Up In Smoke

  “See anything that says ‘secret entrance to subterranean passage’?” I asked Cyrene as she stood at the water’s edge. My voice was hushed, since it was early evening and conceivably residents might pop outside for a breath of fresh air. And since the area around the lake was populated with very expensive homes, security systems were sure to be bountiful.

  “Not a thing.” Cyrene frowned down at the water. “I can feel an underground stream, though. Not the feed that comes from my spring—that’s up north. This is something different, running deeper. And it’s tainted, too. Oh, goddess, what have I done to this poor lake?”

  “Now is not the time to suffer regrets; now is the time to find the tunnel or whatever it is to get us into the bowels of Fiat’s house,” I murmured, tugging her along the shoreline.

  “Before we go any farther, why don’t I slip up to the house and see if the sports car is there?” Maata asked in a soft voice. “If it’s not, there’s no sense in spending time trying to get in.”

  “Smart thinking,” Cyrene said, giving me a quelling look. “Why didn’t you think of that, Mayling?”

  “I did. I just figured it would be worthwhile to get a peek at Fiat’s house regardless of whether the supposed Baltic is there or not.”

  “Really? Why?” Cy asked as Maata melted into the night.

  I clutched Cy’s arm and carefully skirted around a lit dock. “Because Aisling said that someone who had Baltic’s books was living in Fiat’s basement. Kind of makes you wonder, hmm?”

  “Very suspicious,” she agreed.

  It took us about twenty-five minutes to find what we were looking for. Maata had returned to report that she could see no cars whatsoever outside of Fiat’s house, which could mean anything, or nothing.

  “Here,” Cyrene said, pointing down at the earth. “It’s here. There’s an input to a cavern directly below us. I can feel the flow of the stream.”

  “I don’t see anything.” I said, looking around. We were at the edge of Fiat’s property, right up against a tall hedge that marked the boundary between his yard and that of his neighbor. “Where is it?”

  “Right here, below us.” Cyrene made an impatient noise as Maata and I peered into the hedge. “No, in the water below us.”

  “An underground entrance? Gotcha,” I said, slipping off my leather jacket and tucking it away in the hedge. “Very clever of Fiat. The water’s bound to be cold, but we should be able to handle a quick dip. You lead, Cy, and we’ll follow.”

  Cyrene shed her coat and hat, wading into the water with a sharp exclamation. “Chilly!”

  “We’ll warm up as soon as we’re out of the water,” I told her, about to follow when Maata grasped my arm.

  “May . . .”

  “Hmm?” I turned back to look at her. Her face was troubled as she watched Cyrene dive into the cold water of the lake.

  “I . . . there’s something you should know about silver dragons.”

  “You can’t swim?” I asked, making a wild guess.

  “No. We don’t like water. It’s not our element.”

  “Cy!” I called out softly.

  Cyrene’s head popped up out of the water, making her look like a blue-eyed seal. “What’s the holdup?”

  “How far under is the entrance?”

  “About fifteen feet. You can hold your breath easily.”

  “If you held on to me, do you think you’d be able to hold your breath long enough for us to make it through?” I asked Maata, not sure at all how long dragons could go without oxygen. Cyrene was practically a water breather, she could go so long without it, and I had inherited some of that ability.

  “It’s not a matter of holding my breath,” Maata answered, looking worried. “It’s the fact that it’s water.”

  “I know you don’t like to play in water because your element is earth, but does that mean you can’t get near it at all?” Gabriel didn’t seem to mind the shower we’d taken together, although I noticed he didn’t linger at all in it as I might have done.

  “No,” she admitted, but she watched the water warily as if she expected it to reach up and strike her. “We bathe and such.”

  “Then you can do this,” I said, turning my back to her. “Grab hold of my belt with one hand, and follow as close as you can. If you get into trouble, give me a yank and I’ll help you out.”

  “May—” she said, resisting as I started for the lake.

