Dragon Stones (51 page)

"Diasa asked me the same thing," Ponn said, "and I didn't have a satisfactory answer for her either."

The dragon set him down.  Frigid water coursed over his feet and ankles, spurting from twisted pipes nearby.  An iron wheel jutted from the wall nearby; that must be the water shut-off that Diasa had mentioned.  It looked similar to the one that Wyst used to open the cesspool door, so it perhaps operated the same way.  "
Has Diasa caught the alchemist yet?
"

"Probably," Ponn said.  "She sent me here to make the water stop."  He
went to the wheel turned it, first one way and then, when it refused to move, the other.  After a few rotations the flow of water diminished; after a few more it stopped, except for a slow, steady trickle from one of the pipes.

When he turned away, the dragon's head was right behind him, startling him.  "
I've taken some of each crystal
," she said.  "
Even now they burn inside me.
"

"You have your fire back?"

"
Yes.
"

"Time to go, then?"

"
Yes.  You and the others must leave.
"

"What about you?"

"
I will depart the same way I entered
," she said.  "
But my business here is not quite finished.
"

"What are you going to do?"

Her glittery eyes narrowed; she moved her head even closer to him.  Her face was as big as his body.

"
I am going to see how an alchemist's shop burns
," she said.

Her head full of information hastily related by Qalor, Diasa rushed up the stairs to the room where she had met Pyodor Ponn.  He was not there, but the footpad was, sitting against the wall looking bedraggled and exhausted.  He glanced at her as she entered, then looked away.

"Ponn hasn't come back yet?" she asked.

"No."

"Nor T'Sian?"

"No one has been here."

She crossed to the other side, but had only climbed a few steps before Ponn burst through the door and came racing toward her.  He wasn't looking where he was going and nearly crashed into her, but she caught him and pushed him back.  "Has the dragon taken the crystals?" she demanded.

"Yes."

"Hellfire.  Where is she?"

"Gone up the chimney."

"Did you shut off the water?" Diasa said.

"Yes."

"Double hellfire.  You must turn it back on."

"What?  Why?"

"Qalor claims he did something to change the nature of the blue crystals.  He says that if they're not kept cold, they'll become unstable."

"What does that mean?"

"I don't know, but he insisted the water be kept flowing, or something bad would happen."

"You can't possibly trust him."

"Of course I don't, but in this, I will take him at his word."

"If that's the case," Ponn said, "then we have a problem."

"Why?"  Then, realizing something:  "Do I smell smoke?"

The chimney proved to be a tighter squeeze than T'Sian had anticipated; the rough stone scratched at her diamond-hard scales, plucked at her folded wings.  It was not like the vertical shaft that led to her lair after all; that was a sturdy passage through solid rock.  Here, her talons kept dislodging bricks and masonry as she climbed, making the going treacherous.

Men and their works.  Always imitating nature, and never succeeding.

She passed the kitchen, feeling the warmth of the fire that burned in the great hearth.  Once she passed it, the chimney widened; the heat and pressure that had been building beneath her eased as the vapor from Qalor's burning laboratory found escape through the large fireplace.  The kitchen would quickly fill with smoke now, and from there it would spread through the castle.  She imagined the inhabitants gasping and choking as they tried to breathe the toxic air.

Good.  Very, very good.

She hoped Pyodor Ponn had found a way to escape.

The dragon continued to draw herself upward, toward the spot of light at the top of the shaft.  She had more than enough fire now to destroy this castle, and the town below it, and the surrounding countryside, and anything else in Dunshandrin's realm that could burn.  They would all pay for what they had done to her and her babies, oh, yes.

As she neared the top of the chimney she saw that there was some sort of cap over it, to keep out rain or snow or nesting birds.  She spat at it, blowing it wide open; the shaft brightened as sunlight poured in like golden honey.  She wondered if anyone had seen the flames shoot out of the chimney, if they understood what was about to befall them.  The dragon reached upward, grasped the edges of the huge chimney with her front talons.  Crumbling stone cascaded down the shaft, bounced off her face and head, clattered into the depths.  With a final pull she drew herself forth, rising from the aperture like a dark, sinuous curl of smoke.  She perched there for a moment, still as a gargoyle, surveying her surroundings.

Shapes surrounded the chimney, fluttering up to meet her:  Men, mounted on eagles, just as she had faced in Astilan.  But this time the wizard was not with them; this time they would not dare use their exploding devices, not above their own castle.

Eager to meet them, to demonstrate her mastery of the air, T'Sian spread her wings and leapt into the welcoming sky.

Ponn and Diasa returned to the room where Adaran waited, lying on the floor, like a drunkard who had been assaulted in an alley, robbed, and left for dead.  He looked at them as they entered.  "Are we leaving now?"

"Yes," Diasa said.  "As fast as we can."  The two of them hauled Adaran to his feet; he put an arm over each of their shoulders and they proceeded into the room that housed the cesspool.  Wyst glanced at them and then turned away, evidently uninterested in their comings and goings; if she wondered about the smoke, she said nothing.

"
This
is your escape route?" Diasa said.

"Yes, unless you think we can get out through the castle," Ponn said.  
Leaving her to hold up Adaran, Ponn went to the wheel and turned it as Wyst had demonstrated, locking it in the open position.  Wyst watched him, her face impassive.  Ponn hesitated, then knelt next to her, checking the chain that tethered the girl to the floor.  It was attached to the ring by a padlock; would one of the keys he had found open it?  He began fumbling through them.  "Ponn!" Diasa cried.  "There's no time for that!  We have to go.  There's no telling what will happen when the fire reaches Qalor's chemicals!"

