He could always go around the ledge and enter
the Castle via the Old Courtyard. However, this presented two major problems.
One, the sun was just coming up, and Jean-Pierre hadn’t had enough to eat to
properly mend his wounds; the hike up the ledge to the Old Courtyard would only
allow the sun to grow higher and stronger. It was quite possible that, as
sorely wounded as he was, the sun would kill him.
Also, he wanted to create as little a stir as
possible. He wanted to approach Kharker and Sophia in stealth, find out what
they knew and proceed from there. Caution seemed the word of the day.
He left the tunnel and replaced the big boulder
before the entrance. Looking about him, he considered his options. He needed to
get into the Castle—
The dragon!
Shit
.
Weak, it flew out from behind a shoulder of the
mountain and struck for the lake. The dawn sun glistened on its green scales,
glittering on the clusters of wicked horns and scraggly whiskers sprouting from
its head. For a moment, Jean-Pierre was transfixed by its sheer size; its
wingspan alone must stretch a hundred yards across, and from barbed tail to
enormous head, it surely must be at least four hundred feet. Only magic could
keep such a heavy creature airborne, surely. Kharker had been right. The dragon
looked tired, even deathly. Gore still dripped from the hole in its belly. Its
wings beat slowly, laboriously. Jean-Pierre knew it wasn’t a threat to him any
longer … unless he was very, very stupid.
It tucked it wings and barreled into the lake with
such force that waves blasted the shore. Jean-Pierre didn’t wait for them to
subside before he made his decision.
The dragon had risen from its depths. Surely it
had come from some underground chamber that had an opening on the floor of the
basin. From there would be a connecting tunnel up the castle—it was the only
thing that made sense, in as much as it did)—which would solve Jean-Pierre’s most
immediate problem. However, if it was true that the wyrm had risen from some
underground location, did it mean that there were more dragons where that one
had come from?
Unexpectedly, that thought made Jean-Pierre
smile.
Dragons
.
Maybe, if the legends were true, he would find a horde of gold and jewels for
the taking. If nothing else, at least the adventure should prove diverting, and
the water would shield him from the sun. Hopefully he wouldn’t actually have to
follow the dragon all the way down; in his current condition, he simply
couldn’t afford to engage even a dying dragon in combat. Also, he sensed that
it was still under psychic control, and he had no wish to meet up with anyone
that could control a dragon. Kharker had hinted that they were very powerful,
physically
and
mentally.
And so it was that, with a smile on his face,
Jean-Pierre dove below the rippling waters and made his way into the darkness
at the bottom of the lake.
At first, he couldn’t see the dragon but could
easily detect its blood in the water. The trail led to a large hole in the
middle of the lake floor, partially hidden behind a rock wall. Jean-Pierre
plunged into the opening, which was large, deep and unnaturally
even—
almost a perfect cylinder. Wrought by powerful magic,
he had no doubt. The waters here were warmer, and he wondered whether this was
normal or an effect created by the dragon’s blood, which also made the water
murkier. Still, Jean-Pierre could see enough to continue.
It seemed as if he followed the dragon for a
long time, but maybe this was simply his weariness speaking. Whichever, he soon
knew himself to be deep in the heart of the mountain.
He saw a great rift in the shaft’s wall and
paused to inspect it. The crack was long, curving along the shaft’s wall for
about twenty feet, but only about five feet in height. Obviously, a dragon
could not fit here, but it seemed to Jean-Pierre that if there were other
creatures, magical creatures, than this rift might lead him to where they lay.
Surely that would be safer than following the dragon down to its lair ... and
wasn’t caution supposed the word for the day?
Maybe, but curiosity pulled at him.
Sophia
, he thought.
I must break off this mad hunt and find another way. I must live to see
her again.
He followed the dragon deeper. They must have
passed the midpoint of the mountain by now. Just when he was starting to grow
worried that they would never stop, he felt the dragon change directions below
him. Jean-Pierre stilled himself and managed to embed himself in the wall of
the shaft. The dragon had not sensed him. He felt it turn until it faced a
horizontal direction and then proceeded.
