“Please,” she said, entreating whatever god would listen.
“It’ll be all right,” Darz said softly.
Her fingers nudged a pyramid of stone.
“Thank you,” she murmured to the dragon and sunset, and to Darz as well, for being alive. She closed her fingers around the opal. “It wasn’t lost.”
“What is ‘it?’”
“A good luck charm.” What she said now could affect the rest of her life, even destroy it. If she antagonized Darz, he could cause great trouble. But he hardly seemed the type, besides which, she might have no life left. So she spoke.
“Which would you like more?” she asked. “Light or heat?”
His laugh sounded frayed. “How about light, to see where we are.”
He thought she was joking. She smiled wanly and focused on the opal. Slowly, a red glow spread around them. It wasn’t much, but she could see.
“Gods almighty,” Darz said. “How did you do that?”
“I don’t know. It’s a spell.”
“A spell? That’s impossible.”
She smiled slightly. “Well, perhaps we have just imagined this light.”
“You brought a candle with you.” Awkwardly, he added, “A, uh, red candle.”
“I have no candle of any color,” Ginger assured him. She peered into the dim light but saw nothing promising, just a lot of rock.
“I don’t believe in spells.” He sounded more stubborn than certain. “Not yours and not those in Aronsdale.”
“Why Aronsdale?” She had little to lose now by telling him about herself, and as long as they kept talking, it held her panic at bay. “My grandfather came from there.”
“So that’s where you get that hair.” He leaned over to see what lay in front of her. “Surely you have a lamp there.”
“No.” She could hardly move with the two of them crammed together, but she opened her hand to show him the stone. “Just my opal.” She was enormously aware of his muscled self pressed against her body.
He leaned farther to see the stone. “How does it do that?”
“Darz, you’re going to flatten me.”
“Oh!” He pulled back. “Sorry.”
“I can’t hold this light much longer. It tires me.”
“You don’t have to hold your, uh…spell.” He grunted at the word. “I mostly wanted to see where we were. Look up if you can. I think those slabs are the reason we’re alive.”
She had enough room to maneuver onto her back, with Darz lying on his side next to her, propped up on his elbow. Above them, two slabs of rock had hit each other at an angle and leaned together in a sort of peaked roof. A projection on one jutted into the cavity and was probably what had jabbed Darz. Another portion had buried itself behind him, forming a wall at his back. On Ginger’s other side, a fall of rock blocked their way. They were trapped, but with space to breathe.
For now.
“It doesn’t look as if it will fall,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
“Not right away.” The dusty air blurred the contours of his face. “If we try to dig out, the rest will go. Our safest bet is to stay still and hope someone can get to us.”
Her voice caught. “I don’t want to die.”
“Ach, Ginger,” he murmured. “We’ll be all right.”
“I should never have told Kindle about the powder.”
“You really think he caused this?”
“The explosion, yes.” She thought back to what Kindle had told her. “I doubt he meant to destroy the tower. I think he just wanted a small explosion that would affect you. Maybe he sobered up and changed his mind. But something must have gone wrong. He says he hardly knows what to do with the powder, how much to use, how to control the results.”
“Well, it sure as hell works.”
Claustrophobia was closing in on her. She needed to think about something else besides the collapse. Anything.
“We must be a mess,” she said. It was a ludicrous comment, but it was the best she could do.
His face gentled. “You look beautiful, even after a tower fell on you.”
Ginger’s eyes filled with tears. She heard tender words so rarely. Never, in fact. She wanted to tell him, but she didn’t know how to say it, and the spell was tiring her. With a sigh, she let it fade into darkness.
“I meant no offense,” Darz said.
“You didn’t give any.” Softly she added, “And I doubt the dragon will hear.” He seemed to have turned away from them, leaving her bereft.
Darz brushed his lips across her forehead. “You take this dragon business so seriously.”
“Don’t you?” She should have just said, Don’t, but if she was going to die, she wanted to know at least a few moments of affection in her parched life.
“The tales are pretty,” he said. “But hard to credit. The sun is just a ball of fire and the sunset a lot of colors.” He sounded frustrated. “People can’t even be consistent. In some places, they call the goddess Sky-Rose. In Aronsdale, they worship Verdant, who gives life to meadows and forests, and Azure, who supposedly glazes the sky. In the Misted Cliffs it’s Aquamarine, for the ocean. There’s Lapis Lazuli, the wind; Granite, for thunder; and Alabaster, who strummed stars into the night. It’s too many. It makes my head hurt.”
She didn’t want him to die without the good graces of those deities. “Even with an aching head, you must pay proper homage.”
“Always homage, to some myth,” he grumbled. “The Aronsdale man who married our queen does tricks with light. But I certainly don’t believe he’s a warlock.”
She wondered if the prince consort would know a way to free them from this nightmare. “Have you ever seen him?”
“They sometimes stand on a balcony of the palace above a plaza. They wave. People cheer.”
“But not you.”
