City of Death (35 page)

“Only when you do things like use the tip of my tail as a paintbrush,” Kles huffed.

When Scirye reached Kles, he was caught in a cage of twiglike sticks formed from dirt. Kemshap seemed to have kept decreasing the size of the shafts until he'd filled his throat with a dense mesh that had finally snared the invader.

Scirye's fingers parted the bars of the cage. “Oh, Kles, promise me you'll never do that again.”

“Then promise me that you'll stop fighting legendary monsters,” the griffin retorted. He was gripping the precious arrow in one claw as he crept through the opening. “I'm too old to be diving down throats.” He pressed himself against her cheek. “But thank you for rescuing me.”

She hugged him back. “Now for the hard part. We have to find Kemshap's heart.”

Kles held up the arrow. “But this knows. I can feel it quivering like a hound that's caught the scent.”

Scirye touched a finger to the arrow shaft and felt the electric tingle. “Then let's go.”

The griffin eased up onto a shoulder and wrapped around the back of her neck in his favorite position.

The dirt bars became finer and finer until they were like a web, and even began to grow sticky with some gluelike substance, but nothing could stop them.

Finally, Kles tightened a paw on her arm. “The arrow's tugging me toward that passage to your left. Take it.”

The tunnel was about four feet wide and angled up gently, the wrinkly walls pulsing as she began to climb up. Suddenly her hands and feet began to slip as the surface became oily. She would have slid backward if she hadn't shoved her feet out on either side between the folds.

Though it was hard to grip the greasy dirt with her hands or find purchase with her feet, she slowly began to climb. The walls vibrated in a rapid, regular rhythm, and she became aware of how warm it was getting.

By the time they reached the chamber, she was sweating and Kles's fur and feathers were also matted with perspiration.

By the dim, blue-ish light within the chamber, she saw a black crystal the size of a house suspended between what looked like hoses of mud. Through the murky material, she could make out something spinning inside with wide, flat blades like the agitator of a washing machine. As it whirled and whirled, it sent fluid pulsing back and forth through the giant hoses.

“Here, take the arrow,” Kles said, holding it out. His paw shook as if he were having trouble holding the arrow now that it was so near its prey.

“Let's do it together,” Scirye said as she wrapped her fingers around the arrow shaft just above his paw. It seemed like a puny twig compared to the giant heart.

“Look out!” Kles said.

Just in front of them, a column of dirt shot up from the floor with the force of a pile driver. Two more columns descended to thud against the floor.

Scirye hopped to her left and then jogged several steps, zigging and zagging, trying never to be predictable. She almost fell into a hole that opened suddenly in front of her but managed to jump over it.

“I'll draw its attention,” Kles said.

She grabbed his tail and held on for dear life. “No! You're never leaving my side again. It … it hurt too much when I thought I lost you.”

Kles freed his tail from her grip. “Very well,” he agreed and then yelled. “Watch out! On your right.”

They barely ducked under the spikes that shot out from the wall.

Scirye had no time to think, letting instinct twist her body and make her dodge and jump. But finally they reached the heart.

There wasn't time to pause. “Now!” she said, and she and the griffin lunged forward, shoving the arrow together into the heart. Even though they had thrust with all their might, the arrow didn't penetrate more than a few inches.

So her guess had been wrong and all this effort had been wasted.

But then the arrow began to wriggle as if alive. Startled, she and Kles let go and watched it expand as it carved its way another inch. The heart began to convulse.

“Yi's magic must have been as powerful as his arm,” Kles said.

All about them, the chamber began to shake as if in an earthquake. One more inch deeper. Then two. Then an entire foot, and with each second the arrow grew wider until it was nearly a foot wide.

A chunk of the ceiling crashed down on the left. A fissure cracked the floor on the right. Then a hose burst, spraying a purplish ichor all about.

Still, the arrow burrowed like a snake, biting into Kemshap's heart until it was up to the feathers at the end. Finally it disappeared out of sight.

