Starlighter

  Uriel lifted an arm, revealing a chain dangling from a manacle. “You will see. Someday we will all be set free.”

  Suddenly, the scene changed. Uriel lay alone on the ground. He sat up and let a key slide from his mouth and into his cupped fingers. After unlocking his chain, he crept on hands and knees.

  In the aura, he didn’t appear to be moving at all, but the ground passed by his body. After a few seconds, he stood and ran. The aura flashed, and, in an instant, he arrived at a mesa. Kneeling at its base, he dug into loose soil until he found a thin rope. He reeled the line in until a crystalline peg popped out of the mesa’s grip and into his lap.

  He stared at it and spoke in a whisper. “After this voyage to my homeland, I will return you to your hiding place. Perhaps my plans will fail and my son will be the next human that gazes at your beauty, but I hope no dragon ever looks upon you again.”

  A whispered voice from behind passed into Koren’s ear along with the clinking of metal on metal. “This is Jason. Zena and the dragons are hypnotized. I’m still tied, but I’m loose enough to unlock your chains and the ring around your neck. Try to stay focused on your tale until I can break free.”

  For a moment, the aura began to fade. Koren took another breath and searched her mind. Bring back Uriel. Where did he go? Where is he now?

  As she regained her concentration, Uriel materialized, kneeling again and retying the rope to the peg. He picked up a long metal rod and pushed the crystal into the hole as far as the rod would allow. He then shoved the dirt back into place, packing it tightly with the rod.

  He set his hands on his knees and blew out a breath. “Must hurry,” he muttered. “The portal will not stay open long.” Then, he vanished again, and the aura began to fade.

  “The lock’s open,” Jason whispered. “I’ll think of something to get those chains unwrapped.”

  Underneath the aura’s diminishing light, Jason crawled on hands and knees back toward the egg.

  When the crystal’s light disappeared, Koren looked at Magnar and heaved a loud sigh. “I think that’s the end of the tale.”

  Magnar, Arxad, and Zena blinked and shook their heads. Then, with a rising growl, Magnar whipped his tail from side to side. “So it is buried in the mesa! The holes Uriel drilled in the center pointed to a deeper burial. The little rodent outsmarted us.”

  Zena marched toward her bag. “Uriel’s method of hiding the key makes me wonder…”

  Koren swung her head toward Jason. He jerked at his bonds, but they still held him fast. It seemed that only a few threads kept him from breaking free.

  “Aha!” Zena lifted the key ring. “There is one missing!”

  Koren shook off the neck ring and thrashed at her chains. They loosened and slid down her body, but they tangled at her knees. She couldn’t break free.

  Magnar’s head shot toward Jason. “Where is the key?”

  Jason broke the final thread and tossed the key high in the air. As Magnar and Arxad followed its flight, Jason leaped toward Koren.

  “The Starlighter!” Zena screamed.

  As Jason pulled on the chains at Koren’s feet, Zena ran and crashed into him, knocking him over.

  Magnar roared. “You will now cook, Starlighter!” A streak of fire shot from his mouth and struck the globe next to Koren’s ear. The crystal erupted in blazing light. Heat surged across Koren’s back. She stiffened. Her body seemed to adhere to the stake as if her skin were fusing to the crystalline surface. She swiveled her head toward Jason and cried out, “Help me!”

  With a loud grunt, Jason threw Zena to the side and lunged toward Koren. Setting one hand on the stake and one on Koren’s back, he pried her loose and shoved her away. She tripped over the chains and rolled on the ground, her legs now free.

  Arxad jumped toward Koren and set a clawed foot on her chest. “I have her, Magnar!”

  Koren struggled beneath the pressure, but she couldn’t budge. She looked at the crystalline stake. Jason still stood there, his hand apparently stuck in place as the fiery glow wrapped him in its clutches. He moaned, his gaze riveted on Koren’s, his eyes wide and anguished. Zena climbed to her feet, smiling as she crossed her arms and stood guard.

  “No!” Koren screamed. “If he dies, I will never tell another tale for you!”

