“Velika, it is safe,” Shardas called to his mate.
With a roar of defiance, she burst up through the opening and prepared to land heavily beside us.
There was a creaking and groaning, and then a snap. We looked on in horror as several of the ropes binding the net of eggs to Velika’s belly separated. The net plunged to the mossy ground, and Shardas prostrated himself, dropping the spears and thrusting his foreclaws under the eggs to break their fall.
Luka and I leaped from Shardas’s back to help. The eggs appeared to be fine: they were tightly packed and their father had gotten his claws under them just in time.
Surveying the points where the harness had broken, I could see that it was the twine that had been the problem. The stress of Velika’s movements, her powerful leap into the air, had made it unravel. I exchanged glances with Luka. Where would we get more twine? And what good would more do if it wasn’t strong enough to take the strain of Velika’s movements anyway?
Taking his foreclaws from under the net, Shardas too puzzled over the knots. “We need something stronger,” he said hopelessly.
“And soon,” Velika said softly.
The rumble of the mountain was growing louder, and the sky was darkening, not with clouds, but with smoke and ash from the volcano. We needed to fly, fast.
“We could carry the net between us,” Shardas said.
“But if we are attacked,” Velika argued, “what then? And the net itself may not hold. . . . ”
“We can cut my shirt into strips,” Luka offered. “And use it instead of twine. ”
“It’s linen,” I said. “It will unravel just as fast as that twine. ”
My heart was beating rapidly. My palms were wet and my mouth was dry. There was only one thing to do.
“Hand me your knife, please,” I said to Luka, and my voice caught in my throat.
“What are you going to do?”
“It’s sharper than mine. ” I pulled the basket down from Shardas’s back.
“Creel!” Luka stared at me in shock, and Velika and Shardas both snorted smoke in consternation.
“Silk is stronger than most rope,” I said, and laid my wedding gown on the ground. “We’ll need strips about two inches wide, ten inches long. ”
“Creel, if we must . . . ” Luka put an awkward hand on my shoulder. “I’ll do it. ”
“No,” I said, and the word came out as a sob. “I want to. ” I took his dagger and jabbed it through the heavy silk of the skirt of my wedding gown. Tears dripped down and spotted the fabric.
“It is . . . was . . . very fine,” Shardas said comfortingly. “One of your best. ”
Velika rumbled warningly, and he backpedaled.
“Of course, you are very gifted, and can surely re- create it when we are safe,” the dragon king assured me.
“We don’t need the top part . . . the bodice,” Luka pointed out in what he probably thought was a comforting way. “You can still use that. ”
“Of course. ” I sniffled, and made another cut.
A Hole in the Mountainside
White strips of silk, their ends fluttering, adorned the harness and net that Velika wore. White strips of silk that had once been a gown that I had begun to think of as my masterpiece. I continued to cry as I tied them around the weak joints of the ropes, but it had to be done.
Down below in the vent, we could see that the cavern floor was now entirely covered with lava. The ground shook, and fire began belching out the top of the mountain.
Our escape from the cavern would be pointless if we couldn’t escape the greater threat of the volcano.
We were headed toward the shore, and our islet. It seemed that we would be able to get away without dealing with the local dragons after all, though I think we all feared they would still have to be faced.
We worried about our friends, as well. Having seen no sign of any other creature—dragon, human, or even bird—we were afraid that something might have happened to them. Were the locals using the eruption as a distraction in order to capture our friends? Had some other catastrophe occurred during the night, to which we had been oblivious in our cave underground?
But as we neared the shore something caught my attention, and I called out to Shardas. To the northeast was a mountain that we had previously seen only from the opposite side. Approaching it from this angle, though, we realized something looked odd. All the hills and mountains on this island were covered in trees, but this peak was bare. Too bare. With the exposed rocks making a pattern that seemed highly unnatural, even in this smoky light.
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Shardas, curious as well, veered course to bring us just close enough to investigate. To our amazement, we saw that the barren place was actually a temple carved into the side of the mountain. The huge door could clearly accommodate dragons; in fact, it was large enough for two of the local dragons to fly in abreast.
Velika called out: “Don’t even think about it, Shardas. I am not taking my eggs anywhere near there. ”
“Agreed,” Shardas said, but I could tell his curiosity was still piqued, as was mine.
“Look there!” Luka pointed past my shoulder to the right, and I tapped Shardas’s neck to indicate the direction.
A trio of small, brown dragons was flying toward the temple in an odd formation. Two of them flew side by side, so close their wings nearly touched, and the third was below them, wings outstretched and barely moving. On second glance, thin ropes could be seen running from the two higher dragons to the one below.
They were carrying the lower dragon in a sling.
It had to be Mannyl, the elder.
Velika heaved a huge sigh. “Let’s land right there,” she said, pointing to a small open area in the forest below. “Prince Luka can stay with me while you and Creel investigate. ”
Luka tried to protest, but Velika pointed out that even if she kept me with her, I would find some way of involving myself in something dangerous. It was therefore better for me to be with Shardas from the beginning.
