Against the humming music, Aldric’s best modulated voice would have sounded coarse; his incoherent yell of warning rasped hideously. The others jerked as if stabbed by pins and a frightening blankness slowly vanished from their faces. The
eijo
allowed himself a sigh of relief. “I think I said before, don’t touch.” He made no attempt to hide the tremor in his voice. “Better not, or else…” His helmeted head jerked meaningfully at the gaping jaws of carven dragons and at the fires which fumed in each.
Aldric began the long walk down the cavern all alone, but before he had completed three strides Kyrin had pattered level with him. He made a gesture which if completed might have been one of dismissal; but then smiled and lowered his hand before its movement was two-thirds finished. From where he stood to the throbbing fiery glow was a long and lonely way, and he was grateful for her company.
Dewan ar Korentin watched them both dispassionately, then leaned his weight slightly on to his scab-barded sword as he had learned to do on parade in Drakkesborg years before. He did not relax, despite the comfortable warmth of the great hall; it was not a place in which any sane man could ever relax.
As they walked closer, both Aldric and Kyrin could see how the cavern ended in a lofty plinth, massive and conical, a flight of steps cut into its side and its whole surface scored with runes and signs of power. The hot, misty glow welled from its peak and splashed reflections of flame-coloured light across the ceiling, countering them with deep, dark shadows on the floor. Then Kyrin seized Aldric’s mailed arm in total, terrified silence and pointed towards the deepest swathe of gloom with a trembling finger.
The Alban’s eyes dilated and heat-born redness ebbed from a face in which the mouth opened but emitted not even an expulsion of breath. He found his feet were rooted to the spot, making flight impossible even if it was not being pushed from his mind by an overwhelming sense of wonder.
It slept in the darkness around the base of the plinth: hunched, huge, lean, undulant and elegant. A firedrake. A dragon. Its wings were folded along its spiked back, its monstrous head rested on slender claws and a coil of armoured tail wrapped across its nose, giving a momentary image of some colossal cat asleep by the hearth. There was no trace of life anywhere about it; no breathing moved its scaled flanks, none of the legendary smoke drifted from its half-hidden nostrils. Aldric was almost disappointed that all seemed dark and still and dead. He took a single quiet cat-step forward.
Then he laughed, briefly and harshly, with more disgust than mirth in his voice. That step had been enough to reveal a platform underneath the firedrake’s body, carved from onyx, agate and lapis lazuli, inset with turquoise and gold. No wonder the creature seemed dead. Statues were often like that. It was metallic, all polished steel and beaten copper, a lifelike, life-size conversation piece which was worth a great deal of money and had, with the pillars, given the Cavern of Firedrakes its name. But… “It’s not real!” There was more than a little indignation in his voice.
“You mean—you wish it
was
... ?” Kyrin’s voice held simple disbelief.
“I’d half-expected that it would be,” the
eijo
responded. “Even so…” He was remembering Esel now, and recalling that statues were not always as immobile as they should be. It was several minutes before he risked going any closer to the firedrake and Kyrin stayed where she was.
The creature’s body rose to more than twice Aldric’s own height and was covered in fine scales like lizard-mail—another uncomfortable reminder of Esel—which were complete in every detail. The unknown sculptor who had made the dragon had been a true artist in every way; he had possessed the imagination to create such a fantastic beast and the skill to portray it with such realism that it could almost have been taken from a live subject. Silently saluting its creator’s genius, Aldric turned away from the firedrake and walked back towards the stairs.
Gemmel had told him what ritual he would have to follow, but typically had refused to divulge any explanation of the whys and wherefores. In the old enchanter’s opinion Aldric’s interest in—and aptitude for—the Art Magic was unhealthy and not to be encouraged. Even so, he had had no choice but to teach the young man certain charms for his own protection; this had been done reluctantly, but as was Gemmel’s way, when in the end it became essential it was done thoroughly.
“You’ll have to stay here, I’m afraid,” he told Kyrin, hiding nervousness with flippancy.
“I’m afraid too—so I’d rather come with you.”
Aldric tugged off helm and war-mask, coif and wrapping-scarf, then shook his bared head. “You can’t. But Spiny-tail over there will keep you company until I come down again.”
He gave the helm to Kyrin, who took it with an air of resignation.
“I’ve told you this before, Aldric,” she said. “Please… take care.”