Cautiously, Jean-Pierre followed the hole down
and saw that the tunnel snaked off into a more level direction. He tailed the
dragon, which seemed to swim slower with every lash of its mighty tail and
every kick of its great talons. In fact, it slowed so much that Jean-Pierre
actually found himself in danger of catching up to it. He hung back, wary of
being discovered. He knew the leviathan neared death, but even so it would
encounter little trouble if it decided to dispatch him.
The moribund wyrm plowed ahead. It rose with the
tunnel and surfaced in a large pool, of which Jean-Pierre could see little.
Dragging itself out of the water, the creature disappeared from sight.
Jean-Pierre quested out with his mind, trying to
get a reading on it, but felt the brush of the beast’s controller instead. Jean-Pierre
retreated back into himself. Anything that could psychically dominate the will
of a dragon was a thing that the albino feared equally as much as he feared the
wyrm. Actually, he realized that he was a little jealous. He was the strongest
psychic he’d ever known and the thought of competition both frightened and
intrigued him.
Sophia
. He had to make it back
to her.
He waited for several minutes,
then
rose to surface in the pool. The air was foul, as if it
had been rotting down here for hundreds of years—and perhaps it had. Torches
blazed intermittently along the rocky chamber, but they were neither bright
enough nor numerous enough to completely lift the space from a darkness that must
have plagued this place for countless years. Rock walls surrounded half the
circular pool, forcing Jean-Pierre to make his way to the shore on the far
side. Fortunately, many large stone outcroppings rose from the hard ground and,
once out of the water, he found hiding places easily.
He stuck his head out from one such outcropping
and appraised the chamber. Except for the stone and the flickering torches it
was empty, but several large—
dragon
large—
tunnels
ran off from it. From the blood on the floor, Jean-Pierre determined which
corridor the dying dragon had taken … and followed.
The tunnel spilled out into an even larger
chamber, this one lit more brightly by torches whose hellish light made demons
out of the shadows of every stone outcropping, of which there were many. The
light glittered upon a magnificent pile of gold and treasures, just as
Jean-Pierre had hoped. It was to this great glittering mound that the dragon
sluggishly marched. The albino leapt from the tunnel and slipped behind the
largest and nearest stone outcropping. Cautiously, he climbed the rocky pile to
its summit and peered out.
Leaking blood, the dragon found its horde and
plunged into it with a muffled roar of pain and longing. Jean-Pierre hadn’t
realized just how large the horde was until he lost sight of the dragon within
its gleaming mound.
The heap bucked at its owner’s movements,
sending cascades of priceless jewels and artifacts into avalanches. For many
minutes, the dragon wallowed about in its wealth, and as more and more of the
gems were uncovered and tossed about, Jean-Pierre saw that the wyrm’s blood had
spilled all over its possessions. It created an odd sight; where the torches
flashed upon the
unbloodied
jewels, gold and silver
and diamonds radiated brilliant light, awing the hidden werewolf. But, where
blood poured down in red rivers on the once-glowing rubies and trophies and
treasures, the light was absorbed, creating an illusion of a luminous and
golden mountain cut through with black streams and speckled all over with tiny
ponds.
The massive head of the dragon shot up from the
horde, scattering another group of treasures into a loud metallic avalanche,
and Jean-Pierre was shocked at the change in the beast’s demeanor. Still, it
did not look plump and healthy and vital, but neither did it seem on the brink
of death. Its eyes blazed with rejuvenation, and its nostrils quivered, drawing
in deep healthy breaths of stagnant stone-filled air.
For a moment, Jean-Pierre was afraid the wyrm
would smell him, but apparently it did not, as it did not glance his way. He
wondered if its mound of treasures was responsible for the sudden burst of
healing. Did a dragon feed off of wealth as vampires fed off of blood?
Suddenly, the immense body of the dragon rose
from the mound and shook itself, sending various treasures flying across the
room. To the albino, it looked much like a dog shaking itself dry after being
walked in the rain.