  “I have no more need for your tales,” Magnar said, shuffling to Arxad’s side. “The Starlighter will follow him at the stake. Let us be rid of them quickly without a public spectacle.” He sent another stream of fire at the globe. Its energy redoubled, sending streaks of jagged light into Jason’s body. He arched his back, making more of his body cling to the stake as he let out an elongated cry, “Koren! Use your gift! Save yourself!”

  “Silence her wicked tongue!” Magnar ordered.

  Arxad shifted his foot from Koren’s chest to her mouth and set his head near hers, shouting, “You will be quiet!” He then added a whisper, “Magnar has one vulnerability. If you are wise you will discern my meaning.”

  His foot lifted slightly, allowing her to turn her head toward the egg, still draped in its nesting cloths. The key Jason had thrown lay on the stone floor in between.

  With a mighty thrash, she jerked away and scrambled on hands and knees, scooping up the key as she scuffled toward the egg.

  “Stop her!” Zena cried out.

  Koren lurched to the egg and jerked off the cover. Wrapping her arms around it, she set the end of the key against the shell and shouted, “If you don’t let Jason go, I’ll break it and kill him! I swear I will!”

  Magnar let out a trumpeting screech. “If you do, I will slaughter you in an instant!”

  “You’ll still have a broken egg and a dead prince.”

  For a moment, Magnar just stared, shifting his weight from side to side. Zena seemed frozen in place, her pupils wide and wandering. Arxad’s eyes darted, but his expression gave nothing away. Jason moaned. As fiery light encircled his petrified body, his wet, red face continued to twist in agony.

  Koren eyed the globe. It remained blazing white. But was that because it had transformed to cooking mode, or was she really telling the truth, that she really would break the egg and kill the prince? At this point, she didn’t know, and she didn’t care. “I’m not going to wait much longer!” A breeze blew her hair across her face, and sweat and tears kept it plastered there. “Release him now!”

  Magnar waved a wing at Zena. “Make it cease!”

  Scowling, Zena ran to a support column near the courtyard’s doorway and pulled a lever. The ceiling began to close again. As the partition crossed the sunlight’s path, Jason’s flaming cocoon ebbed. When the dome finally clicked shut, the flames died away, leaving a few surrounding torches as the only lights in the chamber. The globe atop the stake continued to glow, its color now gray.

  Jason slumped and dropped to his hands and knees, his head down as he gasped for breath.

  “What do you propose to do?” Magnar growled. “You cannot hold this impasse indefinitely.”

  “I will…” Koren looked around at all the eyes staring at her, four from dragons and two black orbs from Zena. “I will take the egg and Jason away from here.”

  Magnar’s growl deepened. “We will follow you to the ends of Starlight. You would never have a moment’s peace. And when the prince hatches, what will you do? Will you murder him? Or will you, like most humans, consider his life more valuable once you can see him?”

  Koren gulped. She hadn’t thought that far ahead. And Magnar had a good point. The dragon inside the egg was alive. Could she really kill him? “If…If you let us go, I promise to keep him alive.”

  Magnar looked at the globe. As its grayness faded to white, he let out a rumble from his throat. “I see.”

  Koren stared at him. She had to maintain confidence, but with the globe once again detecting lies, he could easily ask questions that might expose her uncertainty about killing the prince immediately.

  The shell began to grow warmer, and its familiar voice penetrat
ed her mind. You cannot kill me. Yes, you might run away, but deep inside, you love me, and you will return to me. Someday you will gladly accept my chains.

  She sucked in a breath but maintained her stare. She couldn’t let Zena or the dragons know that her courage was about to crumble.

  Arxad stepped close to Koren and spread a wing toward her. “May I offer a solution?”

  “Speak your mind,” Magnar said.

  “I will take the boy and girl, with the egg still in the girl’s possession, to a secret place where they can escape to freedom. She will release the egg to me, and I will bring it back here unharmed.”

  “And if she breaks the shell or harms the prince?”

  Arxad guided his head directly in front of Koren’s face and breathed a blast of hot air. “Then I will kill them both.”

  Magnar and Koren turned toward the crystal in unison. The globe stayed clear. His face still red, Jason rose to his feet and staggered toward Koren. He dropped to his knees next to her and gasped, “Thank you.”

