The light was dim, but I could see a faint golden gleam reflecting from the thief dragon’s wings. It crept along the floor until it came to a pile of stones, then started up it, stopping to shake its head and stretch open its mouth. Maybe it had a stomach-ache. The call of my locus magicalicus came from it, faintly. The dragon could hide from me, but I’d always know where it was.
Still, I wasn’t going to catch it by trying to leap on it.
I crawled back behind my pile of locus stones. The only thing the thief dragon hadn’t stolen out of my knapsack was the spell-book Nevery’d given me. I took that out, and pulled the half biscuit from my pocket. The dragon liked biscuits, sure as sure.
I sprinkled a few biscuit crumbs on the rock floor, then put the half biscuit into the knapsack and put it on the floor with the top flap half open. Quietly, trying not to step on any locus stones, I crept ’round the pile and crouched in the shadows, waiting.
After a while I heard a rattle of stones and the tck-tck-tck of claws on rock. Slowly, carefully, I crawled out of my hiding place.
The thief dragon crouched next to my knapsack. With one little claw-paw it pulled aside the top flap, then stuck its snout inside. I’d stuffed the half-biscuit deep into a corner. The dragon crawled farther in, its tail twitching.
Now! I burst from my hiding place and dove on the knapsack, pulling the top flap tight and buckling it down. The tiny dragon thrashed around inside, but it was good and caught. “Hah,” I breathed, getting the last strap snugged tight.
Now to get out of the cave. I got to my feet, holding the squirming knapsack in my arms. The walls were shifting again, but it wasn’t the cave dragon moving. The ground trembled, just enough to make my feet itch. The locus stones scattered around the cave started to glow, faintly.
The tiny dragon kept struggling to get out of the knapsack. “Shhh,” I whispered to it.
One thing thieves are good at is creeping without making noise. I started toward the sliver of space between the cave dragon’s head and the cave wall.
I glanced over my shoulder. The walls shivered and shone in the lothfalas light. The slowsilver scales were moving, I realized. As I watched, a lump of slowsilver like a giant teardrop flowed down the dragon-wall. Was the dragon melting? The floor stopped trembling and started shaking.
Inside the knapsack, the tiny dragon went very still. A deep hum-thrum rumbled through the cave.
Right. Time to get out, and I didn’t need to be quiet about it.
Kicking stones out of the way, I ran across the cave to the sliver of doorway. The dragon lay with its eye closed. A smudge of smoke, like a fire going out, trickled up from its huge nostril. Up close, I could see that its slowsilver skin was tarnished here, too, and crack-wrinkled. The cave dragon, I guessed, was very, very old. Maybe it’d grown old inside this mountaintop, and too huge to squeeze out the cave mouth it’d come in, long ago.
I turned sideways, the knapsack in my arms, and edged into the gap. It was a tight fit, tight enough to scrape buttons off my coat, but I wasn’t leaving my locus magicalicus behind. I squeezed past a sharp tooth twice as tall as Nevery, its surface pitted and yellow. A wind tugged at my clothes and hair—the dragon’s breath, hot, and with a smell like exploded pyrotechnics. Past another tooth.
And then free, standing on the doorstep, the sun bright in a clear blue sky, the air cold and fresh.
The cave dragon spoke. Its voice rumbled up through the stone step and into me.
TALLENNAR
Inside the knapsack, the tiny dragon squeaked—Pip!
A gust of wind burst from the cave mouth, and I heard the pattering sound of raindrops—slowsilver drops, I guessed, raining down from the dragon. I threw the knapsack over my shoulders and raced for the stone steps. Behind me, the mountain rumbled. Down another step, and another, and five more steps, my breath gasping.
I glanced over my shoulder. Rocks tumbled off the mountain peak, and as I watched, the spire over the cave mouth cracked and tipped over and smashed onto the doorstep, right where I’d been standing. I’d stolen one of its locus stones. The cave dragon was coming after me.
A jagged boulder as big as a horse came leaping down the side of the mountain and bounced down the stone steps toward me. I pressed myself against the stair wall and it crashed past, cracking the stone step where it landed and then flying off into the snowfield. More rocks rained down.