The dragon stretched, gave a low roar of
contentment, and lowered itself to lay sideways on its horde, giving
Jean-Pierre a good view of its wound, which seemed much smaller now. Then, to his
great surprise, a blood-drenched, human-sized figure emerged from the cavity,
dragging behind it what looked to be a knight in charred armor.
One of the knight’s legs and one of his arms
were missing, and there was much damage to the body and armor. Obviously,
whatever had dealt the dragon its almost fatal blow had damaged or killed the
knight,
too.
The bloody figure, a tall man wearing a hood and
cloak that was so thoroughly soaked with blood that they plastered his frame
like glue, shook his head and swore. He removed his hood, revealing
blood-soaked blond hair and a face that made Jean-Pierre blink.
Ambassador Mauchlery …
The Ambassador knelt down and pulled off the
knight’s helmet, revealing a bearded face that Jean-Pierre knew only vaguely.
Some member of the Dark Council, he knew. De
Soto, he thought. Mauchlery spent several minutes
trying to revive the Council-member, but with no success.
“Goddamn Ruegger,” he growled. Clearly, he was tired
and seemed to have lost a lot of blood. Angrily, he kicked De Soto in the side. “At least you’re dead,
anyway. Next time I’ll be sure not to underestimate that damned vampire.”
“Next time?” queried the dragon, and Jean-Pierre
started to hear it speak. It did so in a low, rolling voice, but the albino was
sure that, had it wanted to, it could have split the earth with its thunder. It
was weary, though, and seemed to harbor little anger toward the Ambassador. “I
don’t think there will be a next time.”
Mauchlery nodded. “This wasn’t much of a
success, was it?”
“Still, I thank you for your loyalty. You may
have used me, but at least you came back to save me. You could’ve abandoned me
in the lake, or the connecting shaft, and taken your dead friend there with
you. You stayed with me ... within me ... gave me your blood and strength, and
forced me back to my home, even though I hadn’t the power to do it on my own.”
The dragon brought its enormous wedge-shaped
head down to regard Mauchlery and blinked its amber eyes slowly. The Ambassador
stroked its snout and said, “That’s what friends are for, Gethraul. I’m just
sorry I had to use you like that in the first place.”
The wyrm snorted, stirring Mauchlery’s matted
hair. “You didn’t control me very well, though, did you? I got to have a little
fun despite you.”
“You weren’t supposed to have that kind of fun,
Geth. I can’t believe you spat fire even after I begged you not to.”
Amused, the dragon smiled. The image was quite
unnerving. Almost, Jean-Pierre thought, the thing was human.
“When we struck the bargain, Francois, you promised
I’d get to have a little sport.”
“Not that kind! Geth, you killed some friends of
mine today; that simply can’t happen again. When I said fun, I meant you’d get
to leave the mountain for awhile, not get to burn up twenty good men.”
Gethraul lay its head down on its front talons,
very much like a dog indeed, and sighed. “Definitions vary, my friend. Next
time, we’ll sort out the fine print before I agree to any more excursions. Does
that sound fair?”
Mauchlery scowled, and Jean-Pierre felt certain
an argument between dragon and immortal was about to break out; it was time to
go. He wouldn’t make it past this chamber, not with these two, and if the other
great tunnels that led from the pond chamber spilled out into other dragon
dens, Jean-Pierre wanted no part of them.
Quietly, he crept off down the stone outcropping
and slipped back through the tunnel he’d followed to get here. Soon he stood in
the dark chamber of the pond, feeling relief and exhilaration wash over him in
liberal doses. He’d seen a dragon! He had learned a dragon’s secret, that gold
can cure one’s ailments, and had even heard one speak.
Quite a morning.
Now, though, he knew he had to follow the water
back up to the rift in the shaft of the wall, the rift he felt would lead him
closer to the Castle, and further from the dragons. Thinking of all he had to
tell Sophia and Kharker, and even Ruegger, he knew he needed to avoid the great
beings for awhile.