Dragonhold (Book 2) (20 page)

"They're coming back up," someone shouted.

Nora beat the rest to the door, but they quickly matched her pace. None was rude enough to leave her behind, and they instead walked at an awkwardly slow pace. Air bubbles erupted from the sea nearby; watching that spot, they waited. Silence hung heavily while they waited to see movement, to know the larger pump had truly provided enough air even at such depths. When the diver brought his hands up, the people cheered. They cheered even louder when the sizable crystal he carried was pulled onto the barge.

Nora Trell smiled. Gret, Emmon, and Ebrem all seemed to realize what this larger crystal might be capable of.

"Now I get it," Ebrem said.

* * *

Wind tickled Onin’s beard. He was free but he was not. “We’re going to have to fly around it!”

Jehregard ignored him, flying ever closer to the darkness and fog that shrouded the land Onin called his home. Only when he turned to look out to sea did he once again see nature as it should be. Darkness had consumed the great swamp. For as long as he had known this place, the Jaga had been dangerous and, in places, dark and twisted, but this was different. Now the darkness was pervasive, it leeched into the land and permeated everything. Once pristine shorelines now dripped with ooze that stained the sands.

The tierre within which Onin sat tilted backward as Jehregard put them into an upward spiral, sending them higher and higher, using the unnatural thermals emanating from the fetid land below. The hot air stank, and Onin wished they had flown around the Jaga, just as he had asked the dragon to do. Never had Jehregard been a particularly obedient dragon, but in this instance, it could be deadly. When they reached the altitude where the smell finally dissipated, Onin found himself short of breath. Cursing age and a stubborn dragon, Onin looked down. “By the gods!” he said without meaning to.

His stubborn dragon had brought them high over the Jaga, high enough to see the central feature, a place that had clearly been hidden for centuries if not thousands of years. It was an impossible place. Onin knew that it had always been; he remembered it from his flights over the Jaga and how it had made him feel. That feeling still existed, only now it was magnified many times over. No longer did marsh water and soil obstruct his view to the source of that feeling. From deep within the land rose and unholy spire. Inky black, yet filled with murky shadow that moved and writhed along its glossy surface, the mighty monolith dominated the land. Through some unknown force, it repelled the water in the mud and the black slog and held it at a distance.

Onin of the Old Guard had dug holes within the Jaga and seen them fill with water immediately. And here rose what looked like an entire city ringing the ancient crystal. It emerged from the mire, sprung from some nightmare eons old. He could feel the evil of it, the wrongness, the corruption. It nearly made him wretch. And yet there was beauty to it. The architecture, though dark and foreboding, contained amazing symmetry and precision. How could anyone construct such a place? Power was the answer, Onin knew. Lightning danced along the walls of the cavern from the crystalline megalith to the suspended water, soil, and roots of the Jaga. It was like seeing a cross-section of the greatest known wilderness on Godsland at full scale. Architecture and twisted swamp life were almost indistinguishable. The mighty cylindrical fortress surrounding the Noonspire seethed with life, as if the fortress breathed.

Continuing to take them closer, albeit going no lower, Jehregard kept ignoring Onin’s input. “One of these days, I’m going to find a big enough hammer to knock some sense into this dragon.”

If Jehregard heard him, he gave no indication. When finally they were directly above the giant crystal, Onin looked down into his worst nightmare. What he had thought was simply architecture was something entirely different. Feral dragons of all sizes lined the gaping chasm surrounding the Noonspire. The entire structure and complex writhed. Through the gaps, the true architecture was visible, and symmetry did exist, but much of the darkness came from its inhabitants.

Never had Onin seen so many dragons. Warnings he’d given those within the Heights rang in his mind. There was no joy in being right; he deeply wished he'd been wrong. No matter what he wished, the danger he’d warned of was before his eyes and even greater than he'd imagined. Lightning flashed along the top of the spire, and Onin looked into the uppermost facets. Within, he saw the dark forms of two women, a man, and a small child. Feeling his heart tighten, the old warrior knew remorse and despair. Somehow he could feel how desperately they wanted to be free from that prison--those who had been there since the last age of power and those who had just arrived.

Lightning leaped upward then, racing toward them, striking Jehregard’s legs and underbelly. Finally the stubborn verdant dragon realized it was time to go. Turning on a wingtip and using their altitude to gain speed, the verdant dragon took advantage of the nimbleness so many of his kind lacked. Thankful that everything in his tierre was secured, or at least most everything, Onin did his best to dodge the rest. Wind tore at them as Jehregard continued to gain speed. The farther away from the spire they got, the lower they went. Onin watched the black swamp attentively. If there were enough feral dragons to fill that chasm, then there would be more.

Dense fog obscured his view of the Midlands, and when the Heights appeared, this sight was similarly obfuscated. It was not unusual or unheard of for the Heights to be surrounded in clouds, but this time those clouds were filled with smoke and fire.

* * *

Deep within Dragonhold, within the lap of a forgotten god, a dragon came as close to a smile as its physiology would allow. Mael was most pleased.