  “No, Jason,” she whispered as she looked into his glazed eyes. “Thank you.”

  Jason turned toward Arxad. “How do we know you’ll keep your end of the bargain?”

  Arxad spoke directly to the globe. “If the Starlighter honors her word, I will take her and the boy to a place where they can escape to freedom without interference from the dragons.”

  Again, the globe stayed clear.

  “Only if no one follows,” Jason said. “Not Magnar, not Zena—no one.”

  Magnar growled. “So be it. Take the two humans, and let us be done with them forever.”

  “One more item,” Arxad said.

  Magnar swung his spiny tail, apparently growing more agitated by the second. “What is it?”

  “If I do this great deed for our citizens, then I ask that all charges against me regarding Maximus be dropped. By my willingness to kill these two, you now know that my loyalty ultimately lies with dragons and not with humans.”

  The globe shone as clear as ever.

  Magnar stilled his tail, staring at Arxad for a moment before answering. “The charges are dropped. Let the records show that Maximus drowned in a tragic accident.”

  The crystal turned as black as the egg’s shell. Magnar looked at it briefly before muttering, “This lie will remain. The official records need never know the truth.”

  “Okay,” Jason said reaching toward Zena. “Give me the bag, and we’ll get out of here. Arxad needs a way to carry the egg, and the strap should work.”

  Zena removed the finger and dagger from the bag, and then set the bag at Jason’s side. A tiny circle of red blazed at the center of her pupils. “He will hatch soon,” she whispered, “perhaps tomorrow, so the egg had better be back in its nest tonight. If he commands me to bring you back, I will hunt for you, and nothing will be able to shield you from my view.”

  Elyssa strode back to the bottom of the exit stairway where Allender stood with the children and the other men. “The bees are almost here.”

  Wallace stayed on his knees, frantically digging with his blade.

  Allender hoisted a little girl into one arm and guided a boy with the other. “Come! Everyone into the tunnel. We’ll have to hide in the water.”

  “I almost have it!” Wallace pushed the crystal’s point into the hole, but it still wouldn’t quite fit. “Just a few more seconds.”

  After herding everyone into the right-hand tunnel, Allender set the girl down and paused at the entry. The children and the other men waited behind him. “Wallace! You must come!”

  “If I open the portal, we can escape!”

  A thud sounded from the top of the stairs, then another. The buzzing noise heightened.

  “Yarlan is coming!” Allender hissed. “We will try again later!”

  A third thud sounded, closer. A line of bees streamed from the left-hand tunnel and flew in an orbit above Wallace’s crouching form. Allender ran out and batted the bees with his arms. They pelted his body with sting after sting. Allender grew suddenly still, his eyes fixed on the children huddled in the tunnel entrance. Then, with more bees gathering on his skin and adding their stings, he turned and walked into the massing swarm near the rear wall.

  Groaning as the bees enveloped his body, he staggered back into the anteroom and, with a sudden burst of speed, ran up the stairs. “They’re dead!” he screamed as he disappeared through the exit. “The bees have killed them all!”

  A flash of light appeared, and a horrific scream echoed throughout the chamber. The bodies of twenty or more bees dropped down the stairs, scorched and charred. A few seconds later, a louder, more bestial scream ripped the air, then silence.

  Elyssa covered her mouth. “Oh, Allender!”

  Wallace jammed the crystal peg into the hole. “I got it!”

  “Shhh!” Her legs trembling, Elyssa ran back into the anteroom and spoke in a low tone. “We have to make the dragons think we’re dead.”

  The three tunnels at the back of the chamber faded away, revealing Tibalt standing with his hands in his pockets. The river behind him flowed steadily from right to left. “How did you do that?” Tibalt asked. “I opened it a few minutes ago, but no one was—”

  “Quiet!” She waved toward the right-hand tunnel, though it was no longer in sight, and whispered, “Everyone come! Hurry!”

  Micah’s head appeared through the portal plane, then his arms and legs. Natalla came next, followed by the other children and the men, each one glancing at the exit and the charred bees. Tears streamed down Micah’s cheeks, but he said nothing.

  “Everyone step into there,” Elyssa said, pointing toward the river. “Tibalt, put your fingers in the holes so I can close the portal from this side.”

