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Chapter Seven
Part Eleven

“I just wish there was some way to see what’s waiting for us before we open the door,” Karen said. From the tense way she was holding her shoulders Valeria knew that the girl, was trying and failing to ignore the hostile group of speakers at her back.

“That’s one thing it can’t do,” Rai admitted. “A bit of an oversight I guess.”

“A bit?” Karen said. “If it was an oversight it was a bloody big one. But perhaps it just wasn’t possible. Who knows, after all this time.” She laid her head against the rock. “But I should still be able to use the threads to get some idea of what’s out there.”

“Why are we trusting her anyway?” One of the fleeing speakers burst out. Valeria turned and saw a  tall male Haltia with flaming red hair and coppery skin pushing his way to the front of the group. From his clothing and the bag across his shoulder he was a musician from Kelosia. “Are you sure about this, your majesty? She’s human.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Seven
Part Ten

Mela stayed in the lounge while Daniel went to check on some things before they left. She kept her eyes firmly fixed on the television and tried to ignore the Dragon Lord studying her thoughtfully, but the weight of his gaze made her fidget.

“I just wish I knew why they wanted you,” he said after a long moment, pushing himself away from the wall. “I know it can’t just be to eat you. They just aren’t that picky.”

“Oh, we aren’t picky at all when it comes to food, Dragon Lord. Not that way anyway.” Halia walked into the room. She looked distracted and silver flecks swirled in the vivid green of her eyes. “Forgive me for interrupting. My mother wants to talk to you.”

“Your mother? You mean the first dragon who’s court you belong to?” he said.

“Well, I’m that too,” Halia’s voice took on an echoing quality as she spoke. “But, no, in this case the relationship is actual.”

“I see. I was wondering when you’d turn up.” He seemed unphased. “Most of you turn up to abuse or threaten me within hours of my collaring one of your servants, but it’s been weeks.”

“I don’t do threats, Dragon Lord, they rarely accomplish anything. Abuse would be even more pointless. After all you’re only doing what you think is necessary… as are we all.”

“What?” Her calmness seemed to be putting him on edge. “Why are you here, then? I have nothing to discuss with you, dragon.”

“You really believe that, don’t you? You’re wrong, but there’s no use trying to talk to someone who doesn’t want to listen.” She glided past him and looked down at Mela. “What do Ystelyan and Gerian want you for?”

Mela said nothing. Even if she’d known the answer, she wouldn’t have told a dragon. Halia cocked her head and studied her, but she could tell it was someone else who looked out from behind her eyes.

“I don’t see anything,” the dragon said finally. “I hate knowing I’m missing something. Still… if it was just Ystelyan after her I’d be inclined to let it go, but I’ll be damned if I’m letting Gerian have anything he wants if I can prevent it.” Her hand darted out and caressed Mela’s heart stone. That should help, I hope. The voice in Mela’s head sounded amused.

Silver light surged through her mind and she jerked convulsively as something inside her seemed to tear loose. She was vaguely aware that the Dragon Lord had grabbed Halia and dragged her away, but when her head cleared a second later they were both gone from the room.

***

Andrew prodded at the bowl of stewed meat Kaguya had brought to him. “People here really don’t believe in vegetables do they?”

“I asked Brita about that while we in Caerdu,” Lydia said. “She said that they can’t eat them, but she made an effort to find us some non-meat foods for the supplies.” She rummaged around in the bags and found a flat loaf of brown bread and some unusual lumpy red fruit. “Here we go. She had to buy them from the goblins, apparently.” She broke the loaf in half and handed part of it to him along with one of the fruit.

“Isn’t there a poem about not buying goblin fruit?” Andrew asked as he examined the fruit dubiously. “This thing looks weird.” He sniffed at it. “But it certainly smells edible and I don’t think Alaryia would try to poison us.” After several failed attempts he managed to break through the skin and gouged out a chunk of the speckled white flesh before tasting it cautiously. His eyes went wide and he popped the rest of the chunk into his mouth. “Damn! This is good.”

“That’s dragon fruit isn’t it?” Kaguya had returned with a pitcher of foamy milk while they were talking and knelt down by Andrew to fill a second wooden bowl with it. “I’m sorry about the limited fare. We weren’t expecting human guests.”

“No idea,” Andrew said. “But dragon fruit? Talk about an ominous name.”

“It is a bit ominous sounding, but it isn’t really. I grew up near a goblin village and they used to grow them. They call them that because the skin looks like scales, and because dragons love it apparently. Goblins certainly love it, they won’t usually sell it. You’re honoured.”

