Citadels of the Lost (32 page)

The Lyric did not even look up.

“Pharis,” Drakis muttered. “What are you doing here?”

The dragon landed just off the sandbar, creating a wave that washed both Drakis' and Urulani's boats well up onto the sands. Its impact shook the ground beneath everyone, making it difficult to stand. Ethis dropped the dwarf while trying to keep his balance.

The wide head of the monstrous drake shifted quickly from side to side at the end of its long neck then moved quickly toward Drakis. Drakis lifted up his hand, reaching for one of the creature's horns on its head.

Pharis suddenly stopped.

His nostrils flared and he took in a quick, deep breath, then the muscles at the back of his jaw tightened, baring his long teeth on either side.

Was the dragon actually
smiling
? Ethis wondered.

Then the head craned skyward suddenly. In moments the enormous body of the dragon twisted around, its clawed feet plunging into the sands as it turned around. Mala screamed, trying desperately to stay away from the feet as the behemoth rotated directly over their heads. His wings extended with a great snapping sound, falling down around the boats and their crew huddling terrified next to them.

Then the dragon held perfectly still.

Petrified with fright, Mala knelt in the sand behind Drakis, the belly of the dragon not eight feet above her head.

She pressed her hands against her ears, but it did her no good. The song was thundering through her mind and she could not block it out. Worse, other songs were screaming through her mind, competing for the space in her thoughts and crowding out her own.

“Hold still,” Drakis called out. “Stay hidden under his wings!”

Mala could see the sunlight still shining on the placid waters below the cascades, framed in the wings of the dark dragon standing above her.

An enormous shadow passed over the water . . . then another.

In moments, the sun was blotted out.

Mala looked up. Beyond the trailing edge of the dragon's wing, she could see a patch of sky just above the top of the northern cliff.

A colossal golden dragon flew high above the cliff. Its scales looked somewhat tarnished but it was magnificent in the sunlight. It shifted its head from side to side, searching the ground below it.

Following in the path of its flight were smaller dragons of many different shapes and colors. Soon the sky was filled with these dragons, blotting out her view completely. The procession went on and on—thousands of the creatures soaring above the river.

The ground shook twice more in quick succession.

More dragons had landed on the sandbar, Mala realized. The trumpeting screech of their voices suddenly rebounded off the walls.

The dragons screeched once again. The beating of their wings created a storm of sand on the beach as they lifted their mammoth bodies into the air.

Moments later, Pharis shifted as well, his own wings beating the sands around Mala and the others into an obscuring sandstorm. Mala covered her eyes against the onslaught and only lowered her arms when she felt the wind still once again and the sands settling around her.

Ethis was covering the still prostrate dwarf as best he could. Urulani, the Lyric and Ishander were all standing next to two boats, which the dragon apparently had pulled up even farther on land.

Drakis stared up in wonder at the retreating dragon as he spoke. “He hid us from the others. They're looking for us.”

Mala turned to see the dark form of the dragon Drakis called Pharis laboriously pulling its ancient bulk into the sky.

“We have to leave before they come back,” Mala said suddenly. “We have to get down the river as quickly as we can.”

“We now seem to have two guides,” Ethis said, his expression conveying his skepticism. “And just which river do you think we should take?”

Ishander spoke up. “We will be taking . . .”

“Shut up,” Ethis said, his words sharp and final. “I was asking the woman.”

“The dragons are searching the northern fork,” Mala said at once. “I say we take the eastern fork.”

“Prudent choice if nothing else,” Ethis offered. “And just what do you expect we'll find on this eastern fork?”

She looked up. The Lyric was already in the boat even though it was fully ten feet from the shoreline. She was looking directly at Mala, smiling and nodding at her.

“Home,” Mala said. “The eastern fork is the way home.”

T
HEY TRAVELED THE EASTERN RIVER. Ishander called this the River Tyra and asserted that it would lead them directly to Chelesta—the Citadel of Light—the ancient center of the lost human empires. The young Ambeth Far-runner maintained his arrogant demeanor through it all, treating Mala's assertions as mere confirmation of what he would have said if she had not spoken before him. That the dragons were searching the north fork of the river, the young Far-runner claimed also had no impact on his decision to lead them all down the eastern fork.

The narrow canyon of the cascades that ended in the diverging forks of the river proved to be a cut down through the edge of a plateau. Within only a few leagues, the towering walls of the plateau were behind them and the tempo of the river slowed as it widened and began winding its way toward the east through the lower points of an undulating plain.

Which meant that all they could see, Urulani thought ruefully, was an unchanging wall of the same jungle trees repeated over and over again. Each bend in the river seemed to bring another turn through the same unending procession of palm trees, ferns, and dense undergrowth. An occasional pile of stones or remnant of a wall would appear to bring some relief to the monotony but it was short-lived; there had not been enough of the original structures remaining in any of the places they had had seen thus far to spark more than a literally passing interest.

Well,
Urulani consoled herself,
at least we're making good time into the middle of nothing.