Cracks began to snake across the surface of the heart as if it were shattering.

“We did it, Kles,” she said, too tired to cheer.

“Well done, lady,” the griffin answered, trying to brush the dirt away from her face with a gentle paw.

A piece of the heart broke off and thudded against the floor, and then another and another until there was only a pile of rubble. A feathered shaft protruded from one piece. It had shrunk back to its former size now that its task was done.

“This is too dangerous to leave lying around.” When her hand closed around the arrow, she felt it quiver and her palm grew warm and began to glow. When she yanked it free, the arrow began to tug at her arm.

It must still want to fight Kemshap even though the monster's dead,
Scirye thought to herself.

Forcing her arm to stay at her side, she turned toward the passage through which they had come. But it had aleady collapsed. There would be no return journey.

Scirye wrapped an arm around Kles. She was glad she wasn't alone right now. “I love you, Kles.”

The griffin's small paws circled her neck. “And I love—” he began, but then the floor gave way beneath her and the ceiling dropped, burying them completely.

 

68

Leech

Lady Sudarshane, Lord Tsirauñe, and the Amazons were weeping, and even Koko was snuffling as they stared at Kemshap. Below them, the monster had collapsed in a hodgepodge of hills and its spikes had become huge burrows of dirt and rock.

And somewhere in that debris, Scirye and Kles were buried alive.

Koko sank down on his knees in the mist. “Geez, what a way to go.”

Leech felt tears stinging the corners of his eyes. Scirye was the most opinionated person he had ever met, but she had also been the most decent, honest, and reliable human he had ever known. So Leech had wanted to measure up to her own high standards, and even Koko had tried to be a better badger.

I'm sorry she's gone,
the Voice sympathized.

Bayang put a paw on his shoulder. “So, do we need to settle anything between us?”

Leech knew the dragon was speaking not to him but to the Voice.
Well?
he asked the Voice.

You're right, Leech,
the Voice said.
The times are different, and I have to change to live in them.

Leech turned slowly on his heel so he could face the dragon. “You're different. We're all different. So let's try to be friends.”

Bayang looked relieved. “Good. Because we have more important things to do than fight a feud that should have ended a long time ago.”

“Important things like rescuing Scirye?” Leech asked.

“We're going to dig right there.” Bayang pointed at the broken marble column protruding from the hill, all that was left of the third arrow, the one that Scirye had not transformed back to its original shape. “I figure that marks where Kemshap's heart should be.”

And for a moment, next to the marble stump, Leech glimpsed M
ā
ka in her gaudy robe standing next to an impatient lynx, but then they were gone as soon as he blinked. “I get it. The old arrow is probably near the heart where Scirye and Kles are.”

Bayang turned and waved to Primo. “Will you take us to Roland's camp so we can get pickaxes and more shovels?”

“Gladly,” Primo said and he began to swing his cloud about.

 

69

Leech

The storm had passed by the time they returned from their scavenging trip to Roland's camp. The wind and the snowflakes seemed to have scoured the dust and impurities from the air so that everything he saw on the moonlit ground seemed sharply etched on his eyes.

Since he had given Pele's charm to Scirye, Leech had taken a coat from the camp to wear over his robe. Even then, he still felt cold, but his discomfort vanished when he spotted Roland's body. “We don't want any more bad guys getting hold of the ring,” Leech said as he rose on the discs and left the cloud.

As he sped toward Roland, he saw the bow a few yards away. Circling around, he hovered while he squatted in midair and picked it up. The wood seemed to pulse against his palm and the string hummed. As he slung it over his shoulder, he felt the vibrations pulse through him.

He went on until he reached Roland, who was lying facedown. Roland's hand was already cold and Leech was afraid the archer's ring might be frozen on the finger, but it slid off easily into his palm.

He gazed down at the jewelry carved out of bone. It seemed like such a harmless thing, but it had started all of them on this strange journey. It was too bad that Scirye wasn't here to share the moment.

