Doom of the Dragon (33 page)

The wine flowed and the meal soon turned riotous. The fae folk sprawled on the moss, danced among the trees or, most disconcerting, pelted one another with fruit. Skylan drank only water, for he needed a clear head for the night's adventures. He was hungry and did justice to the meal, though he learned he had to be quick about grabbing a choice piece of meat before anyone else could snag it.

Aylaen politely tasted the wine and ate some fruit and bread, but she seemed lost in her own thoughts. Farinn was clearly too nervous to do more than nibble at his food, especially as the dryads sat next to him and took great delight in teasing him.

The meal ended, but Emerenta made no move to leave and Skylan grew nervous. Time was passing. He had hoped to question Emerenta about the Stormlords, what he might expect when he reached the city, how they were to get inside, but the noise in the arbor made conversation impossible.

The music ended and the laughter gave way to yawns. Skylan was alarmed to see the fae folk settle down to nap, lying in each other's arms, draped over tree boughs, or simply sprawling among the dishes.

Wulfe was asleep, his head in his mother's lap. Emerenta stroked his hair and softly sang a lullaby. The song must have been infectious. Farinn's eyes closed and he slumped forward. Aylaen blinked drowsily and leaned her head against his shoulder. Skylan didn't like this strange slumber.

“We should leave now, lady,” he said.

Aylaen stirred and sat up. “My husband is right. Either take us to the Stormlords or tell us how to enter the city on our own.”

“Do you imagine we knock on the front door and beg admittance?” Emerenta asked, amused. “We fae are like the moonbeams or motes of dust. We glide through chinks, slip through cracks, crawl into crevices.”

Skylan glowered at her. “I am not likely to slip through a crack.”

“How very droll you are,” said Emerenta. “The Stormlords traveled to this realm, the Realm of Stone, from the land of their birth, the Realm of Fire.”

“So I have heard,” said Skylan, growing increasingly impatient. “Don't change the subject. How do we get inside?”

“Some say the wizards followed us,” Emerenta continued as though he hadn't spoken. “Some say they followed the dragons here and some say they found this realm on their own. Whatever the truth, the Stormlords, like the dragons, must periodically return to the Realm of Fire. The dragons go back to nurture their young and to heal themselves if they suffer wounds. The wizards, being human like you and not born to magic like us, must periodically return to replenish their power. They leave a door open and we can walk through.”

“A door to where?” Skylan asked, not following.

Emerenta raised a silvery eyebrow. “For a people who are always in such a hurry, you are very slow. The Realm of Fire, of course. We go from here through that realm and into the city of the Cloud Dwellers.”

Skylan remembered Dela Eden's words,
Some doors, even the gods fear to open.

“The Great Dragon Ilyrion came from that realm,” Aylaen said. “Kahg says it is a terrible world, populated by fearsome monsters and cruel men.”

“It is safe enough for those of us who have magic,” said Emerenta with blithe unconcern.

Skylan remained silent.

Emerenta saw his dark expression and laughed her sparkling laughter. “But you do not have magic, do you, Uglies?”

“This was all a game,” said Aylaen bitterly. “She never meant to take us.”

Emerenta was smiling slightly, toying idly with Wulfe's hair, running one of his curls through her fingers as he slept.

“What do we do now?” Aylaen asked.

“We find another way,” said Skylan. Reaching down, he touched Farinn by the shoulder. “Wake up. We're leaving.”

Farinn gave a start, opened his eyes, and groggily scrambled to his feet.

“Good-bye, Wulfe,” said Skylan, raising his voice.

The boy opened his eyes and stared at them in sleepy confusion. “Good-bye,” he mumbled. “Where are we going?”

Emerenta smoothed back his hair and murmured soothingly, “All is well, my little love. You are staying with me. Your friends are going away.”

“Going away!” Wulfe repeated, startled. He shoved aside his mother's hand and jumped to his feet to face Skylan. “Where are you going?”

“We have to go back to the
Venejekar,
Wulfe,” said Skylan.

“You can't leave!” Wulfe cried. “We are going to see the Cloud Dwellers.”

Skylan shook his head. “Your mother was making sport of us.”