Urulani's dark, smooth arms dipped the long pole back into the still waters more out of habit than need. Their reed boat—the second of the two remaining—was near the center of the channel, and the river was doing most of the work. She stood at the back of the boat as she had seen Ishander do, with her back leaning firmly against the upturned stern that stood almost five feet above the keel. She realized that the boats had been specifically designed for this purpose so that the person controlling the boat would have both something to rest against on long journeys and, at the same time, better control of the boat along the way. Most of the effort on the pole was in resisting the river's force rather than supplementing it. A back planted firmly against the upward curving stern allowed for much better control in slowing down the craft and turning it against the current.

It was a different way of working the water and, in some ways, that knowledge made her all the more heartsick.

Urulani was a woman of the Sondau, a cunning tracker, warrior, and captain of the raider ship
Cydron
which she had led into more battles than she could count. She had been the embodiment of victory, confidence, and success for so long that she had begun to believe that she had a right to it; that somehow all the world revolved around her shrewd plans and skill with both speech and blades. She was a popular figure—perhaps legendary—among her people and held the unwavering loyalty and confidence of every man in her crew.

Her crew . . .

Now she had failed them. She knew of three at least who were dead because of her and their names continued to torture her. Gantau who came back because she told him he must only to die before they could retreat through the fold, Yithri who had died so horribly before the rage of the dragon, and Kwarae . . . who had been dragged silently into oblivion before she even knew that danger was still present in the darkness. Worse for her were her thoughts about Djono, Kendai, and Lukrasae—the three members of her crew that had been left on the other side of the fold before Ethis collapsed it and stranded them all here. Her last instructions to Kendai, her sailing master aboard the
Cydron
had been to get back to the ship and return with help. Did Kendai and his companions even escape the rage of the dragons that remained on the far side of the magical portal after it had closed and killed one of the monsters? If Kendai did escape, did he attempt to return and find her? She had seen her comrades die in battle before and knew well that such were the fortunes of warriors, but those deaths had been part of the risks taken by all the Sondau as they strove to keep their footing in the world. Such losses were to be honored for their service to the Sondau Clan but this was different. She had always taken comfort in being surrounded by the people of her clan, the crew of her ship, and her comrades in arms. Now, despite the fact that she had often tracked others on her own without any help, she suddenly felt alone and vulnerable without her crew. What purpose had those deaths served—except to make her the captain of this tiny boat in charge of two contemptible excuses for women, sailing down a river hundreds of leagues from the nearest ocean?

Urulani looked down at the two women seated in the boat at her feet. The Lyric had clearly lost whatever mind she may have once had although she at least had the courtesy over the last week of maintaining a single persona—strange though it might be. To Urulani, she seemed like a woman who had completely given up on herself, her mind drifting from one identity to another, which struck the warrior woman as disgustingly undisciplined.

As for Mala, Urulani was of the opinion that she should have died long ago and the Sondau woman was still inclined to correct that mistake. Mala had utterly and completely betrayed Drakis and, in the process, had called down death upon Urulani's own village of Nothree. Good people had died because of her, and the woman seemed oblivious to her responsibility for their deaths. Why the Ambeth should choose her, of all their company, to be given their medallion was incomprehensible. Why Drakis—an otherwise sensible human—remained in love with her was unfathomable.

And yet . . .

Mala seemed somehow different. There was a deeper sorrow to her, the pain of a hidden wound that was found at the corners of her thoughtful frown and her creased brow. It had started, Urulani thought, when she had wandered off in the Pythar ruins. Mala had experienced something there that changed her. Perhaps it was something similar to what Urulani had experienced in the temple outside of Ambeth when . . .

Urulani caught her thoughts up short. No, it must have been an illusion. Her mind was playing tricks on her in the humidity under the midday sun, and she must have been remembering it wrong.

Ahead of her, the boat carrying Ethis, Drakis, the dwarf—who for good or ill was conscious again—and Ishander drifted around another bend in the river. She could see Drakis and the chimerian rise suddenly in the prow of their boat just before it drifted out of sight around the bend.

“We're nearly to the Kesh Morain,” the Lyric said, not looking up from where her hands were winding and unwinding a piece of thread over her index finger.

The sound of the Lyric's voice shook Urulani from her reveries. “What did you say?”

“Off to our left as we round the next bend in the river,” the Lyric said without looking up, her voice suddenly resonant and sounding somewhat affected, “you will see the Kesh Morain. Kesh Morain meant ‘Arms of Peace' in the original Drakonic tongue. It was fabled for its fountain park—a great promenade that ran through the center of the city from the waterfront nearly half a league to the Palace of Crystal Arts. The most famous of these fountains were the Fountains of Herithania—Goddess of the Way, Abratias—God of Justice—and Jurusta, goddess of spring, passion, and art. My personal favorite, however, was the Fountain of Elucia whose waters sprang dramatically from either side of the promenade and formed cooling arches and mists over the walkway between their grand carvings.”