The
eijo
nodded, without his usual sardonic smile, and kissed her gently. There were no longer any words which needed saying between them; but in that brief, tender touching was much more than speech could ever convey. Then he turned to face the plinth, drawing Widowmaker and his
tsepan
, and went down on one knee with the weapons raised before him.
“I swear now by the Low and by the High and by the Ancient Powers that this thing which I must do is not my wish or will, nor is it by my choosing, and I call upon these Powers to witness that my oath is true. I,
kailin-eir
Aldric of the Alban clan Talvalin do swear it by the name which is my own and by the blade which guards my honour and by the blade which guards my life.”
As he rose the young man sheathed both sword and dirk, then went up the stairs slowly and with dignity— even though his impulse was to run, to get this thing over with as quickly as possible.
The tapering plinth lacked a point, as if it had been neatly sliced away. If Aldric had realised how much it now resembled a volcanic cone, he might have had some inkling of what to expect. As it was, the discovery came as a most unpleasant surprise.
Instead of a flat platform at the top there was only a narrow rim, and beyond that a sheer drop into the hot embrace of a pool of molten rock. It was from this magma lake that the red-gold light came throbbing up, and with it came a shrivelling blast of heat which struck the
eijo
like a blow in the face. The air danced and shimmered, making it hard to distinguish outlines even though some-thing rose dark and dense in the very middle of the burning haze.
When at last he saw what it was, his already-churning stomach cramped savagely and then turned right over with pure, undiluted fear. There was a slender column of granite rising from the centre of the seething crater, its uppermost part carved into the likeness of a warrior in antique armour. Its outstretched stone hands bore a darkly glinting staff.
Aldric recognised the Dragonwand at once… but the only way to reach it was by a causeway which ran, without parapet or rail, from the topmost step just at his feet straight to the statue’s base. This too was stone, polished to a gleaming, treacherous smoothness—and it was less than a foot in width. Even given such narrowness, the twenty paces out and back would normally have been a matter of little account. But not with another twenty paces to consider: the distance straight down, to where bubbles burst with obscenely hungry belches in the liquid rock. While sweat formed and trickled on his shuddering skin, Aldric closed his eyes and expelled horrific images from the conscious part of his mind.
Heat and awestruck terror had dried his mouth so much that his first attempt to speak was little more than a rasping croak. The Alban’s eyes opened, narrowed by concentration and against the glare. He worked his jaws briefly to produce a slight moisture around his tongue and rearmost teeth; it was a paltry effort, but enough. When he tried again, his voice was still hoarse but at least audible above the gurgling mutter of the earth’s hearth-fires. Without feeling self-conscious Aldric raised one arm towards the statue in a full salute, then kept that arm outstretched, hand open and fingers spread apart.
“
Abath arhan
, Ykraith,” he said quietly. “
Echuan aiy’yan elhar, arhlath ech’hil alauin
.” He could hear his own heart beating, the sound of his breath and the rush of blood in his ears—but the soft, eternal magma-roar had fallen silent.
And the heat had died away.
Aldric put one booted foot on to the causeway, paused for a downward glance into the furnace maw and then walked quickly to the statue.
Although its hands were tightly closed around the Dragonwand, when Aldric grasped it the stone fingers suddenly relaxed. So suddenly that he took a staggering pace backwards before recovering his balance with a frantic spinal jerk on the very brink of the pit. Flakes of granite crumbled from the edge beneath his heel and were swallowed up.
Aldric’s lips stretched thinly over the clenched teeth bared by his grinning snarl. Firelight tinted their enamel a bloody red. Trembling all over, he returned along the narrow bridge, sank down crosslegged on the safety of the plinth’s top step and stared at nothing for a long, long time. His racing heartbeat slowed at last to something almost normal and his sodden clothing dried a little, but only when his breath once more was coming slow and deep did he lower his eyes and focus them on the prize which he had won.
It was the height of a man or the length of a good straight spear, heavy, but balancing well in one or both of his hands. Its shaft, so Gemmel had told him in a rare expansive moment, was of the mineral called adamant: a translucent stuff, glinting greeny-black like obsidian glass but shot through with tiny filaments like spun gold. A dragon with scales of greenish gold wrapped its serpentine coils around the shaft, seeming less an inlay of metal than something which had grown from the surface. The dragon’s tail, tipped with blued steel, formed the staffs spiked butt, while a green-gold dragon-head with one sapphire eye capped its other end. The empty eye-socket looked less like a hollow from which the stone had been prised loose, than a cavity waiting to be filled for the first time. A flame-shaped crystal, clear as quartz, writhed from the open mouth. It seemed fragile, but when Aldric idly scraped its point across the step under his knees, the delicate-looking substance gouged the stone like a chisel in soft wood.