  Tibalt withdrew his hands from his pockets, now unbandaged, raw and bleeding. “But I can’t see the holes.”

  “Okay.” When every slave except Wallace passed safely into Major Four, Elyssa stooped next to him in front of the line of crystalline pegs and looked up at Tibalt. “When the wall reappears on your side,” she said, “open the portal again immediately.”

  Tibalt flexed his fingers. “I’m ready.”

  As Elyssa grasped the crystal, another thud sounded at the top of the stairs. She jerked her head up and looked at Micah. “Yarlan?” she whispered.

  Micah stooped in front of her, his voice also low. “It likely is, Miss. No human could make such a footfall.”

  A series of bumps rifled through the chamber. Elyssa raised her splayed hand and hissed, “Open it in five minutes.” After jerking the peg out, she grabbed Wallace’s arm and hustled to the tunnel on the right. They crouched in the shadow and watched the anteroom.

  Grunts erupted near the bottom of a stairwell along with another loud thud. Finally, two male human forms appeared. One had his back turned toward Elyssa, blocking the other from view. Each one grasped the side of a raft and dragged it into the room.

  “On three,” one of them said. “One…two…three!”

  In unison, they dropped the raft on the floor, making something metallic rattle on top of the rope-bound logs. Both men stood with sloped shoulders, their heads low.

  “Randall?” Elyssa called out. “Cowl?”

  The closer man turned. “Elyssa!” Randall’s face beamed. “You’re alive!”

  She ran out and embraced him with damp arms, but he didn’t seem to mind. When Wallace joined them, Randall clapped him on the back. “Who else survived?”

  “We all did,” Wallace said. Then his smile wrinkled into a frown. “All except Allender.”

  Cowl clasped his hands, and his voice shook with passion. “I thank the Almighty One for my daughter’s life, but how can I celebrate in the shadow of my friend’s death?”

  A shiver ran up Elyssa’s spine, and she pushed back a surge of emotion. “What happened to Yarlan?” she asked.

  Randall pointed at the exit. “Cowl and I were watching from the other stairs, hoping for a chance to attack. When Allend
er distracted him, the dragon dropped his guard. That’s when we moved in.”

  “Did you kill him?” Wallace asked.

  Randall picked up a blood-smeared sword from the top of the raft. “No, but he’s blind now. I don’t think he’ll be bothering us.”

  Elyssa lowered her voice to a whisper. “And Allender? Are you sure he is dead?”

  Randall and Cowl looked at each other for a moment. Cowl combed his fingers through his hair and cleared his throat. “Miss, Yarlan burned Allender, and…” As his voice drifted to silence, he turned his head, obviously trying to keep his composure.

  Setting a hand on Cowl’s shoulder, Randall added, “Let’s just say that the myths about dragons’ eating habits might well be true.”

  Elyssa clutched her stomach as nausea churned within. No one said anything for several moments.

  Finally, Elyssa stooped and touched the raft. “This is a brilliant idea, but it will be a rough ride.”

  “I think two adults with each child will work,” Randall said. “Since we have to climb the rope and switch the river back and forth, it’ll take a lot of time, maybe hours.”

  Elyssa imagined the process. It would be torturous. “I don’t have hours.”

  “But you know how to operate the mechanism. We need you.”

  Elyssa pressed a finger into Randall’s chest. “So do you. Between you and Tibalt, you can figure it out.”

  Randall tightened his grip on his sword’s hilt. “I should search for Jason. Not to insult you, Elyssa, but he needs someone who knows how to fight.”

  She grasped his bicep. “You’re stronger. That’s why you need to be there to haul people up that rope. Besides, if Counselor Orion gets wind that I’ve returned, my life won’t last very long. And Jason needs someone stealthy who can sneak around.”

  Wallace raised his hand. “And someone to show her how to find him.”

  Elyssa pulled Wallace to her side. “That would be perfect.”

  “Okay,” Randall said, nodding. “You win.”

  She stooped and inserted the crystal into the hole. Instantly, the portal reopened. Tibalt stood closer to the plane, his fingers extended. “I was just about to—” His eyes widened. “Randall! Good to see you!”