“But it’s safe?” Lydia asked.

“Hmm?” Kaguya frowned. “Oh yes, it should be okay for humans. You guys can eat anything a goblin can.” She smoothed out her long black gown. “If you’re up to it, Arrats is ready to gauge how much you already know about your abilities when you’ve finished eating.”

“I think I’m ready,” Andrew replied. “My ankle still aches, but a nap worked wonders.”

Kaguya smiled at him. “I’ll help you through when you’ve eaten, then.”

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Chapter Seven
Part Nine

Valeria followed Alban and Karen back into the tunnel. Karen turned and looked at her as she started up the stairs.

“You should stay here, your majesty,” she said softly. “It’s not like you can do much except get in the way. It won’t help Salia if you get yourself hurt or killed.”

Valeria gave her a long look. She wanted to believe the girl was in  earnest but couldn’t quite bring herself to. “I’m coming with you, human. Even if I was inclined to trust you some of the Speakers with Salia might well attack you if I’m not there to stop them.”

“That would be… unfortunate,” Karen said. “Mostly for them. It’s pretty stupid to attack the one person who can save you when there are dragons on your tail.” She started climbing the stairs again. “I suppose you’re right, you’d better come as well.”

“We should seal the door first,” Alban added. “We led them right to it. The last thing we need is one of the dragons shifting to human form and coming up behind us.”

“That is a good point.” Valeria turned to the doorway. There was no visible door, but she knew there had to be one. An open archway was not defensible and this was for defence. She looked at Rai, who was sitting on a ledge with the other thunderbirds. The two who had brought her and Alban from the palace had joined Rai and his companions. All of them were in resting form. “How do I seal this?”

Rai flew over and landed on her shoulder. He tapped one of the ornate carvings with his beak and the door posts and wall shimmered and became fluid. It swirled into the gap before melting together to create a wall of rock, perfectly smooth except for the carving which now lay at the center of the wall. “Just tap it again to make it open.”

“That’s a heck of a trick.” Karen frowned at the wall. She was rubbing her arms. “You say dwarves made this entrance?”

“Yes, our ancestors hired them to create this place,” Rai replied. “Why?”

“Hmm.” She walked back down the stairs and stroked her fingers over the wall. “Then why is it humming?”

Valeria gave her a sharp look. “Humming? What do you mean?”

“Watch.” Karen’s hand began to glow again and she rapped the wall gently. The glow spread out from her hand  illuminating a spider’s web of previously invisible threads woven through the wall with the carving at their heart.

“What-” Valeria swallowed. She knew damned well what that was, but couldn’t bring herself to say it.

“There’s stabilised Mabain woven all through this wall,” Karen said. “No dwarf made this. It does a very good impression of being dwaven craft, but gives itself away if you can sense Mabain.” She removed her hand and the threads faded slowly.

“I-it’s goblin work?” Valeria asked.

“That would be my surmise,” Karen said. “I doubt it was dragons.”

“Impossible! We wouldn’t hire goblins to build defences against dragons!” Rai protested. “Not that they wouldn’t be good at it, but how could we trust them? And there’s no way they could pull off such a masquerade…” he trailed off.

“No way at all,” Valeria agreed. “Except apparently they did.”

“Even if they could, the only reason for such a deception would be to put in a vulnerability their draconic masters could exploit. This was built centuries ago,” Rai said. “And it’s been used several times since and never failed. It makes no sense…”

“Unless they really wanted to help and knew you wouldn’t let them,” Karen said. “Not all goblins work for dragons.”

“Most do,” Valeria said. “And there’s no way of  telling which ones don’t, short of having them say so in front of a unicorn, or using a blood and truth mirror on them if you have one.” She eyed the wall suspiciously one more time. “But there’s nothing we can do about it now.  Let’s go up and find Salia.”

“Yes, let’s.”

***

They’d only been climbing for about ten minutes when they heard the sound of a panicked crowd coming towards the other way.  Valeria tried to push past Karen but the girl stopped her.

“That was quick,” Karen said mildly. “This isn’t a hugely tall mountain but it’s big enough. I would’ve thought descending on foot would be slower than that.”

“It should be,” Rai agreed from where he was still perched on Valeria’s shoulder. “It seems to take about two-thirds of the time it should. It always has.”

“What?” Karen scowled and then struck at the air in front of her. Threads similar to those at entrance lit up in all directions momentarily and  the walls and stairs seemed to twist in on themselves impossibly. It looked more like a spatial affinity area than the heart of a mountain in an air affinity one. The glowing threads faded and things returned to normal. Karen gave a low whistle.