His daydream was interrupted by a piercing scream from Kyrin in the hall below. Springing to his feet with dignity thrown aside, Aldric came down the stairs in clattering bounds of four at a time. Even above the noise of his descent he heard a slithering like a thousand swords all drawn at once.
The firedrake lived!
Aldric jumped the last short distance to the cavern floor and landed with a crash of harness, skidded wildly, steadied himself with the Dragon wand and ran to Kyr-in’s side.
After that single shocked scream she had reacted more in the way he had expected, and half-crouched now in a defensive stance, her
estoc
drawn and poised. The slender thrusting-sword had always reminded Aldric of a needle, but against such a being as they faced together, it shrank to the merest pin.
Iron coils slid together with a grating sound as the dragon stirred. Iron talons stretched out, clicking on the agate of the platform. An iron eyelid lifted. Aldric wrenched his own eyes away and made sure Kyrin did the same—he had not listened to so many old stories without learning something of the lore concerning fire-drakes. One did not meet them stare for stare.
Somehow knowing it was the wisest thing to do, Aldric raised the Dragonwand in both hands. He was painfully aware of how it looked—more a twig than a talisman of power. Then the words came; like those Gemmel had taught him for the Claiming of Ykraith and in the same language—but these were not words he had ever been taught.
“Ymareth!” Scales rang with a steely music and he felt the vast, brooding presence of the dragon leaning over him, an unimaginable intelligence considering him, a shadow like the shadow of death hanging right above him. “Ymareth,” he said again, without the first desperation but with more respect; and then a third time. “Ymareth…
sachaur arrhath ebon Ykraith, aiy’yel echin arhlathal Gemmel pestreyr
.”
The firedrake’s movement ceased and Aldric risked an upward glance, sliding his wary gaze across its armoured eerily beautiful head but always avoiding those pupilless glowing amber-green eyes. He wondered about the old tales, especially those in which a dragon spoke. It seemed unlikey now that such a thing had ever hap-pened, faced as he was with the reality of a lipless mouth and thin forked tongue which could never form the sounds of any human language. Yet the firedrake was intelligent—he was sure of that—and had understood whatever he had just said. Which was more than he had done himself.
Then it spoke.
The creature’s voice was not loud, but it was huge, rustling metallic hiss like cymbals brushed with wire. Al-dric could never have pronounced the sibilants—at least, he realised with a touch of irony, not without a lipless mouth and a thin forked tongue—but their meaning was somehow clear, in an archaic, formal mode which seemed entirely right and proper.
“I give thee greeting,” said the dragon. “I am Ymar-eth. Know me, and know that I am lord. What do ye here in mine abiding-place?”
Aldric knelt, bowing forward to give the courtesy of Second Obeisance that was due to any lord in his own hall, then sat back on his heels, hiding his pounding heart behind a mask of elaborate high-clan politeness. “I ask a favour, Lord Firedrake,” he responded.
“Speak, man,” it said, “that I may judge.”
The
eijo
gathered his courage and lifted the Dragon-wand above his head. “I ask to borrow this talisman, Lord Firedrake.”
“Upon what cause?” Ymareth rumbled. Grey smoke curled briefly from its jaws, token that its wakening was complete now, even to its banked and glowing inner fires. “Wherefore desire ye Ykraith only and not the many treasures of mine hoard, Aldric Talvalin?”
A muscle twitched involuntarily in the Alban’s face, both at the implications of the smoke and at hearing his name issue from such a throat. Yet the dragon had already given its own name quite freely, proof of a colossal self-assurance which Aldric did not share. Gemmel had told him a little about dragons, a year or so past; it had sounded boring and like a fool he had paid small heed. But one thing he recalled quite clearly. “Firedrakes,” the enchanter had said between puffs at his pipe, “are no more wicked than the normal run of people; it’s just that their notions of good and evil are… well, flexible would describe it best. An over-honest man could be easily deceived—but you, I suspect, would be in little danger.” The
eijo
managed a small, sour smile at the memory.