  “Either you come with us, or you stay here,” I said, not really wanting to leave her behind. I didn’t doubt that I could handle any situation I came up against, but there was definitely strength in numbers, and only a fool would go charging into an unknown situation alone.

  She muttered something that looked like a prayer and touched the silver necklace bearing the sept emblem that she always wore.

  “I won’t let anything happen to you,” I said, pulling her into the lake. “I promise.”

  She grimaced, fighting me every step. “I’m the one who’s supposed to be protecting you.”

  Cyrene watched silently, treading water about ten feet offshore, as I alternately coaxed, pulled, and ultimately threatened Maata into the water. I thought she was going to come unglued when I had to force her head under the water so we could dive. She started struggling with me and probably would have done a good job of drowning me if Cyrene hadn’t come up from behind and grabbed her neck, putting enough pressure on Maata’s carotid artery to effectively knock her out. I slapped my hand over Maata’s mouth and grabbed the back of her shirt, while Cyrene did the same to her nose. We took deep breaths and dived down into the murky darkness of the lake, hauling Maata with us.

  She started coming to just before we surfaced, damned near climbing my body in order to escape the water. By the time I hauled myself and her out onto a rocky outcropping, I was exhausted and bruised from the struggle with her.

  “Sorry,” Maata gasped, crawling backwards to get her legs out of the water. “I tried; I really tried.”

  “Not your fault,” I said, catching my breath. “I’m just glad I took Cyrene with me to a martial arts class a couple of decades ago.”

  “I was top in the class at the sleeper hold,” she said proudly, flipping on a small flashlight, the light from it flickering around our little cave.

  And it was a little cave, with a low ceiling that was supported by wooden struts that looked like they’d seen better days. A little twinge of claustrophobia gripped me as I got to my feet and did my best to wring out my clothes. The air was cold enough to make me shiver, but I put my discomfort out of my mind as I looked around.

  “There’s the stream,” Cyrene said, flashing the light on a small stream that had cut into the earth to empty out into the lake. A narrow ledge ran alongside it, providing a passageway that dissolved into blackness.

  Maata lifted her head and smelled the air. It was musty and smelled of damp earth. “Dragons have been here.”

  “Recently?” I asked, looking for footprints in the damp earth next to the stream. There were none.

  “No. But I feel it. They are nearby.”

  Cyrene pointed the light up the passageway. It didn’t penetrate the darkness very far. “Er . . . you go first,” she said, shoving the flashlight into my hands.

  “Chicken,” I murmured, scooting past her to take the lead.

  “You’re the one with all the deadly skills,” she pointed out, taking up the tail as Maata marched behind me.

  We saw nothing more disturbing than rats and a few scattered animal bones before we came to a sharp corner. The stream disappeared into a culvert, the narrow ledge broadening to a more walkable pathway. I stopped, examining something that flashed overhead. “Someone has strung electric lights here. Should we chance turning them on?”

  “Oh, yes, please,” Cyrene said, rubbing her arms against the chill air. “Anything is better than walking in the dark.”

  “Better not,” Maata said. “Just in case someone is down here.”

  “She has a po
int,” I said, and continued up the path until we came to a point where the passage divided. “Great. Left or right?”

  Maata smelled the air in both passages and shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Cy?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “The water is deep in the earth here. That’s all I can tell you.”

  I tossed a mental coin and headed up the right path. “We can always turn around and come back if we have to.”

  “Assuming we can find our way back,” Cyrene said in a morbid voice.

  “Stop being so pessimistic. It hasn’t been bad so far, and there are lights we can turn on if the batteries die . . . oh.” Our passageway came to an abrupt end in the form of a pile of debris. “I guess we go back the other way.”

  I had turned around and taken a step back the way we came when Maata stopped me. “We should go this way.”

  “Why?”

  She stood stock still for a few seconds. “I sense anger. Intense anger.”