Keeping my head low, I scrambled down another step.
From behind, I heard the whoosh of wings. I looked over my shoulder and flung myself onto the next step. The flame dragon, coming for me. It swooped down in a rush of wind, and without even pausing, snatched me up from the stone step.
I struggled, kicking, pushing at the claws that held me, but it just gripped me tighter. NO! It couldn’t take me back to the cave, not now.
My stomach lurched as the dragon banked to the side, dodging a hurtling boulder, then it dodged again, its wings pounding, whump-whump, lifting us higher.
I braced myself, ready to be tossed back into the cave, but the flame dragon arced away, leaving the rumbling mountaintop behind, gliding over a deep, shadowed valley to another mountain. It circled, then dropped down to a sharp spire of rock and perched there, clinging to the spire with three claws, holding me tightly with the fourth one.
I caught my breath and took off my knapsack to hold it in my arms. The thief dragon kept still. In the tight clutch of the flame dragon I squirmed forward so I could peer around a talon.
Far across the valley, dark gray stormclouds gathered around the dragon mountain. Silver lightning flashed in the clouds’ bellies and crackled around the mountain’s sharp peak. A rumbling sound like distant thunder echoed from the other mountains all around.
More rocks tumbled from the dragon mountain; great swaths of snow slid from the snowfields and crashed into the treeline below, sending up clouds of ice crystals.
The noise stopped like a held breath. The mountain shivered, then stilled.
The tiny dragon found a gap in the top of the knapsack and poked out its snout; it gazed toward the mountain.
In a shimmering blaze of light, the entire top of the mountain rose up into the sky and hung there. Stormclouds raged around it; lightning flashed. In a whirl of pyrotechnic flame, the mountaintop burst apart.
The sound of the explosion reached us, a rumbling roar, and then a freezing wind full of grains of rock, and rocks as big as my fist, and rocks the size of the flame dragon, but they all hurtled past us to fall in the snow or shatter on the side of the mountain. The cave dragon. Had it just died?
The tiny dragon made a sad, keening sound.
And then I knew. The hoard of locus stones. The slowsilver. I knew what slowsilver was for; it was for keeping magic in. If the dragon’s scales were made of slowsilver, then inside the dragon must be magic.
I stared at the clouds and smoke and the shimmer of slowsilver raining out of the sky.
The cave dragon wasn’t dying. A magic was being born.
CHAPTER 22
The flame dragon shot through the fading day. Heading toward Wellmet, I hoped, because that’s where the finding spell had come from. I reached up and rested my hand against the flame dragon’s claw. Its scales gleamed like liquid flames and felt warm under my fingers. These scales were slowsilver, too, just not silver-colored yet because the dragon was still young.
Outside the flame dragon’s claw, the wind shrieked past, cold and thin. Inside the knapsack, the thief dragon was shivering.
I loosened one of the straps and peeked inside.
“Hello, little Pip,” I said softly.
It curled in the bottom of the bag and glared at me. The tip of its tail twitched. When a cat twitched its tail it wasn’t happy.
Pip was a magical being inside its dragon scales, just as the flame dragon was. Maybe it couldn’t understand me unless I spoke its language. From my studying, I knew enough of the spellword language to tell Pip not to be afraid, that I was its friend. But whe
n I reached my hand in to touch it, it snapped at me, then bared its needle-sharp teeth, ready to bite.
Drats. I buckled the bag tight to keep Pip in, then I put the knapsack up under my sweater to keep it warm. I thought I knew why the flame dragon had brought me here. The finding spell had led it to me; it had fetched me because of my locus magicalicus. And, maybe, also so I would find the tiny dragon and take it away before the cave dragon gave up its dragon body and became pure magic.
I curled against the warm claw holding me and thought about the cave dragon. Tallennar, it had said after I’d escaped from the cave. I’d learned a lot of words from the spell-language, but I didn’t know that one. Maybe I could find the word in a grimoire when I got back to Wellmet.