I found myself grinning abashedly at this summation of my character. Velika knew me all too well. We landed lightly in the jungle, and Luka and I thoroughly checked the eggs and makeshift carrier.
It looked as though the pieces of my gown were fulfilling their new purpose. The net and harness were holding tight, and the eggs hadn’t so much as shifted during the journey.
Luka hugged me. “Thank you for giving up your gown,” he said gruffly. “We’ll get you another one, a better one. ”
“How?” I tried not to sound too heartbroken. After all, what was one gown in the face of eight young dragons’ lives? “We’ll be lucky if we make it out of here in time for the wedding at all. ”
“We can delay the wedding,” Luka offered, and I hugged him again.
“That won’t be necessary,” I assured him. “I’m sure that Marta can whip something up. She probably already has a replacement waiting: she was convinced something bad would happen to this gown. ”
“Marta, Prophetess of the Triunity. ” Luka laughed.
“Come along, Creel,” Shardas said gently. “Keep an eye out for signs of the eruption. If you hear roaring, or if the forest starts to burn, flee,” he instructed Velika and Luka.
“Right-o, sir,” Luka said.
Velika didn’t even reply.
I remounted Shardas and we headed straight for the temple. He didn’t bother to conceal himself. . . . How could he? He was three times the size of the local dragons, and bright gold besides. We just flew brazenly to the entrance and passed through.
Into a place of wonder.
We were in a huge chamber, big enough to house a hundred dragons. The entire mountain must have been hollow, and there were ledges along the cavern walls for dragons to lounge on. Few of them were filled, though. Shardas quickly landed on one in a shadowy corner high above, and none of the drago
ns gathered seemed to notice.
What took my breath away, though, wasn’t just the size of the chamber, but that every wall, every ledge and inch of floor and ceiling was carved with pictures portraying dragons. Dragons caring for eggs, young dragons frolicking, dragons fighting in battles, fishing in the ocean—everything you could imagine. The deep carvings were inlaid with gold and priceless stones, adding color and dimension to the images. The pink torchlight made the jeweled eyes and scales wink and glimmer, so that the carvings appeared to move.
I clenched my fists, wishing I had something to sketch designs on. These scenes would make the most fantastic patterns for a gown! I tried to drink in just the pictures on our ledge, but was interrupted by roaring.
It seemed that we hadn’t entirely escaped notice after all.
“Do you want to stay here?” Shardas’s claws clutched at the lip of the ledge.
“There’s no way for me to get down if something happens to you,” I said.
With that, Shardas soared to the floor far below with me still perched on his back. There was a ring inlaid in the stone that seemed to indicate a place of importance, and off to one side was a low couch containing the elder Mannyl. Another dragon crouched nearby, and I thought it was he who had raised the alarm. Glaring, I saw it was my old master, and Darrym was with him as well.
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Settling himself elegantly in the ring, Shardas looked around, nodding at the other dragons. A king surveying his people, in truth as well as demeanor. I got down from his back as gracefully as I could, and stood by his side with clasped hands and smooth expression.
“So this is the Great Temple of the First Mother,” Shardas said, his voice carrying to every ledge. “How very . . . ignoble of you to conceal it from your queen. ”
My smooth expression changed to shock and confusion. The Great Temple of the First Mother? The first dragon?
“If Velika had come into line, she would have been brought here,” Darrym said arrogantly.
I wished heartily that Shardas hadn’t left his spears with Velika.
“It would be very hard for her to ‘come into line’ if she had died in the cave where you left her,” Shardas snarled. Gasps ran through the temple. “That’s right,” Shardas cried, “Velika, our eggs, our human friends, and I were left in that cavern to die as the volcano erupted. We barely made it out in time!”
“The eggs?” The ancient dragon on his couch sniffed the air, searching for some sign of them despite his blindness.
“Are safe. Away from here,” Shardas said.
“Good, good,” Mannyl said. “We need them. ”
“Yes, you do,” Shardas replied. “Because she is your queen and one day one of our hatchlings will succeed her. ” He glared around the room. “And you will treat my mate, and her heir, as your queen. Not as your captive. ”
A dragon came forward, and a smile stretched across my face. It was Vannyn, our greatest ally here.
He bowed his head graciously to Shardas. “My king, welcome to the Temple of the First Mother. Long has it been the shame of our people that we hid it from our brethren. ”
Hissing and snorts erupted at this, but not that many. Looking up, I saw many ashamed nods, and one dragon gave me a rather cheery wave. I waved back.
“He is the troublemaker, Elder One,” Darrym said. “He has been stirring up dissent. ”
“I am the one who still has a shred of honor,” Vannyn roared. “I am the only one not too blind to see that we are dying, rotting from within. Our lies, our cruelty, and our vanity have brought us to this!” He swept his tail around. “A handful of us left! Weak and sickly! Our eggs rarely hatching!
Do you really still think we are the chosen people?”
“I never did,” Mannyl said.
Silence filled the temple.
The Queen in the Ring
What?” Even Shardas was taken aback.