When he had reached the cloud again, he handed the ring to Kat. “Here. I think Scirye would want you to return this for her.”

Tears appeared at the corner of the tough warrior's eyes. “Now Nishke's spirit can finally rest.”

Oko hefted a shovel to her shoulder. “Not until we find her little sister.”

*   *   *

Primo landed them
upon the hill that was all that remained of Kemshap. A team of prisoners wrestled a portable generator off the cloud while a second team carried the lights that Roland had used on calmer evenings. All of them were volunteers, some seemed genuinely moved by Scirye's sacrifice while others, realizing they were technically traitors, were trying to curry favor by cooperating.

Even though they were as impatient as Leech to begin digging, Scirye's parents had to wait for the lights to come on.

But a dragon is used to finding her way in the lightless depths of the ocean. As they stepped off Primo's strange craft, Bayang pointed to the broken column. “We'll dig there,” Bayang announced to the other rescuers, “but since we can't be sure this is where Kemshap's heart is, the rest of you should explore elsewhere.”

As they climbed up the slope, Koko munched a cookie that he had found in the mess tent. “I bet we hear Kles long before we see him,” he said, trying to lift his friends' spirits.

“He'll be giving a lecture on internal organs,” Bayang agreed.

Leech chuckled. “There's one person who likes the sound of his own voice.” All three of them wanted to cling to the faint hope that their friends had survived.

Bayang said a growth spell and her body shimmered in an iridescent mist until she was three times as large. “Be careful not to get behind me,” she warned. Then the dragon began to dig, her large paws breaking up the frozen dirt into clods that she cast behind her. Soon she was digging in a steady rhythm like a scaled steam shovel.

As he watched the mound of discarded earth rise behind Bayang, Leech was sure they'd find Scirye soon. Going to a spot on the other side of the shattered arrow, Leech swung a pickaxe. The cold ground was like iron but he worked determinedly until there was a small pile of rubble, which Koko lifted away with his shovel.

Soon, despite the cold, he was sweating. A little distance away he heard the generator cough into life and light suddenly flooded the slopes. All about them, people began digging.

And we won't leave until we've found our friends,
the Voice said.

No, we won't,
Leech promised.

 

70

Bayang

By sunrise of the next day, the hill was pitted with holes and Bayang had personally excavated a crater. Even her great muscles ached and Leech and Koko were moving as stiffly as zombies.

By common consent, they joined the others for breakfast, for Wali had brewed a vat of hot tea to go with the cheese and hard cakes she had liberated from Roland's camp.

Bayang had little appetite for food, but she had welcomed the tea and had returned to the hill to sit by herself as she warmed her paws on the tin cup. As she inhaled the aroma from the tea, she remembered warm summer days floating in the ocean among the kelp. She felt a pang that she would never see her home again, but she put that aside. She had made her choices. She would live with them now.

She sighed. It would be a shame if Scirye would not get to enjoy any more sunny afternoons. But the hatchling had made her choice as well, a very noble one. All Bayang could do was try to save her now.

When the pebbles began to rattle, she stood up hastily and looked about. Was Kemshap coming to life, or was this some sort of aftershock after his death?

But the rest of the slope lay still.

Curious, she looked at the spot again and saw that the ground had risen to a small mound several inches high. And then a bronze arrowhead thrust out of it, followed by the hand clasping the shaft. The next moment, the dirt cascaded aside and a familiar but very dirty red head followed.

Scirye grinned up at the dragon. “You need a bath, Bayang.”

Bayang was so surprised that the only thing she could think of to say was, “So do you, young lady.” Instinctively, she extended the cup in her paw. “Would you like some tea?”

Scirye blinked the dirt from her eyes and sniffed appreciatively. “It smells wonderful, but would you mind giving me a paw? I feel like I'm one big bruise.”

Bayang set her cup down. It was only then that she remembered to shout to the others, “Hey, I've found her.”

Scirye grinned up at her. “What do you mean? I'm the one who found you.”