"We can't leave her here," Ponn said.  He returned to the lock, trying one key after another, while Diasa made strangled noises of alarm.  Smoke continued to drift into the room, thickening, the acrid tang beginning to overpower even the stench of filth and garbage.  Finally one of the keys worked; the padlock popped open, allowing him to pull the chain free of the iron ring.

Wyst didn't move.

He went to the ladder that led into the pit.  Diasa had already climbed down and was waiting at the bottom, eyeing the maw of the chute with considerable distaste.  Ignoring the girl for the moment, Ponn helped Adaran down; the injured man made the climb gingerly, one rung at a time.  When he was near the bottom, Diasa simply plucked him off the ladder and deposited him on the filth-ridden floor.

Wyst still hadn't moved.

"Are you mad?" Ponn cried.  "Come with us!  If you stay here, you'll choke!"

The girl shook her head, almost imperceptibly.  "I have to stay," she said.  "I'm being punished."

"Ponn, just leave her!" Diasa shouted.

He hesitated.  Wyst obviously had no intention of coming willingly, and with the burden of Adaran he was in no position to drag her along.  If there was time, perhaps he could come back for her.  Muttering an apology to the girl's spirit, just in case, he swung himself around and slid down the ladder, taking the lead in the low, narrow chute.  Going down proved more treacherous than going up; he had to sit, brace himself against the walls, and slide a few feet at a time.  Adaran came next, his feet against Ponn's back; if Ponn slipped and began to slide, both of them would shoot out through the lift gate and over the precipice.  He hoped Diasa had hold of Adaran's arms or shoulders, but doubted it; she was probably fully occupied with keeping herself in position.

At last they reached the bottom, emerging onto the narrow ledge between castle and cliff.  He heard a commotion from above, alarm bells and shouting.  He didn't know if it was because of the fire or because T'Sian had put in an appearance.  Either way, attention was unlikely to focus on three bedraggled potholers.

Adaran crawled to the edge and eyed the drop to the river.  "I can't climb this," he said.  "Not now."

Diasa said:  "
This
is how you got into the castle?"

"I'm a good climber," Ponn said.

"Well, I'm not," Diasa said.  "Is there an easier way?"

"No."

"This may be the most poorly planned rescue attempt I've ever witnessed," she muttered.

"I didn't bring you out of the castle to leave you trapped here."  Ponn stood; something semi-liquid sucked loose from the back of his cloak, splattering his ankles when it hit the rock.  He ignored it.  "I will get you down."

"Where's your pet dragon when we need her?" Diasa asked.

"Don't let T'Sian hear you call her my pet," Ponn said.  "In any case, she's probably getting ready to destroy the castle.  She won't concern herself with rescuing us right now."  He began to lower himself over the edge of the cliff, swinging his legs over the brink and then turning to face them, his arms braced against the sides of the chute.

"Where are you going?" Diasa said.

"We have no choice.  I will go back to the village and see if I can find a rope."

"And what are we supposed to do while we're waiting?"

After a moment, Ponn said:  "Try to remain inconspicuous."

Adaran watched Ponn disappear over the edge of the cliff, feeling an odd mix of gratitude and resentment.  Not long ago, Adaran had run through the castle, scaled the walls, jumped into the river, unstoppable as the wind; now he was reduced to an invalid, watching Ponn climb to freedom down a bluff that Adaran ought to have been able to descend as easily as walking down a street.

Diasa gave Adaran an unfriendly look.  "All this trouble, just to rescue a footpad."

"A footpad is a common robber, a highwayman," Adaran said.  "I'm a professional burglar.  People pay me to penetrate secure places and retrieve things for them."

"Retrieve things."  The distinction didn't appear to impress her.  "Whether you waylay travelers along a path or break into someone's palace, you're still a thief.  You take what doesn't belong to you, or to the person who hired you."

"Like Pyodor Ponn's daughter, for instance."

After a moment, she said:  "One good deed doesn't absolve all your sins."

He turned away.  "I'm not going to argue with you."

"You've got no grounds for arguing."

Suddenly the wall to his back began to vibrate, the ground to shake.  A roaring sound came from the mouth of the cesspool, like the rumble of a distant, massive cataract.  Moments later, a section of castle wall ten or fifteen feet above the ledge not far to the south of them erupted outward in a burst of smoke and fire, sending stone and bricks and mortar cascading into the river.  The roar became much louder, as if the waterfall were coming down right on their heads; then it faded, echoing off the surrounding hills. Black smoke continued to belch from the opening, thick and bilious, and
sinking
rather than floating away as proper smoke did
.

"What
was
that
?" Adaran said.  His hearing felt deadened, as if he had jammed his fingers in his ears and forgotten to remove them.

"T'Sian set fire to Qalor's lab," Diasa said.  "The chemicals must have exploded.  I was afraid that might happen."  Then:  "If the wind changes, we should move away from the smoke.  It won't be healthy to breathe."

Adaran thought of the Enshennean, clinging to the cliff wall.  It had looked like a tricky climb before the explosion.  He crawled to the edge, ignoring the pain in his hands and feet, and looked down the chute.  Pyodor Ponn's filthy cloak lay among the rocks at the bottom, stuck on a jagged edge, one end of it trailing in the water like the branch of a fallen tree.

As he watched, it came loose and floated away.

Tolaria's shirt felt cold and wet and her left side hurt.  She blinked a few times, then realized that she was on the floor again.  The wooden cup Prehn had brought her lay at her side, overturned and empty.  She pushed herself to a sitting position, leaned against the foot of the bed.  Her head felt stuffed with dead leaves, dry and prickly.  Another vision had overwhelmed her; was she becoming like Wert, a helpless victim of what had once been her gift?