He stepped back away from its tugging force, arms raised to shoulder level, hands rising and falling. A long, wavering cry came from its center, and he moved his hands downward.
The roaring ceased with a blurt. The swirling curtain began to fall away, revealing a large, dark, quadrapedal outline, head high and tossing.
He moved forward and placed his hand upon the neck of the creature, unfamiliar to the inhabitants of this world. It whinnied.
A moment later, it grew calm, and his hand slid back to the pommel of the saddle with which it had come equipped. He mounted and took up the reins.
They were at the center of a crater which had not been present when he had begun his spell. He spoke to the sand-colored beast, rubbing its neck and its ears. Then he shook the reins gently.
It climbed slowly out of the depression and he turned its head northward. He smiled as they began moving in that direction. Scarlet fingers reached above them from out of the east as they made their way down to a more level area and located a trail. He squeezed with his knees and rustled the reins again.
"Hi-yo, Dust!" he shouted. "Away!"
His tireless mount shot forward across the dawn, quickly achieving a blinding, unnatural pace.
XIII
They had arrived in the afternoon, Mouseglove and Moonbird, circling above the wreckage atop Anvil Mountain. Looking downward, Mouseglove, who had spent so much time there, found it difficult to recognize those features he had known. But he saw the one huge crater, still now, beside the wreckage of a tall building.
"That has to be it," he stated, "the place where Pol said he cast the rod."
It is, Moonbird replied.
"It is said that the eye of a dragon sees more than the eye of a man."
It is said correctly.
"Any of the machines or the dwarves still active down there?"
I see no movements of either sort.
"Then let us go down."
To the crater?
"Yes. Land beside the cone. I'll climb it and have a look."
It is quiet within it. And I do not see excessive heat.
"You can see heat?"
I ride on towers of heat when I soar. Yes. I am able to see it.
"Then take us down inside, if you know it is safe."
Moonbird began a downward spiral toward the flared opening. He tightened his turnings as they drew nearer, then drew in his wings and dropped, spreading them at the last moment to ease the landing slightly. Gritting his teeth, Mouseglove had watched the rough gray walls rush by. He was jolted forward and to the side when they struck the irregular surface. Clutching at Moonbird, he turned a fall into a dismounting movement, then stood upon the slag heap, leaning against the dragon's swelling rib cage. There was a great silence, and shadows already cloaked the declivity.
Moonbird turned his head from side to side, then looked up, then down.
I might have made a small miscalculation, the dragon confessed.
"What do you mean?"
The size of this place. I may not have sufficient room to climb into the air.
"Oh. Then what are we to do?"
Climb out when the time comes.
Mouseglove cursed softly.
There is a brighter side to the matter.
"Tell me."
The scepter is definitely here. The massive head turned. Over that way.
"How do you know?"
Dragons can also sense the presence of magic, of magical items. I know that it is below the ground. Over there.
Mouseglove turned and stared.
"Show me."
Moonbird moved with a slithering sound across the gray roughness, the rubble. Finally, he halted, extended his left forelimb and with an enormous black claw scored an X upon the dark surface.
You must dig here.
Mouseglove unloaded the digging implements, selected the pickax and attacked the spot indicated. Chips flew in all directions, and he coughed occasionally from the dust he raised. He removed his cloak and finally his shirt, as the perspiration flowed freely. After a time, he assumed a statue-like aspect as a layer of gray dust clung to his body. His shoulders began to ache and his hands grew sore, as he drove the pit to a shin-deep level.
"Does your dragon-sense," he asked then, "tell you how deeply it is buried?"
It lies somewhere between two and three times your height in depth.
The crater returned ringing echoes as Mouseglove threw down the pickax.
"Why didn't you tell me that sooner?"
I did not realize it was important. A pause. Then, Is it?
"Yes! There is no way I can dig down that far in any reasonable period of time."
He seated himself on a mass of rubble and wiped his brow with the heel of his hand. His mouth tasted of ashes. Everything smelled of ashes. Moonbird moved nearer and stared into the shallow pit.
Might there not still be strong tools about? Or weapons? From the time when Red Mark ruled here?
Mouseglove raised his eyes slowly until he was staring directly overhead.
"I suppose I could climb out and go looking," he said. "But supposing I found some explosives--or one of those throwers of light beams which cut through things? It might destroy what I am seeking."
Moonbird snorted and his spittle flew about. Wherever it struck it began to boil and smoulder. After several seconds, each moist spot burst into flame.
The thing was once hidden because no one knew how to destroy it.
"That is true... And I'm certainly not making much progress this way."
He picked up his cloak and began wiping the dust from himself on its inner surface. When he had finished, he donned his shirt again.
"All right. I think I remember where some of the things were stored. If they are still there. If I can still find my way--in all this mess."
He moved to what appeared to be the most negotiable face of the crater wall. Moonbird followed him, with rough sliding sounds.
I had better begin climbing out myself.
"It looks pretty steep, for one of your bulk."
You go now. I will come up in my time. I wish to be away from the disturbance.
"Good idea. I'm on my way."
Mouseglove found a handhold, a foothold, commenced his climb. Later, when he paused to rest upon the rim and looked back down, he saw that Moonbird had made scant progress in his attempt to scale the wall. He groped slowly and carefully for the perfect hold, then dug in with his powerful talons, improving each niche or shelf with deep gouges before trusting his weight to it.
Mouseglove turned away, surveying the area once again. Yes, he decided. Over there to the southeast... One of the places where I hid was beneath that leaning monolith. And ...
He glanced at the sinking sun to take the measure of remaining daylight. Then he moved with speed and grace, descending, circling, every step of his route already in mind.
He moved among twisted girders and blocks of stone, craters and smashed war machines, heaps of rubble, shards of glass, the skeletons of dragons and men. The ruined city was very dry. Nothing grew. Nothing moved but shadows. He remembered his days as a fugitive in this place, still reflexively casting an eye skyward for signs of the birdlike mechanical flyers, still sliding about corners and automatically checking for spy devices. For him, the giant figure of Mark Marakson still stalked the broken landscape, his one eye clicking and flashing through all the colors of the rainbow as he moved from darkness to light to shadow and back again into darkness.
Crossing the fire-scored pavement beside one of the fallen bridges, he ducked through a twisted door frame into a roofless building. Within, he passed the shriveled bodies of half-a-dozen of Mark's diminutive subjects. (He resented the term "dwarf" by which the others referred to them, since he was approximately the same height himself.) He wondered as he went by what it might be like for any survivors of that engagement--to be raised from barbarism to a highly organized level of existence and then to be cast back down again to subsisting as in days gone by, all the machines stopped. Perhaps it had been too brief an interlude, he told himself. They would not yet have lost their primitive skills. This entire experience might merely turn to the stuff of legend among them one day.