Dragons. Nevery’d hardly believe it. Or if he did, he’d want me to write it up as a treatise. The dragons were magic, and their slowsilver scales held the magic in. That’s what slowsilver did: It confined magic. I’d read that in Jaspers’s treatise. The magic itself never really died; it just got too old and too large for the slowsilver to confine it, and it left its old dragon body behind.
The cave dragon. Its slowsilver scales would seep into the ground, I guessed, holding it there in that place, and the magic would draw people, and a city would grow up there, on the shattered half of a mountain. And all the locus stones the cave dragon had hoarded. Would wizards come and find them, and be the wizards of the city?
If the magic was dragon, it meant Arhionvar had been a dragon once. So had Wellmet. Maybe a long time ago. Knowing that might help us defeat the dread magic. Nevery might know how. “Fly faster,” I said to the flame dragon. We needed to get home to Wellmet.
The flame dragon flew all through the night and into the next day until my ears felt battered by the wind rushing past and my stomach was hollow with hunger. I shivered and pulled my coat up over my head and curled around Pip in the knapsack, keeping us both warm.
Then the whumph-whumph of the dragon’s wings stopped and we went into a glide. I pulled down the coat and peeked out.
Way down below was Wellmet, looking like a city on a map. Dark and smudged on the Twilight side, light and neat on the Sunrise side, with the river winding like a brown snake through the middle of it.
The dragon banked, and we dropped down, and down, circling lower and lower until I could see the black slash that’d been my finding spell cutting across a corner of the Sunrise; and I saw people in the streets looking up at us with their mouths open, screaming maybe, pointing at the flame dragon flying over their heads, and a line of carriages rushing up the hill toward the Dawn Palace, and guards gathering. The dragon circled the palace once, then hovered at roof level, its wings making a sound like thunder.
Nevery wasn’t going to like this. It wasn’t circumspect.
Down below, the guards drew their swords, and I saw Kerrn’s long blond braid as she swung around and stared up at the dragon.
With a swoop of wings, the dragon dropped down into a space in the middle of the palace courtyard. I heard screaming and Kerrn shouting orders, and the dragon opened its claw and dropped me onto the gravel drive. The dragon swept up its wings in a swirl of dust and wind, and climbed back into the sky.
I got to my feet and watched it go. The sky was flat and white with clouds, and the dragon shone against it like a flickering candle flame. The dragon glided in a wide circle over the Dawn Palace and the Sunrise, then climbed higher and headed away. Not toward the mountains. Maybe it was going to make its own lair and hoard of locus stones somewhere else. And one day, maybe not for thousands of years, it’d shed its slowsilver scales and become a city’s magic.
Still holding my knapsack with Pip in it under my sweater, I turned to face the Dawn Palace. Guards with their swords drawn were lined up before the steps leading to the wide double front door; behind me, a row of carriages rattled into the courtyard.
Somebody broke free of the crowd on the stairs and, followed by four guards, crunched over the driveway toward me. Rowan.
She stopped a few paces away, catching her breath. She looked pale and had dark circles under her eyes, as if she hadn’t slept. The four guards made a circle around us with their swords drawn.
Rowan held up her hand, keeping them off. “Well, Connwaer,” she said. “The dragon brought you back, did it?”
I grinned at her.
She glanced at the sky, toward where the dragon had gone, then back at me and looked me up and down. She frowned. “Are you all right?”
“Well, I’m hungry,” I said.
“You’re always hungry. Is that why—” She pointed at my stomach.
Oh, it looked like I was clutching a lump under my sweater. “It’s just Pip.” I lifted my sweater and pulled out my knapsack.
Behind Rowan, more guards came across the courtyard, Captain Kerrn in her green uniform striding ahead with her sword drawn. I heard footsteps from behind and looked over my shoulder. Magisters—Brumbee, Trammel, Nimble, and—
“Nevery!” I shouted.
He pushed a guard out of the way and gave me a quick hug.
“Watch out for Pip,” I said.
“Hmph,” he said, stepping back and pulling on the end of his beard. “Traveling by dragon now, are you, boy?” His bushy eyebrows twitched. Like a cat’s tail, that was; it meant he wasn’t happy. “Took your time getting home, at any rate.”
