Key of Living Fire (The Sword of the Dragon) (44 page)

He couldn’t help feeling like a midget as he climbed onto a large stone in order to reach the water. The spouts were almost as thick as he was wide, and the basin could have served adequately as a pool. He submerged his cupped hands and was preparing to slurp the water—

Vectra’s claws held out a stone cup with a handle just his size. He stared at it as he took it. Where would a Megatrath get a human-sized cup? Why would they have the need?

“After we returned from our battle against the giants,” Vectra rumbled deep and satisfied, “word spread of how your people—in particular your daughter—saved Megatrath lives by risking their own. The mates of those who were saved have been hard at work since, preparing our hard world to welcome you and your kind. We have plates and bowls chiseled in the size you require.” She shook her hide and gave a toothy grin. “You and your people will be forever welcome among us, Lord Ilfedo.”

Ilfedo gulped several long draughts of cold water as Seivar perched on the basin’s rim. The silver-beaked bird dipped its head to the water’s surface, scooping some into its lower beak, then raised its head and closed its eyes. Its beak remained partially open as its tongue gingerly flapped the water down its throat.

“Follow me, Ilfedo.” The Megatrath led him into an adjacent chamber. A sheet of water fell across the entry, washing the Megatrath’s hide.

Stepping beneath the deluge, Ilfedo laughed as the liquid cleansed his hair and face, then rushed down his back. He shivered, but the Megatrath picked him up and ran up a tunnel. The creature’s powerful body threw him about, then suddenly they rose into sunlight. His skin warmed as the creature stood him atop a mountain of stone surrounded by the desert’s yellow sand. His clothes quickly dried.

A white-feathered body shot out of the tunnel, screeching into the sky. The bird leveled out, then dove to land on his shoulder. “Master, it is good to be among these creatures.”

He could have lingered a long while in the warm sun, but a shadow blocked the rays. Vectra stood between him and the sun. With one muscle-rippling arm, she pointed at the tunnel. “Let us return now. Your skin will badly burn if you remain here.” She grasped his torso and plunged down the tunnel. Her claws sparked on the stone walls, slowing her descent. With a gentle settling of her body, the creature landed in the dim cavern. “Sinva!” she roared.

A wrinkled Megatrath loomed out of another tunnel. “You need me, most powerful one?”

“Start the firelights.”

The order seemed curt, but the Megatrath bowed to his mistress before returning into its tunnel. A spat of flames erupted in the darkness and spidered along the walls. The fire split through various oil-filled channels that spread a warm glow throughout the caverns. Vectra led Ilfedo back to the drinking water and dipped her snout in the basin. He could hear the water rush down her throat. When she withdrew from the water and looked down at him, he shook his head.

“It is a shame you couldn’t have accompanied me on my recent journey. Your size and strength would have been a truly welcome comfort.”

She rumbled in her throat before turning her attention to the black-stone walls. She raised a hand and extended a claw toward a painting carved into the wall. “To tread the depths of the world? Even with you and your mighty sword, I would not dare such a venture.” Her claw traced the image of a Megatrath with a frivolously long forked tongue wrapped around its body, being pulled whole into the mouth of a cream-skinned serpent-like creature. Wings the shape of oak leaves stretched along its sides, keeping it airborne.

The Nuvitor trembled on his shoulder, and he shushed it. Not wishing to distract Vectra, he lowered his voice. “What is wrong?”

“Master, that is strikingly similar to the lava monster.”

Unaware of their separate discussion, Vectra growled. “Ancient legend tells of a race of terrible creatures of unparalleled might born in the heart of the world. Glorigathans, they were called, and masters of the deep places they were.”

He gazed at the mighty creature, her gaze glued to the painting as if seeing something beyond the wall. “You believe the legend.”

“I honestly don’t know.” She returned his gaze, sparking her claw on the floor as she turned. “But it does explain a lot of things. Like why the Megatrath cities deep underground were abandoned, and why every Megatrath that has gone down there . . . vanishes.”

“Cities beneath the desert.” He recollected the Megatrath bones scattered in the buildings of the underground city.

She nodded her head vigorously. “Megatrath cities. I myself have seen them, though from a safe distance. It is a perilous journey underground to where they lie, and no one knows how many of them there are, but some of us have ventured to find a couple of them. Rivers of fire run through their streets, as if the ruins are still burning from a battle, but we do not dare approach them. If the legends are true, then even the strongest Megatrath ever born proved to be no match for the creature that came from the deep. It is said that the same Glorigathan that destroyed them haunts those cities to this day, guarding the bones of its victims and the wealth of our ancestors.”

Vectra spat fire from her mouth against the scene on the wall. Ilfedo expected it to blacken from the heat, but it did not. He looked at her, curious. “It—”

Her eyes bright with youthful energy, she nodded. “No matter what is done to that picture, it is neither defaced nor charred. It’s as if it has been sealed against assault by magic.”

The depiction was too high for him to reach. He wished it hadn’t been. He would have liked to get a closer look. But perhaps it was best left alone. Works of magic led him from one evil to another. He folded his arms across his chest. “The legend is true. At least, it would seem that way.”

“What! What do you know of these things?”