The elder’s breath rattled in and out. I wasn’t sure if it was a sigh or laughter, but it was chilling all the same. I had a sudden vision, too, of him dying before he could tell us what he meant.
“The answers are here, if you know where to look,” he said finally. A feeble claw waved in the air. “But it would take you days to study all the carvings, months to interpret them. No one has done so in centuries. Except for me. ”
“You don’t need to tell them anything,” Darrym hissed, his voice frantic. Even if he didn’t know the meaning of the carvings, I think he suspected what the Elder One was going to say.
I know I had my suspicions, which were causing little bubbles of excitement in my chest.
“Velika and her mate have won,” Mannyl said. “Or so they think. The volcano is erupting, none of us may survive. ”
This burst my bubbles of anticipation, I must admit.
“Most of these carvings were done at the order of the First Mother herself,” he continued. “But others were added by a later generation, after the majority of our people had left this land. Our beloved Queen Verania, she who called us select few the chosen people, had more carvings made and hidden around the temple.
“They tell the story of a jealous young dragon whose elder sister was favored by their mother, a great queen. Her mother, her father, those who attended her hatching all agreed: she did hatch second. In her jealousy, however, the younger dragon left her family behind and chose to make her own way: as a queen, surrounded by adoring followers as she had always longed to be.
“By great fortune she found this land, to which our people had long ago forgotten the way. It was the land of their ultimate ancestor, where the mother of us all had burst forth from the First Fires.
“She found the temple, and here made her home with her followers. But when she was dying, she felt great remorse, and recorded her confession. That is the truth of our beloved Verania. ” The aged dragon sagged back, gasping for air.
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“Well,” I said softly to Shardas, “I hardly expected that. ”
“Nor I,” he admitted. He peered at the other dragons. “So. Now you have the truth: Velika is descended from the true queen—your line has always followed an impostor. What will you do?”
A ragged cheer went up, but mostly from those who already supported us. Many of the dragons shuffled their feet and looked ashamed, which was all well and good, except that it really didn’t help us with the erupting volcano and the negotiation of peace between the two factions.
“They will help to gather the humans and bring them here to safety,” Velika said crisply. She had soared into the temple and landed beside Shardas, her movements neat and graceful despite the burden of her eggs.
Luka slid from her back and came to stand beside me. I took his hand and squeezed it tight. “We couldn’t bear the suspense,” he whispered, through the rising tide of murmurs from the assembly.
“The queen!”
“She’s here!”
“See how many eggs! And so large!”
“At last, a queen! At last!”
Velika scanned the crowd. “How many of you have human villages dependent upon you?”
I could see that her forthright question startled them, but they were quick to raise foreclaws. And every one of them seemed to have a hoard. That meant fifty villages at least, by my estimation.
“You must go, quickly, and start bringing your people here. Tell them to make haste, take nothing that will slow them down, and you must carry as many as you can. The old, the sick, the children. ”
“What? Humans here? Never!” Darrym bared his teeth. “It violates the temple to even have them here!” He waved disdainfully at me and Luka.
“The volcano is erupting,” Velika said, “and the lava will overtake everything. We must save the humans! I believe that we will all be safe within the temple, but we must hurry if we are to do any good. ”
“There will always be more humans; they a
re a plague upon the land,” Darrym sneered.
Shardas’s tail lashed out and caught Darrym square in the jaw. The smaller dragon flew across the room and hit a pillar, collapsing in a daze.
“You heard your queen,” Shardas roared. “Go!”
The dragon still crouched beside Mannyl shook his head. “What will it matter? We can carry only two humans at a time anyway. ”
“Two in your claws, at least four on your back,” Shardas said.
“On our backs! Like common pack animals?!”
“If you cannot bring yourself to help them when they need you most,” Velika said, “then you do not deserve their servitude, if you ever did. ” She turned to me. “Creel, help me with this harness. I can carry more than six, I am sure. ” She spoke in her own language, to make certain that they could all understand her.
“Yes, Your Majesty,” I said promptly.
Together Luka and I got the harness undone, and settled the eggs there in the middle of the ring. Shardas and Velika at once took off to gather up some humans, with Vannyn and many others following them. Those left behind fidgeted awkwardly, and then began to fly out as well, one and two at a time, until only Darrym and Mannyl were left.
Darrym opened his mouth to say something cutting, but was interrupted by Feniul, who flew in with seven or eight humans clinging to his back in terror. Two more were in his claws, and looked only marginally more comfortable. He put them down outside the ring, and the rest climbed off his back with obvious relief.
“Creel! Luka! Are you well?”
“Yes, Feniul!” My heart skipped around in my chest. I had assumed my brother was safely away with our friends. But if Feniul was here . . . “Where’s Hagen?”
“He’s helping Leontes pack some alchemical something-or-others,” Feniul said.
“Oh. ” My heartbeat returned to normal. Or almost—it was still a bit too fast and my throat was dry. “Have you seen Velika and Shardas?”
“Indeed. Niva and I were coming to look for you, when we realized that the volcano was erupting. We found Shardas and Velika in the forest, and they told us to gather humans and bring them here.