“What the hell was that?” Valeria asked.

“The goblins who built  this escape route manipulated the spatial proportions to make it shorter than it should be and then hid what they’d done,” Karen replied. “I really hope no dragons know about this because it would be all too easy for them to twist this round and make the stairs into an endless loop.”

Valeria felt the blood drain from her face. “A perfect trap.”

“If it was meant that way it would have been used by now, I think,” Karen said. “So it’s not a trap, and the dragons don’t know about it. But it’s not just to facilitate escape, either.” She chewed her lip. “I think there’s something hidden here and the goblins wanted it to stay that way. They routed around it and tried to camoflage the fact, but slipped up slightly. I wonder wha-” She broke off as Salia bounded round the corner and attached herself to Valeria’s leg.

“Mummy! I told them I heard your voice!” She looked up at her bright yellow eyes.

“Your highness! Come back! We don’t  know if-” A pretty young fire nymph ran round the corner after her and stopped when she spotted Valeria. “Your Majesty!”

“Indeed.” Valeria picked her daughter up and hugged her. “I’m glad you’re safe.”

“There were dragons!” Salia waved her arms animatedly. “They kept trying to grab me. Ignifer thinks they’ll be waiting for us.”

“That’s a fair assumption,” Karen said. Ignifer jumped and stared at her.

“A human!” She shook her head. “I suppose that makes sense when dragons are around, but the others won’t like it.”

“They don’t have to as long as they see the logic.” Valeria turned back towards the exit. “Let’s get back down, then you and Alban can clear our exit.”

“We’ll do our best.”

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Chapter Seven
Part Eight

Karen dropped to her knees just inside the entrance to the tunnel leading up to the eyrie. Rai could feel exhaustion leaking from her as she gasped for breath.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“I…” She slowly pulled herself to her feet and began to climb the spiral stairway hewn into the rock. “I didn’t realise how out of practice I was. You three stay here, it’ll be safer since you can’t fight.” She paused long enough to place them on a small ledge before turning to continue her climb.

“You don’t look like you’ll be able to fight the dragons either,” Levina said. “Perhaps you should rest for a few minutes. It feels like you’re about to fall over.”

“I-I’ll be fine. It’s my mental not physical reserves which get depleted doing that.” She didn’t sound convinced.

“Are you sure?” Rai looked at her dubiously. She was clinging to the wall and Levina  was right she did look ready to fall over.

“Yes,” she replied, then shook her head. “No, not really. I should be able to, but I’m really out of practice. But I don’t have much choice. I don’t have time to rest. If there was time to spare I wouldn’t have had to do that.” She squared her shoulders resolutely and turned back to the stairs. “I’ve got to rescue Salia, if nothing else.”

“You won’t help anyone if you turn up in that state,” Rai said. “You’ve bought us a couple of hours and there’s usually a few Haltia and dwarf traders at the eyrie. They’ll be retreating down the stairs with the chicks and eggs. They’ll have the Princess with them. We can just wait for them.”

“The dragons will be on their tail,” Karen said.

“Of course,” he said. “But this wasn’t just built for traders you know.”

“We can’t attack dragons,” Perun said. “The ceiling above a dragon is another matter. When the dwarves carved this stairway for us, it was as an escape route. It’s full of tricks to slow dragons down.”

”And the Queen and Prince Alban won‘t be able to fly in either,” Rai added.  “Not with the dragons circling. They‘ll have to come in this way as well. You should rest while we wait for him.”

Karen gave him a long look. “You’re right. I’m so tired I’m not thinking straight.” She sat down on the stairs and rested her head against the rock. “It’s just I hate not being able help.”

***

Valeria realised they’d never make it into the eyrie by air as soon as the mountain appeared on the horizon and she saw the dragons circling above him.

The thunderbirds must have noticed as well and dropped into a steep dive without warning.  Valeria screamed and clung on for dear life. Just when she was sure her mount had lost control of the dive and they were going to crash, it straightened out and began skimming in just above ground level. She gasped for breath and waited for her heart to slow and her stomach to catch up with her.

After a moment she raised her head and scanned the sky for dragons. It was entirely likely her panic would have caught their attention. She pushed her mind out trying to sense where they were. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alban doing the same thing. They exchanged a look and then she leant forwards and touched her thunderbird mount’s mind with her own.

Get us as close to the ground entrance as possible.

That is our intent, my queen, he replied.

Karen says that she’s waiting for us just inside the entrance, mother, Alban interrupted.