“Nevery, I—” found my locus magicalicus, I wanted to say, and I wanted to tell him that Arhionvar, Wellmet, and Desh had once been dragons, but then Kerrn shouted an order and two palace guards took Nevery’s arms and dragged him back, and Kerrn had her sword edge at my throat.
“Do not move,” Kerrn said, her eyes colder than ice.
I froze.
“Captain!” Rowan protested.
Ignoring her, Kerrn reached forward and grabbed the knapsack out of my arms.
“What is this?” Kerrn asked. “Some sort of pyrotechnic device?” She nodded at one of her guardsmen, who pointed his sword at me. She lowered her sword and started unbuckling the knapsack straps.
“No, don’t—” I started, and felt the guard’s drawn sword prick me over the heart when I strained forward.
Too late.
Pip burst from the knapsack in a swirl of lashing tail and needle teeth and golden flapping wings, leaping for the sky.
Kerrn swung her sword up and around, slashing at Pip, but the tiny dragon leaped higher into the air. It wobble-flapped over the courtyard, up higher until it reached one of the flagpoles on the top of the Dawn Palace. It perched there, glaring down at us with its red eyes.
“Get archers,” Kerrn snapped.
“No!” I shouted; I pushed the blade away from my chest and started toward the palace, and then two guards grabbed my arms and jerked them behind me. I struggled, and one of them elbowed me in the stomach. I bent over, coughing.
As I looked up, Pip launched itself from the spire, tumbled, then caught itself and flapped away, toward the river.
I heard Nevery shouting angrily, and the worried protests of Magister Brumbee, and Rowan’s sharp voice arguing.
But the guards held me tight and dragged me across the courtyard and into the Dawn Palace, Kerrn striding along next to the guards holding me. As we went through the double doors, Kerrn leaned over to speak to me.
“Where did it go?” she asked. Pip, she meant.
I couldn’t see Pip, but I knew where it was. I would always know. But sure as sure I wasn’t going to tell Kerrn.
* * *
Rowan Forestal
When I got back to Wellmet I thought my mother would punish me for going after Conn, but she was too ill to speak. I am afraid she may be dying. Magister Trammel won’t say, but she is as cold and still as stone. I sat by her bed and held her hand, and she didn’t seem to know I was there.
If she dies I will have to be the duchess. I will be alone.
I hope she doesn’t die.
* * *
CHAPTER 23
Captain Kerrn
took me to the usual cell. Chair, table, damp walls, not much light.
The guards took my coat, then shoved me in and left; I heard the click of the lock after they slammed the door behind them.
Drats.
I sat down in the chair and rested my arms on the table, then put my head down on my arms, tired and dizzy from dragon flight and from not eating for too long.
I needed to talk to Nevery, and to the other magisters. To Embre and Sparks, too, because they could help with the pyrotechnics. Most of all I needed to talk to the Wellmet magic. Desh’s magic wasn’t bad, and neither was the cave dragon. Why was Arhionvar different? Maybe our magic could tell me. It was gathering itself in the Dusk House pit. Maybe that’s where its lair had been, when it was a dragon. I had to get out of this cell and find Pip, and then get over to the Twilight.
Arhionvar wasn’t in Wellmet yet. The city’s magic felt unsettled, but I couldn’t sense the dread, cold feeling of Arhionvar, the feeling I’d had in the sorcerer-king’s fortress. It must be close, though.
After a while, Kerrn unlocked the door and came into the cell, followed by her bristle-bearded second. Farn, his name was; he was the guard who’d given me phlister the first time Kerrn had caught me.
She stood staring down at me with her ice-chip eyes.
“I’m very hungry,” I said.
Kerrn glanced at Farn and gave him a sharp nod; he set the werelight lantern he was carrying on the floor, then left the cell. Going to get me something to eat, I hoped.
“Get up,” Kerrn said.
I stood up.
She reached around me, dragged the chair in front of the cell door, and sat down, leaving me standing before her.
Time for questions.
“No phlister?” I asked.
“Be quiet,” Kerrn said. “I ask the questions.”