“I am honored to serve Her Majesty. I would lay down my life for her.” His hair brushed her cheek as if he were shaking his head. “It’s this alliance with Aronsdale that bothers me. But we need it, even if it is unpalatable. The king of the Misted Cliffs, the man they call Cobalt the Dark—he frightens me. Before last year, Jazid had never been conquered. Now Cobalt rules there instead of the rightful heir to the Onyx throne.”
“Poor little boy,” she murmured.
Darz snorted. “That ‘poor little boy’ would probably have grown up to be a despot, just like his papa.” Then he added, “But at least he would have been our ally.”
“Darz—” She couldn’t keep up this distracting talk.
“We’ll be fine,” he said.
“Do you think anyone will find us?”
He was silent for too long. Then he said, “They will.”
“I can’t breathe.”
He pressed his lips against her temple. “It will be all right, Ginger-Sun.”
She fought back her panic. “Tell me a story. Tell me about Quaaz and all the fine happenings there.”
He stroked her hair and switched into a storyteller’s voice. “It is a fine city, full of people and excitement and life. The queen is beautiful, and the people love her.” After a moment, he spoke in his normal voice. “Well, most of them. Some wanted a man on the throne. No longer, though, given who she married. No one wants her husband to rule.”
“You mean the man from Aronsdale?”
“That’s right,” he growled.
“He must be very handsome.”
Darz gave an exasperated snort. “Why do women always say things like that? Why must he be very handsome?”
“It makes a better story.” Her voice caught. “Just as it does in the tale of the priestess caught in a rockfall with the handsome soldier from Quaaz.”
“Don’t cry.” Darz put one arm over her waist and the other behind her head, as close as he could come to an embrace in their confined space. “Everything will work out.”
She turned her head toward him, seeking a comfort older than any taboos. Her cheek brushed his chin, and his
beard scratched her skin. Bending his head, he searched until he found her lips with his. His kiss stirred her like the colors of sunset or the sensual nighttime landscape of dunes under the stars.
But when he slid his hand over her breast, she stopped him. Even now, she couldn’t break her oath to the sun. Tears ran down her face for what she had given up in her life. The topaz desert under the glazed sky sheltered her people, yet it also scoured their spirit. She would never know tenderness, for here beneath the claw of the dragon, the pitiless desert would claim their lives.
11
The Claw
They slept in the dark. Ginger lay curled into Darz, and he kept his arm across her body. How much time passed, she had no idea. When the cold became unbearable, she formed spells of warmth to keep them alive.
She knew when day arrived. Its heat came gently, relief from the icy night. It seeped into the rocks, and they were finally able to rest with a respite from cold.
Then it turned hotter.
Trapped under the stones, their cavity became an oven. Just as the rocks had held the cold during the night, now the heat became smothering. Hours passed, and the temperature rose, relentless and unforgiving.
“Darz.” Sweat drenched Ginger’s body. “I can’t bear it.”
“I thought we would die from suffocation.” His words were a croak. “Or thirst, or crushed. Never this.”
“I would do anything for ice.”
“If you can create heat, can you take it?”
Her brain felt dull. “Take it?”
“Make it cold. If you can make heat, can you make cold?”
“I never have.” His idea soaked into her charred mind. “I can’t do spells during the day. Only in the dark.”
“We haven’t any light. It can’t get any darker.”
Ginger didn’t know if it was the lack of light or the position of the sun that affected her spells. “I’ll try.” She closed her eyes, though she could see nothing anyway. This time, as she focused, she imagined cold. It felt strange, as if she were plowing through sand. Spells had never been this difficult. So hot…so very hot…
Cold, she thought. Cold as a desert night…
She lost track of time and floated in a haze. Only gradually did she realize the heat had receded. It wasn’t cold, but it was bearable.
“Did the sun go down?” she mumbled. Her lips were swollen.
“It hasn’t been long enough.” His breath stirred the hairs at her temples. “Thank you, Ginger-Sun.”
“I wish we had water. Food, too.”
“You know what I would like?” His voice cracked. “A haunch of boar roasted over a pit. And a jug of wine. No, a lake.”
“Wine comes in lakes?”
“In my fantasy, it does.”
A smile creased her dusty face. “In mine…I am riding through Quaaz, past houses with gilded roofs. The streets are ankle deep in gold hexa-coins.”
“That many, eh? Riding would be hard.”
“I could just go with the gilded roofs.”
“Would you go with me?” he said softly.
Tears gathered in her eyes for what she could never have. “It would be an honor. We could call on the queen.”
“Bah,” he muttered. “She would throw me out of her palace for tracking in mud.” He caressed her hair. “But I do wish I could take you to Quaaz.”
“I couldn’t go. A priestess may travel with no man except her kin. Or her husband.”
He didn’t answer, and she felt stupid, fearing he would think her comment a clumsy ploy to gain a vow from him.
But then he said, “I do think you would be so very good for me. In Quaaz.”
Ginger flushed, knowing he spoke that way only because he would never have to follow through with the suggestion implicit in his words. She could just imagine how people would respond to his comment. Her ears burned, thinking about it. “The elders would never let me leave Sky Flames like that and still be priestess when I came back.”
“The Elder Sentinel doesn’t seem so bad.”
