The Keep of Fire (55 page)

“Are you all right?” he said, his eyes intent on her.

“Do not fear. I was able to guard myself from the powers within.”

However, Travis noticed that she did not tell the knight to let go. Beltan led her back to the others and helped her sit on a flat rock. The kitten jumped into her lap, kneaded the fabric of her kirtle, then curled up nose to tail.

Falken knelt before her. “What did you find, Melia?”

“It is as we suspected,” she said, her voice thin and weary. “Krondisar is no longer here. In a way, Mindroth found a good hiding place. I see why he chose to come here when he fled Malachor with the Stone. If the Necromancers were all destroyed, what better place to hide than in one of their strongholds?”

“How long?” Falken gripped her hands. “How long has it been gone from here?”

“I am not certain. But not long, I think. From what I saw, I believe Mindroth burned here for many centuries, held in thrall by the power of Krondisar.”

“But how could that be?” Grace said. “If it’s the Stone of Fire that’s causing people to become
krondrim
, wouldn’t Mindroth have become one as well?”

Falken shook his head. “For two hundred years the Runelords were the guardians of the Imsari, and they understood the power of the Great Stones far better than any who have ever lived—except perhaps the dark elf Alcendifar, for it was the dwarf who first found the Imsari when they fell from the sky, and who bound into them the essences of ice, fire, and twilight.”

Grace looked at Travis. “So that’s why only Travis could touch Sinfathisar.”

Falken nodded. “Only a runelord can resist the power of a Great Stone for long.”

“But not forever,” Travis murmured. He clenched his right hand. “In the end, even Mindroth burned.”

The bard had no answer for that.

“Falken, there is more I found in the temple.” Melia returned the grip of his hands. “There were signs of a battle within. A terrible battle. All the defenses of this place were awakened to wrest the Stone from Mindroth. And there is only one who could have done such a thing.” She drew in a deep breath. “The one who created this place.”

Falken pulled his hands back and stood. He spat out the word like poison. “Dakarreth.”

“Wait a minute, Falken,” Beltan said. “You told us all of the Necromancers were destroyed in the War of the Stones.”

A bitter smile twisted the bard’s lips. “The tales say such. But I never have. Dakarreth is alive. Or as alive as any of his kind can be. And he has the Stone of Fire.”

Beltan started to protest, but Melia stood, cradling the kitten. “We must go now. Mindroth is not here.” She glanced at Travis. “It would seem he found his end on another world, in search of his brethren. We must make haste to Spardis. I have to speak with
Tome, to tell him what we have learned on our journey, and hear what he has discovered on his own.”

Travis stood with the others, and together the nine started across the broken floor of the valley, past the ridge, and back to the mouth of the stairway.

They had walked no more than twenty yards from the temple when a dark section of stone separated itself from the top of the ridge to their left.

Travis blinked. Instead of tumbling down the slope, the jumble of stone soared into the sky, traced a circle high above, then with terrible speed swooped down. Someone screamed—Aryn perhaps—and Travis felt sudden pain as Grace’s fingers dug into his arm. However, there was no time to turn, no time to run even had there been cover. The shape spread wings like gray sails and stretched forth clawed feet as it alighted on the stones before them. Travis froze, gazing into eyes like colorless gems set into a gigantic, saurian head.

“Move,” the dragon said with a hiss of smoke, “and I shall burn you all.”

A foul power oozed from the gigantic, winged creature like toxic waste from a forgotten landfill, poisoning every breath Grace struggled to take. She clutched Tira against her so hard she knew it must hurt, her fingers pressing deeply in the girl’s flesh, but Tira did not cry out. Next to Grace, the others stood as rigid as statues, eyes locked on the vast form of the dragon a dozen paces before them.

A dragon … and how do you know that’s what this thing is, Grace?

But what else could it be? What other shape could conjure such shrill, primal terror from the depths of
her unconscious? The thing looked like a hundred storybook dragons she had seen as a child, swooping over watercolor castles, being slain by cartoon knights. Yet it looked like none of them.

It was hard to gaze at the dragon—the air seemed to ripple around the creature, distorting everything seen through it, like a warped lens. At first Grace thought the thing’s skin to be as colorless as smoke, but then the dragon shifted its mass, and iridescent color shimmered across its hide.