“I passed through the depths of your desert.” He closed his eyes. “Marvelous and dangerous it is, and creatures that make you seem small haunt the deep caverns. I have seen a serpent larger than anything even your legends claim. More than that, I stood on the walls of a Megatrath city and viewed the bones of your kind. Something woke when I sent the Nuvitor over the city. Something that I cannot describe, for it flew—no, it shot like a star—out of the lava. And we fled.”

Vectra’s eyes widened as he spoke. She stared, then at last spoke in a voice gentle and low. “Lord Ilfedo, you are the envy of me and my kind. You have dared to go where we dare not—”

He chuckled nervously. “Not by choice, my good Megatrath. I was stuck in the deep underground, seeking you.”

“Nevertheless, I envy you.” She wagged her mighty head. “Your race surprises me, for you are small in size, but your courage carries you to greatness. Or, perhaps, you have the cunning of a serpent?” She laughed a powerful laugh and faced down a tunnel, igniting the oil in a channel along the wall with a flame from her nostril. “I will think on this matter. I will learn from you, human.” The firelights soon washed the straight tunnel with flickering orange light, and he followed her inside.

“Tell me now, Lord of the Hemmed Land, what has brought you on such a marvelous journey to find me?”

23

NOT THEIR PARADISE

T
he morning after the swamp Megatraths’ attack and Mazella’s death, when Caritha woke, she found Ombre gathering their packs and pinching his nose against the odor of rotting Megatrath flesh. “Whew! Let’s get out of this place as fast as possible,” he said.

She stretched her arm and glanced back at the swamp. “Strange how such evil and such good seem to coexist in that swamp.”

“Try not to move your arm too much, Caritha. It may need time to fully heal.” He stuffed a shirt into a pack.

“No, I think it is fully healed. Whatever that Megatrath did to me was very effective.”

He grunted and forced a smile, not looking at her. “If you say so.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Why, nothing at all. One of our number is dead, your arm is tender, and we have all new territory to explore today.” He picked a nut out of the pack and crunched it in his teeth, then turned his back and walked off.

Oganna was several dozen yards away, rolling Mazella’s body in a white sheet.

Caritha touched Ombre’s shoulder, and he stopped as she said, “You have seen death before, on many occasions. Why does this disturb you so much more?”

“It does not disturb me, Caritha.” He hung his head and closed his eyes. “I just have something on my mind.” His eyes opened to gaze into hers, then he turned his back to her and strode to Oganna. “Let me carry him, my dear.”

The three of them ascended a grassy hill and dug a grave for Mazella. They layered it with stones, covered his body with a sheet and dirt, and filled in the rest with stones. Atop the grave they heaved a smooth, round stone. Oganna held up her finger, and it glowed poker-hot. She conferred with her aunt and uncle as to what should be written on the stone. When they agreed, she wrote “We love you, Mazella
.
” They didn’t know him well enough to write more. They could think of nothing clearer to convey their sorrow.

Before long, Ombre gave a pack to Oganna, then handed one to Caritha with a forced smile. They marched west with Oganna leading the way over gentle rolling hills of green.

Caritha slowed her pace until Ombre was walking in step with her. “Something is wrong between us, and I am not going to stop asking until you tell me what is bothering you.”

He cleared his throat, and she heard him sniffle. “It’s nothing really. Only, I was disappointed.”

“Disappointed? That we were caught off guard last night?”

He slammed one fist into his other hand and growled. “If you want to understand, then stop asking questions and just listen.”

She clamped her mouth shut. His impatience was uncharacteristic.

“Where is the ring I gave you?” he said at last. “I had to unpack your things, and, well, I had hoped it would be there.”

He looked sadder than she had ever seen him before, and she couldn’t help laughing a bit with relief as she reached inside her pocket and untied the ring he’d given her.

She pulled it out and held it up, and was overcome by the love that washed over his countenance. If it were possible then, even at this moment, she would unite with him. But was she willing to pay the same price that Dantress had paid to join with Ilfedo? In her heart she yearned to feel free to do as Ombre wanted: to take the ring and be forever his. Yet she knew that forever could not be. If she were to bear a child, then she, like Dantress, would have to die. It seemed so unfair, and at times she’d tried to make sense of it, but she had always met an impenetrable barrier, a knowledge that she did not possess.

She put the ring back in her pocket and tried not to cry. “I—I can’t. Not yet.” She didn’t dare to look into his face as he put one arm around her and spoke softly in her ear.

“I will wait, forever if necessary. Even if it is only in the final years of my life, I will have you.” He stroked her neck, and she turned to look at him with a couple of tears running down her cheeks.

“I know,” she said, “and that is what scares me. I-I want to, but I don’t see how.”

“Well now,” he replied, smiling at her very brightly, “that is what I wanted to hear.”

He moved closer, and she knew that he wanted to kiss her, yet she could not allow it, though her heart ached to let him. She put her hand up to stop him, and he kissed it instead.

“Caritha, someday—when you no longer fear whatever it is that holds you back—I will look for the ring on your finger. And I promise that, even though a thousand miles should lie between us, I will come for you.” He gazed into her eyes. “Do you believe me?”

She did, and she let her eyes tell him so. If ever that day came, and she put on the ring, he would come. “Someday, Ombre, you will hold in your hand the proof of my feelings for you, and you will never doubt again.” She ran to catch up to Oganna before he could speak another word.