Valeria gave him a sharp look – he rarely mindspoke her. It was tiring for him, since he lacked a heart stone. He was kneeling on the back of the thunderbird he was riding. One hand was still clutching onto his mount’s plumage but he was grappling for his bow with the other. Valeria scanned the sky again and spotted one of the dragons diving towards them.

Hurry! she told her mount and then turned her attention back to Alban. It’s going to be close. Don’t you even think of letting go and trying to fire your bow while we’re in flight! She could see him flushing guiltily and knew she’d read his intent right.

But… He began.

But nothing. You couldn’t fire an arrow and keep your balance at this speed. Not  in resting form anyway. She looked toward the fast approaching mountain and back at the diving dragon. I think we’ll make it. We’re nearly there. She couldn’t even convince herself.

We’ll make it, my queen, her mount said confidently. We can’t fight but we’re not completely helpless, and it’s committed to its dive now.

Valeria was about to ask what he meant when the two thunderbirds swerved violently away from each other. The dark red dragon shot through the gap where they’d been moments earlier. It crashed into the ground head first and lay unmoving on the ground. She could still sense it, so it wasn’t dead. It did, however, seem to be out cold.

Brilliant! she told them as they came into land near the bushes which concealed the tunnel up to the eyrie.

They dismounted and were headed towards the entrance when Karen came running out and almost threw herself at Alban.

“Alban!” There was such desperately genuine relief in the girl’s voice as she hugged him that Valeria couldn’t help wincing. Alban seemed just as relieved as he hugged her back. After a moment the girl pulled back. “We don’t have time to catch up just now. Let’s go rescue your sister.”

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Chapter Seven
Part Seven

Daniel found Mela in the lounge. She was sitting on the sofa, which had been covered with a plastic sheet to protect it. Her legs were tucked underneath her and her attention was fixed on the television. He rapped loudly on the door frame to get her attention. She looked up and grinned at him before turning back to the television.

“I never knew Gaia was so weird,” she said. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Seven
Part Six

“What are we going to do, Light Warrior?” Rai asked. They hadn’t seen another dragon since they fled but he could still feel their hunger tearing at him. Her injuring one seemed to have made their pursuers cautious, but they were still being stalked.

“My name’s Karen,” she said. “And we’re not going to panic, for one. It never helps.”

“I’m not sure that not panicking will help much either right now,” Perun said. “How did they know which way we were coming?” Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Seven
Part Five

Kimi flew overhead, leading the way to her mentor’s home. The trail was steep, and Andrew kept falling back while his sister scampered ahead like a mountain goat. Eyvindr was climbing more slowly, but still faster than him. Andrew swore to himself and tried to speed up, but the scree gave way beneath his feet and sent him sliding nearly a hundred meters back down the slope. He flailed around in an attempt to stop himself and his hand closed on a tree root, jerking him to a stop. He landed on his side and lay there, gasping for breath. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Seven
Part Four

They’d been flying for about a day when Rai sensed the first dragon. It was some way away and there was dragon territory nearby, so he didn’t think much of it. But it was in their path, so he altered course slightly to avoid it and flew on.  Moments later he sensed another one hovering in the new course he’d chosen. Not good, but twice might be coincidence. He changed course again. The Light Warrior shifted on his back as she noticed the changes and her mind brushed his questioningly.

Is something wrong? Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Seven
Part Three

Daniel tested his shoulder cautiously as he went to the study to find his father. Whatever the dragon girl had done had certainly fixed it, although it was still a little stiff. Mela had headed to the lounge – she seemed fascinated by the television. His father was sitting at his desk scrolling away at something on his tablet – hypocrite that he was, given his avowed hatred of technology. Whatever he was looking at it was making him scowl. Daniel cleared his throat and his father looked up at him.

“Better?” he asked. Read the rest of this entry »

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Chapter Seven
Part Two

Lydia? Lydia, can you hear me?

“Hmm?” Lydia opened her eyes slowly and looked up at the vaulted wooden ceiling. “I’m dreaming?” She frowned as she tried to recall what happened. “Karen knocked me out?” She looked at the woman kneeling beside her. It was the silver-eyed woman from her memory. “You! You’re my teacher!” She stared at the flames licking round her.  “What are you?”

“I am indeed. I thought it was time we talked properly. I need to find out why you’re having such trouble accessing your lessons. I set them up to be remembered if you needed them, my ilsria.” The flames died round the woman to reveal silvery blonde hair and pale skin. Together with her eyes they gave her startling resemblence to Alayria. “I am Feliaria of the Kithreiri – which means nothing to you, I expect. Are you in Talonyka?” Read the rest of this entry »