Wulfe turned to glare at Emerenta. “You promised me.”

“You and I were having some fun with the Uglies,” said Emerenta, smiling charmingly and holding out her hands. “Tell them good-bye, Casimir, and come with me—”

“Don't me call me that!” the boy shouted angrily, stamping his foot. “My name is Wulfe!”

He took hold of Skylan's hand. “I know the way to the Realm of Fire. I'll show you.”

“Don't go! Casi—Wulfe!” Emerenta cried out. “You can't leave me!”

“Why not?” Wulfe demanded. “You left me.”

Emerenta sank back, stung by his words. The fae in the arbor began to wake up, startled by the shouting. They peeped out of the shadows, whispering in scandalized delight. Emerenta rounded on them.

“Get out!” she ordered and the fae folk fled in haste, rustling among the undergrowth, gliding through the air, crawling among the tree branches. The lights disappeared, as if blown out by a breath, leaving them in starlit darkness.

“This way,” said Wulfe, tugging on Skylan's hand. “I've never been there, but I think I know—”

“Wait!” Emerenta called out in harsh tones. “I will take your Uglies to the Stormlords—
if
that is what they want.”

“That is what we want,” said Skylan.

“I did not lie about the danger, Ugly,” Emerenta warned in sulky tones. “We will have to pass through the Realm of Fire and, as your wife says, that world is a terrible world, fraught with perils. Without magic you are defenseless.”

“Wait here,” Wulfe said.

Letting go of Skylan's hand, he ran off into the night. The boy quickly returned, his face twisted in pain, his body shivering so that he nearly dropped what he was holding.

“Here,” Wulfe said. “You will need these.”

He handed Skylan and Aylaen their swords.

 

CHAPTER

27

At the sight of the swords, Emerenta gave a screech of anger and then burst into tears.

“Go live with your Ugly friends, my son,” she wailed. “You love them better than you love me!”

Skylan buckled on his sword belt, keeping his eyes on Wulfe. Aylaen cast him a questioning glance and Skylan shook his head, not certain what the boy would do. At first Wulfe pouted, refusing to look at his mother, but the sound of her weeping unnerved him. He ran to her and flung his arms around her.

“Don't cry, Mother,” he begged.

“I won't, but you must tell the Ugly Ones with the iron to go away and leave us,” Emerenta said tearfully. “I will take you dancing on the moon glade like we did when you were little.”

“Mother, you promised,” said Wulfe. With a sly glance at Skylan, he added, “You said the Cloud Dweller city was filled with magic. Maybe I could find a gift for Grandmama so she will stop hating me.”

Emerenta sniffed and then smiled and kissed him on the forehead. “I suppose, after all, the journey might be amusing,” she said with a shrug and a sigh. “Follow me. The way is not far.”

Skylan didn't like her sudden capitulation, but all he could do was add this to the growing list of things about this venture he didn't like. She led them from the arbor. With her wings flashing in a shimmer of silvery light, she floated over the ground, dipping down every so often to delicately touch the grass with her foot, then taking to the air again. A faint glow of faery light clung to the leaves and the branches, glittering and sparkling for a few moments after her passing, then slowly fading away.

Wulfe ran alongside her, skipping and jumping. Crying out for her to race him, he dropped down on all fours, running like a dog.

“Stop that!” his mother ordered sharply. “Your grandmama will never love you if you behave like that!”

Wulfe flushed in shame and stood up straight, and there was no more skipping.

As they traveled farther from the arbor, the trees bunched around them, the leaves forming a dense canopy overhead. The lambent light of the stars was gone and they had not thought to bring their lanterns. Emerenta moved rapidly, not inclined to wait for them, leaving them to stumble through the undergrowth and bump into tree trunks until the trees suddenly vanished and they found themselves in a clearing beneath the stars. Emerenta fluttered to a halt, lightly settling to the ground, and catching hold of Wulfe when he would have run on ahead.

“We are here,” Emerenta said.

A shaft of moonlight illuminated a rickety old house made of sticks and twigs and branches stuck together seemingly at random. The house had a door, no windows, no chimney, and half a roof. The other half had fallen in. The yard was overgrown with weeds that gave off a faintly noxious odor.