  “You think someone is near us?” I asked in a whisper, unable to keep from glancing around. There was nothing to see but rocks, dirt, and broken wood from where the supporting struts had splintered.

  “Yes.”

  I flashed the meager light on the obstruction. “That’s all well and fine, but we’ll have to take the other passage. We can’t get through this mess.”

  Maata’s teeth flashed in the dim light. She patted a bit of rock emerging from the debris. “I may not be good in underwater adventuring, but this is the earth. It knows me and will heed my wishes. Stand back, the pair of you. I’ll ask the earth to allow us to pass.”

  To my amazement, she did as she promised. Cyrene and I watched as she managed to clear a hole at the top of the debris pile seemingly effortlessly, just as if the earth was obliging her.

  “It’s too bad you’re a dragon,” Cyrene said admiringly as Maata stepped back and dusted off her hands. “You’d have made a great elemental being.”

  “Some say the first dragon sprang from an elemental being, which is why all dragons have an affinity for one element. I think we can get through that opening if we’re careful.”

  I eyed the hole she’d made at the top of the debris, feeling more than a little bit claustrophobic, but told myself if I could subject Maata to the horrors of water, I could survive skinnying through a small hole deep in the earth.

  We made it through unscathed, and continued our careful ascent up the passageway when it became obvious that we were approaching a lit area. I shadowed and crept ahead of Maata and Cyrene, pausing as the passageway made a sharp turn.

  Before me was a door, partially opened, and a large collection of crates. I made my silent way around them and peered through the door into a bedroom.

  Voices, indistinguishable in gender and identity, were audible through the closed door opposite.

  “What is it?” Cyrene asked in a whisper, trying to see around me. “Is that a bed?”

  “Yes. Stay here. I’m going to see who’s in the room beyond,” I answered, gesturing the two of them back.

  Maata made a noise of distress.

  “No one will see me,” I reassured her and, being careful not to disturb a couple more crates placed in front of the opened door, tiptoed my way across the bedroom. Carefully I cracked the door open just enough to see out.

  All I could see was the edge of a wall, and the entrance to a larger room that evidently served as a living room. A man leaned negligently against the wall, his back toward me, but the long brown ponytail stirred memories.

  Blue flashed as another man crossed the room, his hands gesturing as he spoke. “—be so unrealistic? What you ask is not possible at all. I will not put my sept in jeopardy by allowing it.”

  A woman’s voice answered. “Your sept, such as it is, is in ruins. The situation has changed, and we must change with it. With the silver dragons possessing a shard—and surely they will be given access to the green sept’s shard—we must gather together the remainder.”

  “Who is it?” Cyrene asked in an almost silent whisper. Both she and Maata had crept up behind me, Cyrene kneeling in order to peer through the crack in the door, while Maata, a good foot taller than me, simply looked over my head.

  “Fiat, the man who may or may not be Baltic, and some woman, I don’t know . . . agathos daimon,” I swore as the woman marched over to stand toe to toe with Fiat. “It’s Bao.”

  “You are allowing your greed for the dragon heart to override the reality of the situation,” Fiat answered, his eyes glittering wickedly. “That is a mistake your predecessor did not make.”

  “Chuan Ren is not pertinent to this discussion,” Bao said dismissively, turning away from Fiat and moving out of my range of vision. “I rule the red dragons now, and they will follow my commands. If you wish for our aid in restoring your sept to you, then you will release the Marcella Phylactery and cease wasting my time.”

  “And place myself in a weaker position than I currently occupy?” Fiat shook his head. “I see little sense in that.”

  “You see little because you are shortsighted and ignorant,” Bao snapped at him.

  Fiat jerked as if he was holding himself back from striking her, forcibly relaxing his hands as he tried for a lazy smile. He raised an eyebrow at the mysterious man who still leaned casually against the wall, calmly observing the scene. “And what of you, my old friend? What do you say to this change in plans the red wyvern demands of us?”