Getting a grip on the dragon’s size was as difficult as discerning its color. Grace was left with only relative terms. Bigger than an elephant? Yes. As big as the
Tyrannosaurus rex
skeleton in the foyer of the Denver Museum of Natural History? No, not quite. Except perhaps for the teeth.

Grace had always thought that dragons—presuming they existed—were supposed to be big lizards. However, in many ways this creature looked more like a gigantic, sooty swan. Its neck was long, sinuous, and constantly weaving, and it stood on two crooked legs, spreading its wings for balance. Yet that wasn’t right either. For it had no feathers, and the membranous skin of its wings was clearly stretched over elongated digits, as in a bat. And while its snout hooked downward, it was formed of bone rather than beak. Mammalian, avian, reptilian—none of the categories she knew fit. She could see features of all three in the thing.

“Fog and gloom,” the dragon said, replenishing the watery flood of dread in Grace’s lungs, “but this is a curious band of travelers I have found.”

As it spoke, hot air struck her face. She would have thought its breath to be rank and fetid. Instead it was dry and odorless except for a faint, dusty scent—a scent that, after a moment, she realized she had smelled before, in the basement stacks of the old university library.

“Now, what shall I do with such an interesting collection of specimens?” The dragon did not move its lipless mouth as it spoke. Instead the sibilant, strangely sensuous voice emanated from deep in its throat.

It’s like a parrot, Grace. It’s not really speaking, not like we do. It must have an exceedingly complicated larynx that it uses to mimic human speech
.

Mad laughter bubbled up in her throat.

And if you think this thing is just a big, dumb bird, you might as well put on a sign that says “I’m a cracker.”

Grace caught movement out of the corner of her eye. With slow but deliberate steps, Falken covered half the distance between the travelers and the dragon. The bard bowed low, then straightened and spoke in a ringing voice.

“Answer me this, and an answer you shall have. One secret for one secret in trade. What is the name we shall call you, Old One?”

The dragon let out another smoky breath, its colorless eyes reflecting the pale sky. “So, you remember the elder ways. Good. Although do not think it will dispose me toward kindness, for of that I am not capable.” The dragon stretched its neck upward in what seemed a proud gesture. “You may call me Sfithrisir. He Who Is Seen And Not Seen. Osthrasa was my dam, who was one of the brood of Agamar the First, Queen of the Sea before Light and Dark, whose waters lap at the beginning and end of the world.”

Grace shuddered at its words. They made her feel hollow somehow. Tira squirmed in her grip, but Grace held tight to the girl’s thin shoulders.

“I hear your answer,” Falken said, “now you may hear mine. The name I am called is—”

At first Grace thought the deep, rumbling sound to be thunder. But a glance up confirmed that the dim bowl of the sky was unmarred by clouds. Then she
understood. It was mirth, not thunder. The dragon was laughing.

Heavy smoke oozed from the dragon’s mouth. “I already know well the names you are called. Blackhand. The Grim Bard. Cloud-Bringer. Traitor, Fugitive, and Murderer of Kings. Are these not your names, Falken of Malachor?”

The blood drained from the bard’s stricken face, and his gloved hand spasmed into a fist.

“I know who all of you are,” the dragon said, taking in each of them with its hard, inscrutable gaze. “You see, it is my business to know all things that I can. And so, by your trade, you owe me another secret, Falken Blackhand. And do not presume to think you can best me at my own game.”

Falken stared forward, his body rigid. Grace had never before seen the bard miscalculate a situation. But something told her that beating this creature in a battle of wits was not an option. They would be lucky simply to get away with their lives. And at the moment she doubted they would win even that.

“It is … strange to see you here, Sfithrisir,” Melia said. The lady held a hand to her brow, her skin ashen.

“And what better place is there to learn secrets I do not yet know?” The dragon swung its wedge-shaped head toward Melia. “But you choose curious words, Lady of the Moon. It is not simply strange for you to see me. Rather, it is agony, is it not? Can you not feel your very being scattering? I can see it even now, like a cheap cloth unraveling.”

Melia staggered and would have fallen but for Lirith and Aryn behind her, gripping her shoulders. The kitten in the crook of her arm hissed, but at a glare from the dragon the tiny creature’s eyes went wide and it burrowed deeper into a fold of the lady’s kirtle.