“Where is here?” Skylan asked, trying to catch his breath.

“Where you wanted to come, Ugly,” Emerenta said with a tinge of impatience. “The portal to the Realm of Fire.”

“The portal is in a hut not fit to house goats,” Skylan said, frowning.

“If you had something important to hide, where would you put it?” Emerenta asked.

Skylan stood in the shadow of the trees, studying the house and thought of the spiritbone of the Dragon Kahg hanging on a nail, plain and unadorned.

“The hut reminds me of Owl Mother's,” Aylaen whispered, tightly clasping his hand.

Skylan grunted in assent, not particularly reassured. Owl Mother was strange and her house was even stranger. He recalled the first time he had met the old woman who lived in a hut in the woods outside the village.

At the time, ogres had been threatening his people. He was war chief and he'd been wounded in a boar hunt and feared he couldn't fight. Aylaen had cajoled him into going to Owl Mother and ask her to use her magic to heal him. That day he had asked Aylaen to marry him. Well, he hadn't really asked. He had commanded her. He smiled ruefully, wondering if Aylaen remembered.

She proved she did by giving a smothered laugh. “I married you anyway,” she whispered.

“You and Farinn wait here while I go inside, take a look around,” Skylan said.

“You are the only one in danger, Ugly,” said Emerenta. “Your woman will be safe enough, so long as she carries the god bones. The magic of the great dragon will protect her. As for the young man, I will keep watch on him.”

Farinn's blush was visible even in the dim starlight.

Skylan remained standing outside the hut. The glade, the hut, the foul-smelling flowers seemed to stink of magic and he would rather have faced a shield wall of ten thousand ogres, each bigger than the next, than enter that hut.

“You were the one in haste, Ugly,” Emerenta pointed out. “If you insist upon going, we should go now while the Stormlords are deep in slumber.”

Skylan thought it best not to mention that the first thing he planned to do on his arrival was to wake them up. “We will go together,” he said.

Stringy weeds tangled around their ankles; the smell made them gag. The sticks and branches that formed the walls were daubed with mud, which was apparently all that was holding the hut together. Skylan had seen more substantial birds' nests.

A large piece of tattered deerskin hung over the entrance. Skylan reached out to gingerly pull the skin aside, half afraid the movement would bring the house down around their ears, when Wulfe shouted at him.

“Don't touch it,” Wulfe warned. “It's a trap!”

Skylan cast a baleful glance at Emerenta, who was standing off to one side, watching with a faintly derisive smile.

“I was going to tell you before you tripped it,” she said. “I wanted to see if my son remembered our lessons.”

She gave Wulfe a fond caress in passing, then laid her hand, palm flat, in the center of the deer hide and began to sing in a soft undertone to Wulfe.

She sang the song through once, then turned. “Do you remember the words, my son?”

“‘Shining portal, open wide. Let my friends and me inside,'” said Wulfe proudly, pleased with himself.

They both sang the phrase several times with different inflections, and once it seemed to Skylan they sang it backward, then Emerenta pulled the deer hide to one side. Standing in the doorway, she graciously invited them to enter.

Skylan looked at Aylaen. “You and Farinn wait for my signal. Please. Let me make certain it is safe.”

Aylaen made a face at him. “I will wait. But only because I love you.”

Keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword, Skylan walked through the doorway. Expecting sticks and mud and a collapsed roof, he was shocked to find himself walking into an immense chamber whose walls and floor were made of polished marble. Shafts of silver moonlight shone through arrow-slit windows into a bare, empty room. The only sound was the sighing of the wind. The floor was thick with dust, but someone had left a trail leading to a hall filled with shadows. Worn and faded tapestries hung from the walls.

The room had a desolate and mournful feel to it. Some of the tapestries appeared to have been burned; the walls were charred. Catching a glimpse of movement, he quickly turned, his hand on the hilt of his sword, only to see the fringe of one of the tapestries fluttering in the wind coming through the windows.

The tapestry depicted a battle scene with warriors in strange-looking armor mounted on horses, battling each other with what looked to be exceptionally long spears. The tapestry looked strangely familiar.