a hundred and ten, and the orange glow was so bright that he could see his hands silhouetted against it. His heart began to beat faster, pounding inside his chest like a forge's trip ham- mer, and a trickle of sweet-tasting water seeped between his lips. At the count of a hundred and thirty, the golden light began to sparkle and shimmer, and the prince real- ized he had made a terrible mistake. Whatever it was, this radiance was too strong, too brilliant to be firelight.