The dragon’s head snapped around as if its neck
were a whip. “And do not think your blades can harm me, Sir Knights.”

Only then did Grace see that, in the moment of distraction, both Durge and Beltan had stepped forward, reaching for their swords. Now both stood frozen, speared to the ground by the dragon’s gaze. “If it is death you want, then I shall be all too glad to grant it to you. A thousand knights have sought me out, thinking to slay me. Your ashes shall join theirs.” The dragon drew in a deep breath, its chest expanding.

Run!
Grace tried to scream.
You’ve got to run!

But the words stuck like burrs in her throat. Cords stood out on Beltan’s neck, and the muscles along Durge’s jaw bulged, but the knights did not move. The dragon drew its head back and opened its mouth to release the first curls of smoke. Then it thrust its snout toward the knights.

A high, wordless cry of rage shattered the air.

Even as Grace understood what was happening, Tira broke free from her numb grasp and ran barefoot across shards of stone. She interposed her thin body between the dragon and the knights, then looked up and shook small fists at the creature as she screamed again. Grace went rigid, waiting for the dragon to open its mouth and snap up the girl in its massive jaws.

Instead the dragon pulled back, and for the first time there was a readable emotion in the thing’s eyes. It was loathing.

“What a hideous little thing you are!” The dragon’s voice edged into a shriek. “He should have burned you to nothing. I do not know how he did not. But I shall finish what was begun.”

Tira did not move. Instead she gazed up at the dragon, her face placid as ever.

“No!”

The word was not Grace’s. She jerked her head to
the side and saw Travis step forward, his eyes queer and distant behind his spectacles. He raised his right hand, fingers splayed, and held it before him.

“You will not harm her.”

Impossibly, the dragon scuttled a step back. “You!” Its voice was a whisper now, like that of a dying fire. “You are here! But how? This—this I did not know.”

Travis lowered his hand. “Why should you?”

“Why should I know?” Now the dragon’s voice was a trumpet call of indignation. “Why, there is no other whose hoard is so great as mine. Not even Eregun, first son of Agamar, in the days before his fall, had knowledge such as I—I who have watched and waited for more eons than you can imagine. There are more secrets in my hoard than stars in the sky.”

The wind ruffled Travis’s sandy hair. “But what good are they?” he said, his voice so soft it was nearly lost. “What good are secrets if you don’t share them with others?”

The dragon’s words were sharp and mocking. “But do you not already know? Secrets are power. And there is none in this world who knows more secrets than I.”

Travis shrugged. “I’m not from this world.”

Lids drew down over the dragon’s eyes like hoods, narrowing the orbs to slits. “Yes, I see. So that is how knowledge of you escaped me. But now it is mine, and I know that the end of this wretched creation—this
world
, as you call it—cannot be far off. Not now that you have come, Runebreaker.”

A cold razor sliced through Grace’s heart. She looked up at Aryn and Lirith. The baroness’s blue eyes were wide, but Lirith’s gaze was deep and unreadable as that of the dragon. Then there was no more time to wonder, for Tira turned, ran from the dragon, and threw herself against Grace. Kneeling, Grace hugged the girl fiercely, smoothing her wild, fiery hair.

Durge and Beltan stepped back, released from the dragon’s spell. Melia moved to Beltan and leaned against the big knight, who circled his arm around her tiny form.

“What now, Sfithrisir?” she said, her voice thin but clear. “What will you do with us?”

Smoke curled from the dragon’s snout. Then it seemed to grin. “You have given me something I did not know: a secret I did not have. That has not happened to me in long centuries. And so I feel generous.”

Melia’s eyes narrowed. “Generous? Are you certain you are indeed one of the Gordrim, Sfithrisir?”

“Oh, I am certain,” the dragon hissed. “And for your sharp tongue, you shall be first, Melindora Nightsilver. Here is your secret: That which you crave, you can never have. Any that you love will be doomed to mortal death, and so it shall ever be.”

Grace had seen Melia angry, weary, and hurt—even once or twice afraid. But she had never seen this—this look of horror and despair. The lady clasped a hand to her mouth to stifle a silent cry, then she turned her face and pressed it against Beltan’s broad chest.