She kept her thoughts about Tajman to herself. He led the village well, but he dealt better with men. Sometimes he stared at her when he didn’t realize she knew. Later he would bring his wife to the temple for a blessing or his children or even his grandchildren. It was as if he were reminding himself of what he valued. His decision to put her with Kindle felt that way, too, as if he were pushing them together to protect himself. She knew Tajman meant well, but he had been suffocating her as surely as this oven of a prison.
After a while, Darz spoke in a rasp. “Are you sure you can’t make water?”
“I don’t think so. With light and heat, I’m not creating anything, just changing it. I don’t know why, but light seems like little invisible particles to me. I gather them into a small place. With heat, I speed up the air. To cool it, I slow it down. With water, I would have to add something.”
“Ah, well.” He sounded disappointed but unsurprised.
Ginger sighed. “I might as well try. We’ve nothing else to do.” She concentrated on the air, feeling its excited motes, hundreds, thousands, millions, an uncountable number, like stars at night. She soothed them as she would soothe a person. They calmed and the air cooled, as it had done before. Perhaps she could gather them into water, not creating something new, just rearranging it. She imagined recombining motes, but it was difficult. In fact, only when she let them speed up again did the spell even feel as if it might work. But the air was mostly the wrong motes. It was absurd, anyway, invisible particles in the air and the sky and the clouds—
Clouds! She needed clouds. She had only a tiny bit of what she needed, but it was here…
“Gods above,” Darz whispered. “It’s raining.”
A drop landed on Ginger’s nose; another splattered her cheek. She opened her mouth, and water drizzled over her cracked lips. She gulped convulsively. Liquid ran down her shoulders, and she tried to catch it in her cupped hands.
The rain lasted only a few minutes, but it was enough to drink, and it dampened their clothes, cooling them. After it stopped, Ginger gave thanks to the dragon. She actually had no idea if he was punishing or helping them; she knew only that she was glad to be alive. She hadn’t expected to survive this long.
“I thought you couldn’t do that,” Darz said.
“It was hard. And I think I used up whatever I needed to make the water.” Fatigue settled over her like a cloak. “The big spells tire me out…”
“Sleep, Ginger-Sun,” he murmured.
She closed her eyes and slept.
Night came, even colder than before. Darz held her while they shivered in the dark. Exhausted from creating the rain, she could manage no more than a weak spell of warmth. They clung together, wracked by hunger, thirst and cold, until she wondered if she had done no more than prolong the misery of their dying.
“Darz?” she said.
He rubbed his forehead against the top of her head. “Yes?”
“If—if someone does try to dig us out—won’t the rocks fall and crush us under them?”
“I have to believe that won’t happen. I can’t lie here with no hope.”
She had no answer for that, for she had begun to lose hope. Instead she said, “Thank you.”
“For what? Getting you killed?”
“For holding me. No one else ever has. No man, I mean.”
He pressed his lips on her forehead. “Not a single kiss?”
“Not even a touch.” Her voice caught. “At least I won’t die wondering what it was like.”
She thought he would insist they were going to live. Instead, he said, “If I could have given you the sunset itself, the fire in the sky and the fire in my heart, I would have done it.” His voice cracked. “Goodbye, Ginger-Sun.”
“Goodbye,” she whispered.
Thunder crashed. Ginger started awake, lifting her head in the dark. The night’s chill had eased but the killing heat hadn’t yet descended. Above them, the world ru
mbled. It was only when it kept going that she realized it wasn’t thunder. Rocks were falling.
“Do you hear?” Darz asked when she tensed against him.
Ginger had gone beyond panic. “The Claw is collapsing.”
He put his arm around her. “I think it’s stopping.”
The rumble was indeed petering away. She lay still, afraid to breathe.
Someone called out.
In the same instant, Ginger said, “Did you hear?” and Darz said, “Someone is out there!”
“Help us!” Ginger shouted.
“Down here!” Darz bellowed with his wonderfully loud voice.
More rumbles came from above, then scrabbling, and the clatter of stones falling over stones.
“Careful!” Darz shouted. “The rocks aren’t stable.”
“Can you hear us?” someone called.
“We’re here!” Ginger shouted.
“Down below you!” Darz yelled. “Careful with those rocks!”
The scrabbling continued. Ginger wanted to laugh and then cry, her relief all mixed in with her fear of what would happen when their rescuers disturbed their precarious roof.
The thunder started again, this time almost on top of them. Darz pulled Ginger’s head against his chest and curled over her, protecting his own head with his arms. With a groan of rock, the slabs above them shifted, resettled—
And fell.
Ginger gasped as the ceiling collapsed. Rocks piled up on top of them until she was suffocating. Even with her face pressed against Darz’s chest, dust clogged her nose and mouth. She couldn’t believe they had been buried this close to help. Rocks entombed them.
“Here!” someone shouted.
A terrible weight suddenly lifted off her body—and light flared around her. Someone or something hauled her up into the open air. The light blinded her. She could barely see the men crowded around the hole. Someone was holding her up, and dirt and pebbles rained away from her body. Voices blended around her, a cacophony of noise.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you.”
“I can’t believe they’re alive!” someone said.