  “I have never sought the dragon heart, not even when it was within my grasp,” the man answered slowly, his voice deep and slightly roughened, as if he wasn’t used to speaking. “So long as my own plans are not affected, then I have no opinion on the subject.”

  Annoyance flashed in Fiat’s eyes. “Such an attitude is admirable, but lacking in foresight. Your plans may well be affected should the red wyvern achieve her goal and reassemble the heart.”

  The dark-haired man shrugged. “It remains to be seen whether or not the heart wishes to be used.”

  “Bah,” Fiat snorted. “The heart is there to be used. It has no will of its own. You have lived too long in the past, my friend. Times have changed, and with them, so have the dragonkin. We no longer cling to superstitious beliefs.”

  “Yes,” the man agreed in a mild voice, but there was an undertone that sent a little skitter of fear down my back. “Time has changed.”

  “But you remain steadfast, eh?” Fiat asked, his voice and posture aggressive. “That will not do. You must make a stand, right here and now. Will you support the red wyvern’s plan or our original one?”

  “It matters not to me,” he answered, waving a languid hand at Fiat as he straightened up. “Give her the shard, or do not. But think twice about summoning me again without due cause. I may be antiquated in your eyes, but I do not suffer fools gladly.”

  At that moment the same copper-haired woman who had been in the square appeared at the far doorway. She glanced around the room quickly, causing Maata, Cyrene, and me to freeze, but apparently she did not notice our door was ever so slightly ajar. Her gaze settled on the mysterious man, and it was to him that she spoke.

  “I have made the arrangements. We should leave soon, though.”

  “This is finished; we leave now,” he answered, strolling past a silently fuming Fiat, pausing to eye the blue wyvern for a moment. “You aided me when I sought succor, and it is for that reason I will offer you a piece of advice: the natural flow of power should always be to a wyvern, never away.”

  Fiat said nothing but watched as the man and woman left the room, leaving him alone with the red wyvern.

  “He is an old one, too old,” Bao said with a curl of her lip. “He does not understand the power there is to be had in adapting.”

  “He is steadfast in all things,” Fiat agreed, wandering over to stand just barely in view, in front of a marble fireplace. Over the mantelpiece a pair of authentic-looking swords hung, crossed in the traditional manner of weapon enthusiasts. Fiat touched one of the
swords, adding in a thoughtful tone, “But much of that comes from experience, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned over time, it’s to never underestimate experience.”

  “It is not advice that will regain your position in the weyr,” she responded with acid frankness.

  “Perhaps not, but I have found a nugget of gold in that advice.”

  “Power flows to the wyvern, not away,” she said in a mocking voice. “How . . . mundane.”

  “Oh, it’s not what he said that I find valuable,” Fiat answered, his lips curled in a friendly smile as he tidied a small vase on the mantelpiece. “It’s the memory of when I first heard it that has provided me with a resolution to the current problem.”

  “Enough talk,” Bao said, boredom evident in her voice. “I grow weary of this.”

  “Then let me tell you a little story, something that will relieve the tedium of your mind,” Fiat said, turning to face her. “Once upon a time, as the mortals so dearly love to say, there lived a wyvern by the name of Baltic. He was a peaceful man, but forced into war by the stupidity and greed of others, dragons who wanted to see his sept disbanded. One day he found his friends departed, his sept all but eliminated, and his very own heir determined to see him dead.”

  “I have no time for this,” Bao said, but was interrupted before she could continue.

  “With death and the destruction of everything he worked so hard for staring him in the face, Baltic did the only thing he could do.”

  “Die,” Bao said. “At the hands of his heir. Baltic was not a brilliant wyvern any more than this is a brilliant anecdote, although perhaps, given your situation, it is apropos.”

  “More so than you can possibly imagine,” Fiat said with a smile that chilled my blood.

  Bao snorted again and started to say something, but her words were cut short when Fiat, moving so fast he was just a blur, snatched the sword from behind him and leaped out of view, toward Bao.